Tammany Hall Essay

This semester we have learned about the intermingling of politics and religion and how that powerful mixture can leave a strong impact on American civic society. In the past, few months I have visited four churches, all in my hometown of Watertown, Minnesota. Watertown is a city of about 4,000 people and about a fifty-minute drive west from the campus of the University of Minnesota. The town has four main churches; Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Trinity Lutheran Church, Peace Lutheran Church

Gangs of New York is considered by most scholars to be a historical narrative that reflects on the influence of class politics in the molding of the U.S. Amsterdam, the protagonist in the film, comments on how New York City, “wasn’t a city really. It was more a furnace where a city someday might be forged,” reflects on this argument that Gangs of New York is illustrative of how America came to be what it is today (Gangs of New York, 00:16:46-52). I agree with this interpretation of the film and will

Organized crime has been present in the history of the United States and can be traced back to the streets of the early 1800’s. Organized crime occurs when a group of people congregate together and plan to commit a series of crimes to make money, usually illegally. Organized crime groups have evolved over time from small rackets to grand organizations like the Italian Mafia. Crime particularly began to become prominent in urban areas during the prohibition. Organized crime is still just as visible

Introduction In “The Man with the Muck-Rake,” Theodore Roosevelt used diction, symbolism, and ethos to convey his convictions on the social and political evils in progressive era America in order to shed light on the necessity of a proper and honest society. Historical Background In the late nineteenth century, America was a country in its prime of industrialization and immigration influx. Known as the Gilded Age, this period defined the United States as the bustling powerhouse it is today, but

Forged in the fire of revolution and defined by manifest destiny, America has always been the land of the individual. Although the American dream has not always been consistent, (married with 2.5 kids, 2 cars, a dog and a satisfying job), the spirit of innovation, individuality and progress remains unchanged. The father of free verse, and perhaps the American perspective of poetry, Walt Whitman embodies these values in his life and work. First published in 1855 in Leaves of Grass, "Song of Myself"

One of the things going on in the novel, The Great Gatsby, is the era of prohibition. It was a time where liquor was outlawed in America. People believed it was a sin and caused a lot of problems in the home of these drinkers. This caused lots of unrest in the U.S. when prohibition was really enforced in the 1920’s. Prohibition was the catalyst that started it all. Soon after, a lot of people took up organized crime in the form of bootlegging. This made a lot of places difficult to live due to the

On March 13, 1900, a tenement building in New York City caught fire, killing fourteen Italian immigrants. The poorly constructed frame building housed three stories of tenement quarters, with ten apartments per floor. The rooms were five by ten feet, separated only by flimsy half-inch thick boards. With just one exit through the entrance of the building, and that only by way of a 42-inch wide stairway, their only escape was destroyed, leaving eleven families of “caged victims beyond help.” People

The period in America from 1865 to 1900 was known as the Gilded Age. This was a time for big business, industry, new inventions, and urban growth. With these new ideas and concepts came many problems. A few of these issues were political scandals, overpopulation in cities, monopolies, and bad working conditions. In summary, there were good and bad parts of the Gilded Age that helped shape America into what it is now. During the Civil War, factories were working overtime to churn out supplies for

Intro: After the Civil War, industrialization kicked off (an after-effect of the Market Revolution). But rather than attempt to control it, the government bowed out instead, claiming itself laissez-faire under Adam Smith’s capitalism ideas, and letting the industrial chips fall where they may. However, it appears the government couldn’t let the “invisible hand” decide the fate of the U.S. market, so they began to intervene in business affairs despite their original pledge not to. The government

Stephan Crane’s Maggie:A Girl of the Streets is fundamentally a work of naturalism with a few elements of realism. Donna M Campbell explains in Naturalism in American Literature, much of the naturalistic literary movement focuses on taboo topics such as violence, poverty, prostitution, and alcoholism. Naturalism has other characteristics such as static characters and Social Darwinism, characters who are controlled by their environment and have very little “free will”, and animal imagery. Furthermore