Thursday, May 3, 2012

Patty Hearst Kidnapping

           While researching the kidnapping of Patty Hearst I learned many things about her and the group that captured her. Patty Hearst is an heiress to a wealthy family in America who's grandfather was a powerful newspaper magnate named William Randolph Hearst. This made Hearst a very easy target for the SLA, the group that captured her.
The first source I used was the FBI website which gave me straight forward information about the Hearst kidnapping. I believe this is a creditable source because it is what the government reports to the American people and it was useful and presented as if it was a police report. February 4th, 1974around nine at night, Patty Hearst was in apartment #4 on 2603 Benvenue Street in Berkeley, Californiawhen her fiancĂ© and her heard a knock on the door. Men and women stormed in theapartment with their guns drawn, taking 19-year-old Patty Hearst and beating upher fiancĂ©. Patty Hearst had been taken by radicals of the SymboineseLiberation Army. The leader of the SLA Donald DeFreeze wanted to began a warusing guerilla tactics that would destroy the U.S. government, which they calledthe “capitalist state.” The SLA followers consisted of women and men, black or white which were all from different backgrounds. The SLA soon became known to be a terrorist group who carried guns and did not think twice about shooting someone if they had too.This came into action when the SLA shot at two Oakland school officers.One officer was severely injured and the other was killed. 




            The ringingquestion for Americans about the SLA was, “Whydid they pick Patty Hearst?” Being a wealthy heiress with a powerful family theSLA knew this would get the publics attention but they had plans for Hearstthat were not just to get Americasattention. On the CNN website I looked further into Patty Hearst's kidnapping and learned more about what the SLA did to Hearst. The group first used Hearst as a exchange to get the two members out of jail who had killed the Oakland cop. The policy refused so again the group used Hearst to receive something they wanted, but this time its was a much different request. The SLA demanded that the Hearst family donate millions of dollars to feed the poor in California. The Hearst family responded by donating two million but the SLA was not pleased and said it was not enough. 
           While Patty Hearst remained their captive she was abused, raped, and had to join the SLA in their terror. They brain washed Hearst by locking her up, one time being for 57 days. She relied on the SLA for everything such as food, information, and shelter. By using these ethics the SLA managed to brain wash Hearst,  and they sooner or later gave her the option of either being killed are joining the SLA. Hearst choose to join. To learn more about when she joined the SLA I went to AVL and read some further information about Hearst in an entry written by Mike Mayo. This entry explained that Hearst joined the SLA in April within the same years she was kidnapped. Hearst also joined the the SLA in robbing the Hibernia Bank, and called herself Tania.






           This amazed me to see a sane woman become brain wash and join the SLA. I wanted to learn more about why the SLA chose Hearst so I turned to NBC's Dateline news report where I found interviews with Patricia Hearst and others who were affected by the SLA. I learned that the main reason the SLA chose Hearst was because she would grab America's attention because of who she was. The SLA used Hearst's voice to let the family know how she was doing and use the family to accomplish things they wanted. I personally think the SLA was a very crazy group of people with mental illnesses who were seeking power.




          At this point in my research I wanted to know what happened to Patty did she and the SLA ever get discovered... and they did. I turned to AVL and found great sources that told me about the trial and other things. I learned from a short biography from the Hutchinson's Biography Database that she was discovered as being a SLA member and she was later found, tried, and lived in jail 1976 to 1979. Still roaming through AVL I found a description of her trail and what she was sentenced with in an article by Thomas Smith. I learned from this source that Hearst was charged with robbery and holding illegal firearms. She was found guilty for all but was sentenced to prison for a short time for her crimes. Through out learning about Patty Hearst I believe all my sources to be creditable because the FBI source comes from the government. The news source I had should be reliable because people trust what they report so it should be the truth. The AVL sources I used I believe are reliable because they are Non-Fiction and most where biographies. I over all enjoyed studying this topic and was glad that I chose it.




