Archive for category Education Articles
The American Civil War – Ends in 1865
Many recall the playing of “Dixie,” the standard-bearer of the white South, on the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, during the 1960s; this city is where many of the worst and most violent Civil Rights Movement protests occurred. The South was preoccupied with their deep losses during the Civil War. This preoccupation was not unlike that of Nazi Germany, after Germany’s deep losses during WWI, before the Nazis were even formed. Largely, like the Nazis, the pre-Civil War South had severe economic problems. Seven immigrants out of eight from other countries settled into the northern United States, and twice as many whites left the South for the North as the ones heading in the other direction.
There were deep-seated controversies over adding the slave state of Missouri to the Union, the acquisition of Texas as a slave state in 1845, and Manifest Destiny being used as an argument for gaining new territories where slavery would become an issue, which mostly occurred after the much less devastating Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. Meanwhile, the extremely popular anti-slavery novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 helped increase northern opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which was designed to recapture escapees.
About the American Red Cross
On May 21, 1881, Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross (ARC). She had first heard of the International Red Cross while visiting Europe following the American Civil War. Helping during that terrible struggle, she realized the need for a society to help in aiding soldiers wounded in battle.
This need first began during the Crimean War of 1854 on the battlefields of the Crimea with an English nurse named, Florence Nightingale. She noticed the appalling conditions wounded men were subjected to and especially the unsanitary practices of the physicians. Soon her early efforts would evolve into the International Red Cross.
African Engineers: Great Americans in Ghana
Recent articles by this author have recorded the best and the worst of American involvement in the work of the Technology Consultancy Centre (TCC) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. In the case of the black Texan sailor, Frank Robertson, it would be impossible to exaggerate his enormous contribution to the installation and start-up of the Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit (ITTU) in Tamale, capital of the Northern Region. Frank Robertson will be long remembered by the community he served so well, whereas his successor, Jim Connell (not his real name), could live to regret the tarnish he caused to the hard-won reputation of American development aid. On balance though, it must be said that the majority of Americans involved in this work made essential contributions to the projects of the TCC and the ITTUs, and many Ghanaian engineers and artisans benefitted greatly from their technical skills and wise counsel.
Most of the Americans who helped the TCC were members of the United States Peace Corps. The pioneer was Sydney Cunningham who joined the programme in the early 1970s when all was in its infancy. This was a time when the TCC was struggling to gain recognition and win overseas support for its work, and the early support of the Peace Corps was greatly appreciated and helped to encourage everyone involved. Sydney joined a small team of engineers which established a workshop on the KNUST campus to demonstrate new manufacturing technologies to the informal-sector artisans of Suame Magazine. The work involved building small-scale plants for producing palm oil, caustic soda, soap and paper glue. This was a time of experimentation, both in terms of technology and technology transfer, when mistakes were made and lessons learned. For the engineers on the shop floor, like Sydney, there must have been many frustrations that even an after-hours swim in the university’s beautiful Olympic-size pool could only partially abate.