Richard Hugo's 'Degrees Of Gray In Philipsburg'

In Terrance Hayes’s book of poetry, Wind in a Box, one can see that the poems are written like a personal narrative using rhythmic phrasing to help one understand how their identity is formed. The blue poems in particular, are ones that use the word “blue” to contribute to the poems in different aspects. Using the word “blue”, Hayes shows blue as a color usually defined by sadness, blue as in the musical genre which usually sings about troubled times, and blue as in another word for feeling bad or depressed. It is obvious to see the significance the word “blue” plays throughout the Wind in a Box poetry collection. Hayes poems “The Blue Suess” and Booker’s Tomb” from the collection Upright Blues emphasize the themes of race, tradition, and freedom in the most interesting ways.

Reed Karaim in “Gold Grab” analyzes the relationship between robber barons Jay Gould and Jim Fisk. They were partners in crime. In 1869, they were working on a plan to rob the U.S. gold market. This article focuses on how Gould and Fisk use their connections with inside people including President Grant, to change gold prices. This led to the economy collapsing on September 24th, 1869, this day is famously known as Black Friday.

Not mainly from their government paycheck but from the whispers of top CEOs and entrepreneurs of the main monopolies. Also, the government was very keen to stab the farmers in the back by not allowing silver as another main rare metal into the Federal Reserve for the backing of their money. The people demanded a “16 to 1” for the federal funding. This meant that 16 ounces of silver could be the same worth as 1 ounce of gold. James B Weaver was a strong supporter of this and wanted to eradicate the weapons of the big trusts that were violent threats of fraud, bribery, and pillage (Doc. F). J. Laurence Laughlin was very adamant about this by denouncing the cries of the farmers by saying that all people were feeling the pressure of the crisis but the introduction of silver into the US funding would not be a magic cure (Doc. E). Also in President McKinley’s acceptance speech, he also deems these cries empty and saying that time will heal all wounds (Doc. B). It would take more than just time to heal this gaping gouge into the body of the United States thanks to the knife of unilateral laws of congress and the interpretation of the Supreme Court.

The Farmer’s Plight During the late nineteenth century, the Western United States had already been settled and people were starting to move to urban cities in the East, but farmers stayed out in the West and suffered from many different issues. At this time, there was a massive influx of immigrants coming from Southern and Eastern Europe and many of these immigrants settled in the Mid West and became farmers. Prior to this time period, the United States used the Gold Standard which meant that gold was the only form of currency. big business was very powerful due to the Laissez-faire government system which allowed big business to operate without regulation.

William Smith Smith AP U.S. History – 7 3 January 2015 Essential Questions 1. The most prominent reason why Reconstruction was considered a failure was the status of African Americans after reconstruction was already over. The agreements following the Civil War were made in order to make African Americans equal in the eyes of the law and the opportunities they were able to pursue. But after the war the southern states were widely ignored as they passed laws to segregate the races and prevent blacks from voting. They remained very low on social tiers as well, and very little people in the south changed the way they treat black people.

In the book River Hymns, Tyree Daye depicts the town of Youngsville, North Carolina as a sad, lonely, and low class town. Daye uses Youngsville as way to connect his past with the real world. He puts a lot of description into the poems to help emphasize the feelings he has about the town. As a result, the place a person grows up in can have a huge effect on the person one becomes as an adult, and shapes someone into the person the are later in life. Along with the idea of Youngsville being a sad town, in the poem Lord Here it says, “My uncle walked our holed streets until he died sun-soaked, broken in, left me young boy and bitter in Youngsville,” this quote demonstrates loneliness.

Instead, overproduction in wheat and excessive partaking in various markets caused a great panic, leaving these farmers tied up in their debts and looking to silver as their “get out of jail free card.” In this sense, it is obvious that while farmers were valid in their discontent with railroad companies, it was their exaggeration of the effects of monopolies and passionate desire for silver that was invalid and unnecessary and without this would ended the depression much sooner, and resolving the constant conflicting issue of currency between the Democratic and Republican

During 1893, the United States had suffered a serious economic depression known as the Panic of 1893. The economic panic had been caused by the overbuilding and over financing railroads, developing bank failures. These investments on the railroads had led to serious debates in Congress to attempt to improve the financial situation. In 1896, William Jennings Bryan had delivered a speech known as the Cross of Gold, supporting the “Free Silver” and bimetallism. Bryan’s audience reaction varied greatly, from hating Bryan to supporting Bryan for president. The speech had illuminated several important topics concerning “Free Silver”, gave popularity growth to Bryan, and the election of 1986.

