Anne Bradstreet as First American Feminist Essay - 1763 Words

Anne Bradstreet as First American Feminist Feminism today remains prominent because even while women’s rights are very strong, women are still fighting for equality every day. In the time of Anne Bradstreet, women had few rights and they were seen as inferior to men. Anne lived among the puritans whom ruled her everyday life. Although it was against the puritan code for women to receive an education, Bradstreet’s father, Thomas Dudley, loved his daughter dearly and made sure that she was well educated which shows in her works. Anne Bradstreet’s literature became well known only because her family published her works under a male name. This was done because writing poetry was a serious offense to the puritans since poetry was†¦show more content†¦(239) In addition, in this quote, Bradstreet acknowledges that even if her writing skills are extraordinary, that because she is a woman, no one will accept it or believe it. In addition, Bradstreet expressed a need for equality. She wanted people to take a step back and glimpse back to history, â€Å"Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are;† (240). In Greece, women were equal among men, as were the Gods and Goddesses. In the seventh stanza of â€Å"The Prologue,† Bradstreet gives her most strong cry out for recognition, still however, it is subtle, â€Å"Men have precedeny and still excel,/ It is but vain unjustly to wage war;/men can do best, and women know it well/ Preeminence in all and each is yours;/ Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours† (240). Also in this quote is Bradstreet’s observance of men in their natural state. She sees men as war hungry, vain and powerful. Consequently, Anne Bradstreet faced a double bind. If she voiced her thoughts, opinions, and beliefs, she would have put herself in danger, and by not saying anything, she would force herself to go on living in a patriarchy. Bradstreet apologized in her poetry for writing as a woman. This can be see in â€Å"The Prologue,† in the first stanza. To sing of wars, of captains, and of kings,/ Of cities founded, commonwealths begun,/ For my mean pen are too superior things: / Or how they all, orShow MoreRelatedThe Genesis Of Feminism By Anne Bradstreet1181 Words   |  5 PagesPaper #1 English 2510 Courtney Knight October 1, 2015 The Genesis of Feminism As a woman living in a very patriarchal society, Anne Bradstreet uses reverse psychology to present her beliefs and opinions. Bradstreet’s poems show her reality, and possibly the coping mechanisms of living in a world where men were favored above women. Bradstreet’s poems are full of female strength and presence, it is almost held back by her puritan roots and roles as a woman in the 1800s. I can see the conflict withinRead MoreGender Roles In Colonial America1246 Words   |  5 PagesGender Roles were passed from generation to generation with many limitations for women. Despite these limitations, many women were comfortable in their roles. The lifestyles of these women have directly impacted today’s society in the form of the feminist movement. Gender Roles were forced upon people at a young age. Fathers would teach their sons â€Å"how to be a man† which included having power, being educated, contributing to the community, participating in government, owning property, and controllingRead MoreAn Analysis of Anne Bradstreets The Prologue Essay1719 Words   |  7 PagesAnne Bradstreets poem, The Prologue, portrays the struggles of being a woman in a Puritan society. She realized that in a Puritan society, women were not meant to speak their mind and have strong opinions. With this poem she acknowledges her role as a woman in society even if she doesnt agree with it. Anne Bradstreet shows her recognition of mens supposed superiority in that time period with this line: Men can do best, and women know it well (40). Regardless of her acknowledgment of herRead MoreFeminist Poets Like Emily Dickinson And Anne Bradstreet881 Words   |  4 PagesPuritans). But, slowly and gradually, situation being changed: â€Å"Durin g the first half of the 19th century, women s roles in society evolved in the areas of occupational, moral, and social reform. Through efforts such as factory movements, social reform, and women s rights, their aims were realized and foundations for further reform were established† (Lauter 1406). Feminist poets like Emily Dickinson and Anne Bradstreet talked substantially about feminism in different lights in the past two centuriesRead MoreWomen s Role For Literature887 Words   |  4 PagesPuritans). But, slowly and gradually, situation being changed: â€Å"During the first half of the 19th century, women s roles in society evolved in the areas of occupational, moral, and social reform. Through efforts such as factory movements, social reform, and women s rights, their aims were realized and foundations for further reform were established† (Lauter 1406). Feminist poets like Emily Dickinson and Anne Bradstreet talked substantially about feminism in different lights i n the past two centuriesRead MoreAnne Bradstreet Is One Of The Earliest American Poets,1760 Words   |  8 PagesAnne Bradstreet is one of the earliest American poets, and she’s read today as the first feminist in literature. While there are arguments as to why this could be true, I present an argument that Bradstreet cannot be read as a feminist, especially within her earlier works. In her later writing, her feminist identity becomes more real and plausible. Looking at two of her works, â€Å"The Prologue† and â€Å"The Author to Her Book,† both written at different times in Bradstreet’s