Original post for this picture here
It is a popular slogan thrown around by politicians and companies alike, "Buy American". The above poster is decades old but the concept holds true till today, that it is the American's duty to purchase USA-made goods to support the economy and give jobs to fellow Americans.
In the speech for this artifact, several points to be brought up will include the origin of "buy American", the American perspective from both the consumer and producer's point of view, common myths about free trade and outsourcing, and the reality of "buying American".
The civic duty this poster wants you to do is support the country's economy by paying for American-made goods. It is assumed that purchasing USA will help pay for jobs, if not create, more jobs for Americans, and show disapproval for countries using sweatshops to create cheaper items by not buying imported products.
However, there are a lot of misconceptions with this civic duty, one of which being that sweatshops are bad and that it's a good thing to pay extra for American-made goods. According to this article by CNN, the average American consumer could care less about what comes from where, as long as they get a good price for what they're buying and that it's cheap. Sweatshops are their own pile of worms to dive into, and not all of it will be able to be covered in a 4-minute speech about "being American". Hopefully that can be elaborated in another blog post in the future.
I try to buy American whenever possible
Annabelle, I really like how you relate your artifact to present day findings even though it is an old advertisement. I think for your speech, you could go into more detail about the background of the issue during the time the ad was posted. Maybe do some research on the Made in America Club. I also think you have highlighted the most important commonplaces held by Americas. It may be a good idea to balance your speech by talking about what the advertisement promotes versus the reality of Americans perceptions today. It would also be interesting to note why those perceptions have changed. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI like how you chose an artifact that, while historic, has many modern day implications. I think explaining the background of this artifact is important, however make sure that you do not lose track of the overall goal of the speech, which is to explain how the artifact encourages people to be civic. I also could not determine what your hook was. Is the advertisement itself supposed to be the hook? Good job and I look forward to hearing your speech.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very interesting topic to be talking about for your civic speech. Considering the definitely moral aspect this advertisement is projecting in regards to ceasing the success of sweatshops like you said, the civic side is also very intriguing, encouraging Americans to really be American through the purchasing of American product. One recommendation I would make if you choose to write a blog post about this topic in the future would be to maybe include some stores or brands that people should be looking for that are one, fairly affordable, and two, American-made, so people can keep their eyes open when they are roaming the shopping malls.
ReplyDeleteAnnabelle, this is a great artifact!
ReplyDeleteI think your greatest challenge will be to hone your content and organization so that you don't bite off more than you can chew. Four minutes is not long, so you'll really want to cover only what is essential to explain how/why this piece can be seen as civic, as well as to examine what civic ideologies/commonplaces are inferred by or embedded within the piece.
I don't think you'll have time to explain the morality of sweatshops, or probably even the American public's preferences of buying/not buying American, as these points (even if interesting) won't ultimately back up your thesis of how this particular artifact reached a specific audience at a specific time with an invitation to be civic through American-bought goods.
Hope that helps!