John Davison Rockefeller was born the second of six children to a working class family in Richford, New York. In 1853, his family moved to a farm in Strongsville, Ohio, near Cleveland. He attend a public education, but left high school to take business training.

In 1855, Rockefeller found his first job, working as an assistant bookkeeper for less than four dollars a week. He was very good at the job from the beginning. He had great talent, detail and showed hard work. In 1859, Rockefeller’s diligence was rewarded by being made a partner.

In that same year, oil was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The demand for oil, at this time, came mostly from the demand for kerosene, that was used  for lighting. Although Rockefeller became interested in the oil business, he did not like the risky investors called wildcatters.

Rockefeller created a refining business with Maurice B. Clark and other partners in 1863. Cleveland, became the main refining place because of the Great Lakes access and rail service and the many workers from other countries.  Rockefeller started the Standard Oil Company with his brother William, Henry M. Flagler, and Samuel Andrews in 1870.

Standard Oil quickly controlled the refining business in the Cleveland area and then into Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York City. Standard Oil began to take over the oil business and by 1882 it was the largest oil monopoly. Rockefeller became the world’s richest man and the first American to be worth over one billion dollars. Ten years later, the Supreme court ruled to divide his company up into 20 smaller companies. By this time, Rockefeller retired.

In the last 26 years of his life, Rockefeller spent his time as a philanthropist, giving to the needy. Rockefeller created many foundations which influenced medicine, education and scientific research.  Medical research from one of these foundations helped to eliminate hookworm and yellow fever. Rockefeller also founded the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University.

Being a devoted Baptist, Rockefeller supported many religious groups. He regularly attended and was very involved with the Erie Street Mission Baptist Church. Rockefeller believed that his religion was the reason for his wealth. JD Rockefeller arteriosclerosis on May 23, 1937 at his home in Ormond Beach, Florida.  This was two months before his 98th birthday.

Bibliography

John D. Rockefeller; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

J.D. Rockefeller;  http://www.u-s-history.com

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. He was the last of the seven children of Samuel and Nancy Edison. He later had scarlet fever causing him to have hearing problems in both ears. This would later leave him almost deaf as an adult. In 1854, the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. There, Edison attended public school for a total of 12 weeks. His teacher called him difficult since he was a very hyper child. His mother quickly pulled him from school and taught him at home. When he was 11, he started to have a big interest in learning and read lots of books. This independent learning would help him throwout life.

At age 12, Edison set out to work. He convinced his parents to let him sell newspapers to passengers at the Grand Trunk Railroad line.  Later, Thomas began writing and publishing publishing his own small newspaper, called the Grand Trunk Herald. The up-to-date articles were a hit to passengers. This was the start of a successful carrier. Edison also used his access to the railroad to conduct chemical experiments in a small laboratory he set up in a train baggage car. During one of his experiments, a fire started and the car caught fire. He then was kicked off the train and forced to sell his newspapers at stations along the route.

At the railroad, a tragic event turned out to help Thomas. When Edison saved a 3-year-old from being run over by a train, the father rewarded him by teaching him to operate a telegraph. By age 15, he had learned enough to be employed as a telegraph operator. For the next five years, Edison traveled throughout the Midwest as an moving telegrapher. He also subbed for telegraphers who had gone to the Civil War. When he’s not telegraphing, he read widely, studied and experimented with telegraph technology, and became familiar with electrical science.

In 1866, 19 year old Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, working for The Associated Press. In 1868, Edison returned home to find his mother had mental illness and his father was out of work. Edison then realized he needed to take control of his future. He went to Boston, and got a job for the Western Union Company. At the time, Boston was all about science and culture. So, Thomas designed and patented an electronic voting recorder for quickly tallying votes in the legislature, but the lawmakers were not interested. They didn’t want tallying quickly so the voters could change their mind.

In 1869, Edison moved to New York City and made his first invention, an improved stock ticker, the Universal Stock Printer. The Gold and Stock Telegraph Company was so impressed, they paid him $40,000 when Edison was only 22 years old. With this amazing success, he quit working as a telegrapher to devote himself full-time to inventing.

In 1871, with all his financial success,  Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell, who was an employee at one of his businesses. During their 13-year marriage, they had three children, Marion, Thomas and William, who became an inventor. Mary sadly died of a suspected brain tumor at the age of 29 in 1884.

The 1880s were a very busy time for Thomas Edison. After being granted a patent for the light bulb in January 1880, Edison set out to develop a company that would deliver the electricity to power and light the cities of the world. That same year, Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company which later became the General Electric Corporation. In 1881, he left Menlo Park to establish facilities in several cities where electrical systems were being installed.