life, one can see how Bradstreet’sRead MoreAnne Bradstreet s The New World1385 Words   |  6 PagesAnne Bradstreet is revered as America’s first female poet and the first published poet of the New World. Born in England in 1612, Anne immigrated to the New World with waves of Puritan refugees escaping Angelican and Catholic persecution (Gordon, 88). As a successful mother of 8 children and a loyal housewife, Anne embodied the ideal Puritan woman. Yet, Bradstreet defied several Puritan social codes, namely writing in a time women were considered inferior to men. It was seen as an affront to GodRead More Anne Brandstreet and Female Identity Essay533 Words   |  3 Pages There are not many â€Å"major† female writers in American Literature, and writing, traditionally, has always been viewed as a masculine activity. It is therefore very interesting, and even ironic, that the first author published in the newly established Puritan society on the American soil, Anne Bradstreet, was a female. Indeed, Bradstreets poems are filled with female presence. However, I also sense that Bradstreet’s feminism is held in check by her Puritan values, and there is a conflictRead MoreReview Of Upon The Burning Of Our House By Anne Bradstreet2061 Words   |  9 Pagesattributes to many poets’ fame. Anne Bradstreet is an example of one of these types of writers. Her poem, Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666, describes one of the most devastating life events that one can go through and was her claim to fame. Anne Bradstreet’s tragic life led her to a very successful career that would change the literary world for years to come . Anne Bradstreet was born on March 20, 1612 in the town of Northampton, England (â€Å"Bradstreet Biography†). She was born into theRead MoreEssay On Anne Bradstreet2057 Words   |  9 Pagesstill fighting for equality every day. In the time of Anne Bradstreet, women had few rights and they were seen as inferior to men. Anne lived among the puritans whom ruled her everyday life. Although it was completely against the puritan code for women to receive an education, Anne Bradstreet’s father, Thomas Dudley, loved his daughter very much and did everything he could to make sure that she was well educated which shows in her works. Anne Bradstreet’s literature became well known only because

Poem Analysis Essay - 746 Words

Poem Analysis: I Go Back to May 1973 The poem being analyzed is entitled, â€Å"I Go Back to May 1973† by Sharon Olds. In the beginning of the poem, the image of innocence is lost but as the reader goes deeper into the heart and core of the text, the tone rapidly spirals into violence as well as resentment. I’m assuming that the author of the poem, Sharon Olds, is the narrator of this literary text. Sharon starts by reflecting her life story. She tells the tale of the beginning of her parent’s relationship as two fresh college graduates who venture into the world of marriage. The couple started off in an optimistic account for they were both unassumingly innocent. Nevertheless, everything started to go downhill later in life as Sharon,†¦show more content†¦After reading and analyzing the descriptions of both parents, I get an idea of what is about to happen next in the young college graduate’s lives as their relationship as a married couple turn into a train wreck and their bad par enting come into effect. The couple’s life fast forwards as one of their children start speaking in angry words of her current situation. The child, Sharon, would love to have the opportunity to go back in time and just warn them of the dark future that lies ahead of them. She says, â€Å"they are about to Ramos 3 graduate, they are about to get married/ they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are/innocent, they would never hurt anybody.† (10-12) Although her parents would not deliberately hurt anyone, it just so happens that they were too young and inexperienced in life to get married, have children and pass on the knowledge that would’ve been acquired if they still waited and figured out what they wanted most in life. Although Sharon constantly complains about the horrifying events that affected her childhood, she also says that: â€Å"I want to live. I take them up like the male and femaleShow MoreRelatedanalysis of poem1342 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿ To analyze a poem stylistically, we can analyze the poetic device, which is usually deviation and foregrounding, that the poet used in the poem. The term foregrounding refers to an effect brought about in the reader by linguistic or other forms of deviation in the literary text (Leech, 1985).In poem, devices of foregrounding and deviation are always used to draw reader’s attention and impress the readers. In the aspect of deviation and foregrounding, there are some perspectives on the nature ofRead MorePoem Analysis : Langston Hughes Poem1258 Words   |  6 Pages Research Paper and Poem Analysis: Langston Hughes Poem Analysis: Langston Hughes’ poem â€Å"Mother To Son† is a twenty line poem that seems to be from the perspective of a prudent mother that is giving her son, and possibly the readers, some helpful and supportive advice, telling them that, no matter how many adversities they may face, they can not give up. I believe that this is the main theme of the poem, perseverance. â€Å"So, boy, don’t you turn back./ Don’t you set down on the steps./ ‘Cause youRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem The 1641 Words   |  7 PagesBeautiful. That is how I would describe her. Rayah Lou’ren Gibson was the absolute light of my life. She was born on Thursday, August 14th, 2008. She was not my biological daughter, but she was and always will be my baby girl—my little princess. I often called her my angel. She loved dancing and singing, she loved the movie Frozen, the song, â€Å"Do You Want To Build A Snowman?