Library Research #1 - U.S. Labor Uses A Potent New Tactic – The Sit Down Strike

LIFE Magazine

January 18, 1937

U.S. Labor Uses A Potent New Tactic – The Sit Down Strike

            “Sit-Down” is the literal word for the action strikers took in General Motor plants across the nation on December 30, 1937. The United Automobile Workers of America Union (U.A.W) was one of the least influential labor unions in any major US industry up until the end of 1936. However, by the end of 1937, the union had effectively tied up the great and powerful General Motors Corporation. Oddly enough, the workers had done it by the simple process of sitting down - a process that was rather unknown in the US. Across the nation General Motors had various plants employing thousands of workers. By strategically executing the “sit down” operation in key plants around the nation, the workers, which refused to budge, managed to cease operations of GM plants around the country.

            According to the article, the term “sit-down” was a new word in the labor’s vocabulary. As a newly discovered tactic for battle against the powerful corporations, the U.A.W imported the sit-down theory from France. The motor industry of the United States was in no way familiar with this tactic or with the threat that the union posed against them. The article depicts emotions of surprise and fright as the motor corporations began to realize the threat that these unions posed against them. Reading the article, I felt as if for the first time the automobile industry found itself highly vulnerable. As such powerful and massive corporations Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors operated as companies of strength and pride. However once the workers were out of work, the corporation realized that a serious labor strike could halt operations, a realization that made chiefly Walter P Chrysler of Chrysler Corp. and Alfred P Sloan Jr. of General Motors turn their heads.

            While the workers executed operation sit-down, wives, children, and friends would pass by the factories bringing bread, clean clothes, or conversation to the sitting workers. Refusing to budge until General Motors agreed to a national conference on wages, hours, and working conditions, the U.A.W workers sat at their posts enjoying the break. The article defines the assembly line and shares how its innovation resulted in great advances in the factories. Understanding how each company is a giant assembly line, fed by bodies, tires, windows, upholstery, and other various parts, if one part of this line goes on strike and sits down, the rest of the line is forced to do the same causing a complete shut down.

            One of the first things I noticed when reading through this edition of TIME magazine was the price of the magazine. Ten cents. That’s all it cost to buy an issue of TIME Magazine in 1937. Today, it costs about three fifty to four bucks to purchase an issue of the magazine. One of the advertisements that first caught my attention was a car advertisement for a Plymouth. Focused on how quiet the Plymouth is, the advertisement sells its customers on the “hushed ride” of the new car. Another advertisement that caught my eye was an advertisement for Camel Cigarettes. The top of the advertisement reads, “For Digestion’s Sake… Smoke Camels!” When I read this, I was considerably confused. Rather than warning signs and statements telling pregnant women not to smoke, the advertisement highlights the idea that “digestion often needs a lift to”. The advertisement reviews the benefits of smoking Camels and demonstrates how they help one to enjoy their food more. The advertisement was very strange to me and was nothing like the cigarette advertisements we see today.

     This article provided both an interesting read and some insight into what the labor world of the U.S. was like in the late 30s. As workers in factories across the nation became fed up with their working conditions and poor treatment, the workers united and fought back. While the sit-down tactic had not been seen in years before, it quickly developed into an effective and efficient method of battle against the powerful corporations. The advertisements throughout the magazine provided background of the world in the 1930s as well. Reviewing their selling points as well as their targeted audiences, the advertisements provided a better understanding of the character of the time period. Through both the article itself and the embedded advertisements, I was able to view the era in a different light and understand and discover aspects I never understood before.            

 

David Belpedio

ESL Meeting #1 – 09/22/11

ESL Meeting #1 – 09/22/11

“Hello, my name is Jeanelie Briceno. I sorry, but I don’t speak very good English.”

With this introduction, I immediately had an altered vision of how this meeting was going to go. Feeling quite nervous and a bit anxious, I had no idea what to expect going into my meeting with my ESL partner. After exchanging text messages prior to our meeting, it became very clear that Jeanelie struggled with English. Although I knew Jeanelie was new to English, I was surprised at just how new she was to the English language. I had never before sat down to have a conversation with someone that didn’t completely understand English. I had no idea what we were going to talk about and was worried that it would be hard for her to understand what I was saying.

After our brief introductions however, things quickly began to flow and we both became more comfortable with one another. Learning that Jeanelie was from Caracas Venezuela, I was thrilled by that fact that she spoke Spanish. As a Spanish minor, this meant that I could communicate with Jeanelie in her primary language if needed. Knowing Spanish made it easy for me to understand Jeanelie when she struggled with English. It was very interesting to understand how she was learning English. I quickly came to realize that in many ways she is learning English in the same manner and with the same techniques in which I am learning Spanish. Immediately we both discovered that these meetings with one another would provide good practice in our own unique foreign languages.

Jeanelie traveled to the United States to learn English for her job. Jeanelie shared with me that learning English would be very beneficial for her profession as a journalist. Jeanelie works for the TV Network Global Business, which is one of the main TV Networks in Caracas. While talking about her profession, Jeanelie shared that the current dictator shut down one of the competing TV Networks in Caracas simply because he did not like the stories the network was reporting. Apparently the dictator believed that the network was negatively portraying him and demanded that the network shut down. I was very surprised by this and had a hard time comprehending the power that the dictator of Venezuela holds. As I continued to talk with Jeanelie, she shared with me that at any point, the dictator of Venezuela could decide to shut down the Network that Jeanelie is working for and she could lose her job. It took me a while to wrap my head around the idea of a dictator of my country deciding to just shut down a TV Network just because he basically wanted to. It was such a foreign idea to me that it caught me off guard.

