The other day I woke up from a nap and the whole house was quite so I got up and started looking around for my family. No one was in the house so like I always do I went to grab my phone, but it was not in my pocket. I am sure when I say I had a mini heart attack everyone can relate if they have ever miss placed their phone. So after freaked out and frantically ran around the house looking for my phone for five minutes I found it in the sheets of my bed, by then I forgot why I needed my phone in the first place and I started playing a game I downloaded. A little while later I got hungry and remembered why I needed my phone and I called my mom. when she answered the phone the first word out of my mouth were "where you guys at?" come to find out they were at my grandma's house. So I drove over to spend some family time and during our family time we started talking about movies and we could not remember what this movie was called. Right away my cousin asks her phone and that began the discussion of old times with pay phones and land lines, just the technological invention of the phones.

            When I got home that night I wanted to get some real facts about the first cell phone, come to find out phones other then land lines have been around from the 40's. Although it was no iPhone actually it was not much of a portable device at all. The "cell phones" of the 40's was a big brief case looking device that for the most part was a car phone. The "cell phone" also was only ran by one company at the time and that company was and is AT&T, until one man had a bigger dream. This man's name is Martin Cooper, at the time this man was an ordinary employee at Motorola. In 1972 Cooper presented his dream of a mobile phone and months later on April 3, 1973, that he was able to see his dream come to pass when he got to call the rival company, AT&T, on the world's first MOBILE PHONE. What set this man apart and changed history forever was simply his dream and in a YouTube video I watched he says that it is  human nature and history that tells us that humans want to be mobile and he calls the home phone and AT&T car phone a leash. Later in that same video he states he is impressed with how much the cell phone has improved but is not happy yet saying "We still got a ways to go."

 

            Right after that video another video showed up of a question and answer interview with Martin Cooper so I decided to watch. He said one thing and it will stick with me forever, it was along the lines of that the preps for technology is for it to serve us and for it to do it so simply that we can't even tell. I do think we have that with things like head sets and other hands free devices but he then goes on to say that we have let the cell phone control us and that it has become more of a fashion statement and he is totally against that idea. To be totally honest I had to pause the video and it honestly upset me cause I started to think how much I rely on my phone and I could not help but laugh how I went crazy when I could not find my phone after my nap.

            I went to sleep that night with a lot on my mind, when I woke up I started talking to my dad about what I had learned and he was impressed and told me that he remembers as a kid leaving to go play with his friends and that he just knew he had to be home before it was dark and how now and days parents can call you and find out what is going on but how back then there was no way for parents to know what was going on with the kids till they got home. He then told me if I knew what phrase was never said on the phone till cell phones, I was lost until he told me the phrase was "where are you?" The rest of the day two things keep going around in my head what my dad said about the kids and what Martin Cooper said about cell phones controlling us. we were not home so I looked up some stuff about teens and cell phones and what I read disturbed me because how true the statistics are. The article says that 81% of youth under 25 sleep with their phone next to them on the bed and that 74% of them reach for their phones immediately after waking up. Another crazy statistic is that over 90% of teens and 20 year old often use their phones in the bathroom and it had to be pretty accurate cause I was in the bathroom when I read that. Yet the most disturbing and scary one was that Half (52%) of cell-owning teens ages 16-17 say they have talked on a cell phone while driving and there are much more proof that lives today young or old revolves around smart phones and that’s not what the invention was intended for.           

blog #3

The other day I went over to my grandma’s house and we spend at least two to three hours every time we go over. Threw that whole time she had the TV on. First it was news here in the United States of America but after that she put on the news from Argentina because she wanted to know how the weather was in her home country. Shortly after that I got the remote control and flipping through channels I came across I love Lucy my grandmas favorite show and we all sat laughing watching Lucy get herself into trouble. I could not help but think about the blog I did about the radio and I wanted to learn more about how TV affected the lives of families when it first came out.

 

After the technological advancement of the radio it was only a matter of time till someone would want something better and that would be the birth of television. The idea of television started as far back as 1820’s but it was not till 1940- 1950 when the television would become as big if not a bigger part of the American families lives. In 1952 a simple 20 inch TV went for 300 dollars, which wouldbe a little over 2,500 dollars in our time. For that price now you can get a 65 inch flat screen smart TV. I would love to see the face of a kid from 1950 to time jump and see what his/her grandkids would be looking at.  Between 1949 and 1969, the number of families thathad at least one TV went from less than a million to 44 million. The number ofcommercial TV stations rose from 69 to 566.