†, and her favorite color was purple. She loved her frien ds, especially Alina. â€Æ' She really loved grocery shopping with me forRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem 896 Words   |  4 PagesThe Deformity The bright lights and unknown voices travelled around me. It surly wasn’t the first time I had experienced this, but it was the first time I could actually recognize what was going on. They tried to ease my nervousness with their soothing words, but being so anxious nothing could soothe me. It all started at birth. My deformity was nothing new to the medical world, but in my parent’s eyes it was something out of fiction. My feet were turned in like hockey sticks. In medical jargonRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem The Essay1253 Words   |  6 PagesQuiajah Freeman Professor Barberan English 29 October 2016 Recitatif If twentieth-century studies of Recitatif focus primarily on extremes—the white and black ends of the binary—instead of plumbing the depths of the murky space in between, twenty-first century scholarship on Recitatif better explicates how the story works on our preconceptions about race. For instance, referencing postmodernist understandings of race. (Philadelphia: Univ.of Penn. PressRead MoreThe Schoolboy Poem Analysis771 Words   |  4 PagesThe Schoolboy – Close critical analysis â€Å"The Schoolboy† is a poem about how education systems hinder youths from behaving naturally. For example, in this poem, the boy â€Å"love(s) to rise in a summer morn, When the birds sing on every tree†. However, he has â€Å"to go to school in a summer morn† and this â€Å"drives all (his) joy away†. Hence, from here we can see that societal norms destroy the innocence of youth as they repress their souls with so-called education. By doing so, the author is telling us toRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem The Fish 1047 Words   |  5 PagesModernist Poetry Analysis February 25, 2015 â€Å"The Fish† Imagism is a style of poetry that employs free verse and the patterns and rhythms of common speech. The poet is free to write about whatever they want. The goal is to unify voice and image into a talking picture. Poets then have the power to make words into things. This then creates a picture for the reader. Marianne Moore is able to perfectly get her point across without directly stating it but making it clear enough. Moore’s poem â€Å"The Fish† usesRead MorePoem Analysis836 Words   |  4 PagesExperiments suggested that linearly increasing perturbation rate is more desirable over other introduced perturbation rates. It was proposed that some more perturbation rate varying schemes such as adaptive, chaotic, non-linear etc. will be explored and their performance will be examined in near future. To enhance the local search ability of spider monkeys in the original SMO, K. Gupta, et al., [30] propounded a Quadratic Approximation operator in her research â€Å"Improving the local search abilityRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem Beowulf 851 Words   |  4 Pagesoffers literary analysis of Beowulf, the oldest epic poem that has survived in English literature. It is also widely known as the earliest surviving piece of literatures in vernacular European Literature. The language of this poem is Old English, spoken by Saxon people. This poem depicts a traditional story that is a part of oral Germanic tradition. As per experts, this is work of a single poet and was composed in then England. It has been determined by the scholars that this poem was written betweenRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem The Dead 1416 Words   |  6 Pages The Dead Muse: A Critical Analysis of The Raven Your Name Your University â€Æ' The Dead Muse: A Critical Analysis of The Raven The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe is a very famous poem which intricately weaves layer upon layer of meaning through singsong verses. Combining allusions to literature, mythology and religion, the poem tells many stories at once while evoking a feeling of nonsense and a descent into insanity. It is hard to understand what the poem is about—if anything at all, and Poe does not

American Horror Story Animal Farm - 1114 Words

Hanna Gutierrez Gutierrez 1 Ms. Baker English IV- 5 01 February 2016 American Horror Story: Animal Farm â€Å"A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy† (â€Å"Animal Rights†). For decades, animal rights activist along with organizations such as PETA have been lobbying for legislative action on animal equality. Activists believe non-human animals should be granted the same protection under the law as humans, because they are implemented unethical treatment in factory farms, used needlessly for scientific research, and have a similar biological make up to humans, while the opposition argues that animal equality is immoral because of the Christian belief only humans are made in the image of God. Across the world farms, even organic, are mistreating†¦show more content†¦The animals are supposed to be able to graze freely, but instead they are locked up in overcrowded cages. Gutierrez 2 Clearly, new legislation on animal equality and improvement of standards of living need to be passed immediately. With new technology expanding the field of science, animal testing to find human cures has become irrelevant. â€Å"Most of these new alternatives that are emerging are coming from fields of biotechnology, hi-res