Chapter 16

1) William Graham Sumner, On Social Darwinism, (ca 1880s).

2) This document is discussing William's view on his theory of social darwinism, articulating
mostly on the view of nature as a competitor and survival of the fittest. He mentions the
thought of equality and compares different scenarios of men who do have one thing, and
the other does not which puts the first person at an advantage. Overall, the main idea is
how social darwinism affects the people around us and takes the theory into
consideration upon his sociologist view.
3)
a) William Graham Sumner wrote this document when he was a sociologist at Yale
University.
b) He wrote the document sometime around the 1880s.
c) Where? Yale University.
d) The issue is the concept of Social Darwinism, a widely believed theory back in
this time period of survival of the fittest.
e) This is important due to the fact that we see the change in sociology the further
we advance in our technology and knowledge, although social darwinism was
huge in the latter half of the 19th century; we have disproved this theory by
furthering our understanding of it. What was widely accepted then has completely
changed over the years.
4) “Let it be understood that we cannot go outside of this alternative; liberty, inequality,
survival of the fittest; not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest,” (10).
5) I chose this document due to the fact that I am very intrigued by the theory of social
darwinism. It has been commonly brought up in almost every class I have taken but I still
never am able to comprehend the complete meaning of the theory.

1) Andrew Carnegie, Gospel of Wealth, (June 1889)

2) This document is discussing the distribution of wealth and the ideology that wealthy men
are to give away their wealth to those who are considered in the lower class. Andrew
Carnegie widely believed that men who were poor deserved equality in the sense of
wealth, and that wealthy men were in charge of giving their money to the poor in order to
create this idea of equality between men.
3)
a) Andrew Carnegie wrote this document, he was a very rich man who made his
wealth from the steel industry.
b) The document was written in June of 1889.
c) The article was published in the North American Review, which first took place in
Boston.
d) The issue is the distribution of wealth and the idea that the rich must give back to
the poor.
e) This is important because we see the exact opposite today in American politics.
The rich only want to get richer and give nothing to the poor, the contrast
 between these two time periods is very interesting and a huge point for people to
do more research on.
4) “The problem of our age is the administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood
may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship,” (14).
5) I chose this document due to my background knowledge of Andrew Carngie and the
work he did within the steel industry. I find his philosophy very interesting as well
because you do not hear of many rich people even thinking about giving away any of
their wealth.
6) Further Question: Was this a trend among wealthy men? Were they all generous with
their wealth amongst this time period or was this only the case with Andrew Carnegie?

1) Dispatch from a Mississippi Colored Farmers’ Alliance, The Colored Farmers’ Alliance,
(1889)
2) This document is discussing the inequality between Black and white farmers and the
underlying issue of racism and prejudice in general. The main idea here is how the Black
farmers peacefully go to ask for their rightful earnings and yet the white farmers/people
react in a violent way. The prejudice that the Black farmers were facing continues
throughout the whole document, everytime a solution was found the white people would
react in a negative or even violent way.
3)
a) This document was written by The Colored Farmers’ Alliance who were exactly
as their name is described, a group of Black Farmers’ whose purpose was to
achieve the same goal as the white farmers in the area.
b) The document was written in 1889.
c) Mississippi was where the actions in the document took place; where the
document was written.
d) The issue was the prejudice at hand that the Black farmers were facing simply for
trying to get better working conditions, fair pay, and their equal share of
everything.
e) This is important to understand the hardships Black people have had to face for
such a long time, simply to get their share of the work they did they were getting
shot and going through hoops just to feed their families. It is very important to
understand all of the concepts of prejudice so we can adhere and understand
everything to be more inclusive of everyone.
4) “Freedom is there a mockery to the black man; suffrage is a sham to all Republicans,”
(24).
5) I chose this document in order to further my understanding of what Black farmers had to
endure during this time period, we can see that they were met with nothing but negativity
and horrible consequences. I always want to learn more about the hardships of other
races so I can further accommodate in any way possible.
6) Further Question: Did the Colored Farmers’ Alliance ever accomplish what they intended
to? What happened to their group and what was the outcome of their efforts?
 Chapter 17
1) William T. Hornady, On the Extermination of the American Bison, (1889)
2) The main idea of the document was the feelings and reasoning for the endangerment of
the American Bison. He goes into detail about the significance of the bison and also his
theory on how the American government did not do as much as they should have in
regards to the preservation of the bison in the first place.
3)
a) William T. Hornady wrote this document, he was an American Zoologist.
b) This document was written in 1889.
c) The location of the content of this document was from Minnesota to Louisiana.
d) The issue in this document is the near-extinction of the American bison and the
issues that this could have displayed in the government and the people who had
anything to do with the endangerment of the species.
e) This is important because during this time period, the American bison had a huge
significance and represented a lot. Anytime an animal goes endangered it
causes a lot of worry so I can see the same situation presented here.
4) “Does any one imagine that the Government could not have regulated the killing of
buffaloes, and thus maintained the supply, for far less money than it now costs to feed
and clothe those 54,758 Indians?” (33).
5) I chose this document because I had no background knowledge on this, I had no idea
that American bison were ever endangered. Knowing the amount of other social issues
that affected this one is a huge thing to comprehend but brings a lot more understanding
to the time period.

