Semester I Speech

 Semester I Speech 

            The study of history is the way that humans are able to evolve and learn from past mistakes. 

Without the knowledge of history, we would not know where we came from, how our country came 

to be, or even what our countries original purpose was. By learning the history of our country, we 

can know the principle of America, and the ideology that shaped it into the current day.

            This year I was pleasantly surprised to learn of how successful our country was during the Industrial Revolution. I had no idea how much work and progress was made in America during that time period. I did not know of the great amount of progress and innovations that occurred during this time. I learned that many of history’s richest men came about from this time period, many of whom were given great opportunity to build on the growing economic businesses simply because of time period they were born in. We learned that railroads and oil were two big aspects that brought great wealth and opportunity to these men. I enjoyed learning about this time because it was interesting to learn how successful our country was and how much our country grew during this time.

            A subject that I was not as keen to learn about was slavery. This is a topic that brings lots of grief and cruelty to our eyes. Slavery is such a harsh topic to learn about, but without learning of it we would not know how our country grew, and which mistakes we have learned from. Watching the two historical films really brought the reality of slavery to my eyes, and showed how horrible it was.

            Since there is so much knowledge to learn about from American history, there is only so much that we will remember ten years from now. Ten years from now I think that I will remember most about the Reconstruction period. This is because in my opinion this is the period that shaped our country’s foundation, and it also interest me how our country rebuilt itself from actual rubble.  I enjoyed the project where in groups; we discussed what we would do if we were in the South’s position after the war, and what we would do next. This project was interesting to me because I expected our answers to be more differentiated than what they actually decided, but surprisingly we were close to what they thought. I think that the way the North and South came back together as one country will always show effect on America, and there will always be some proof of this, whether it be the political opinion differentially, or the societal culture.

            History is made so that we do not continue making past mistakes, unfortunately we still remake mistakes from the past. An example of this is the gap between the rich and the poor, and discrimination against the poor. During the Era of the City, the void between the wealthy and poverish was much more extreme. Although the gap is much smaller nowadays, there is still a space in between the two. Discrimination against the poor is also less extreme, but still present. Today some of the wealthy put themselves on a higher pedestal than the poor, viewing them as lazy, undeserving of better living, and below others.

            If I could name the time of 1865 to 1920, I would call it the “Era of Re-growth.” I chose this name because when I look back on everything that we have learned, most of it deals with the growth and rebuilding of America. We learned about slavery, the West and Reconstruction, the Industrial Revolution, and lastly we learned about the Age of the City. All of these time periods marked a growth and extreme change in our country.