scanning, and computer science† (Dvorsky). These new techniques make animal testing seem medieval. With biotechnology human organs are being replicated to practice test on. â€Å"Biotech firm Hurel has developed a lab grown human liver that can be used to break down chemicals† (Dvorsky). Animals who are known to be similar to humans, are no longer needed for research because the technological alternatives are much better. They are able to have stimulations of actual human organs and get better understandings of diseases and what is needed to cure it. Ultimately, in a world taken over by technology, out dated methods are not needed. Because animals are biologically similar to humans and achieve the same level if awareness, they should be granted the same rights. At Georgia State University’s Language and Research Centre studies are conducted on a female ape. She communicates using a keyboard and a synthesized voice (Cohen 58). Not only is the ape able to communicate via nonverbal cues, but nw is speaking at the same level as

I Had Someone Who We Are All A Product Of Our Environment

Recently I had someone say to me, â€Å"we don’t know who we are because we are all a product of our environment.† That said, the question remains: Are we defined by our environment and merely a product of it, or we posses the ability to make decisions despite it? The age old question of who am I kept stirring in my mind. It got me thinking about how I define myself and how the environment that I grew up in has shaped me. My first thought was â€Å"Wait a minute I know who I am, I think?† So I made a list of the obvious; wife, mother, sister, daughter, granddaughter, niece, etc. Looking at that list I realized that those â€Å"labels† were just words used to define my relationships to other people. I have never really thought about the labels that define my relationships they are just words. I seldom thought about how the culture or environment I grew up in affected me or my relationships to others. I took these things for granted. Can we control the environment we’re born into? Are we supposed to somehow see beyond the culture we were raised in; The culture that compels us to act, live and think in certain ways? As a young girl living in the 1960’s era women lived and defined themselves by their marriage or birth to a man. As a woman you could not open a bank account without your husband’s co-signature. You could not start a business without your husband’s permission and a signature. â€Å"Most of the woman that did work were teachers, nurses, or secretaries. Women accounted for sixShow MoreRelatedIs Recycling A Glass Bottle? Essay1671 Words   |  7 PagesI grew up in a small, three person home in Chicago, Illinois. Besides occasionally recycling a glass bottle, as per our maintenance provider’s request, we did not recycle our waste. In fact it was not until I moved on campus at Bradley University, that I realized how important recycling was to some. Actually, one of my best friends here at Bradley is responsible for helping me realize the significance of recycling. This is still not to be confused with your average recycling advocate argument. IRead MoreArgume ntative Essay : Wasteful Thinking Essay1673 Words   |  7 Pages Wasteful Thinking I grew up in a small, three person home in Chicago, Illinois. Besides occasionally recycling a glass bottle, as per our maintenance provider’s request, we did not recycle our waste. In fact it was not until I moved on campus at Bradley University, that I realized how important recycling was to some. Actually, one of my best friends here at Bradley is responsible for helping me realize the significance of recycling. This is still not to be confused with your average recyclingRead MoreWho I Am I? Essay1710 Words   |  7 Pages Who am I? It is funny you should ask because I was just asking myself the same question. How would I define myself In a culture that seems to so easily attach a label to someone or quickly place people into a category? How would I be able to make you understand my place in the world, or my relationship to the world that surrounds me? If I want you to understand and see the â€Å"real me† and how I fit into the big picture, I would have to do an immense amount of soul searching. I would have to chooseRead MoreThe Culture Of Organics : A Way For Live Reflection Essay1564 Words   |  7 Pagesintroduction to organics was, technically, in February of 2016 when I made the decision to become vegan. I began to shop naturally and organically although I was almost completely unaware of what those words meant. I shopped for those labels because that was what all the vegan websites and recipes said that I should do, not because that was what I came to know as the best decision. My more intimate meeting with organics was in August of 2016 when I flew to Washington D.C to visit a cousin. This cousin, ChristinaRead MoreImportance Of Diffusion Of Everyday Life1218 Words   |  5 Pagesis important to organisms because it is the process by which useful molecules enter the body cells and waste products are removed. One way our body uses diffusion is, the digestion of food molecules. Diffusion causes a downward action of a concentration gradient, in this instance the molecules move from the intestine into the blood. There are many other ways diffusion is prevalent in our systems. Temperature is an important mechanism of diffusion. As temperature increases, so does the speed of diffusionRead MoreEssay about Workplace Alienation 1184 Words   |  5 PagesThroughout my work experience I have been a witness to various degrees of work alienation. As I continue to gather additional experience