The Crisis
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==Introduction== | ==Introduction== | ||
| − | This magazine is a direct representation of the varying struggles that African-Americans went through in the early 20th century. Through the issues that the Modernist Journals Project offers, we can see the | + | ===Rationale=== |
| + | This magazine is a direct representation of the varying struggles that African-Americans went through in the early 20th century. Through the issues that the Modernist Journals Project offers, we can see the how African Americans went through life during the early 1900s. With World War 1 and women's suffrage going on during this time, the main focus of this magazine was to share different stories of African-Americans. This magazine is illustrated through editorial articles, opinion-based essays, detailed pictures, or drawings in the earlier years, and even the advertisements found at the end of every issue. | ||
| + | We will investigate the different sections of these issues and look into which of these two social situations has more of an impact into the daily life of African-Americans of this time. | ||
| − | + | ===Method=== | |
| − | == | + | We will consider the suffrage movement and World War 1 through a timeline of specific issues of the magazines, to see where in time the two concepts differ. Then, we will use a mapping tool to grasp how soldiers perceived the war. Also, through close readings we will gain a better understanding of how people of this time are taking the varying influences that the two movements are having on society. Lastly, we will utilize Voyant tools to see within the magazine, which individual words involved in both concepts caused a trend of usage. With this webpage, and through investigation of the issues of The Crisis offered on the Modernist Journals Project, we hope to answer the question of whether women's suffrage or World War 1 had more of an effect on African Americans. |
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==Timeline== | ==Timeline== | ||
| + | ===Summary=== | ||
| + | Within the issues of The Crisis that The Modernist Journals offers, there are many specific and important events going on in the United States. These dates include those involving World War 1 and Women's Sufferage. And to clarify the relevance of these events within the magazine, we made a timeline of several different issues of The Crisis that directly comment on these themes. | ||
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| + | ===Graph=== | ||
| + | <html><iframe src='https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1xRHGzOJorKv-fp6Kc11X8l-RU9wSTD4N84GRmlRfUQU&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650' width='100%' height='650' webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen frameborder='0'></iframe> | ||
| + | </html> | ||
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| + | ==Map== | ||
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| + | Some African-American soldiers had little to no education during the startup of World War I. These soldiers who lived in Georgia thought that the battles were taking place only miles outside of Atlanta. They did not know of other countries such as Germany or France, and some did not even know of New York. This map points out where they thought the battles were taking place and places that they did not know about prior to World War I. | ||
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| + | <html><iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/embed?mid=1lxNh3Xc07nvtHc1zHrK_IV13uvM" width="1325" height="750"></iframe></html> | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Map Key=== | ||
| + | Blue marker - Where African-American soldiers thought the battle(s) were taking place | ||
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| + | Red marker - Places the soldiers were told about, but had not heard of prior to being drafted into the war | ||
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| + | Green marker - Significant battles that took place during World War I | ||
==Close Readings== | ==Close Readings== | ||
| − | ===Volume 1, Number 1=== | + | In order to truly understand how the war and political conflicts of this time are changing the lives of African Americans, we must take a closer look at the magazines that involve World War 1 and Women's Suffrage. Below are summaries of the important articles within the magazines that we placed on the timeline and how they play a role in our investigation of these topics in The Crisis. |
| − | "The object of this publication is to set forth those facts and arguments which show the clanger of race prejudice, particularly as manifested today toward colored people." This is the first line of Editorial Article in the first issue of this magazine, and it very clearly detects what is to be expected from all future volumes. The motive behind "The Crisis" is one which is particularly fragile at the beginning of the 20th century, and this magazine is arguably necessary as a way of communicating the overall state of racial discrimination that the country was in. For example, | + | |
| + | ===[http://library.brown.edu/cds/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=1274705002750000&view=pageturner '''Volume 1, Number 1'''] - November, 1910=== | ||
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| + | "The object of this publication is to set forth those facts and arguments which show the clanger of race prejudice, particularly as manifested today toward colored people." This is the first line of Editorial Article in the first issue of this magazine, and it very clearly detects what is to be expected from all future volumes. The motive behind "The Crisis" is one which is particularly fragile at the beginning of the 20th century, and this magazine is arguably necessary as a way of communicating the overall state of racial discrimination that the country was in. For example, in the magazine it is stated that it was not right to let African-Americans vote without being educated, since "the colored people should have been educated first, and then gradually emancipated. It was a mistake to set them free untutored and helpless." This, along with other opinions, illustrated the turmoil that society was in, over racial inclusion in society; which was played into when it came time to bring our country into the first World War. | ||
