Friday, December 2, 2011

High-school essays? Links to pursue?

We want to do ***something*** on this idea:

the myriad physical ailments caused by the Industrial Revolution (black lung, asbestos, mercury poisoning; long hours, child labor, oppressive working conditions; factory and slaughterhouse machine accidents...)

and

psychological ailments caused by the Information Age (depression, anxiety, stress & hypertension; seasonal affective disorder; coughing up Infosmog as we inhale every violent trauma of the world's news and entertainment media... 8-year-olds with eating disorders and video-game addictions... you know, normal everyday stuff we are all used to).

Future historians will view this era as oppressive and damaging to the human psyche.

Preliminary artistic considerations include looking for essays on the Industrial Revolution, educational filmstrips, possibly dioramas of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Whatever you've got that we can pillage, parody, repurpose.

Artistic media have yet to be contemplated... This is a little zygote of a project. (And yes, we are hiring. We are always hiring.)

4 comments:

Jack Guignol said...

Things to look at (maybe):

Fordham's Industrial Revolution site: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook14.asp

MHS Library resources on the Industrial Revolution: http://www.mhslibrary.org/Teacher%20Projects/Teacher%20Projects/Social%20Studies/D'Acquisto/Industrial%20Revolution/irresources.htm

Voice of the Shuttle: http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2544

Upton Sinclaire's The Jungle goes without saying right?

Soundtrack: Rasputina's "My Little Shirtwaist Fire" and RevCo's "Union Carbide"

flightless said...

ooh sweet, thank you! (Sinclair & Rasputina I had but yay)

Robin said...

digging up a semester's worth of american studies on the subject. however, here is a fun thing!

Girls, mere children, work in crowded, over-heated rooms ten to twelve hours daily at a machine, which tends to keep them in a constant over-excited sex state. Many of these girls have no home or comforts of any kind; therefore the street or some place of cheap amusement is the only means of forgetting their daily routine. This naturally brings them into close proximity with the other sex. It is hard to say which of the two factors brings the girl's over-sexed condition to a climax, but it is certainly the most natural thing that a climax should result. That is the first step toward prostitution. Nor is the girl to be held responsible for it. On the contrary, it is altogether the fault of society, the fault of our lack of understanding, of our lack of appreciation of life in the making; especially is it the criminal fault of our moralists, who condemn a girl for all eternity, because she has gone from the "path of virtue"; that is, because her first sex experience has taken place with out the sanction of the Church.

(this is from the traffic in women by emma goldman: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/aando/traffic.html )

flightless said...

OK, that is awesome.

Also, new treatment for female undersexedness. Feeling that certain lack of desire? Twelve-hour days working at factory machinery will sex you right up!