Difference between revisions of "325--2011--Week 6 Questions/Comments"
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I thought it was extremely interesting that the streetcar is one of the main reasons that Sunday changed from a day to rest to a day of “restless activity.” Along with expanding the work week, the street car allowed new areas of real estate to open up and have the working class leave the congested city and move to a suburb. The streetcar alone had a great amount of influence in the growth of the middle class. On average, most citizens (including both men & women) in big cities rode the street cars between 230-265 times in one year (and 340 times in San Francisco!). Streetcar became the focus of political controversies due to the fact of safety and the amount of resistance at first. However, once it became such a huge part of urban life, people were able to really use the service, with providing better opportunities in entertainment, business, education, and many other factors. -- Megan Gallagher | I thought it was extremely interesting that the streetcar is one of the main reasons that Sunday changed from a day to rest to a day of “restless activity.” Along with expanding the work week, the street car allowed new areas of real estate to open up and have the working class leave the congested city and move to a suburb. The streetcar alone had a great amount of influence in the growth of the middle class. On average, most citizens (including both men & women) in big cities rode the street cars between 230-265 times in one year (and 340 times in San Francisco!). Streetcar became the focus of political controversies due to the fact of safety and the amount of resistance at first. However, once it became such a huge part of urban life, people were able to really use the service, with providing better opportunities in entertainment, business, education, and many other factors. -- Megan Gallagher | ||
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| + | What is really interesting about this chapter is that people had the same congestion problems in big cities as we do today. It seems that anywhere there are mass amounts of people in a little space these problems will come up. However, the description that Nye gives about the conditions makes me really happy that electricity came about. I wouldn't want to be walking in streets with manure. The smell must have been horrible! However, I think this chapter also highlights something we have been talking about in class. Basically why some technologies were adopted, and others weren't. Nye discusses the trolley cars and talks about how the idea of it has been around for a while, however it just wasn't used because there was no perceived need for it. (page 88) It wasn't until someone came along and found a way to make it profitable that it became adopted. Which I guess relates to Kyle's point about electrical cars, they had found a safer way to start them with the use of gas. Because of that, gas became used, however if someone found a way to start cars with electricity (by not winding them up basically) would we have the same oil concerns we have today? And before I go further into the what ifs, I will just stop. - Jenn | ||
== Electricity and Rural America -- Rural Lines== | == Electricity and Rural America -- Rural Lines== | ||