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| + | ===[http://library.brown.edu/cds/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=130556752178129&view=pageturner '''Volume 4, Number 1'''] - May, 1912=== | ||
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| + | Within this issue there is a key article about voting during the 1910s. Under the "Along The Colored Line" section, the magazine investigates the different policies of voting in varying areas of the United States, some of which involves gender. For example the article states, " The legislature of Delaware has apparently nullified the United States Constitution in the town of Georgetown by making qualified voters of every white MALE citizen of said town who shall have attained the age of 21 years and is a taxpayer." Here both women and colored people were not allowed to vote, which puts both social groups behind the same motive, the right to vote. | ||
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| + | ===[http://library.brown.edu/cds/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=1305564118640627&view=pageturner '''Volume 4, Number 2'''] - June, 1912=== | ||
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| + | This magazine directly considers the concept of women suffrage and how it is affected by race. The President of the Women's Suffrage Movement, Anna Shaw, mentioned "Our association does not recognize either Negro blood or white blood; what we stand for is the demand for equal political rights for women with men, and we know no distinction of race." And throughout this issue there are other themes of inequality on both the concepts of gender and of race. | ||
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| + | ===[http://library.brown.edu/cds/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=1302703472562502&view=pageturner '''Volume 9, Number 3'''] - January, 1915=== | ||
| + | This issue was published at the start of World War 1; as pointed out within the timeline, included within the magazine is an illustration by "The New York Herald" that depicts the Battle of Marne in France. The story behind the photo was that the Germans at the time were invading France and advancing toward Paris, but the French, allied with the British Expeditionary Force, decided to intervene before they could get there. As the caption below the picture put it, "after many had been slain on both sides the Germans retreated." This relates to our overall thesis in that the illustration was the initial mentioning of the war in "The Crisis", and many more were to follow. | ||
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| + | ===[http://library.brown.edu/cds/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=1288962204868875&view=pageturner '''Volume 11, Number 5'''] - March, 1916=== | ||
| + | This particular issue is one that contained the most occurrences of the word "war." It has many different anecdotes that describe how the war effected people all over the world. One specific story that was printed was one of a girl in Paris, France who had watched many black soldiers march down their streets. She explained, "I had but one fear for them, and that was that they might become demoralized by the example set by some of our highly civilized friends..." Here she is sharing that she is afraid of how African-American soldiers will become effected by the actions of prejudice white people of this time, or how their lives will change after the war. | ||
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| + | ===[http://library.brown.edu/cds/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=129294798430500&view=pageturner '''Volume 16, Number 2'''] - June, 1918=== | ||
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| + | [http://library.brown.edu/cds/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=129294798430500&view=pageturner&pageno=8 '''Our First Great Tragedy of the War'''] | ||
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| + | One particular article in this issue talks about how uneducated some African American soldiers were when they were called in to war. Those who were in Georgia thought that the war was only miles away from Atlanta, but didn't even know that Atlanta was the capital of Georgia. Not only this, but they did not know any countries that the war was taking place in, or even what the war was about. This ties in to how African Americans dealt with the war and what their expectations were. | ||
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| + | ===[http://library.brown.edu/cds/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=1292951667108625&view=pageturner '''Volume 17, Number 2'''] - December, 1918=== | ||
| + | Within this issue there is an overall theme of patriotism, with the inclusion of the song manuscript for "America the Beautiful" and many articles revolved around an overall sense of love for the United States. The positive feeling that is evident is most likely an effect of the ending of World War 1, this had most citizens in good spirits. One soldier still in France at this time sent in a letter to "The Crisis" that ended on a good note with "colored America has more than justified the hopes of those who have always believed in it, and more than earned all that we have demanded for it. I take off my hat to the courage and devoted patriotism of black men in this war." | ||
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| + | ===[http://library.brown.edu/cds/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=1307029316296877&view=pageturner '''Volume 25, Number 2'''] - December, 1922=== | ||
| + | The last issue that is available in the Modernist Journals Project was published in December of 1922, and interestingly enough it ties together a lot of the themes found within the entire magazine as a whole. One woman wrote to the magazine with, "I believe ignorance is the main trouble with white people now. Of course it is criminal ignorance. For myself I can only say 'I did not know,' otherwise I should have been long ago doing all in my power to bring about justice for all." She pin points the overall goal of "The Crisis" with spreading an understanding of what it is like to be an African-American at this time, with the war and all other global event. | ||
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| + | ==Text Mining== | ||
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| + | ===Summary=== | ||
