Saturday, March 21, 2020

Browns Essays

Browns Essays Browns Essay Browns Essay Restores Browns a philosopher, minister, and Journalist from the sass compared the slave labor system with the wage labor system In Restores Browns Condemns Wage Slavery, 1840. Despite the fact Brannon states that he does not advocate slavery and considers himself a modern balloonists, Browns says that If given the chance to choose between slave labor and waged labor, slave labor would be the one he recommends. We regard the system as decidedly preferable to the system at wages. Restores Browns Condemns Mage Slavery, 1840) He defends his argument by saying the slave that was never free suffers less than someone who works for a living. The laborer at wages has all the disadvantages of freedom and none of its blessings, while the slave, if denied the blessings, is freed from the disadvantages. (Restores Browns Condemns Wage Slavery, 1840) This simply explains the fact that the waged worker may be free but are faced with disadvantages that slaves dont necessarily have to worry about. Some examples loud be that the slaves are given food, lodging, and even the rations given may not have been much the slaves were better off than the waged worker who had to supply his family with a place to sleep, something to eat, and clothes to wear, things that were not promised because they may or may not have been able to afford it depending on their pay. A key difference to note (as mentioned before) is that the waged worker may not make enough money to be able to properly provide for his family with his current wage assuming he has a Job, while a slave is supplied with Hess things by their masters. Upon noting this difference Browns introduces the working class of females describing them as industrious and hard working, Browns does not overlook the fact that the female workers are paid poorly for their labor. And yet there is a man who employs them to make shirts, trousers, etc. , and grows rich on their labors. (Restores Browns Condemns Wage Slavery, 1840) The fact the employer grows rich on their labors Is another phrase that Browns uses to further exemplify the low wages the working class receives. Where go the proceeds of their labor? The man who employs them, and for whom they are tolling as so many slaves, is one of our city nabobs, reveling in luxury; he shouts for liberty, stickles for equality, and is horrified at a southern planter who keeps slaves. (Restores Browns Condemns Wage Slavery, 1840) Browns ends by saying that wages are a way for employers to avoid the costs of slaves and retain a clear conscience. Who would retain all the advantages of the slave system without the expense, trouble, and odium of being slaveholders. (Restores Browns Condemns Wage Slavery, 1840) This line sakes Browns reasoning as to why he favors slave labor clear, summarizing his ideas and placing them In one sentence, which basically says that a waged worker is paid less than a slave. In 1834, the Boston Transcript reports on the Strike the report starts by saying the workers in Lowell would be receiving a 15% pay cut on the 1st of March, a reduction that primarily affected the female workers. This news led to organized meeting that were headed by a young female, that proposed they should qua e mills Ana Induce teen to make a run on ten Lowell n an ten savings Bank, which they the Boston Transcript reports on the Strike) The organization proved successful, due to the fact that the day the Agent had fired the young female who had headed the meetings all the other women had assembled around her after she gave them the signal. The group (that had grown to nearly 800 participants) marched into town, where one of the leaders delivered a speech on female rights and the iniquities of the mooned aristocracy, which produced a powerful affect on her auditors, and they determined to have their way if they died for it. (1834, the Boston Transcript reports on the Strike) A Poem that concluded Lowell Women Workers 1834 Petition to the Manufacturer was created, in which the oppression the females faced working in the mills and how they seemed to adopt the liberty rhetoric to defend their rights in the work place is made clearer to the reader. Tie I value not the feeble threats/ of Tories in disguise, Awhile the flag of Independence/ Oer our nation flies. (Poem that concluded Lowell Women Workers 1834 Petition to the Manufacturer) These lines from the poem make it clear that they ill not succumb to their fears and do as the manufacturers says, but instead will continue their battle for equality in a nation that had fought for its independence and claimed that all are equal (at least those who qualify, for example slaves were not included). Later in 1836 Song Lyrics by Protesting Workers at Lowell compare their working conditions to the treatment of slaves proclaiming Oh! I cannot be a slave, / For Im so fond of liberty, II cannot be a slave. (1836 Song Lyrics by Protesting Workers at Lowell) The females adapted the liberty rhetoric in their search for quality in the workplace, using things like protests and petitions to spread their message and rising against their oppressors demanding their rights and letting the manufacturers know that they will have their way even if they died for it. (1834, the Boston Transcript reports on the Strike) Which seems similar to Give me freedom or give me death. Although both Browns and the Lowell Mill Girls argue for changes in the labor system, they each go about it a different way. A key difference is noted in their way of reasoning, while Browns uses comparisons (compares slave abort to waged labor) to get his point across, the Lowell Mill Girls adopt the liberty rhetoric to try and persuade manufacturers. Another thing to note is that Browns attempts to use words for his manner of persuasion while the Lowell Mill Girls use action (their march, speeches, and song) to attempt and obtain what they want. Browns demonstrates an aggressive attitude in Restores Browns Condemns Wage Slavery, 1840, going as far as saying that the employer is practically a slave owner whos cut his expenses and pockets the savings for himself, the Lowell Mill Girls also take on a seemingly aggressive attitude forming an organized march and showing their resistance without fear of confrontation. The major difference to note between Browns and the Lowell Mill Girls is the changes they are looking to obtain, both are significant changes, but different nonetheless, while Browns is seeking a higher wage for the working class that will at least provide decent quality of life, while the Lowell Mill Girls are looking for female equality in the work place that may lead to better working conditions for as well.

