The American Revolution
•Pilgrims Land in Massachusetts (1620)
• Britain Issues Writs of Assistance
(1760)
• Tea from China is destroyed in the
Boston Tea Party (1773)
• The American Revolution Begins
(1775)
• Declaration of Independence (1776)
The U.S. Constitution
•The Continental Congress Adopted the
Articles of Confederation (1781)
• The Articles Were Quickly Viewed as a
Failure, Since the Government Had No
Authority to Raise Money
• A New Constitution Was Proposed in
1787 and Ratified in 1790
• A Bill of Rights Was Adopted in 1792
Libraries in America
•Literacy Rates Rise in 1700s
• Private Book Clubs Subscription Libraries
• First Founded Under Direction of Ben Franklin
(1731)
• First Lending Library in Franklin, MA (1778)
• Library of Congress (1800, 1815)
• First Public Library in Peterborough, NH
(1833)
• First Large Public Library – BPL (1848)
Andrew Carnegie
• Bornin Dunfermline, Scotland in 1835
• Emigrated to United States in 1848
• Couldn’t afford $2 for subscription library (1852)
• Sold Carnegie Steel to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for
$480 million. Richest man in America
• Turned to philanthropy with a focus on libraries
• Between 1883 and 1929, over 2,500 libraries
funded
• Rockland Memorial Library -- $12,500 grant in
1902
The U.S. Census
•The United States Constitution Requires that a
Census Be Conducted Every 10 Years
• The First Census Took Place in 1790 – The
U.S. Had a Population of Just 3.9 Million
People
• The 1880 Census Was Not Finished Until
1888 – The U.S. Had a Population of 50
Million People
• There Was Great Concern that the 1890
Census Count Would Not Be Finished by
1900
The Great Depression
•The American Stock Market Suffers a Terrible
Crash in 1929
• The United States Enters a Period Known as the
Great Depression (1929-1939)
• To Help Prevent Suffering in the Future, Congress
Passes the Social Security Act
• Under the Plan, the Government Tracks Each
Person’s Earnings and Pays Money During
Retirement Based on That Amount
• The Social Security Administration Develops the
Social Security Number to Distinguish Between
Similar Names
Rise of aMobile World
• No More Landlines
• Individual Phone Numbers
• Multiple Messaging Channels
• Level Playing Field
• Millennial Technical Skills
• Massive Cultural Shifts
37.
Selfie-Inflicted Wounds
• Thanksto Mobile Devices and the Internet, We
Generate and Share HUGE Amounts of Data
About Ourselves Every Second of the Day:
• Over 8,000 Tweets
• 844 Instagram Photos
• Nearly 67,000 Google Searches
• Over 73,000 YouTube Videos Are Viewed
• Nearly 2.7 Million Emails
Whose Data IsIt?
• Corporations in the United States Collect the Vast
Quantities of Data for Sale to Advertisers
• Unlike the Europeans, Americans Have Limited
Ability to “Opt-Out” of Data Collection
• Americans Also Have Limited Legal Remedies If
the Information Is Misused
• The Collection of So Much Data Creates a Risk
That It Will Be Misused for Political Purposes.
• Facebook and Other Social Media Companies Are
Under a Lot of Scrutiny Over What Happened in
the 2016 Election