in the work environment and engage in discussions with fellow employees, i t is clearly evident that there is workplace discontentment and feelings of being taken advantage of. Based on my work experiences to date, I agree with James Rinehart’s claim that forms of alienation are evident in the workplace. They force human beings into modes of behaviour that areRead MoreAssess Organizational Approaches For Job Design1464 Words   |  6 PagesAssess Organizational Approaches to Job Design Introduction The organization I work for is a Software company working on development of Healthcare products. The current job design is to assign work to a group of employees, hence a team approach wherein every individual is held jointly accountable for the outcome of the project (Mukherjee Vasconcelos, 2011). We follow the agile methodology for developing clinical software for hospitals by using an empirical process control model called scrumRead MoreWhy You should Buy American Made Essays1114 Words   |  5 PagesHave you ever thought about those little words in fine print that tell you where a product was made? How about the last time you put tires on your car? Before you made a decision on the purchase did you stop and ask where the tires are made? Probably not! You heard the only words you wanted to hear....good and cheap! When did we stop caring about where a product is made or did we ever? Why would this matter anyway and what importance is of it? Some may argue that free trade and imports giveRead MoreIs One Action Better Or Worse Than Another?1555 Words   |  7 Pagesdifferent people. We are all unique, some in amazing ways and some not so much. The truth about human beings is that although we want to believe that all of our peers are good at heart some of them are not. On all occasions the only consistent similarity that all of our lives have, is that we all were brought into this world the same way. From that moment on, no one can tell you what will happen next. I believe who a person becomes in their lifetime, is the product of their environment and guidance.Read MoreEssay on To Save the Earth1053 Words   |  5 PagesTo Save the Earth I wonder how much the front yard of my childhood home is worth. Of course, its worth less now than before. Once, a stately tree stood in each corner: a tall lilac, a pine, a cherry tree, and a droopy evergreen. My favorite tree lived in the middle. I never knew what kind it was, but every spring it blossomed in delicate pink, and on warm afternoons, I read under its canopy. The front yard no longer looks like that, however. My father removed the lilac bush because it

Advantage and Disadvantage of Offshore Outsource Free Essays

Benefit of the Offshore Outsource 1) Improve the customer service Using high-quality specialist external providers can allow companies to capitalize on their strengths and, indirectly, help to improve customers’ experience of using such companies’ products or services. External providers can help a company’s competitiveness by delivering greater flexibility and responsiveness than would be available in-house. 2) Swiftness and Expertise Most of the times tasks are outsourced to vendors who specialize in their field. We will write a custom essay sample on Advantage and Disadvantage of Offshore Outsource or any similar topic only for you Order Now The outsourced vendors also have specific equipment, technical expertise, better experience and skills. Most of the times better than the ones at the outsourcing company. Effectively the tasks can be completed faster and with better quality output. 3) Concentrating on core process rather than the supporting ones Outsourcing the supporting processes gives the company more time to strengthen their core business process. The company will have more time to put more effort, develop ideas and plan the strategies on the core business activity. ) Risk-sharing Usually the main factors to outsource the company is risk-analysis. Outsourcing certain business activity process helps the company to shift certain responsibilities to the outsourced vendor. Since the outsourced vendor is a specialist, they plan your risk-mitigating factors better and recommend several method to improve the operations. 5) Reduced Operational and Recruitment costs Outsourcing prevent the need to hire individuals in-hous e; hence recruitment and operational costs can be decreased to a great extent. This is one of the prime advantages of offshore outsourcing to make the company operation cost-effective. The Disadvantages/ Weaknees of Offshore Outsourcing Even though offshore outsourcing gives advantage mainly on cutting the cost site but the other way offshore outsourcing sometimes bring disadvantage to the company. A company must identify what is the risk to offshore outsourcing to avoid loss. The disadvantage are : 1) Loss of the managerial control Once a company sign a contract to outsource all or several part of the department, the company are turning the managerial function to other company. The managerial control will belong to the different company and its function will not be driven by the same standards and mission of the main company. The outcource company will only focus on how to gain profit rather than to meets the main objective of the management. 2) Loss of gain knowledge and information When a company outsourcing the business activity, the company will loss the opportunity to get knowledge and information that could benefit other company. Knowledge provide competitive advantage to sustain the strengthness of the company. As a result, when a business activity been given to the other company, the company will have more skills, knowledge regarding to manage the activity. 