Through 1881 and 1931, Thomas Edison did lots of things. He provided 110 volts of electrical power to 59 customers in lower Manhattan, married Mina Miller, and built an industrial research laboratory in West Orange. He also perfected the phonograph, and developed the motion picture camera and the alkaline storage battery. During the 1890s, he built a magnetic iron-ore processing plant that proved to be a commercial failure. On April 23, 1896, Edison became the first person to project a motion picture, holding the world’s first motion picture screening at Koster & Bial’s Music Hall in New York City. He was asked by the U.S. government During World War I, to examine inventions submitted for military use. He invented things only for defense not killing. He later noted,  “I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.”

By the end of the 1920s, Thomas Edison was in his 80s and he slowed down a little, but applied his last 1,093 U.S. patents. He spent the winter with his wife in Fort Myers, Florida.    There he worked on projects like electric trains and finding a domestic source for natural rubber.

Thomas Edison sadly died of diabetes on October 18, 1931, in his home, in West Orange, New Jersey. He was 84 years old.

Bibliography

                                             Thomas Edison; http://www.biography.com

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, in New York City, to Martha Bulloch and Theodore Roosevet, who was Dutch. His family owned a successful plate-glass import business.

As a young boy, Theodore, who was known to his family members as “Teddie”, was home-schooled due to his sicknesses and asthma. This gave him the opportunity to take care of animals, his passion. In his teens, with the encouragement of his dad, Theodore started hobbies that included weightlifting and boxing. Soon, Teddie entered Harvard College.

When his father died during his second year at Harvard College, Roosevelt’s sadness made him want to work even harder: After graduating magna cum laude in 1880, he enrolled at Columbia Law School. Later he got married to Alice Hathaway Lee from Massachusetts.

Roosevelt didn’t stay very long at law school. Instead, he joined the New York State Assembly as a representative from New York City. He then became the youngest to serve in that position. Not long after, Roosevelt was standing as lots of public service positions. That included captain of the National Guard and minority leader of the New York Assembly.

Sadly, the deaths of his mother and his wife, which occurred on February 14, 1884, made Roosevelt to leave for the Dakota Territory for two years. There, he lived as a cowboy and cattle rancher, leaving his baby daughter in the care of his older sister.

In 1886, he returned to politics, but didnt get the job as the New York City mayorship. Around the same time, he married his second wife, Edith Kermit Carow, who he had known as a child. They even had watched the funeral of Abraham Lincoln, as kids, from a window in his grandfather’s house on Union Square in New York City. Roosevelt soon resumed to his career,  first as a civil service commissioner, then as a New York City police commissioner and Assistant U.S. Navy Secretary under President William McKinley.

McKinley was going to be president and have Roosevelt be vice president. However, after his re-election in 1901, President McKinley was assassinated, making Roosevelt the president. At age 42, Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest man to run as the U.S. president.

Roosevelt soon got an interest in the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt left his government jobs to organize a volunteer cavalry known as the Rough Riders, which he led in a charge up San Juan Hill in the Battle of San Juan Heights, in 1898. In 1898, Roosevelt was elected governor after being named a war hero and nominated for the Medal of Honor.

After being a war hero, governor, youngest president and a Assistant U.S. Navy Secretary, he had lots more jobs and  journeys, but he soon came to his death. When Teddy Roosevelt was young, doctors discovered that he had a weak heart, and told him to get a desk job and not strain himself. However, he lived a more active life than most. Outside of his political career, Roosevelt published more than 25 books about history, biology, geography and philosophy.  Roosevelt sadly died January 6, 1919.

The Lorax

In this post, I will be reviewing the movie The Lorax! I have choosing this movie to review because it’s favorite movie. I love the lesson in The Lorax, which was teaching everybody what will happen if people cut down trees. I love the Lorax’s mustaste and the cute, puffy, Truffula Trees. I chose this movie because it’s my favorite movie and I want to show everybody how great it is.

The Lorax was written by Dr. Seuss and was directors were Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda. The settings took place in Theensdavile and the Truffula Tree forest. The main characters in The Lorax were, the Lorax( Danny DeVito), Ted(Zac Efron), Audrey (Taylor Swift), Once-ler ( Ed Helms), and O’Hare (Rob Riggie).

The summary of this movie is when Ted, who was a 12-year old boy, wanted to impress Audrey, the girl he likes. He learns that all Audrey ever wanted to see was a real Truffula Tree. Since they lived in Theendsville, a town completely made out of plastic, he had to travel out of the town to learn the story of the Once-ler and the Lorax. The story was about how there used to be tons of trees everywhere until the Once-ler cut them down. If he was lucky enough, he might just get the last seed of the last tree.

I really liked this movie because, first of all, who doesn’t like Dr. Seuss?! I liked how they had a good lesson in the movie. Everything was super cute and pretty until someone cut it down. Even animals had to leave their beautiful home. If it wasn’t for Audrey and Ted, the world might of been entirely made out of artificial, plastic things. This movie over all had a very valuable lesson.

