NHD Annotation #1

1. Forgotten Origins. Uncle Sam. September 24, 2008. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/SAM/sam.htm

2.Most people don’t know that that the character “Uncle Sam” was based on an actual person. If some people do know it was based on someone, they would date it back to the twentieth century, when it is really dated further back. Uncle Sam dates back to the War of 1812. At the time of the War in 1812, there was a need for a new symbolic symbol, which had faded from the Revolutionary War. The character Uncle Sam was based on a man names Samuel Wilson. He was born in Massachusetts, but then settles in Troy, New York. He moved to Troy with his brother, Ebenezer, which was where they started the firm E & S Wilson. It was through that where they got the contracts from the War of 1812 that gave Uncle Sam Wilson his popularity. One of the contracts had to deal with they supply of meats for the Army. On the side of the barrel on the rations of meat where it said U.S., someone related the U.S to “Uncle Sam”, who they all knew was feeding the army.

It was hard to trace the popular cartoon character back to Sam Wilson, but his great- and great-great nephews confirmed it. There were many versions of his character, but the final version came about in 1917 by James Montgomery Flagg. It was the popular “I Want You” version that was to recruit citizens into the Army. Even though there are many versions, this is the standard one.

3. This article was helpful to me because it tells who Uncle Sam was connected to and when it was originated. The intended audience was whoever wants to read about the character of Uncle Sam.

NHD

I choose Uncle Sam for my NHD project because I am interested in why the government is represented by the symbol of him. 

This person is important to history because without their efforts, our country wouldn't have a symbol for the government or the symbol for the army. 

For this week's research, I found an article at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/SAM/sam.htm. I will read and summarize it for next week.

Service Learning

Service Learning is when students volunteer to do community service to help their school, neighborhood, city, state, country, or world. I would hep my community by raising money for breast cancer, by helping old people, or by tutoring little kids. 

Political Issues

I feel a lot of issues are important. One issue I feel is important is healthcare. Obama feels that everyone needs healthcare. If he is elected, he plans on making sure that every American that doesn't have healthcare is going to get it. He also wants to lower costs and make it affordable for people, and provide subsidies to people who can't afford it. He wants small business owners to provide healthcare plans for their employers, which he also thinks would lower costs.

McCain, on the other hand, wants to privatize health insurance. He doesn't want business owners to provide healthcare plans. There would still be some who would, but it would become more rare to see. He says that he would give $5000 to every family and $2500 to every individual in refundable tax credits. He states that once you get that, you can go to any place in America to go buy health insurance.

From what I've researched, I saw that healthcare prices have risen a lot in the past few years. This is the reason why 47 million Americans don't have it. I agree more with Obama's view, which is why I would support him. He believes everyone is deserving of healthcare, so he would make sure everyone has it. I believe the same thing he does about the whole issue.

How Technology Has Changed In My Lifetime.

Technology has changed quite a bit in my lifetime. One example would have to be computers. They weren't that advanced when I was young. I remember them going from Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, all the way to Windows Vista. They now have portable computers called laptops. Cell phones have gotten a lot smaller with more features on them such as the internet and GPS. Listening to music has changed too. Instead of CD's, we use devices with memory such as things called MP3 Players and IPods. Televisions can be HD, have On Demand, an they're bigger and have flat screens. Video games systems have changed. When I was little they had Nintendo 64 and Sega. Now, they have so many others with realistic graphics such as XBox, Playstation, and Wii.