3) Threat to security and company secret Data and information related to the company will given to the outsource company for the operation matter. The information can be threat to the company because the other company can use the information to compete with our company. Most of the outsource company their goals are only to make more profit rather than to follow the objective oforiginal company. At the end, both of the company compete each other to conquer the market. 4) Quality problem The outsourcing company will be motivated by profit. Since the contract will fix the price, the only way for them to increase profit will be to decrease expenses. As long as they meet the conditions of the contract, you will pay. In addition, you will lose the ability to rapidly respond to changes in the business environment. The contract will be very specific and you will pay extra for changes. How to cite Advantage and Disadvantage of Offshore Outsource, Papers

Johann Sebastian Bach Essay Summary Example For Students

Johann Sebastian Bach Essay Summary Johann Sebastian BachChris KouffmanFebruary 11, 1997Period 7Johann Sebastian Bach was a musical composer of the late 17th and early18th centuries. He was one of the greatest composers of all time. He was bornin Eisenach, Thuringia, in 1685. He spent his life in music and was known forhis ability in that subject. At age 15, Bach got his first job as a court musician at Weimar. Therehe became known as a great organist. In 1717, the Prince of Cothen invited Bachto become Kappelmeister in Cothen. The Duke of Weimar refused to let Bach go toCothen, however, and confined him in a gaol for a time. After Bach was released by the Duke of Weimar, Bach took up the Princeof Cothen on his offer and stayed with him in Cothen for a period of six years. It was there in Cothen that Bach became widely known for his skill as organistand his ability to compose sacred and secular music. His stay in Cothen stagedhis fame in his country for his music. Bachs last job was as Cantor at St. Thomass school in Leipzig. Thiswas one of the most prestigious posts in Germany. There in Leipzig he spent 20years constantly battling with the school and church authorities. However, hedid write some of the best work in his lifetime during this period. Johann Sebastian Bach spent his life devoted to his music. In thatrespect he was a genius. He was one of the greatest composers and organists inhis period of time.

Peerless Starch Company free essay sample

The Peerless Starch Company of Blair, Indiana. b)Grading to be based on the CWE scoring rubric previously provided. c)Assignment must be placed on the online portfolio and must be submitted to etutoring for review. d)Read the case study below in its entirety and give it some serious thought. Then, in your own words, summarize the issues involved in this case (there are quite a few) and indicate whether Glen Baxter has a case and provide a thorough discussion to support your conclusion. Finally, and within the write-up, discuss what you would do if you were John Ludwig? Essay word count should be no less than 750 words. e)Required dates: a. Provide your instructor a copy of your initial write-up that you are placing on the online portfolio and sending to etutoring by Friday, April 4. b. Send to etutoring ASAP and provide your instructor a revised write-up based on etutoring comments by Friday, April 11. We will write a custom essay sample on Peerless Starch Company or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page f)Access the Writing Center LibGuide for instructions on how to have your work reviewed by etutoring and how to set up an online Portfolio if necessary. The Peerless Starch Company of  Blair, Indiana For as long as anyone in Blair, Indiana, could remember, the Peerless Starch plant had always been the biggest thing in town. Built on a slight hill above the sluggish river and designed to look as much like the Tower of London as anything in Indiana can, the plant dominated the town spiritually even more than it did physically. The Peerless Starch Company was the largest employer in town, employing well over 8,000 men out of a population of 120,000 or every fourth head of a family. It paid the highest wages, if only because most of the men were rated as skilled workers or technicians. And alone of all the large businesses in Blair, it was locally managed; the Peerless top management sat on the fifth floor of the big mill itself, in the New Building that had been put up in the 1940s. And from the chief executive officer the grandson of the founder on down, all executives were Blair men who had started in the mill and worked their way up, and who were more often than not second- or third-generation Peerless employees. The Peerless Starch Company had started in Blair, Indiana during the Civil War when the founder had developed one of the first methods to extract starch from corn. Until the 1940s, Peerless had only one mill. But the company had prospered so much that three additional mills were built in rapid succession during the years after World War II: one in Illinois, one in Texas, and, the biggest yet, in Oregon, built in the late 1950s. But while the Peerless Starch Company had flourished, the town of Blair, Indiana had not. During World War II it had boomed. But then Blair, Indiana had gradually drifted into being first a run-down and then a depressed area. One after another, many of the towns other factories had laid off people and then fi ¬nally closed their doors. The Peerless Starch Company mill in Blair, Indiana seemed to be the only exception to this