The only thing I could think of that I didn’t like about the movie The Lorax, was one thing in the plot.  I didn’t really like that most of the movie was a story getting told.

The Lorax is rated PG, and has mild language. It has the rating of three star but… ITS A GREAT MOVIE! Kids will love The Lorax and I highly recommend you to see this great movie!

Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish American industrialist, was born on November 25, 1835. His mom ,Marget, and dad, William, were both weavers.  They lived in a small house in Dunfermline, Fife.  A few years later his brother, Thomas, was born. After about a decade of living in Scotland, the family had plans to move to America. At the age of 13, in 1848, Carnegie came to the United States with his mother, father, and brother. They lived in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and Andrew went to work in a factory, earning $1.20 a week

The next year ,in 1849, he found a job as a telegraph messenger. In 1851, he moved up to a telegraph operator, hoping to advance his career. Two years later, he took a job at the Pennsylvania Railroad. He worked as the assistant and telegrapher to Thomas Scott, one of the railroad’s top officials. He had lots of experience with railroads from all of these jobs so three years later, Carnegie was promoted to superintendent.

While working for the railroad, Andrew began making investments. He made very wise investments and got back a lot of money, especially from the investments in oil. In 1865, he left the railroad jobs to focus on his other business, the Keystone Bridge Company.

By the next decade, most of Carnegie’s time was dedicated to the steel industry. His business, which became known as the Carnegie Steel Company, which was for steel production in the United States. Through his business, he became a very wealthy man.     In 1901, Carnegie made a dramatic change in his life. He sold his business to the United States Steel Corporation. The sale gave him more than $200 million.

At the age of 65, Carnegie decided to spend the rest of his days helping others. He used his money to build libraries and buildings.Andrew, a reader for much of his life, donated approximately $5 million to the New York Public Library in 1910.

Andrew Carnegie later died on August 11, 1919, at the age of 83. He had died of Bronchial Pnemonia.

If I were President of the United States, I would make things fair. There would be no homeless people anymore because I would give them jobs. If they couldn’t make enough money to buy a house, I would give them either a better job, or enough money. I would make laws to make people more generous. There would be no stressful jobs and everyone would be paid better.  With better paying jobs, nobody would be able to not buy food, clothes, and a house.

If I were the President of the United States, I would make the world a better place. First of all there would be a HUGE law against littering. There would be tons of jobs to pick up trash. I would make the jobs that pick of litter would get a very good money. They would be one of the highest paying jobs, just because they would make the world a prettier place. Also, I would make all the wires underground. That would would make less wires fall down in storms when trees fall down. Wires underground would be so nice. You wouldn’t have to look at ugly wires above you. Another thing I would do to make the world prettier, would plant flowers and trees every where. There would be wide sidewalks and green grass along it. Also trees would be making a making an pretty little archway over streets.

If I was the President of the United States, there would be a law against alcohol. With that, there would be less accidents on the street. Also this causes a lot of people to go crazy, so this way the world would be a better place. That what’s I’d do if I was the president of the United States.

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It has been said that the Viking Explorer, Leif Ericson started the Norwegian Immigration to America. He is regarded by many as the first European of Norwegian decent to have visited North America. Leif did this almost 500 years before Christopher Columbus. In 1002, Leif Ericson set up a Viking colony in modern-day Canada. After this, the main immigration waves started in the 1800’s.

In 1825, the first big wave of Norwegian immigration to America started by a group of Lutheran Quakers who wanted religious freedom. Then, between 1861 and 1865, an even larger group of Norwegians moved to America after the Civil War caused trouble with many crops . The final major wave of Norwegian immigration happened between 1880 and 1890 because of more jobs and faster travel during the Industrialization of America.

Before this during the 1600’s, the Norwegians supplied the Dutch with wood to build their ships. Because they had this alliance, many Norwegians came to America in Dutch ships and settled in New Netherland with many other Dutch people. New Netherland is now known as the states New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware. This was the first small immigration of Norwegians to America.

During the 1800’s, potato was the most important crop in Norway. A potato disease called the Potato Blight caused hunger and disease killing about 50,000 Norwegians. Some Norwegians escaped to America. Because immigration was expensive, some Norwegians had to sign contracts to become servants for 5-7 years.