I earned that Jeanelie’s husband also works as a journalist for the same TV Network. Jeanelie and her husband met through colleagues and were married last year. Her husband has traveled with her to the United States to learn English as well. While this is Jeanelie first trip to the US, Jeanelie shared that her husband has been to the States many times and has been to cities such as Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Dallas. Both Jeanelie and her husband are currently living in a hotel close to campus. Jeanelie shared that it is very different living in the hotel than at home in Venezuela. However, she shared with me that she likes the United States, so much so that she wants to travel to other cities throughout the States.

Overall this was a great first meeting and I am very excited to continue to meet with Jeanelie. I am excited that Jeanelie speaks Spanish and am hoping that I can learn a little bit of Spanish while meeting with Jeanelie. After the first meeting alone, it is clear that this is going to be a very neat experience for me – an experience that I have never had before. When Jeanelie and I finished our meeting and said goodbye to one another, Jeanelie leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. At first I was a little confused and surprised by the gesture. However, Jeanelie explained that in her culture, friends say goodbye to one another with a kiss on the cheek and that she now considered me one of her friends. I’m already learning new things and discovering different customs and traditions of those who live in different parts of the world. 

David Belpedio

The Yellow Wall Paper - Charlotte Gilman

David Belpedio

The Yellow Wall-Paper

By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

What comes to mind when one thinks about the color yellow: happy thoughts, stressful moments, certain insects or particular places? Before I read the short story The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Gilman, the color yellow meant cheerful memories, soothing daydreams, and always the vision of the sun. However, after reading this short story, the color yellow represents a whole different meaning. From Gilman’s detailed narrative, the yellow wallpaper is described as one of the most repulsive things anyone has ever laid eyes on. Illustrated as “repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow”, the reader is able to piece together the unpleasant characteristics Gilman provides regarding the yellow wallpaper. A dirty, faded, incomplete collage of patterns with broken edges and incomplete pieces came to illustrate what I believed the yellow wallpaper to look like. Gilman even goes as far as describing the odor the wallpaper releases allowing her reader to smell the “yellow smell” of the wallpaper.

            Revolving around the yellow wallpaper, this short story holds many underlying themes and ironies. Diagnosed with nervous depression, the narrator shares her thoughts through journal entries. As one reads the story, it becomes very clear that there is in fact something unusual about the narrator. When first meeting the narrator however, she appears to be healthy and in many ways ordinary. I suspected that the narrator might not actually be “sick” at all. It may just be that under the imprisonment of her husbands “rest therapy” technique she slowly is forced to lose her mind and become insane. Slowly but surely we are able to see the narrator’s condition worsen and become more and more apparent as her husband continues to remind her of her illness.

            By restricting the narrator of activity of any sort, the narrator’s husband completely isolates her from the outside world. Denying her the company of her cousins and any persons at all, the narrator communicated little, and when she did communicate, it was primarily with her husband. Who wouldn’t go crazy after spending day after day alone with the only source of communication you have reminding you that you are in fact crazy and have an irregularity? A part of me believes that because the narrator had no one to talk to or interact with, she created the woman that lived behind the wallpaper. In order to entertain herself, I believe that the narrator trapped the women figure behind the wall and used her as a form of entertainment. The women figure becomes more and more clear to the narrator as the narrator becomes more and more insane and uneasy. The two ideas, the women figure trapped behind the wallpaper, and the narrator’s insanity both grow and intensify on parallel fields.

            One of the aspects of the story that really grabbed my attention was the unusual characteristics of the room in which the narrator stayed. Throughout the story, the narrator’s husband depicted certain concepts to appear normal and consistent with everyday life. By illustrating things as such, the narrator appeared naive and oblivious toward obvious irregularities. For example, the narrator’s bedroom, which if one looks in detail is not an ordinary bedroom if a bedroom at all, is rather unusual. While the husband shared that the room was once a nursery, the characteristics of the room tell otherwise. With no reason to know better, the narrator describes the bedroom as such: “I should judge, for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” While I too thought nothing of the bars on the windows, or the gate at the door, or bolted bed, after revisiting the unusual characteristics of the bedroom, it appears to me as if the so-called bedroom is no bedroom at all.

            It appears as if the bedroom served as room for patients with mental illness and other related conditions. When one ponders the idea, the rings on the wall serve as the wrist clamps, the bars over the windows as well as the gate near the door restrict an individual from leaving the room, and the bed bolted to the floor appears strange for a multitude of reasons. It was most definitely surprising and interesting to reread the description of the room and understand how naive and immature it depicted the narrator to be. After understanding this concept, the rest of the story seemed easier to piece together.

            Overall I found this story to be very interesting and rather strange. The ending in particular threw me for a loop and provided for a variety of complex and unusual interpretations. The concept of “creeping around” was odd to me and by end of the story the narrator had become so infatuated with the women behind the wall paper that she had conformed to be just the same. Wanting to remain behind the paper in the yellow world, the narrator ends the story by exclaiming that she will not leave and will remain in the yellow. “For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.”