| + | To further our examination of how these themes are tangled into the many issues of The Crisis, we used the Text Mining Tool to see which specific words are used more' those that may be used when discussing World War 1 or those used within conversations about Women's Suffrage. The individual words we chose were "war" and "draft," as they may be evident in consideration of the war, and "women" and "vote," which are obviously necessary to the understanding of this movement. | ||
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| + | ====War==== | ||
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| + | After a few months from the start of World War I, the shift of this magazine went from talking about daily struggles for African Americans in a broad sense to talking about how the war was affecting these people. Many people had to leave their families behind, some did not even know what the war was about or where it was taking place. This was one of the most used words in this magazine. | ||
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| + | <html><iframe style='width: 49%; height: 400px' src='//voyant-tools.org/?query=war&bins=100&corpus=1351006670332.4242&view=Trends'></iframe></html> | ||
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| + | ====Draft==== | ||
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| + | Draft ties in closely with war. This spiked around the same time that the word 'war' did. This time frame was roughly late 1914 and early 1915. | ||
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| + | <html><iframe style='width: 49%; height: 400px' src='//voyant-tools.org/?query=draft*&bins=100&corpus=1351006670332.4242&view=Trends'></iframe></html> | ||
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| + | ====Women==== | ||
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| + | The term 'women' ties in directly with Women's suffrage. This term was used consistently throughout the magazine, but it was used in a different way after the end of World War I when the focus shifted once again. This time it shifted to Women's suffrage. | ||
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| + | <html><iframe style='width: 49%; height: 400px' src='//voyant-tools.org/?stopList=stop.en.taporware.txt&query=women&withDistributions=raw&bins=100&corpus=1351006670332.4242&view=Trends'></iframe></html> | ||
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| + | ====Vote==== | ||
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| + | 'Vote' plays an important role in both inequality all together and Women's suffrage. Originally, the focus was on allowing equal voting rights for all African Americans. African American men were given these rights before the creation of this magazine; however, they did not fully get treated the same way when they went to vote. Many went to a designated polling place and were discriminated against and not allowed to vote. In 1920, women were granted the right to vote in the 19th amendment. | ||
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| + | <html><iframe style='width: 49%; height: 400px' src='//voyant-tools.org/?stopList=stop.en.taporware.txt&query=vote&withDistributions=raw&bins=100&corpus=1351006670332.4242&view=Trends'></iframe></html> | ||
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| + | ====Closer Look==== | ||
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| + | After comparing the terms "amendment", "vote", and "women", their trends spike around the exact same time. | ||
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| + | <html> | ||
| + | <iframe style='width: 100%; height: 400px' src='//voyant-tools.org/?stopList=stop.en.taporware.txt&query=amendment*&query=vote*&query=women*&corpus=18a5cf1225c6141837902f3e4bb35c15&view=CorpusTerms'></iframe></html> | ||
==Conclusion== | ==Conclusion== | ||
| + | Through various reading strategies, we were able to see how this magazine related to African-Americans at this time period and how the authors illustrated the influence of World War 1 and the strategies of the Women's Suffrage Movement to everyday citizens. The timeline and Voyant tools helped us dissect different qualities of these issues, from the occurrence of specific war or voting related words, to an overall chronological organization of specific events. To conclude our investigation and answer the question of whether the war or political stance of women's right to vote had more of an effect on African American's, through the above procedures, the Women's Suffrage Movement is more prevalent within The Crisis. | ||
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| + | ==Resources== | ||
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| + | "19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women's Right to Vote (1920)." Our Documents - 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women's Right to Vote (1920). Web. 17 Apr. 2017. | ||
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| + | "Battle of Rufiji Delta." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Mar. 2017. Web. 01 May 2017. | ||
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| + | "Battle of Tanga." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Mar. 2017. Web. 01 May 2017. | ||
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| + | "Battle of the Somme." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Apr. 2017. Web. 01 May 2017. | ||
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| + | "Battle of Verdun." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Apr. 2017. Web. 01 May 2017. | ||
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| + | "First Battle of the Marne." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Apr. 2017. Web. 01 May 2017. | ||
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| + | "Gallipoli Campaign." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Apr. 2017. Web. 01 May 2017. | ||
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| + | Knight Lab. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2017, from https://timeline.knightlab.com/ | ||
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| + | University, B., & University, T. (n.d.). The Modernist Journals Project [Scholarly project]. In The Modernist Journals Project. Retrieved April 17, 2017, from http://modjourn.org/render.php?view=mjp_object&id=crisiscollection | ||
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| + | Voyant Tools. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2017, from http://docs.voyant-tools.org/tools/ | ||