By the 1900’s the Norwegians immigration decreased because of the Immigration Act of 1924.  After that, only a few thousand Norwegians immigrated to America. This number has remained the same to this day;

In this essay, I will be talking about how my ancestors came to America. Bill and Karem Smith are my parents. On my mother’s side, my grandmother, named Doris Petersen migrated from Bogota, Colombia in South America to California in 1965. She speaks Spanish and English. My grandfather, John Petersen, was born in Minnesota, USA and moved to California in 1948. My grandma’s mom, Blanca Tatar, also migrated from Colombia in 1953. Her husband, Abdelazis Tatar died in Colombia. On my grandpa John’s side his father, Lars, came from Denmark on a boat to New York in 1891 and wrote his name on the Ellis Island Wall of Honor. John Petersen’s mother, Antoinette migrated from Germany in 1901.

On my father’s side, his mother, Ginny Saltus was born in Massachusetts and moved to California in 1975 with Page Saltus, They had my father, and my two uncles, Jeff and Darren. Ginny’s Mother, Doris Johnson was born and raised in Massachusetts. Her parents migrated from Ireland. My grandpa, Page Smith was born and raised in Connecticut. His father was named William Smith (My father was named after him.) and his parents were from England. His mother was always called “Nana” and no one remembers her name.

Through this essay, I have learned that my ancestors came from many countries. These were England, Colombia, Denmark and Germany.  That means I am British, South American and European. Yay!  I’m amazing!

STOP LITTERING!!!                               

Do you care about your environment?  Well hopefully you do. The environment is where you, your family, friends, and animals live. It’s also where we get food and water from. The water we drink is getting polluted. Also, the air is getting dirtier and dirtier. Do you know why? WE ARE LITTERING!

They are many reasons littering is bad. One of them is when people drop trash, it goes straight to the ground. Did you know that one mile of highway contains approximately 16,000 pieces of litter.

That’s really bad already, but when there is rain, all the trash goes straight down the drain into the ocean. Sometimes it goes to a different water area. Most of these locations are used for drinking water. Eww! Do you really want to drink that stuff? Also, the sea animals are becoming endangered. Many animals, such as turtles and dolphins, are getting found with six-pack plastic can holders choking them. Last year, the United States taxpayers spent nearly $11 billion cleaning up litter across the U.S.

Another obvious reason that littering is bad, is that it looks gross. Litter sends a signal to criminals that the people that live there don’t care about what happens in their neighborhood, meaning that they have a better chance of stealing. Trash may also contain diseases, that can be passed between animals that eat it. If trash is in water, the water becomes contaminated, and when the water evaporates, whatever was in the trash in now in the air.

 Littering is a very dangerous for you and the environment. Many people don’t realize they are littering, but by holding your trash until you find a trash can, can help a lot! People can get seriously injured by a broken piece of glass or metal. Animal’s habitats are also getting destroyed. Littering causes damage to our environment. Stop littering today!                Bibliography: 

 Litter   http://www.flagstaff.az.gov/   Posted by AZ and its representatives

Littering and its Effect on the Environment                                   https://www.scienceleadership.org/blog/Littering_and_its_Effect_on_the_Environme Posted by Miles Cruice-Barnett in ENG1-010 on Thursday, November 29, 2012 at 12:47 pm

Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany on May 5, 1818. He was one of nine children. His father was a lawyer and born of the Jewish faith but decided to be baptized as a Christian. When Karl was six years old, he and his siblings were also baptized. Once his mother’s father died in 1825, Karl’s mother was also baptized.

Karl was home-schooled. When he was 12, he went to the Jesuit high school from 1830 to 1835. The principle was a friend of his father’s. In 1835, Karl Marx started studying at the University of Bonn. After one year, his father insisted he should enroll in the University of Berlin. There, he studied law and philosophy. In 1836, Karl became secretly engaged to a woman of higher class named Jenny Von Westphalen. His father found out and later expressed his concerns about Karl not taking marriage seriously. He did not like that Jenny was of higher class.

In 1841, Karl Marx applied to be a professor at the University of Jena but he was not hired. He then began working as a journalist. In 1842, Karl became the editor of a newspaper in Cologne named the Rheinische Zeitung. In 1843 he quit this job and married Jenny. They moved to Paris, France.

In 1843, Karl Marx established a journal titled the Duetsche Franzosische Janrbucher.  This journal brought Marx to Friedrich Engels who became Karl’s assistant and life-long friend.  Together, they eventually wrote a criticism of the philosophy of Bruno Bauer, who used to be Karl’s friend. In 1845, this criticism was published as a book titled, The Holy Family.

Both The German Ideology and Theses on Feuerbach were written by Marx but he was not able to get them published. They were finally published after his death. Karl Marx moved to London and continued his career a journalist. He spent the rest of his life writing.

Karl Marx’s ideas about society, economics and politics were later know after his death as Marxism. Marx believed there was a conflict between classes. The higher class owned the production and the lower class did the labor for the production.

Karl Marx died on March 14, 1883 in London.  No writing was originally inscribed on his grave so in 1954 the Communist Party of Great Britain replaced it with another stone which had his name and date.