Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Monday, September 14, 2015
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Chapter 1: 'An Introduction to Human Geography'
Trevor Jones
AP Human Geo
September 15, 2015
Thoughts and Ruminations:
Article: http://newint.org/easier-english/Garment/jhistory.html
Miners wanted pants that wouldn't rip and fray so easily, but no such thing existed that would meet their needs, so Levi Strauss fashioned the first blue jeans out of denim and copper rivets, then the blue jeans caught the attention of greasers and hippies in the 50's and 60's, and later diffused to the rest of the United States and the world.
Map:
Strauss sold blue jeans to the gold miners in San Francisco, which later spread to the surrounding western/southwestern states for use by Cowboys.
Essay:
Readings:
The Tipping Point
Globalization in a Bottle
"Chapter One: An Introduction to Human Geography" from Human Geography
AP Human Geo
September 15, 2015
Thoughts and Ruminations:
Article: http://newint.org/easier-english/Garment/jhistory.html
Miners wanted pants that wouldn't rip and fray so easily, but no such thing existed that would meet their needs, so Levi Strauss fashioned the first blue jeans out of denim and copper rivets, then the blue jeans caught the attention of greasers and hippies in the 50's and 60's, and later diffused to the rest of the United States and the world.
Map:
Essay:
Readings:
The Tipping Point
Globalization in a Bottle
"Chapter One: An Introduction to Human Geography" from Human Geography
Essay Question: How does a product such as blue jeans reach its 'tipping point' and diffuse throughout America, and eventually become a cultural trait?
What defines our nations culture? Well, some may say it's the food that we eat, or the music that we listen to, or even, our appearance. When most people think about the common American man, they will think of a a guy wearing blue jeans, eating a hamburger. These defining features of our culture are called cultural traits. But how does something become a cultural trait you might ask? The trait, or product in this case, must undergo a 'tipping point', meaning a single point in time when the product greatly increases in demand.
The Gold Rush in San Fransisco, California attracted thousands of gold miners to the area, and these gold miners all faced one problem, their pants did not withstand the rough surfaces they were forced on. This lead Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss to create a pair of more sturdy denim pants, with copper rivets to reinforce points of stress, and called them jeans. These jeans solved the problem for the gold miners of California and sold like wildfire, by a process known as contagious diffusion. These sturdy blue jeans soon spread to most of the western/southwestern region for the use of cowboys, a process called regional diffusion.
By the 1950's and 60's, blue jeans were being featured in cowboy movies which picked up the attention of greasers and hippies all over the country. This moment was the tipping point for blue jeans in America, and suddenly the industry boomed. Americans all over were buying blue jeans out of fashion which lead to the creation of designer jeans in the 80's, as well as the global diffusion of jeans in continents such as Asia, Europe, and South America, leading to the product's globalization. Jeans sales kept growing until the worldwide recession in the 90's, when sales stopped growing on a global scale. The worldwide recession as well as time-distance decay, meaning the farther a cultural trait is from the hearth, the less likely the innovation will be adopted, both contributed to the slowing of jeans sales inside and outside of the United States. However, blue jeans are still fashionable today and define our culture here in the United States.
Monday, May 4, 2015
Roman Religion Homework
Trevor Jones
5/4/15
The East-West Schism
With the new law under Emperor Constantine that the Christians may no longer be prosecuted for their beliefs, Catholic Churches began to crop up around Rome and slowly began to spread all over Europe. Christianity later developed into two slightly different religions, those being the Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The reason, that medieval Christianity split though was due to the result of the "East-West Schism". When Byzantine split with Roman Catholicism on 800, the people of the Byzantine Empire were hurt and over time their relationship with Roman Catholicism deteriorated and split. The east and the west developed into the Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church respectively. Over the centuries, these two religions separated over reasons such as geography, ignorance of language, difference of theologies, politics, and many more unnamed reasons.
