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  A Complicated Legacy: The Life of David Donald Spivey David Spivey - Wilmington High School Yearbook 1965 I wrote this blog post as a part of an assignment for my Historical Professions course at Liberty University. The assignment tasked students to explore some aspect of their family history, ideally the goal being to use genealogical sources and to share some either interesting or uplifting message. For my post, I have chosen to write about my maternal grandfather, David Donald Spivey, or Papa as I called him growing up. For this post, I have utilized records from ancestry.com , obituaries, family stories, and personal memories of a man whose legacy is not only significant to those of us in his family, but is also a representation of the struggles and pain that an entire generation of veterans experienced after their service in Vietnam. David Donald Spivey was born on September 26, 1947, in Joliet, Illinois, to Donald and Evelyn Spivey. He was the first of two sons that Donald ...
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  Early American Separation of Church and State Early America is often portrayed as a land of religious freedom, a land where people came to escape being persecuted on the basis of their faith. However, a closer look and analysis into early American Christianity shows us that this early religious freedom was limited; not every faith was included in those sentiments and those who lacked any faith or religious affiliation were viewed as a threat to the moral fiber of America. There are many events throughout American history that can showcase this, the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials, the persecution of Quakers in Puritan New England, and more. These strong Christian views that often led to the persecution of those who differed also made it a challenge to truly separate legal and political aspects of American life from Christianity. An example of this can be seen in “The relations of Christianity to law and the legal profession: a discourse” published by Reverend Ebenezer Platt ...
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  Keynesianism: Rise & Close of The Great Depression Abstract The Great Depression left a legacy on the role of the government in economics; it was a dark period in United States and global history that people have strived to avoid reoccurring. It was a severe economic downturn that had both national and global implications; it consisted of a period of widespread unemployment and poverty as well as the collapse of international trade and by some is considered to have led to the outbreak of World War II. It has become a fascinating subject for both historians and economists alike and both have questioned if we can analyze the causes for both the beginning and end of the depression and make parallels to the economy today in order to prevent a future economic catastrophe from occurring again. One of the largest reasons for this fascination, as Robert Samuelson points out in the article “Revisiting the Great Depression”, is that “there is no precise definition of a depression [...
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 Henry Ford: Early Nineteenth Century Economic Influence Abstract It is nearly impossible to discuss the evolution of industry and economics in the early nineteenth century without mentioning Henry Ford, best known for pioneering the assembly line and creating and making the Model-T a mass-produced vehicle that became available to the masses. Not only did Ford have a profound economic influence on industry, but he fundamentally changed the way that people lived through, as put by Vincent Curcio, his “democratization of prosperity.” [1] Ford found new ways to improve materials, make products that were enjoyed by all, even the working-class people who produced them, and strived to create a living wage that was not only a benefit to those earning it but to the company employing them as well.   Ford Motor Company The Ford Motor Company was started in 1903, the company was capitalized at $150,000 which was divided amongst 15,000 shares [2] of which Ford owned twenty-five ...
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The Effect of Emancipation and Sharecropping on the Tennessee and South Carolina Economies

  Abstract: This discussion will provide a narrative history that discusses the development and growing necessity of the sharecropping system in the postbellum South. The discussion will focus specifically on sharecropping in the states of Tennessee and South Carolina and the economic reasons for the shift as well as the economic impact of both emancipation and the development of the sharecropping system on these two states. It will also look at the racial aspect of sharecropping, with many historians viewing the development of the system as a way to keep freedmen oppressed and perpetuate a system of racism in the South. Looking at the development of the sharecropping system and the impacts on the economy help to gain an understanding of the overall economic impacts of emancipation. Narrowing the scope of this discussion to primarily look at two specific states provides a more in depth and specific understanding but also allows a comparison to understand if these impacts were the...
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