It was in 1947 that the TV started to gain its popularity over the radio. By the 1950’s there was more than seven million TV sets in the living rooms of homes. Instead of the family gathering around listening to the words of the radio and creating a picture for themselves, the TV does all that for you. In 1951 is when the broadcasts went nationwide, cost to cost. Just as the radio did the television would create jobs in the thousands with such a high demand TV production was crazy but those would not be the only jobs. The people now watching TV needed something to watch and programs would explode and be seen nationwide. Show such as I love Lucy, Father Knows Best, and Howdy Doody and a lot of the radio programs loved by many would make their way to TV.

 

 

 

Not just shows would be watched nationwide but news as well as political stuff would be seen and heard. For the first time ever images of the war would make an appearance in the homes of families. Issues such as the Korean War and the Vietnam War would get publicity and with that they would get a lot of young people protesting the wars. Other protests dealing with Civil Rights would also get the air time, Martin Luther King’s march on Washington would be seen and images of well-dressed kids being sprayed down with hoses was seen by everyone everywhere and other movements would jump on the band wagon and use this new medium to fight back and have their voices heard. The country got to see JFK victory as well as footage of President Kennedy getting shot and killed. In a similar fashion two days later the alleged assassin got assassinated and the country saw that as well.

 

 

TV has become such a big part of daily lives for most if not close to all families worldwide. I mean just think back 1950’s if you wanted to watch a show you had to make sure that you were home to watch it cause if you missed it that was it you would have to hope your friends saw it to catch you up for next week. Now and days we have DVR we record what we want to watch and then watch it whenever we want to watch it and if we forget to DVR it we can just wait for the rerun. It was not till 1960’s when networks taped the shows that would give them the power to replay the program without it being live like it was before. I can just imagine if a kid from today’s time was sent back to the 1950’s, how mind blowing it could be a simple luxury of the remote control being none existent. As well as all the shows being black and gray till 1954.

 

 

 

 

On New Year’s 1954 thefirst color broadcast that would go from cost to cost and it would be the Tournament of Roses. Every year me and my family wake up and watch that very show and it is amazing that way back in 1954 families just like mine sat together and watched the Tournament of Roses and this year they got to see it in color like we do every year. Soon everything would be in color and from then on it was to make things better more efficient and TV as never stopped.

The other day I was sitting on the sofa with my girlfriend and we were watching TV and a commercial of a movie she had wanted to go see came on, so she asked me if we could go and I had just gotten my pay check so I said yes. On the drive over we listened to the radio like we always do and about five min into the drive the radio version of the commercial for the movie came on. At the moment I thought nothing of it because it was normal for me to hear commercials and watch commercials. The nest day in class we talked about the 1920s and the radio and how important and life changing it was for not only America but the world.

I got home after class and started to look into how important the radio really was. And I started like I always do when I want to find something out, I asked YouTube. Unlike other subjects when you look up the radio in the 1920s not much historical info comes up, and what comes up is the same information. That on November 2^nd 1920 the first radio broadcast came out of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and the radio station that would eventually be known as KDKA. On this historic day Conrad and his Westinghouse associates announced that Warren G. Harding had defeated James Cox to become the next President. The more videos I watched I started to get bored until I listened to this one short video. I captured a few key words, one key word was entertainment. I started to think about a black out how there is no TV no radios. That must have been how it was before the radio come out. For us when that stuff is taken away we realize how much it affects us. So I can just imagine how the radio impacted and change the American house hold.

I wanted to find out more on how it impacted people. Before the radio the way information was spread was the newspaper or in friendly conversation. With the invention of the radio now everyone could hear a baseball game from home. Families could sit around and enjoy podcasts, parents could get involved in politics and hear news that before would take weeks to become known. This idea of information became so important to the American families that in 1923 only three years after the radio came out about three million people owned a radio. Another article says it this way that after 1923 sixty percent of American families had a radio in the house. Over half of America was listening to news, sporting events and music and with the growth in the purchases of radios the growth of radio stations went from 1 to more the 500 in just two short years. That is when I realized how influential this invention is. Not only did the radio itself influence people, but the voices on the radio became icons to the people, athletes were now known all over the country all thanks to the radio.

With such an amazing turn out I mean for years the radios just flew off the shelves it was only a matter of time before business got involved and thus the commercial and the control of the air waves did not stop with business because shortly after the government started regulating what could be broadcasted. Congress got involved and shortly after we have the radio act of 1927 organized the Federal Radio Commission and this ended the free for all of the radio. Now permits had to be granted and could just as well be taken away. There were rules that had to be followed with what could be said on the radio and if such rules like profane language was broken your radio license could be taken.

