Read and annotate for Friday’s class. Copies will be available in class TOMORROW (Wednesday).
Images of Emancipation from Spiro Bolos on Vimeo.
Music by Nils Frahm. "Si" from Screws. See Nils play at Thalia Hall with Dawn of MIDI this Sunday.
Please read (and annotate) for tomorrow's LitFest speaker.
Please feel free to skip around and watch some of the videos. A good resource mentioned in this presentation is Rowan Manahan's "Dodging Bullets..." (more of a how-to guide).
An American labor group has investigated conditions in Jordanian garment factories and says that foreign workers are being enslaved in sweatshops. Under a free-trade agreement with the U.S., the factories are producing items for Target, L.L. Bean and other major American retailers.
* * * * *
Shirt
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177167
The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The nearly invisible stitches along the collar
Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians
Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break
Or talking money or politics while one fitted
This armpiece with its overseam to the band
Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter,
The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,
The treadle, the bobbin. The code. The infamous blaze
At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven.
One hundred and forty-six died in the flames
On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes—
The witness in a building across the street
Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step
Up to the windowsill, then held her out
Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.
And then another. As if he were helping them up
To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.
A third before he dropped her put her arms
Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held
Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once
He stepped to the sill himself, his jacket flared
And fluttered up from his shirt as he came down,
Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers—
Like Hart Crane’s Bedlamite, “shrill shirt ballooning.”
Wonderful how the pattern matches perfectly
Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked
Corners of both pockets, like a strict rhyme
Or a major chord. Prints, plaids, checks,
Houndstooth, Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans
Invented by mill-owners inspired by the hoax of Ossian,
To control their savage Scottish workers, tamed
By a fabricated heraldry: MacGregor,
Bailey, MacMartin. The kilt, devised for workers
To wear among the dusty clattering looms.
Weavers, carders, spinners. The loader,
The docker, the navvy. The planter, the picker, the sorter
Sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton
As slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields:
George Herbert, your descendant is a Black
Lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma
And she inspected my shirt. Its color and fit
And feel and its clean smell have satisfied
Both her and me. We have culled its cost and quality
Down to the buttons of simulated bone,
The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters
Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,
The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.
Robert Pinsky, “Shirt” from The Want Bone. Copyright © 1990 by Robert Pinsky. Reprinted with the permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
What other examples can you give that either hurt or help Douglass’ credibility?
Our field trip to the city featuring American Students and photos from #anamericanstudies:
Remember your VoiceThread assignment options (choose one or more):
- You can provide "narration" (using your notes)
- You can provide enrichment (drawn from Foner, citing page numbers)
- You can provide counter information (from Foner or other sources)
- You can make connections to Douglass (citing page numbers)
VoiceThread (the full version) is only available via the NTHS website. Please click on our "group" to see our shared presentation. Below is a embedded version of the presentation. It does NOT link to VoiceThread, btw.