Article Report: Sugrue

"The Damning Mark of False Prosperities": The Deindustrialization of Detroit --Thomas Sugrue

Tara Duffin

   

   This week's reading entailed Thomas Sugrue's chapter on the deindustrialization in Detroit, Michigan in the1950's. Sugrue is currently a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the departments of history and sociology. Sugrue predominantly focuses on the urban and social history of the 20th century and has many published articles on the topic. He attended graduate school at Harvard, where he explained studying 20th-century urban history to be very unformed as there weren't any senior historians on the subject's faculty. Therefore, he has structured a lot of knowledge on 20th-century urban history covering poverty, politics, and race relations. The chapter assigned comes out of Sugrue's very successful book, The Origins of the Urban Crisis published by Princeton University Press in 1996. Some of the awards he received for this book include the Bancroft Prize and the Social Science History Association's President's Book Award.

       In this chapter, Sugrue takes us to the city he grew up in during the responding changes in employment, wealth, and societal distribution from the deindustrialization that occurred in the 1950's. He structures the chapter by depicting four main reasons for Detroit's rapid downfall in industrial prosperity: capital mobility, automation, labor and tax costs, and federal policy. Each of these individually can cause a negative impact on an economy, but when all four worked together to tackle Detroit's industrial success from the inside out, it not only put an end to Detroit being the main automobile powerhouse city, but it damaged the city's overall economy and left behind thousands of unemployed workers, much economical distress, and huge gaps in racial equality. 

       With advances in information technology, economic downswings, and the expansion of low-wage regions in the South, capital mobility became a major reason Detroit's prospering industries plummeted. Automation caused workers' positions to be replaced by machines and almost all entry-level positions no longer existed. As capital mobility and automation took its toll on Detroit, the city could only raise their property taxes and lower wages to help try and boost the economy. And furthermore, federal policies encouraged decentralization to keep large industries out of central cities in case of air-attacks in the postwar years. All four of these reasons that fueled economic failure in Detroit, in turn, caused massive societal and racial gaps in the city as almost everyone was negatively affected, but much more significantly, the African American population. Sugrue makes these gaps an important focal point in this article because it helps explain how the large racial disparities that he grew up with originated and came to being. In the chapter he writes, " the transformation of Detroit's economy is best understood from a long-term perspective" (127) and he portrays these explanations to help justify the structural roots to Detroit's urban poverty and inequality.

       Many significant historians and professors, such as Kenneth Kusmer whom has taught American history in Pennsylvania, Germany, and Rome, not only accept Sugrue's perspectives on racial and class divisions, but fully admire his research for "demonstrating conclusively that many of the problems of racial and class division that mar today's postindustrial city existed much earlier, and were far more complex than many other historians' accounts contend for".

Weekend Assignment - Twitter

Not having a twitter myself, I felt this would be the perfect opportunity to look at different perspectives of the popular social media site.  There were many articles that spoke of twitter as a chatter of people which is not the kind of twitter I was looking for.  One of the earliest mentions of twitter referring to the popular social media site I found while searching Proquest, Project Muse and JStor was from May 2007, roughly a year after Twitter launched.  The article spoke of how Twitter could be used as an educational advantage.  Instead of using full length blogs, Twitter involves “microblogs” that can give live up to date information of activities students are doing.  The article said Twitter will help to create a learning community on the internet between people posting many different information comments that could help to change the dynamic of the classroom.  The article thought Twitter would be a way to bring classrooms from all across the country, and even the globe, together to help students become interested in what they are learning.  They would also be able to talk with students elsewhere and create a connection to help the learning process become even stronger with a tight-knit online community.  This idea behind Twitter is quite admirable; however it is not how everyone first felt about the popular site.   

            When searching The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, I found an article roughly around the same time, May 2007, which said Twitter was a site mainly for people connecting with other people about what they were currently doing, purely a socializing tool.  Critics ridiculed this idea and questioned whether we needed such a thing to distract us from our in person interactions.  The concerns of the critics did not have much effect on people though, as the article states, in 2007, Twitter was named the “best on the web” at a multimedia and music festival in Austin.  Twitter was quickly becoming a popular way for people to connect. 

