Essay about The History of Freedom

In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, labor was anything but easy. Factory workers faced long hours, low pay, high unemployment fears, and poor working conditions during this time. Life today is much easier in comparison to the late 1800s. Americans have shorter days, bigger pay and easier working conditions. Not comparable to how life is today, many riots sparked, and citizens began to fight for equal treatment. Along with other important events, the Haymarket Riot, the Pullman Strike, and the Homestead strike all play a vital role in illustrating labor’s struggle to gain fair and equitable treatment during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

America is the universal symbol of freedom. But is it really free? Does the history of the United States stay true to the ideas of our forefathers? Or has the definition been altered to fit American policies? Has freedom defined America? Or has America defined freedom? I believe America was at first defined by freedom, then after time, America defined freedom, altering the definition to fit the niche it fits in, but still keeping key components so it still seems to be staying true to the ideas of America’s founding fathers.

After the civil war, up until the early 1900s, the need for a larger workforce grew as industrialization expanded. Samuel Slater brought the industrial revolution from England, and even since then, there were people trying to get better working conditions. Due to the growth in population by immigrants and expansion of industrialization, the working conditions became worse and worse, causing workers to suffer. Many people fought to solve this problem and changed many American’s lives for the better.

The Working class that made up around 80% of society had little or no bargaining power with their employers resulting in the continuation of unfair working hours, bad wages, and unsanitary and hazardous working conditions. The workers could not even fight for their rights in the political system as only the rich were eligible to vote.

The late nineteenth century (1875-1900), having just witnessed the long years of Reconstruction, left America in the spirit of change. This ardor led to the creation of new technological advancements such as the remodeled sewing machine but most importantly it changed the way workers wanted to be treated and payed. But during this time, organized labor was unsuccessful in improving the working conditions of laborers due to the abundance of violent attacks and the inability to overcome different backgrounds.

I think The Brave New World largely defines freedom through the structures that prevent freedom and has come to serve as the false symbol for any regime of universal happiness. Huxley warns that our government might try to control our ideas in many ways that involve them deciding what might happen in regards to our health care and even the way we control our money, to name a few examples. In the article, you belong to one of the five groups into which all citizens of the Brave New World are divided by heredity and conditioning, each with its own rank and intelligence range. Many people in the novel are conditioned though a variety of techniques that starts when they are babies through aversion therapy, or in more extreme measures, the conditioning

While it can mean different things to different people, the word “freedom” is characterized indisputably by the concept of autonomy. The notion of having agency over your own mind and body is an idea as old as time, and has had wars and revolutions fought in its name. In democratic nations such as the United States, it is widely believed that freedom is an inalienable human right. Whether it is freedom of speech, freedom from slavery, or freedom of religion, the notion of freedom is continuously upheld as a staple of American society. Due to this mindset, the mere prospect of any breach or violation of liberty in the United States seems horrifying and unfathomable. ‘These things happen in other countries, not in America,” many would argue,

“Yankee Doodle went to town. A-riding on a pony, Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.”, these are the opening lyrics to an American classic song, a song that once was meant to insult us but now celebrates what it means to be American. It was created in a time when America was not America, but instead a series of colonies that sought their own freedom against the tyrannical terror of an unyielding intrusive and oppressive government. A freedom that many of the colonies had sought since their inception, going back to the even the arrival of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and then even before that. These freedoms from tyranny shaped the founding of our nation and was the reason that before the Constitution there was the Articles of

First, I learned significance of freedom in American history. One of the purposes of this trip is to see how America has acquired freedom. I was able to study ambitiously about American social background such as religion, politics, economy because I originally had an interest in American history. In learning American history, I visited facilities and spots related to the independence war, the colonial era, the black history. For example, It’s the freedom trail. Boston is a land where an independent war has occurred, and by visiting here, I can gain knowledge about the history of America until independence. Other than that, in the land of Plymouth, I learned the history of seeking freedom of religion from the UK and I learned that people of

Throughout the nineteenth-century, following the shift to an industrialized market, there was a desire to form utopian communities in order to create model societies in the new world. The overarching viewpoint was freedom and improvement of the self, however, the difference is that the idea of freedom from the nineteenth century is much different than that of freedom today. Reforms were based on the idea that true freedom was an internal phenomenon based on self discipline and control. Freedom in the nineteenth century, was the moral groundwork that provided the virtue of self possession and control. In addition, that idea behind most of these reforms was religion which formed the concept that freedom was not having the choice to sin so that one could be free of sin. This lead to perfectionism, or the belief that individuals and society were capable of unlimited improvement. This caused reformers to improve their communities, spurring temperance, education reform, and abolition.

The relationship of the “historical consciousness” of man and its part in his freedom, is a philosophical ideology discussed by many philosophers. Whether by means of Spirit, Geist, reason, individualism, or other ideas, philosophers have theorized the correlation between history and it unfolding into eventual true freedom. Three such philosophic minds are that of G.W.F. (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich) Hegel, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Although each of the philosopher’s ideas on the role history plays in several ways, they all believe that its end result is significant in the eventual possibility of political freedom: Hegel discusses the methods of history and the Spirit within it, while Emerson believes in a more universal or individualistic mind and Nietzsche being less historical has more unhistorical or in-the-now mentality.

By the 1913 the United States produced one third of the world’s industrial output. The 1880 census showed for the first time that a majority of the work force engaged in non-farming jobs. Worker’s freedom in an industrial age .for a minority of workers, the rapidly expanding industrial system created new forms of freedom. Between 1880 and 1900 an average of 35,000 workers perished each year in factory and mine accidents, the highest rate in the industrial world. Class divisions became more and more visible. Many of the withiest Americans consciously pursued an aristocratic lifestyle. The working class lived in desperate

What is the price for FREEDOM? It's obvious that the price for freedom is not free but that it is rather large. After obtaining freedom, we look back and wonder was it worth it? Was freedom overpriced? In other words, did we sacrifice and pay too much to be free?

Freedom is a concept that people are often willing to die for and it is the cause of much fighting. However, few people ever claim to dislike freedom. This raises an interesting question: how can people fight over what is generally considered to be a positive idea? Does this mean that someone must be against freedom? The answer is that people cannot agree on what freedom is, thus numerous groups can claim to be "for freedom" while strongly disagreeing on the means by which to achieve it. These groups often argue vehemently and passionately, trying to convince the majority that their side is right. However, emotion is only one part of deciding who is more persuasive. I offer two examples of disagreements

The struggle for freedom is big, people will always have reasons for not letting you have it. No matter what kind of freedom you want, you will always have to work and fight for other people and yourself to find it. Over the years there has been a lot of hate but also a lot hope, considering this there are a lot of controlling people who want power, but there is also a lot who are selfless and want that freedom from society and primitive thinking. These are qualities a lot of people have but, there is people who have persevered and never quit fighting for what they believe. In the collection of texts that we’ve read, freedom is obtained by never ceasing from fighting for what you want, no matter how many people don’t want you to have it.