general rule of slow decay and downhill drift. But appearances were deceptive. Actually, the Peerless mill in Blair was in terrible condition and was kept going only by the success of the new Peerless mills in other states. The Blair, Indiana mill’s sales were about one-fifth of the entire Peerless Starch Company’s. But the Blair mill in Indiana employed almost half of Peerlesss hourly rated labor force and three-quarters of Peerlesss managerial and professional people. Unlike the other mills in the other towns, the Blair, Indiana Mill did not make its own raw ma ¬terials but got intermediates from outside suppliers or from the other mills. It should therefore have needed less labor per unit produced. Instead, it needed up to four times as much. There were reasons for Blairs high costs or at least there were arguments to justify them. The mill itself was a towering structure built to withstand the Crusaders armies but ill equipped for modern production. All newer Peerless mills, for instance, were single story buildings, whereas Blair had five stories capped by twin towers. Nobody at Blair ever got fired; if a man couldnt do a job, the word from the head office was Find him another one. If a new process came in, the workers on the old-one were quietly moved to plant maintenance or, if they had any skills, were made supervisors, with the ridiculous result that there were entire departments at Blair with more supervisors than workers. Above all, Blair considered itself a quality mill, and that apparently meant that nothing could be produced in quantity. But the central problem of Blair, and the greatest drain in money, was that Blair did not turn out quality products. Rejection rates at Blair ran almost twice as high as at the other mills. What the Blair quality-control inspectors accepted provoked angry complaints from the customers. Indeed, as everyone knew, the sales ¬people spent little time selling. They spent most of their time talking customers into not sending the stuff right back to Blair as faulty and unusable, often by granting the complaining customer a nice rebate. The rebate never appeared in the Blair direct cost accounts but was. charged off to the overhead account miscellaneous customer service. Things had been drifting from bad to worse and no one in the Blair, Indiana Mill expected that they would ever change. But then suddenly, in the spring of 1985, a number of circumstances coalesced. 1. The founders grandson, the old man who had run the Peerless Starch Company for thirty five years, died. And, it turned out that the founding family owned practically no stock at all. Thereupon the outside directors, who had not dared speak up while the old man was alive, refused to appoint his son-in-law or his nephew as his successor. Instead they picked an outsider to become president and chief executive officer: John Ludwig, who was not even a native of Blair, Indiana, let alone a chemical engineer or a starch machinist. In fact, Ludwig had been with Peer ¬less less than four years and had been forced on the old man by some of the outside directors. Having started as an industrial psychologist, Ludwig had first taught, then worked for the Pentagon as a training specialist, then in Industrial Relations for Ford, where he helped reorganize one of the major divisions and then had become general manager of one of the smaller Ford Motor divisions. He had come to Peerless in 1981 as its first professional manager at least the first one in Blair and as executive assistant to the president. The old man had kept him busy with the affairs of the other plants in the other towns, so that Ludwig knew very little about the Blair, Indiana Mill. Although he had several times thought of resigning what he felt was a futile and frustrating job, he now found himself in charge. 2. Even before the death of the old man, things had turned critical at Peerless, and Especially at the mill at Blair, Indiana. The market had sud ¬denly become competitive. Synthetic starches and adhesives were flowing onto the market out of the labs of the chemical companies and the oil companies and the rubber companies businesses that never before had been competing in the starch market. Peerless and a few other companies used to have the field all to themselves and carefully refrained from hurting each other too badly. But the new ¬comers didnt know what everyone else in the industry knew: you cant make the market bigger by lowering the price or improving product performance; all you can do is spoil the market for every ¬body. Worse still, the success of the newcomers seemed to disprove such old truths. The new mills in Illinois, Texas, and Oregon had managed to hold their own indeed Oregon did phenomenally well and managed to bring out a highly profitable new line of synthetics (without even telling the folks in Central Research in Blair, Indiana) that quickly became industry leaders. But Blair came close to collapse. With supply abundant, customers flatly refused to tolerate the Blair quality or lack of quality anymore. Despite all the efforts of the sales department, whole carloads of the stuff came back often with a curt note: Dont bother to call on us anymore; we have contracted to buy our supply elsewhere. And Blair, which for years had been barely breaking even, plunged into the red and began to lose money. By mid-1985 Blair was losing more money than the other three mills made, so that Peerless no longer showed any profit and, indeed, barely managed to earn the interest on its fixed debt. Blair, clearly, was bleeding Peerless white. As soon as Ludwig had become president, he asked the ablest man in Blair