            Today Twitter is used for both of the activities the old articles mentioned as well as countless more.  It is widely used as a way to get information out to people in this digital generation as nearly every major group that has a following says to follow it on Twitter for updates.  Twitter is being used today as it was intended to be used, a tool used to connect a lot of different people in different places with the same information in a quick and easy fashion.  The concerns of the critics though, seem to have been realized.  Many people are often concerned with what is going on elsewhere than what is going on around them.  Twitter, a tool of the digital age, has taken away the feeling of being left in the dark but has also taken away the simplicity of life.  Our patience and concentration has quickly become limited as we learn to adapt to the flow of information through the constant updating of Twitter.      

              

iTunes- Weekend assignment

Being a college student in the digital age, online music, illegal downloads, Youtube, music sharing websites and more have consumed our brains with new music, artists, and the latest chart topper at all hours of the day. We listen to music constantly; studying, on the walk to class, getting ready to go out, any college student’s basic daily activities. Apple revolutionized our online music capabilities when iTunes came out in 2001.  Although music was originally available for downloading online in 1993, the demand for digital audio skyrocketed with the launch of iTunes. Being able to download music onto a portable audio player, rather than carrying around Hitclips- a portable player of 30-second clips of top songs- or the infamous Walkman for the latest CD, was the new sensation.

The first article I stumbled upon was written just after the original launch in January 2001; it describes iTunes as a way of transforming music from CD's into mp3 files on your computers hard drive, nothing about mp3 players or transferring the music from your computer and accessing it elsewhere. At its forefront, iTunes wasn't a major player in the music industry, but after the release of the iPod, the capabilities of iTunes continued to grow. An article simply titled "iTunes 1.1" written in June 2001 claimed iTunes as polished and easy to use, not to mention free, but was missing some of the trivial aspects that pricey music downloading applications had already possessed. It let anyone make his or her own playlists from already owned CD’s.

The iTunes Music Store, an online digital media store provided by Apple that came with iTunes, wasn’t opened until 2003, when iTunes made its greatest impact. As the Wall Street Journal called it, “The Birth of (legal) Napster”. An article in the New York Times called it the “first real success story in the long effort to sell music over the Internet”, also recalling Apple as “the new MTV”. However, it mentioned many issues and debates that iTunes could have with the music business and the fact that it only contained songs from major labels. This relationship between Apple and major record labels was kept at peace with copy protection, so the digital music, once bought, could not be traded freely on the Internet. As more people bought music off iTunes, it only continued to expand to what it is today. As of 2012, iTunes possessed a 64 percent share of the market for online music. April of this year, the current CEO stated that iTunes had 800 million user accounts.  Although it’s a seemingly old idea, many competitors have recently arisen in the online music sales department.  In the early articles on iTunes, it mentioned it simply as a way to download music and make playlists, which can be burned onto new CD’s. In recent articles, iTunes is boasted as the top player in the online music industry, used by close to 50% of teens worldwide, whether they have Apple computers or not, iTunes has become a sensation, that doesn’t seam like its going to be beat out by a competitor any time soon.

Nicole Hulick

Modern Information Society - Email

Email is one of the main staples of the information age.  While it may not be as new of a technology as social media sites and messaging apps, it is still an important and useful too for social and professional communication around the world.  In my search for the earliest use of the term "Email" or electronic messaging, it became obvious at how important email was becoming in professional circles.  The New York Times article, from 1993, talked about more about email on the local level, but spoke a lot about its future potential to work on a worldwide scale, across networks.  Email was being seen as an important tool in the economic development of the United States, as it was seen as having the ability to increase productivity.  It also talked heavily on how, because of the importance of email in business, companies such as PC and Microsoft were planning to make email a key feature in all future processing systems produced by their companies.

After searching through articles on ProQuest, Project Muse, and JStor, I found that most articles were very optimistic about the potential impact of email, and the need for firms and individuals to convert to it.  I found an article on ProQuest entitled, "The E-mail Edge", the author expresses the need for companies and firms to convert telecommunication to e-mail as soon as possible.  It talked about the increase in speed and efficiency that e-mail provides, and most importantly the ability to thread and integrated documents, files, and links.  There was however, some criticism about that threat of email, in "The E-mail Edge", the author states "There are times when E-mail isn't the best form of communication to use.  Telephone conversations, for example, are often more comprehensive and convenient."  Overall, when email was first coming on to the scene, it was seen solely as a professional tool to use to increases productivity in firms.  Today, however, it is as much a personal and social tool as a professional one, and still very important to our society.