There are multiple reasons why Christianity separated into these two churches around Europe, however this list cannot be limited to the beliefs of these two groups, the reasons are much more fundamental and enormous than that. A major factor is the language barrier that the western church (Roman Catholic Church) spoke and wrote in Latin, and the eastern church (Greek Orthodox Church), in Greek. In Roman Catholicism, the pope has a universal jurisdiction over all of the church, while the pope in the Greek Orthodox Church is recognized as an equal to the people. There are several reasons on why these groups stay separate, such as their liturgy, married clergy, and bread and the Eucharist.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Digital History Scrapbook #8 - Rome
Trevor Jones
4/30/15
Per. 7
Links:
Gladiators/Colosseum: http://www.ancient.eu/Colosseum/
The Similarities of Cultural Elements over Centuries
Professional Football and the Gladiators of the Colosseum, both having very similar purposes but existing at very different times. The birth of professional football was done so out of a mutation, a mix of soccer and rugby, created by people that were feeling creative, just like anybody else. The first organized practice of football was played on November 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers colleges. After Princeton and Rutgers got the trend started, many other colleges followed and on November 12, 1892, the first man was payed to play football, which lead to professional football. This evolved throughout the next century and became the sport we know today. The creation of the Roman Colosseum was begun in 72 CE by Emperor Vespasian, and finished by his first born son Titus in 80 CE. This arena was built on behalf of returning Rome to its former glory after the civil war as well as an entertainment source for its people. The Colosseum was used to host spectacular public entertainment events such as gladiator fights, wild animal hunts and public execution from the time of creation, up until 404 CE. These two cultural elements of their nation both have very similar purposes, causes, and possibly futures.
These two cultural elements became wildly popular in their nations because they gave to the people what they wanted to see: brutality that is made interesting to watch. In 1966, the AFL and the NFL decided to quit the competition and made a truce. That truce is what became what we know now as the Super Bowl. The first Super Bowl, between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs, is what made football so popular in the U.S. This is not to say that football was not popular before the truce of the AFL and the NFL, on the contrary, football players were being offered multi-million dollar contracts to play the sport for teams, the Super Bowl just made the sport that much more popular. The name "Colosseum" fits the structure perfectly because it describes very well it's colossal size. At 45 meters tall and it's arena measuring 85.7x 54.8 meters across, it created a craze among the Roman people who were desperate to get in. This, however, was not a problem because the stadium itself seated 45,000, and 5,000 standing spots, with 80 doors to enter through. In the beginning, games were held at the colosseum every evening lasting until late the next morning, however, that number changed into about 100 games a year after the first few years. The games held in the Colosseum were purely for entertainment of the citizens and the Emperor, and consisted of brutal fights between gladiators, some on chariots or horses, and others on foot. This was by no means a fair competition (similar to modern day professional level football by some standards), the real purpose being blood sports and death. These shows attracted people from all around, dying to catch a glimpse of the action. Unlike football, these games eventually ceased and the Roman Colosseum, destroyed.
Like all great things begin, they must also come to an end. For the Roman Colosseum, this was no exception. The use of the colosseum was becoming corrupt, and instead of being a source of entertainment for the people, it became a way for emperors to torture and ruthlessly kill their enemies. This began much earlier but was most apparent with emperor Domitian who used the colosseum for bloodthirsty dramas, execution, and also the killing of Christian Martyrs by throwing them to hungry lions, shot down by others in the stands or arena, and also burnt alive. The games of the Colosseum were finally abolished in 404 CE by Emperor Honorius, but continued to be used the senate for condemning criminals. The Colosseum was damaged by earthquakes in later years, repaired, and collapsed from the great earthquake of 1231 CE, therefore marking the end of the colossal structure. Even by comparing professional football to the games of the colosseum, we start to notice many more similarities then we thought existed in the first place. Like the fact that professional football may be following the same corrupted end as the colosseum faced. For example, the most recent Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLIX, the New England Patriots vs. the Seattle Seahawks. A conspiracy arose that the Patriots were playing with deflated footballs, which allows for more grip on the ball. This conspiracy even went as far as disqualification of the Patriots from the super bowl, meaning the Seahawks would automatically win. If American professional football continues to follow the same path as the corrupted Roman Colosseum, it may end in a fiery end and consequences that have not yet been imagined.
Professional football and the Gladiator fights of the colosseum, both cultural elements and sports of their nations having very similar purposes but existing at two very different times. Both cultural elements were wildly popular in their nation for the very same thing: brutality while still being highly interesting to the people. These two elements have had very similar pasts and have developed similarly over time. We already know what happened to the Gladiators and the colosseum, the question is will professional football follow the same destructive course?
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)