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Friedman's and Schwartz's Understanding of the Cause of the Depression

“If you want to understand geology, study earthquakes.” [1] That quote from Ben Bernanke explained his view on the centrality of the understanding of why one should examine the Great Depression if one were going to understand economics. To that end, Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz were part of what is known as the Monetarists or the Chicago school of economics.   Together they wrote A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 in dealing with the causes of the Great Depression.   This book “had a profound impact on the way economists think about monetary theory and policy.” [2] In their work, they revolutionized the way in which many economists viewed monetary policy in light of the Great Depression.   Hugh Rockoff, in a review of their work, argued that their view became “accepted, at least in some measure, by most economists.” [3]   The thought was simply that a central bank should keep interest rates low during times of high unemployment, and...
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Birth of the Supermarket

“His Ears Have Been Slashed -- His Toes Cut Off -- His Eyes Punched Out -- His Bones Broken and His Face Smashed.  A Description of What Has Happened to the ‘DEMON of HIGH PRICES.” [1]   Clarence Saunders revolutionized the shopping experience for Americans.  Several American television shows such as Little House on the Prairie , among others, portrayed a shopping experience in which the customer entered the general store.  The patron would request the items he or she wanted.  The employee would then obtain the goods from the stock and sell them to the client. His aim was to “MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO GET BY THE CHECKER’S DESK MUCH QUICKER AND WITHOUT ANY ‘JAMMING’ OF FOLKS BEHIND YOU.” [2] Clarence Saunders created such advertisements and placed them into newspapers in an attempt to create the modern supermarket experience.  In Saunders’s supermarket, one could go into the store and browse the shelves and select from a wider variety of foods and brands t...
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Postbellum America's Economy

  The end of the Civil War and the subsequent changes that occurred as a result transformed regional economies across the United States in different ways. This was in part due to changing labor sources and the resources available.  Movement into the West allowed for the increase in resources necessary for the further industrialization of not only the North and East, but the South and West as well.  Qualitative data backs that up.  Quantitative data then shows that the changing economies following the Civil War greatly increased economic indicators and American wealth. Changing labor sources was especially evident in the South.   In “Freedom, Economic Autonomy, and Ecological Change in the Cotton South, 1865-1880,” Erin Stewart Mauldin stated that four million slaves had been freed, but they faced obstacles to any type of financial freedom they might have expected as a result of their inability to acquire the resources necessary to take part in their own agricu...
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David Crockett: American Hero from Limestone

            Washington and Greene Counties in Tennessee have a rich history.  The area was in what is now known as the “Lost State of Franklin,” an area that applied to become the 14 th state of the United States but was rejected.  It was home to Andrew Johnson and, for a short time, Andrew Jackson.  Then, in the 1950s and 1960s, Fess Parker played two nearly mythological giants on screen: David Crockett and Daniel Boone.  Daniel Boone had been an early explorer of the area that would become East Tennessee.  A carving in a tree in Washington County pronounced that “D. Boon cilled a Bar 1760 [sic].” [1]   Boone was an early “trailblazer” who traveled the frontier creating trails people would follow into frontier lands. The other, David Crockett, native son of “Lime Stone [sic], on the Nola-chucky [sic] river” [2] , was born in a cabin on land straddling the Greene and Washington County borders in humble beginnings before he ros...
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Thomas Jefferson’s Christianity: In His Own Words

  The meaning of the Founders’ statements and their religious beliefs is often used in contemporary religious and political arguments.   In many ways, Americans place these early American leaders on a pedestal and elevate them to a status of demigod.   The truth is, many of the Founders are complex figures who we attempt to understand through their words and that which was written about them.   One such Founder, Thomas Jefferson, is often considered quite the contradiction himself whether it be his stance on slavery or his view on the size of government.   Both sides of the coin often also try to neatly place this complex historical figure into the box of their choice.   But when it comes to Christianity, what does Thomas Jefferson say about his own doctrinal beliefs? In the Declaration of Independence, attributed to Jefferson, he declared that humans had the powers of the earth “ which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them ” and “that they ...
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