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Nero Burning Rome - Why Its a Myth

Nero Burning Rome - Why Its a Myth Separated by almost two millennia from a devastating event in the ancient city of Rome, came a software program called Nero Burning Rom that allows you to burn discs. The event in ancient Rome was so significant that we still remember it, albeit, with crucial details confused. Rome burned, true, in A.D. 64. Ten of 14 districts burned. The involuntary demolition paved the way for Neros lavish building project that culminated in his domus aurea or Golden House and colossal self-statue. Nero, however, didnt burn Rome  or at least didnt start the burning. [See: Nero as Incendiary, by Robert K. Bohm; The Classical World, Vol. 79, No. 6 (Jul. - Aug., 1986), pp. 400-401.] Even had Nero been present at the time of the burning, the other tale told in connection with Nero burning Rome is untrue: Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned. At most he played a stringed instrument or sang an epic poem, but there were no violins, so he couldnt have fiddled. Tacitus on Nero Tacitus (Annals XV) writes the following about the possibility of Nero burning Rome. Notice that there are others who were deliberately setting fires and that Nero acted with some compassion towards the suddenly homeless. A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts, worse, however, and more dreadful than any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of fire. It had its beginning in that part of the circus which adjoins the Palatine and Caelian hills, where, amid the shops containing inflammable wares, the conflagration both broke out and instantly became so fierce and so rapid from the wind that it seized in its grasp the entire length of the circus. For here there were no houses fenced in by solid masonry, or temples surrounded by walls, or any other obstacle to interpose delay. The blaze in its fury ran first through the level portions of the city, then rising to the hills, while it again devastated every place below them, it outstripped all preventive measures; so rapid was the mischief and so completely at its mercy the city, with those narrow winding passages and irregular streets, which characte rised old Rome. Added to this were the wailings of terror-stricken women, the feebleness of age, the helpless inexperience of childhood, the crowds who sought to save themselves or others, dragging out the infirm or waiting for them, and by their hurry in the one case, by their delay in the other, aggravating the confusion. Often, while they looked behind them, they were intercepted by flames on their side or in their face. Or if they reached a refuge close at hand, when this too was seized by the fire, they found that, even places, which they had imagined to be remote, were involved in the same calamity. At last, doubting what they should avoid or whither betake themselves, they crowded the streets or flung themselves down in the fields, while some who had lost their all, even their very daily bread, and others out of love for their kinsfolk, whom they had been unable to rescue, perished, though escape was open to them. And no one dared to stop the mischief, because of incessant me naces from a number of persons who forbade the extinguishing of the flames, because again others openly hurled brands, and kept shouting that there was one who gave them authority, either seeking to plunder more freely, or obeying orders.Other ancient historians were quicker to put the finger on Nero. Heres what the court gossip Suetonius says:38 1 But he showed no greater mercy to the people or the walls of his capital. When someone in a general conversation said: When I am dead, be earth consumed by fire, he rejoined Nay, rather while I live, and his action was wholly in accord. For under cover of displeasure at the ugliness of the old buildings and the narrow, crooked streets, he set fire to the city so openly that several ex-consuls did not venture to lay hands on his chamberlains although they caught them on their estates with tow and fire-brands, while some granaries near the Golden House, whose room he particularly desired, were demolished by engines of war and then set on fi re, because their walls were of stone. 2 For six days and seven nights destruction raged, while the people were driven for shelter to monuments and tombs.Suetonius Nero Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house, which he had built to connect the palace with the gardens of Maecenas. It could not, however, be stopped from devouring the palace, the house, and everything around it. However, to relieve the people, driven out homeless as they were, he threw open to them the Campus Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and raised temporary structures to receive the destitute multitude. Supplies of food were brought up from Ostia and the neighbouring towns, and the price of corn was reduced to three sesterces a peck. These acts, though popular, produced no effect, since a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.At last, after five days, an end was put to the conflagration at the foot of th e Esquiline hill, by the destruction of all buildings on a vast space, so that the violence of the fire was met by clear ground and an open sky. But before people had laid aside their fears, the flames returned, with no less fury this second time, and especially in the spacious districts of the city. Consequently, though there was less loss of life, the temples of the gods, and the porticoes which were devoted to enjoyment, fell in a yet more widespread ruin. And to this conflagration there attached the greater infamy because it broke out on the Aemilian property of Tigellinus, and it seemed that Nero was aiming at the glory of founding a new city and calling it by his name. Rome, indeed, is divided into fourteen districts, four of which remained uninjured, three were levelled to the ground, while in the other seven were left only a few shattered, half-burnt relics of houses.Tacitus AnnalsTranslated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb. Also see: Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned, by Mary Francis Gyles; The Classical Journal Vol. 42, No. 4 (Jan. 1947), 211‑217.