ASSIGNMENTS | COMPUTER LAB | INTERACTIVE SYLLABUS
MAKING CONNECTIONS -- TWO PHOTOS, PEARS' SOAP AND SAVAGE ACTS
In class on Wednesday, March 3
What is the thesis of the film about the relationship between the political, economic and cultural forces driving policies of expansion and racial superiority in the late nineteenth century? About the relationship between World's Fairs and U.S. policies in the Philippines and the Spanish American War? Give specific examples. Are these same kinds of connections between political, economic and cultural policies manifest in U.S.-Indian relations in the West, 1870-1900? Give specific examples.
As time permits, look at the assignment for March 10
In class on Wednesday, March 10
Re-examine the before and after photos in the two photos activity. Then examine the Pears' Soap advertisement found at <http://www.boondocksnet.com/kipling/pears.html>. What connections do you see between the two Indian photos, the Pear's Soap ad and the video Savage Acts? Be specific. What evidence from your viewing of the film and images would you use to draw out these connections. Go to Blackboard and as a group post at least two paragraphs on what you see as the connections.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Put these ties about race and expansion in the context of time and place. In other words, why in the late nineteenth century did continental expansion accelerate in the Trans-Mississippi West and overseas expansion in the Philippines and Caribbean? What were the political, economic and cultural factors driving policies of continental and overseas expansion and racial domination at this particular point in history? For example, could this same expansion at the expense of Indians in the Trans-Mississippi West and Filipinos in Southeast Asia have happened thirty years earlier?