management an assistant manager of the Blair plant to study what could be done with Blair. The result was a recommen ¬dation to spend some $25 million on modernizing the Blair plant. For this sum, the assistant manager promised, Peerless would get as modern a plant as any in the country (to build one from scratch would cost around $60 million). Employment in the modernized plant would shrink from 8,000 to 2,600. Ludwig had resolved not to take any action until the assistant manager completed his study. But he hadnt been idle during that time. He himself carefully studied the economics of Peerless, which had previously been kept rather secret. It soon became apparent to Ludwig that, economically, Blair was on very shaky ground. The only economi ¬cally justifiable course was to close the Blair mill and not replace it. The existing mills in Illinois, Texas, and Oregon could easily replace Blairs production volume at a fraction of Blairs cost and at supe ¬rior quality. Closing Blair would entail very heavy short-run costs, mainly severance pay. But within six months, the Peerless Company would have absorbed the loss and would have become profitable again. If Blair was kept going, no matter how successfully modern ¬ized, Peerless could at best hope to break even and the capital required to rebuild Blair would use up all the credit Peerless could possibly command if indeed that much money could be raised in Peerlesss shaky condition. Ludwig was deeply disturbed by this conclusion. He knew how much the Peerless Mill meant to Blair; without it there werent going to be any jobs in the town. He himself was old enough to remember the Depression days when his father, a machinist in a Milwaukee automobile plant, had been unemployed for three bitter years. Yet Ludwig also knew that he had to make a decision fast. When he had been made president, he had asked the board of directors to give him six months to study the situation and the board had given him that much time only grudgingly. At that time the board had not really known how bad things were and at the next Board meeting, in January 1986, he would have to tell them that the first nine months of 1985 had been catastrophic months. Surely at that meeting, if not before, the board would expect him to have a definite recommendation. As a business decision, there was clearly no choice: Blair had to be closed. But what about the companys social responsibility to Blair and to the people who depended on the Peerless mill for their livelihood? The more Ludwig thought about this the more he became convinced that Peerless had the social responsibility to try to save the Blair mill, and the town with it. There was a fair chance, after all, that the rescue operation would succeed. He was not at all sure that his board would go along indeed, he half-suspected that the board would ask for his resignation rather than authorize spending $25 million on Blair. Still he saw no choice in conscience but to try. But before recommend ¬ing to the board that the Blair mill be remodeled, Ludwig thought it prudent to discuss the matter with an old acquaintance, Glen Baxter. Baxter had attended the same college as Ludwig, had wanted to become a minister, and had actually had a year or two of divinity school, but had then turned to economics and was now the economist for the very union that represented the Peerless workers. Ludwig was really more interested in getting Baxters support than in getting his advice privately, he had always considered Baxter somewhat of a radical and an oddball. But Ludwig knew that he needed union support for any plan to rebuild Blair and that his board would not even listen to such a plan unless he could give assurances of union support. And surely Baxter would support a plan that maintained 2,600 jobs for his members! Much to Ludwigs surprise, Baxter did no such thing. On the contrary, he became almost violent in his opposition. To invest all this money in rebuilding Blair, he said, is not only financial folly; its totally irresponsible socially. You arent just president of the Blair, Indiana mill; you are president of the Peerless Starch Company with its 8,000 employees outside of Blair, Indiana. And you propose to sacrifice the 8,000 people you employ outside of Blair, Indiana just for the people at Blair. You have no right to do so. Even if you succeed and Blair survives, Peerless will have lost the capacity both to pay severance pay and pensions should you have to lay off more people and to raise the money to modernize and expand the other mills and to maintain the jobs there. All right, John Ludwig, maybe youll be a hero in Blair, Indiana with your plan, maybe people there will think youve done great things for  ¬them. But in my book  youll be a cheap demagogue as president of the Peerless Starch Company you are paid for doing the right thing and not for being popular. Of course, Baxter said, we in the union will do everything to make closing the Blair, Indiana mill as expensive as possible for Peerless we do have a responsibility toward our members. But for you to jeopardize the jobs and livelihoods of all of the workers in the healthy plants just because you have a guilty conscience about Blairs mismanagement all these years thats the height of social irresponsibility. Now that you have finished reading the above case, give it some serious thought. Then, in your own words, summarize the issues involved in the case (there are quite a few) and indicate whether Glen Baxter has a case and provide a thorough discussion to support your conclusion. Finally, and within the write-up, discuss what you would do if you were John Ludwig?