1) Laura C. Kellogg, On Indian Education, (1913)

2) This document is about the wrong-doings of what the white people were trying to do
(educate) to Native American children. The whole idea behind this was for the Native
American children to lose their language and culture and adopt the white version of
everything. Unfortunately, this was very wrong and something always looked down upon
in history; these were innocent children. Laura continues to criticize what they did to
these children and present all the issues with what was going on.
3)
a) This document was written by Laura C. Kellogg who was a part of the Oneida
reservation and was an advocate for Native American rights among other social
justice issues.
b) The document was written in 1913.
c) The location of the content of this document was all over the country in different
states facing the issues of Indian Boarding schools.
d) The issue that was in this document was the act of putting these children against
their parents and their own wills into Indian Boarding Schools, trying to erase
 their culture was completely barbaric and should have never have happened in
the United States where everyone is supposedly “free.”
e) This is important in order to understand what these children had to face and the
conflicts that were brought up at this point in time. I find it very contradictory on
what our country is supposed to be founded on, yet we did many things such as
this in our history.
4) “We want education, yes, we want to know all the educated Caucasian knows but we
want our self-respect while we are getting his knowledge,” (41).
5) I chose this document due to the importance of understanding our privilege of education
now. I had prior knowledge on this subject but from the perspective of the author of this
document I was able to understand on a further level.
6) Further Question: Do you think that after their “education” the parents of these children
taught their kids to relearn their culture? Or was that a very taboo subject?

1) Helen Hunt Jackson on a Century of Dishonor (1881)

2) The main idea of this document was summarizing all of the horrible ways that Native
Americans have been treated and the countless amounts of violence they have to
endure. There were numerous accounts of horrible things happening to Native
Americans at the hands of white people and it was all inhumane and what they got in
return was absolutely nothing. Helen Hunt Jackson was very passionate about this issue
and definitely wanted change.
3)
a) This document was written by Helen Hunt Jackson who was an activist for Native
American rights.
b) This document was written in 1881.
c) The location of the content of this document was the whole United States,
exclusive of Alaska.
d) The issue at hand here was the treatment of Native Americans, they had to go
through indescribable amounts of violence and neglect. The United States
government had no remorse for these people and gave them absolutely no
compassion.
e) The importance of this issue is understanding how Native Americans used to be
treated so we can remove the stain, we need to right our wrongs because after
all, they were here first. White people took everything from them and it is
important to understand the extensive amount of pain the US caused them.
4) “There are hundreds of pages of unimpeachable testimony on the side of the Indian; but
it goes for nothing, is set down as sentimentalism or partisanship, tossed aside and
forgotten,” (43).
5) I chose this document due to the fact that it extends on the previous one about Indian
Boarding schools, and accentuates the fact that Native Americans held very little of their
culture due to white people.