In Seth Rockman’s monograph “Scraping By”, Rockman provides a grim outlook on Baltimore, Maryland’s wage-labor during the early 1800’s. No matter the age, race, ethnicity, or gender, the people of Baltimore struggled and “scraped by” in order to survive. Rockman challenges the notion that the early republic was a time of great growth and upward opportunity for people. Instead, he reveals the harsh truth of living in Baltimore, from scraping human feces off the streets, to prostitution, or toiling as a mud machine workers. In Chapter 1, Rockman describes the rapid growth and improvement in Baltimore. This ultimately led to construction of new houses and railroads, the increase in trading, and decrease of traditional farming. The expansion of
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It provided readers insight to the reality of living in the new America during the early 1800’s. Many believe that after the Revolutionary War, the US displayed a constant upward mobility in society, which is not true, according to Rockman’s argument. The people of Baltimore struggled, scavenged, and toiled in order to survive.
Rockman described his argument very well with plenty of evidence, however I wished that the book was a little less repetitive. I feel as if I was reading the same things over and over but in different chapters, such as the argument on women’s wage in Chapter 4 and the living wage in Chapter 5. I think Rockman could’ve either combined Chapter 4 and 5 or completely omitted one, because it just repeated itself.
Although Rockman described life in the early 19th century, he never talked about what happened after the 1830’s. Yes, we understand that these people were struggling to live day-to-day, but what was America doing about it? What happened after the 1830’s? Did the economy get better or worse? How were the African Americans treated in the late 19th century in Baltimore? Was domestic service still a common aspect of women’s jobs? These questions are left unanswered in “Scraping …show more content…
Seth Rockman draws readers into his well-researched monograph by putting them in the shoes of the laborers who built the early United States. These accounts of free and enslaved, black and white, male and female workers, give us understanding of the early societies of America and how we became one of the wealthiest societies in the western world. “To tell the story of American opportunity, you must first understand the struggle of labor during the early United States (page 259).” It is a common belief that material rewards are followed by hard work, so therefore economy success also included men digging mud out of harbors and women stitching shirts late at
It provided readers insight to the reality of living in the new America during the early 1800’s. Many believe that after the Revolutionary War, the US displayed a constant upward mobility in society, which is not true, according to Rockman’s argument. The people of Baltimore struggled, scavenged, and toiled in order to survive.
Rockman described his argument very well with plenty of evidence, however I wished that the book was a little less repetitive. I feel as if I was reading the same things over and over but in different chapters, such as the argument on women’s wage in Chapter 4 and the living wage in Chapter 5. I think Rockman could’ve either combined Chapter 4 and 5 or completely omitted one, because it just repeated itself.
Although Rockman described life in the early 19th century, he never talked about what happened after the 1830’s. Yes, we understand that these people were struggling to live day-to-day, but what was America doing about it? What happened after the 1830’s? Did the economy get better or worse? How were the African Americans treated in the late 19th century in Baltimore? Was domestic service still a common aspect of women’s jobs? These questions are left unanswered in “Scraping …show more content…
Seth Rockman draws readers into his well-researched monograph by putting them in the shoes of the laborers who built the early United States. These accounts of free and enslaved, black and white, male and female workers, give us understanding of the early societies of America and how we became one of the wealthiest societies in the western world. “To tell the story of American opportunity, you must first understand the struggle of labor during the early United States (page 259).” It is a common belief that material rewards are followed by hard work, so therefore economy success also included men digging mud out of harbors and women stitching shirts late at