Composite People for Chart and EC Journal Entries

Composite People: Read through these descriptions to decide which one of them would be most likely to be impacted by the event you are writing about.

Inez Kline is a 23 year old white woman. She lives in an apartment in Chicago with women she went to the University of Chicago with. After college, she worked for a year in a munitions factory until they declared armistice in World War I. She is single and plans to stay that way for a few more years since she has yet to find a person she wants to marry. She works as a clerk at department store for $80 a month. (barely middle class)

Salvadore Sabantini is a 30 year old Italian immigrant living in Boston. He works at a glass factory and supports a family of four on his salary. He refuses to let his wife work but two of his sons work at the factory and contribute to the family income. One of his sons has recently gotten involved with an anarchist organization and Salvadore is worried that he will be fired for it. (barely middle class)

Roy Pearson is a 28 year old African American from Ruleville, Mississippi. He volunteered for service during World War I where he experienced a number of life or death situations. One of his best friends lost a leg. He is now back home in Ruleville living with his family and looking for work. His high school sweetheart Irene waited for him during the war and is looking forward to getting married and starting a family. His parents are both sharecroppers who own their own home but are always afraid of losing it. Roy’s brother, Edward, moved to New York during the war to find work and to get out of the Jim Crow south. Roy envies the move but knows that he will never leave the south as long as his parents are alive. (Poor)

Thomas L. Friedman III is a 45 years old white man who is the vice-president of the Bank of New York. His grandfather was an immigrant tailor from Russia and his father owned a very successful clothing store on 5th Avenue. Friedman attended New York University and the University of Chicago graduate school. He lives in a huge apartment on the top floor of a building that overlooks Central Park. He is married to Minna Friedman (a woman of great wealth herself) and has one son who escaped the draft because of efforts made by Thomas Friedman. Friedman is Jewish and was known as a radical in his youth. In addition to the bank, he is heavily invested in the stock market and is partial owner of a number of businesses in New York that both sell to stores in America but also export their goods abroad. (Very wealthy)

Ethel Riesling is a 68 year old white woman living in Dayton, Tennessee. Her parents were German immigrants who came to America in 1845 because of the failure of the German revolution. She grew up in Ohio but moved to Tennessee when she married John Riesling who is the preacher at Dayton Baptist Church. Her only son was killed in the war. She and her husband live off of his meagre salary. (Poor)

Journal

Sample Journal Entry: Your journal entry should expand on one of the topics listed and personalize it. Below is an example of one journal entry. The bolded information is from my further research into the 1918 flu epidemic. An entry with that much information will get 5 out of 5 points.

Person: Roy Pearson
Topic: 1918 Flu Epidemic

Today I lied in my bunk for the entire day. All around me I could hear the moans from my bunkmates. They are clearly in worse shape than I am. What amazes me is that this hit us in our prime. I mean we are all in our 20s...and healthy. The guy next to me sounds like he is slowly drowning in his own mucous. I can hear him struggling a little more with each breath. If that isn’t enough, they LOOK almost dead. The spots show up awful quick and their color changes. We are in a segregated ward and don’t get the same attention as the white soldiers. That’s why this epidemic has hit us the hardest. We are dying at twice the rate of the white guys. Even the doctors and nurses we do get often come down with the illness and are no longer any use to us. I heard the death toll will be over 500,000 when this is all over and that is just in the U.S. Although I hate to say it, it makes me wonder what we have done down here on earth take make god hate us this much. First the war and then the flu. I am hoping for better days ahead.