Thursday, April 26, 2012

Hearst kidnapping!

http://lawsonsrandolphhistory.wikispaces.com/US+History+Research+Project

http://lawsonsrandolphhistory.wikispaces.com/file/view/USH+final+research+project+contract.pdf/325443178/USH%20final%20research%20project%20contract.pdf

Monday, April 2, 2012

Great Depression Picture


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New York, New York. 61st Street between 1st and 3rd Avenues. A tenant.- Walker Evans(1938)

In this image Evans is trying to show how stressful and difficult the great depression was. This image shows the man is stressed by the depression through his facial expression. Him starring at the ground shows that he has lost all hope and does not know what to do anymore. The great depression caused for many people to lose hope in finding a job or happiness which explain why the man has seemed to have lost all hope. The image also shows how difficult the great depression was by the man sitting on steps instead of a comfortable chair in his home it also show how his face has aged because of stress and it is unshaved. This shows that the great depression has been sending him through hard times which have given him reason to not care about his appearance. In all this image shows how difficult the depression was by the stress on the mans face and how he has let himself go.




Friday, February 10, 2012

Anti German Laws in WWI



At the begging of research I had difficulty finding any information on anti German laws in AVL. Since I did not have much luck in AVL I turned to google. In google I searched Anti German Laws in WWI and found many helpful sources. One site which was a educational site gave me a lot of information on German breweries and how Americans wanted to outlaw them and alcohol itself. The website helped me discover that the anti saloon league and the Women's Christian Temperance Union wanted alcohol to be prohibited with in the united states. Them and others, such as Henry Ford, argued that prohibiting alcohol would end machine politics, eliminate corruption, and help Americanize immigrants.


The American view of German-Americans during WWI
Looking further in to why Americans thought it would be a good idea 
to prohibit alcohol I came across the president at the time, Woodrow Wilson's, name. The president want to partially prohibit alcohol to preserve grain because the country was at war, and in September of that year he banned production of beer while at war. Discovering this made me happy because not that I'm against beer or people drinking but I'm glad the president thought it was more important to feed the troops instead of have a beer. 


Even though beer had been banned the Anti Saloon League was still at it calling Milwaukee's brewers "the worst of all our German enemies."This statement place Americans more against the Germans and more for being against beer. Even with this brewers tried to argued that even though the grain was being used for the soldiers that more money was being made by tax on beer then liberty bonds itself. Brewers believe it would be better for the war to keep producing beer and selling it because the tax would go to the government which would then go to the war. This failed miserably though because Americans viewed wine or beer drinking a part of German culture therefore they were against it.


Kaiser




After learning from that website I searched for more! I again returned to google but without much luck I retired AVL! This time I had luck there!! Continuing to learn about how laws were created against alcohol I discovered that the law was called the 18th Amendment. The source I used gave a great description on the law and said, "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.” I am not positive if this statement was quoted from the 18th Amendment itself or if it was a statement made about the Amendment. 


               










Turing back to google again I found a website that might of not talked a lot about Anti-German Laws but it did talk about how Americans made it very hard to view any German as a good person. The website explains how Woodrow Wilson hired a journalist named Creel to attempt to publicize anything that would make Americans pro-war and sign up to fight in WWI. Creel placed many adds in different magazines and posters to recruit people to fight in the war, but this is not what made it difficult for German-Americans to be like. When Germans of any kinda started to look real evil was when movies where starting to be created which made German officers just look absolutely crazy. These videos did not only make German officers look crazy, but it made anyone with German blood in them look crazy. The videos were supposed to recruit people for war, which it did, but it also turned people against any German even if they were harmless.

Though out researching this topic I learned a lot about this era. I would have never even imaged that alcohol would be banned I would have thought that there would have been an up roar from people who wanted it. Plus I never knew so many people that ancestors came to a country where they wanted unity and where open to excepting different peoples, that they would turn on those believes and be against them. It is amazing to me because some of the people against Germans probably had some German in them. Over all I really did enjoy researching this topic and learning about laws against German and what all they had to put up with with in that era. 


                                                                           

Monday, January 30, 2012

WWI

I viewed a picture from the archive of men walking through a trench. The description says the men were walking through cold mud that had thaw after weeks of snow and frost. This indicates that the trenches were Nast cold and wet. The picture is a good image because it shows how deep the water and much is on the soldiers and the conditions they had to walk through.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Great White Fleet 1/17/12

Today I learned how the white fleet was such a naval power and why sailors were attracted to this voyage. http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/gwf_cruise.htm

Monday, January 16, 2012

The Great White Fleet 1/16/12

Today I did research and found out the These ships held the first mobile phone! The information told me that the phones were used to contact the other ships and to ports. The phones were not all that reliable but were capable of reaching up to 75 miles. I also learned a lot about the fleets trip to Elliott Bay where they were welcomed by a two-mile-long parade