Literature Throughout History

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe1852

• “Slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle.”

• Northern abolitionists increased their protests against the fugitive slave act.

• Southerners criticized the book as an attack on the south as a whole. “Book was based on lies”

• Showed that slavery was evil and that it damaged families, white as well as black.

“How the Other Half Lives” by Jacob Riis1890

• Exposed the conditions of the overcrowded, airless, filthy tenements that still housed New York City’s poor.

“The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair

• Described the sickening conditions in the meat packing industry.• President Roosevelt promised to change the industry and clean it

up.• Roosevelt appointed a commission of experts to report on the

accuracy of Sinclair’s descriptions.• 1906 was the passage of the meat inspection act also passed the

pure food and drug act (halting the sale of contaminated food).

“The Other America” by Michael Harrington

• Used government statistics to profile the 42 million people in the U.S that scraped by each year on less than $1,000 per person.

• “Shocked Americans”• 1964 LBJ declared unconditional war on poverty in America.• Proposed sweeping legislation designed to help Americans.

“Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson• Attacked the growing use of pesticides.• Birds killed off by pesticides no longer filled the air with songs.• DDT made it’s way through the food chain ultimately to humans.• Forced government to look at environmental factors.• 1963 Clean Air Act• 1970 First Earth Day• 1972-Government outlawed DDT

“The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan (1963)

• The Feminine Mystique sparked a national debate about women's roles and in time was recognized as one of the central works of the modern women's movement.

• Friedan attempts to prove that the feminine mystique denies women the opportunity to develop their own identities, which can ultimately lead to problems for women and their families.

• http://www.enotes.com/feminine-mystique

“Letters from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. 1963

• The Letter from Birmingham Jail or Letter from Birmingham City Jail, is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights leader. King wrote the letter from the city jail in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was confined after being arrested for him part in the Birmingham campaign, a planned non-violent protest against racial segregation by Birmingham’s city governement and downtown retailers.