By creating a background for the town, Capote captivates the readers- with careful examination a parallel can be drawn between the physical deterioration of the town and the moral deterioration of murders Dick and Perry.The rarity of such descript imagery in nonfiction begs the question of author purpose: Capote could have merely adorned his descriptions for the creation of the metaphor, a distinct attribute of a fiction novelist. Moreover, Capote intensifies and dramatizes the setting by “[a]ltering numerical counts, for example, changing the number of churches in Garden City from twenty-two to twenty-eight”, thus further cultivating the religious atmosphere of Holcomb, connecting the readers to the text and attesting to the Christian zeal of the townspeople (De Bellis 522). Capote’s descriptive elaboration appears copiously throughout the entire novel; in the final line, Capote chillingly describes Dewey’s departure from Nancy’s grave, “he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat”, creating a lasting memory with his use of melodramatic alliteration: a successful accomplishment for any piece of fiction literature (Capote 343).

After a while, many businesses went bankrupt, leaving business owners with bills that went unpaid. Luckily, after World War I ended, America had become one of the world’s leading creditors. By this time, Americans, with full confidence of being prosperous forever, were increasingly investing in stocks. Unexpectedly, in the days of 29 October 1929 the stock market had crashed. Banks that had invested heavily on stock market and real estate now had lost most of their money. There is only little money left in the country by now; the period of Great Depression had arrived

This article is about the circumstances that led to the collapse of the economy in 1929. It relates to my research proposal because I am evaluating historic events that led to the financial crisis of 1929. The article discusses how deflation played an important role in expanding the depression, and how the Gold Standard, a monetary system in which a country’s government allows its currency unit to be freely converted into fixed amounts of gold and vice versa, was an extremely bad decision because it caused the dollar to lose its value. This source was informal because it discusses prehistoric events that led to the

In this text, Mark Twain expressed the central idea, that even if something may seem beautiful and wonderful at one point, when you understand it completely, it just becomes something normal. Throughout the passage, he changes the tone. It starts off with a tone of admiration where Twain uses metaphors to compare the Mississippi River to a “wonderful book”. He describes it to be “so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparklingly renewed with every reperusal.” He had saw all and only the good of the river.

Over time, it has become relatively easy, almost second nature, for people to devise strict societal barriers and categorize people, cultures, and ideas into separate boxes. In Jean Toomer’s “Portrait in Georgia”, however, this is exceptionally challenging for the reader to do so. With his poetic paintbrush, Toomer describes a beautiful woman, but he intentionally blurs the racial lines of black and white in order to illustrate an underlying theme concerning the deep-rooted problems of racism in America. To help convey this theme, Toomer utilizes the literary tool of imagery, and he does so masterfully. Each image is meticulously placed and organized to provide the most powerful impact possible. While certain images emphasize the beauty and grandeur of a woman, others bring up unbelievably violent, gory, and horrific images of death associated with the treatment of African Americans during the time of Jim Crow Laws. Overall, Toomer’s use of imagery brings “Portrait in Georgia” to life, grabs the reader’s attention, successfully demonstrates an extremely powerful message, and causes society’s darker parts to be questioned.

The Coinage Act of 1873 was one of the major reasons why the Populist movement started and began forming. There were no real instant effects of the Coinage Act, and not many citizens in America used silver anyway (Friedman). Long term however, the United States would never be the same economically thanks to this monumental legislation. Officially accepting the Gold Standard, the American economy raised the demand for gold immensely, and as a result many gold deposits within America became depleted (Friedman). Consequently, the dollar and employees of America at the time became connected and tied to gold (Friedman). This was not a beneficial relationship, and the United States had become dependent on gold. Add in the fact that gold was being depleted rapidly and the demand for it was growing exponentially

During the years of 1893 to 1898, the United States went through an economic depression that severely damaged the economy. The final days of the Harrison administrations consisted of the financial failure of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in January of 1893, the United States was in deep trouble. After the financial railroad of Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, the National Cordage Co. Railroad failed in May, the Erie Railroad in July, the Northern Pacific in August, the Union Pacific in October and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in December (Watkins, n.d.). There was an average of 24 businesses failing per day in the month of May (Schoonover, LaFeber, n.d.). In addition, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the “Billion Dollar Congress” caused the nations gold reserved to decline as the government began to use a bimetallic monetary system.. The nations reserves dropped under $100 million after President Cleveland was sworn in March of 1893. People began to panic and this led to a plunge in the stock market and European investors began to pull their funds from the United States frightened by the weakening economy. This led to a four year depression in which 15,000 companies and 600 banks closed with about one billion dollars worth of bonds defaulted (Schoonover, LaFeber, n.d.).