HOUS 30-37
Chapter 30: Aloha Oe
1. Mark Twain called the Hawaiian Islands “the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean”
2. The first American missionaries that came to save souls were led by Hiram Bingham and Asa Thurston.
3. The islands are volcanic mountains, built from the sea bottom.
4. Hawaii includes 8 major islands and 124 islets.
6. There was no written language, they passed on myths and historic tales.
7. England’s Captain James Cook gets credit for the discovery of the islands.
8. Kamehameha I, the first, united the islands in 1810, using guns and persuasion.
9. Kamehameha II, the second, abolished their religion and ordered all idols and temples destroyed.
10. Europeans came, and they put their culture over the Hawaiians for profit. Hawaii’s traditions are mostly lost, although schooling and writing would preserve some of it.
11. In 1891 Queen Liliuokalani came to power. Wanted to restore power to the Hawaiians. Secretly worked on constitution only giving vote to Hawaiians.
12. The Haoles (foreigners) appealed to Washington to annex Hawaii since; they also set their own government up. A congressman went to Hawaii and said to let them get their monarchy back.
13. On July 4, 1894. Sanford B. Dole, a leading businessman, said he was president of Hawaii. Liliuokalani was imprisoned and monarchy ended.
14. President William McKinley signed a resolution annexing Hawaii to the United States.
15. On August 21, 1959, Hawaii became the fiftieth state.
Chapter 31: Teddy Bear President
Roosevelt was a man of the people unlike Jackson he welcomed people into the White House, and he shook over 8,150 hands.
One time he was hunting, and he refused to kill a helpless bear which was heard by someone in New York who made the first teddy bear. This gave him the nickname Teddy Roosevelt which he hated.
Oldest daughter – Alice – sometimes kept snakes in his purse
Second son – Quentin – Dropped snowballs on White House guard’s head.
He was not only a fun, but he was also a strong president.
He helped pass pure food and drug law.
He helped enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act, and he was known as a trust-busting president.
He was responsible for getting the US to finish the building of the Panama Canal, which was a water passageway that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
He had a favorite saying: “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. This is an African proverb.
He helped settle a war between Japan and Russia which earned him a Noble Peace Prize, and he gave the prize money to the American people.
His most important contributions were in conserving public lands for future generations to enjoy.
In 1904, he regrettably said that he would not run for a third term, and instead went off to Africa to hunt game.
Chapter 32:
1. A polyglot city is one where many languages are heard.
2. Many immigrants who came to America let their lives be controlled by city bosses.
3. In Chicago, a boss named Johnny Powers used city money to buy a house for himself.
4. A visitor of Jane Addams called her “the only saint the United States has produced.”
5. Addams’ ancestors had come to Pennsylvania in the days of William Penn.
6. Addams got tuberculosis, which left her with a crooked spine.
7. Addams and her friend Ellen Star bought a place in the Chicago Slums named Hull House.
8. Hull House grew until there were 13 buildings, a staff of 65, and about 50 residents.
9. Addams tried to get an honest alderman elected, but Powers kept his position.
10. In 1931, when she was 71 years old, Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Chapter 33: Henry Ford
Henry Ford’s idea was this: to build an automobile so cheap that almost everyone could own one.
Ford went to J.P Morgan for an investment but was told that cars were only for the rich.
Ford was a farmer’s son with a thin, angular body and a head filled with ideas
Someone described him as having “a twenty-five-track mind with trains going out and coming in on all tracks at the same time.”
When Ford was a kid, he became an apprentice in a machine shop. Then he got a job with Thomas Edison’s company
Edison liked Ford “Young man, keep at it”
Ford took Eli Whitney’s idea of interchangeable parts and adapted it to cars, making the Model T.
Ford invented a new way to make cars way faster, having one man making one part all day.
The first Model T came out in 1908, cost $850, by 1916 the Model T was $360. Henry Ford had made a democratic car!
Ford wanted more workers in his factory, but no one wanted to work there because it was boring, so Ford raised their wages from $2.40 for a nine-hour day to $5 for a eight-hour day.
Chapter 34
Wilbur and Orville Wright, two brothers from Ohio, were the first people in history to build and fly an airplane that lifted off the ground with its own power on December 16, 1903.
The brothers took several flights at Kill Devil Hill at Kitty Hawk, on North Carolina’s Outer banks.
The brothers flew several times there. The first flight lasted just 17 seconds and the longest lasted 59 seconds.
The Virginia Pilot, based in Norfolk Virginia, was the first newspaper to talk about the flights near
The first long article about the Wright brothers was in a bee keeper’s magazine.
In August 1908, Wilbur took flight in France with 24 witnesses and again with 4000 astounded people watching.
A month later, Orville flew at an army field in the US.
The Wrights turned into celebrities and met many kings and presidents.
The brothers got their hardworking habits from their father, and their mathematic and engineering talents from their mother. For this reason they began working at a bike shop before working on their biplanes.
The three things needed to fly are lift, propulsion, ad control.
Chapter 35: William Howard Taft
1. William Howard Taft was the president after TR.
2. William Howard Taft weighted more than 300 pounds.
3. William Howard Taft was the first American governor of the Philippine Islands.
4. Taft turned control of the Republican Party over to the conservative party leaders.
5. In 1912, Republicans nominated William Howard Taft for a second term.
6. TR created his own political party, the Progressive Party
7. The Progressive Party was also known as the “Bull Moose Party.”
8. A Democrat was elected for the first time since Grover Cleveland.
9. TR killed 296 animals in Africa.
10. Governments make laws to limit freedoms, usually to protect other’s freedoms.
Chapter 36
Thomas Woodrow Wilson had dyslexia, hampering his ability to read and learn.
He became a college professor, the president of Princeton, the governor of New Jersey, and President of the United States, in that order.
His father was a Presbyterian minister who taught him to think, write, and have good morals.
Wilson went to college at Princeton and law school in Virginia in the hope of getting into politics, but he was unsuccessful. He went to Johns Hopkins College in Baltimore to study government and history to become a college professor.
He was such a popular professor at Princeton that he was asked to become the president of Princeton. He made the school one of the best universities in the world.
He ran for governor of New Jersey and was helped by political bosses because they thought they could control him.
Woodrow Wilson was a reforming governor who spoke to citizens about corruption and made New Jersey a model state. He forced several political bosses to retire.
In 1912, Woodrow Wilson was elected as President of the United States.
Wilson lowered tariffs, improved working conditions, helped farmers’ problems, changed the banking system, and got business monopolies under control.
However, Woodrow Wilson did nothing about racism, and he did not seem to agree with giving women the right to vote. He also tried to stay out of foreign affairs.
Chapter 37
The First World War was originally called the “Great War”.
It began in Europe in 1914, and 9 million men died.
At the start the central powers (Germany, Austria, Turkey), fought the allies (England, France, Russia), but before it was finished there were many more nations involved.
Woodrow Wilson believed that America should stay out of the war, he wanted to remain neutral.
German submarines started sinking began sinking ships, this horrified America, they gave no warnings, we started to side with, and send war supplies to the allies.
In 1917 Germany declared war on all ships that went near England, or France.
In March 1917, Britain intercepted a message sent from Germany to Mexico, that was plotting to make Mexico fight the United States.
Germany offered to give Texas and New Mexico to Mexico, as a prize for entering the war.
Woodrow Wilson woke up in the middle of the night, and took out his portable typewriter, and typed out a famous speech. It was a deceleration of war.
George M. Cohan (1878-1942) and Irving Berlin (1888-1989) provided patriotic tunes for a nation at war.