Weekend Assignment - "Yellow Pages"

                In my search for the earliest use of the term “yellow pages” in scholarly websites and newspaper databases I came across similar information.  The newspaper articles that I found were written in the late 50’s and early 60’s. The New York Times talked about the yellow pages being the nation’s largest advertising medium. The Chicago Tribune also discussed the advertising services that the yellow pages offered with an emphasis on one of the services called “single order service.” This service allowed advertisements to be placed in any directories around the country through one contract. The Los Angeles Times article which was written in 1958 explained the properties of the new version of the yellow pages which was supposed to cater to one million customers.

            An article in ProQuest discussed pregnancy and referenced the yellow pages by saying that the pages contained less than eight listings of clinics that performed abortions back in 1973. Project Muse in contrast explained how some local businesses incorporated religious messages in their advertisements in the yellow pages. Lastly, Jstor described how the yellow pages created a network for subscribers of the yellow pages. In the past, the term yellow pages were mainly used when talking about business advertising and the expansion of networks through them. In comparison to the past, I believe the meaning of the term yellow pages is the same thing as before. However, people don’t use it as often.

Instagram-Weekend Assignment

After looking up Instagram in the three historical newspaper databases, I found information in the New York Times. Instagram was created in 2010 and originally there were some doubts, but as the New York Times article dating back to December 2010 states "We've been amazed with the growth of the service." Although, Instagram hasn't been around for too long, there has been substantial changes in the four years that it has existed. Originally, as stated in the New York Times, people believed Instagram could be used for the wrong purpose. There was belief, that cyber bullying could be an effect of Instagram due to kids' abilities to photo shop these days. However, once Instagram blew up from eight followers to one million rather quickly, people rapidly changed their mind about Instagram's true use. "Users collectively upload three photos a second, and tens of millions of photos have been shared on the service." Although there were small doubts at one point, all of those have diminished. Since the app has been created people have been addicted and not much has changed.

Today, Instagram has more than 200 million monthly users and 75 million users a day. After searching ProQuest, Project Muse, and JStor, I found very similar articles. Each article talked about how impressive Instagram's growth is and its maximal effect on society. An article i found searching on ProQuest called the Instagram Effect not only talks about how Instagram allows people to connect through images and videos, but how it can actually increase one's photography skills. Instagram comes with several settings to adjust the picture you want to post through filters. "The real allure of Instagram was its photo filters and the subsequent rise of filter culture. Filters help us see the world in a new way." Yes, Instagram is addicting, and yes people enjoy posting and looking at other peoples pictures and videos, but its effect on society is deeper than that. Photography and technological skills are improved every day, and this is important as our culture and society continues to evolve.

The way Instagram has been used over the past four years honestly hasn't changed too drastically. Originally, it was looked at as a cool way to share and comment on photos, but was quickly deemed to be more than that. Once the company jumped from 80 users to a million in just a couple months, people new it was the real deal. Whether its improving your photography skills or simply looking at Instagram to keep up with your social circle, Instagram has proven positive effects on society.

Modern Information Society -- Snapchat

     It's the sole reason why my phone dies on a daily basis, but I absolutely love Snapchat. Even though Snapchat is a very new form of communication in the modern information society, I felt as if I had to choose it as my term because it has grown so prominent as a form of communication between young adults in the past few years. When looking up the term "Snapchat" in newspaper databases, I found it absolutely hilarious that so many of the first articles about the "new upcoming app" were so negative, criticizing the app for promoting "sexting". I suppose the idea of Snapchat makes it more successful for people to send provocative pictures, but it's entertaining to see how far away from that idea the use of Snapchat has come (well, at least within my circa of friends and connections). The first article I found was in The New York Times from May of 2012. The writer describes Snapchat as an app that helps "people do things that they probably shouldn't on a smartphone". The oldest article in The Chicago Tribune dates from November in 2012 and is titled "Safer sexting is now a Snap...but still a bad idea". This title certainly doesn't hold back the writer's position on the new app and its features.
     Today, I feel as if the app is mostly looked as a fun and creative way to communicate with your friends in short with the capability of showing off the fun things you are up to without making a permanent status update on Facebook. Comparing the newspaper databases to the scholarly article databases, the scholarly articles are naturally more informative and much less opinionated than the newspaper articles. The scholarly articles on Project Muse and ProQuest were posted much later than the newspaper articles, dating back in August and December of 2013. They basically both discuss the rapid changes in communication in the last years and the statistics on how much less communication is done through print sources, such as the letter. It's interesting to read all the different opinions on the use of social medias, such as Snapchat. Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions and thoughts; however, the age of communication through sources such as Snapchat is here and remaining strong, and there's not much that the haters can do about it.