SECTION ONE
Image/a-v IDs (6)
Readings IDs (4)
Quiz (10)
SECTION TWO
Sentence descriptions (5, each worth 2)
SECTION THREE
Paragraph concept questions (2, each worth 10)
Week 7: Middle class ideas about work and success
Week 8: Narratives of failure (NOTE: visit to art musem)
Week 10: Slavery, freedom and work
Week 11: Working-class immigrants and rural migrants
What kind of work? How much work?
Disparities between ideals and realities
How attainable is the American Dream?
Stressed the value of labor in the new colonies
Work, for Puritans, had a strong religious and moral
implication
Money as means to an end
Importance of productive work
Importance of self-reliance, independence
Manliness of productive, independent work
Why does Franklin use aphorisms?
What are RichardÕs overall guidelines for success?
Are those guidelines still applicable today?
FranklinÕs Poor RichardÕs Almanack (1732)
FranklinÕs Way to Wealth (1757) as spin-off
Why does Franklin use this narrative structure?
And why does he include so many aphorisms?
German sociologist
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Mechanization
Factories
Female workers
Wage labor (Òwage slavery,Ó Òfree laborÓ)
Perceived similarities between corporations and factories:
hierarchy
discipline
time control
Stories, e.g. by Horatio Alger
Self-help lessons, e.g. by Russell Conwell
How realistic are these lessons? Do the ideals of Òrags to
richesÓ and Òthe work ethicÓ have any substance, or are they empty rhetoric?
Gambling
Lotteries (should the Illinois Lottery be allowed to target
poorer neighborhoods?)
Game-shows
Litigation, compensation, etc
How do Americans account for failure?
Migration of displaced English rural classes to America, Canada, and Australia
Scenes of departure:
Ford Madox Brown, The Last of England (1855)
Thomas Faed, Last of the Clan (1865)
Henry Nelson OÕNeil, Parting Cheer (1852)
Takes its title and subject from DickensÕ David Copperfield: ÒThe ship began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding cheersÉmy heart burst out when I heard the soundÓ
Critic for the Art Journal, 1861 described it as a Òbook that requires to be read in detail and most amply will it repay the labourÓ
Critic for the Athenaeum: Òit is true that people do act in the manner shown here, but no crowd of this extent would be devoid of something nobler than the thick-skinned blubbering and vulgar demonstrations of a low type of humanityÓ
Thomas Falcon Marshall, Emigration: The Parting Day (1852)
This reading is an extract from DickensÕ 1844 novel, The Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, a satire dealing with themes of selfishness and pretension. Martin Chuzzlewit is a young apprentice architect growing in the West of England, who at the beginning of the novel is disinherited by his grandfather and expelled from architecture school by his master. Chuzzlewit therefore decides to emigrate to America in the hope of making his own name and fortune.
(Note: many of DickensÕs novels were sold in monthly
ÒpartsÓ. As sales of the early
chapters of Martin Chuzzlewit were poor, Dickens decided midway through to
introduce this American digression into the narrative!)
Chuzzlewit has heard of the money to be made as a businessman in speculation, especially speculation in land. We will read about his efforts to become a speculator in the Òthriving city of Eden,Ó tipped to be the future ÒGreat MetropolisÓ of Western America.
Eden was based on the actual town of Cairo, Illinois, at the
intersection of the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers. Dickens was rumored to have invested in Cairo through a
London brokerage, and visited the town shortly after it had collapsed after the
flood and the depression of 1841.
Question: why do you think Dickens renamed the town ÒEdenÓ
in his novel?
Not long after arriving in New York, Chuzzlewit makes his way out to Eden with his English manservant, Mark Tapley. On his passage out, he is repeatedly frustrated in his attempts to get an objective, impartial assessment of EdenÕs financial prospects. Seemingly disinterested Americans he encounters on the railroad, such as General Choke, turn out to be in on the scheme themselves. Nevertheless, he is assured that the maps and plans of the new town of Eden will prove that it is a worthy investment.
Pay special attention to the scene in the Office of the Eden
Land Corporation, which Chuzzlewit visits en route to Eden (on the advice of
General Choke). Note the
description (and the name) of the Eden land agent, Zephaniah Scadder. And note the responses of Mark and
Martin.
Skipping to Chapter 23, we will read about what happened when Martin and Mark finally arrive in the valley of Eden to claim the fifty acre lot they purchased from Scadder. How does Dickens try to capture or express their sense of disappointment? What is the effect of their economic failure on the two characters, Mark and Martin?
How does Dickens try to capture or express their sense of
disappointment?
What kind of language does he use?
Take a look at the images that illustrated the 1844 novel: the first, ÒEden on PaperÓ
illustrates Chapter 21, the second, ÒEden in FactÓ illustrates Chapter 23.
In what ways does the second image invert or contradict the
first?
In what ways does the first image anticipate the second?
Clues in first image: cobweb, mousetrap, pump, straw in TapleyÕs
mouth, toothpick in ScadderÕs mouth (which he will use to mark the map)
Clues in second: frog, hatchet, placards on the architectÕs
office, and the bank
Note body language
Do instances of failure ever really undermine AmericansÕ
belief in success?