After the radio impacted the ears of the American people it was just a matter of time before the eyes of the people were going to get impacted as well. When I googled entertainment in the 1920s not only did the radio come up, but so did the movie theater or how it was called back then the Nickelodeons or Picture Palaces. So unlike the radio to watch a movie you had to leave the comfort of the home. Remember in the beginning how I talked about we were going to the watch a movie. Well I started wondering after doing research on the radio how motion pictures affected people and the impact it had on American families. Movie theaters started as a silent movie. Meaning no words actually spoken but if not words would pop up and you had to read them to know what was said is kind of like watching a furan movie with subtitles. Kind of sucks if you have ever done that unless you are a fast reader so I don’t think I would have gone to any silent movies but the families in the 1920s loved the movies. On average they attended the movies once a week. As the world of motion pictures increased I can only imagine so did the economy and so did the culture of Hollywood. Movies changed from silent to speaking and from there they just got better and better and now we have Netflix and to think it all started with the radio.

blog #1

 

 

On my way home the other day I was stopped by the sound of bells and the flashing lights of a railroad crossing. Waiting in my car patiently behind the arm that came down, watching the train go by I started wondering more about the railroad. The rest of my drive home I thought about how important the rail road is to our lives. Besides it being a way to travel it is also a way to get things across the country. I started to think about all the things I have seen personally on a train or in a show or movie, the frozen carts, the animals as well as resources. As all this is going through my mind I stared to remember stories my parents told me about back in the day how they would take the metro to work, and how it was so convenient and relaxing. That is when the spark was finally ignited to find out more about the railroad.

After watching several YouTube videos regarding the Transcontinental railroad I began to understand more about how difficult the project was, but I also was able to see the reason behind the technological advancement. When the railroad was built towns could now get resources they needed and with every railroad tie laid and every peace of iron laid the nation was being bound together. It was not all great although it was a great technological advancement there were a lot of issues to face. One was how to connect the railway from San Francisco to New York and how to get the man power to get the job done. Chinese immigrants were hired and put to work and although to a lot of people they were not going to be able to do the job they surprised many, later to be denied the right to become a citizen facing discrimination like the rest of the immigrants. The problems did not stop with the chines. The laying of iron threw Native American lands made a lot of people mad. Yet what really set the Native American off was the killing of the American buffalo, the main source of life for them. The conflicts led to a lot of deaths and in the end more discrimination and hard ship for the Native Americans. Also after the railroad was completed there was an issue with the way business was run. The railways had a monopoly and in no way is that good for the farmers now using the railroad to get their harvest from state to state.  Government got involved and issue solved with the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. This Act prohibited the railroad from giving secrete rebates to farmers and forced them to treat everyone equal.

 

One video called the railroad the Internet of the era and that stuck with me. As the companies built the railroad they put up telegraph wires so they could communicate threw out the build. Remember before the railway there was nothing joining each coast to each other so just imagine the difficulty of communication. Yet that problem is gone with the railway. So it makes sense for it to be considered the internet of the era because that is what it was. The internet now and days is mostly used to connect people as did the railway in the 1880s, as it still does now. The railroad was not only used to move people and merchandise in was also a way to spread news and information. The same way we use the internet now.

As well as it being the internet of the time it also was changed the time of the time. Sense now thanks to the railway the whole united states is bound together everyone would have to be bound to the same time, otherwise things could result in a train crash if everyone had their own time. So the railway fixed this problem and created time zones. With the creation of time being united we put ourselves on a regimen and we have been following it ever sense.

 

The constructions of the railroad lead to populations of small towns to grow, bringing new business as well as new people to a part of the country otherwise unreachable. I say unreachable because before the railroad there was only two ways of getting from one cost to the other, a six month trip by horse and buggy, if sickness did not take your life the Native Americans would have a go at it, or a long ship ride around South America. This is how travel was done as well as how resources were traded before the advancement of the railway. One town was mentioned in a documentary I watched on YouTube was called Cheyenne that was created in September of 1867, the town did not exist till after the railway was constructed. The town was named after the Native American tribe that lived there which I found ironic. The town was able to thrive thanks to the railway, so much so that they formed a council to control things as well as a school. I looked up the population now and in 2014and 2015 the amount of people that live there are about 60,000. So looking that up shows how influential the railway was and still is, that a small town created by the union pacific railroad is still alive and thriving.

 

 

My name is Jason Varela
I am a lifeguard
I have three pet lizards