Friday, March 20, 2020
Womens Right to Education
Womens Right to Education Hashtag: #HappyWomensDay The Struggle for Formal Education The international Womenââ¬â¢s Day is celebrated to recognize the struggles and achievements of women around the word. Two of the most prominent of these achievements are the right to vote and the right to education. The struggle for womenââ¬â¢s equality began in early 19th century. In the 1830ââ¬â¢s, while maintaining their role as wives and mothers, womenââ¬â¢s movement in America sought to broaden their knowledge through a formal college education. However, the cult of motherhood and limited social and political rights during that time restricted this education to home application. For instance, the American educators who pushed for womenââ¬â¢s education justified their efforts on the benefits of education in the domestic sphere, in marriage, and motherhood. Consequently, colleges offered a limited range of courses that are mostly relevant to womenââ¬â¢s role as homemakers and mothers. The fight for their right to education was further made difficult and prolonged by the fear that educated women would abandon their traditional domestic duties and intrude upon the male sphere. In fact, the male-dominated popular press of the early 20th century even publicized the notion that women are destined parlor, nursery, and kitchen workers and mentally and physiologically incapable of education. Moreover, although firmly promoting equality for women, the movement itself during that time had no strong position on the role of educated women in western society and in fact spreading the doctrine of separate spheres. Women had achieved the right to vote in the 1920 but made little progress in their struggle for employment and education. Women remained largely excluded in the educational system until they started to pursue higher education and earned more bachelors degree than men in the 1980s. Achieving Gender Equality Through Education Education for women is one of UNESCOââ¬â¢s gender equality priorities. Consequently, most educational systems around the world offer women education and empowerment. Womenââ¬â¢s continuing effort to improved their knowledge and skills not only resulted in the creation of more institutions for womenââ¬â¢s learning but recognition of the fact that womenââ¬â¢s education is as necessary and beneficial as that of men. The study shows that that are more women in formal education now than in the past. The reason is that formal schooling not only enhanced their opportunity for employment but also improved their conditions in life. In developing countries, for instance, educational helped women meet their practical gender needs, benefit from salaried employment and healthier households. However, due to cultural attitudes, women in some developing nations appear restrained and need to put more effort in their quest equality, knowledge, and skills. Although the majority of developing nations, provide women greater access to formal education, they are restrained by cultural attitudes pertaining to female education. In fact, study shows that education for females in some African countries lagged behind that of males. Some of the barriers found include sexual abuse and harassment, particularly in mixed gender schools. Education had already improved the lives of millions of women around the world. They have greater access to higher education offered by public and private universities. Women are increasingly benefitting from online courses offered by Open University and Continuing Education Programs. They are now empowered, independent, have greater participation in government, and better employment opportunities.
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Definition and Examples of Morphemes in English
Definition and Examples of Morphemes in English In English grammar and morphology, aà morpheme is a meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word such as dog, or a word element, such as the -s at the end of dogs, that cant be divided into smaller meaningful parts. Morphemes are theà smallest units of meaning in a language. They areà commonly classified as either free morphemes, which can occur as separate words orà bound morphemes, which cant stand alone as words. Many words in English are made up of a single free morpheme. For example, each word in the following sentence is a distinct morpheme: I need to go now, but you can stay. Put another way, none of the nine words in that sentence can be divided into smaller parts that are also meaningful. Etymology From the French, by analogy with phoneme, from the Greek, shape, form. Examples and Observations A prefix may be a morpheme:What does it mean to pre-board? Do you get on before you get on?- George CarlinIndividual words may be morphemes:They want to put you in a box, but nobodys in a box. Youre not in a box.- John TurturroContracted word forms may be morphemes:They want to put you in a box, but nobodys in a box. Youre not in a box.- John TurturroMorphs and AllomorphsA word can be analyzed as consisting of one morpheme (sad) or two or more morphemes (unluckily; compare luck, lucky, unlucky), each morpheme usually expressing a distinct meaning. When a morpheme is represented by a segment, that segment is a morph. If a morpheme can be represented by more than one morph, the morphs are allomorphs of the same morpheme: the prefixes in- (insane), il- (illegible), im- (impossible), ir- (irregular) are allomorphs of the same negative morpheme.- Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1996Morphemes as Meaningful Sequences of SoundsA word cannot be divided i nto morphemes just by sounding out its syllables. Some morphemes, like apple, have more than one syllable; others, like -s, are less than a syllable.à A morpheme isà a form (a sequence of sounds) with a recognizable meaning. Knowing a words early history, or etymology, may be useful in dividing it into morphemes, but the decisive factor is the form-meaning link.A morpheme may, however,à have more than one pronunciation or spelling.à For example, the regular noun pluralà ending has two spellings (-s and -es) and three pronunciations (an s-sound as in backs, a z-sound as in bags, and a vowel plus z-sound as in batches).à Similarly, when the morphemeà -ate is followed by -ion (as in activate-ion), the t of -ate combines with the i of -ion as the sound sh (so we might spell the word activashun). Such allomorphic variation is typical of the morphemes of English, even though the spelling does not represent it.- John Algeo,à The Origins and Development of the English Langua ge, 6th ed.à Wadsworth, 2010 Grammatical TagsIn addition to serving as resources in the creation of vocabulary, morphemes supply grammatical tags to words, helping us to identify on the basis of form the parts of speech of words in sentences we hear or read. For example, in the sentence Morphemes supply grammatical tags to words, the plural morpheme ending {-s} helps identify morphemes, tags, and words as nouns; the {-ical} ending underscores the adjectival relationship between grammatical and the following noun, tags, which it modifies.- Thomas P. Klammer et al. Analyzing English Grammar. Pearson, 2007Language AcquisitionEnglish-speaking children usually begin to produce two-morpheme words in their third year, and during that year the growth in their use of affixes is rapid and extremely impressive. This is the time, as Roger Brown showed, when children begin to use suffixes for possessive words (Adams ball), for the plural (dogs), for present progressive verbs (I walking), for third-person singular present ten se verbs (he walks), and for past tense verbs, although not always with complete corectness (I brunged it here) (Brown 1973). Notice that these new morphemes are all of them inflections. Children tend to learn derivational morphemes a little later and to continue to learn about them right through childhood . . ..- Peter Bryant and Terezinha Nunes, Morphemes and Literacy: A Starting Point. Improving Literacy by Teaching Morphemes, ed. by T. Nunes and P. Bryant. Routledge, 2006 Pronunciation: MOR-feem
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Human Resource Management Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words
Human Resource Management - Term Paper Example The supermarket has been able to divide all its stores into five major segments depending on the location and demands of the customers. These segments are Superstores, metros, express hyper, additional home plus and anything else can be found under one roof. The express hyper shops are small in size and are located in the neighborhoods to offer food stuffs and they normally have high margins due to the small sizes of the shops while the metros are usually located at the city center. At the international level, these stores are found in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Korea, Poland, Kenya, France, China and Hungary. Their major competitors include You deserve the best, Between us, The place to be and Amongst us supermarkets (Armstrong, 2003). The supermarket has a corporate strategy which helps it appeal to all segments of the market that is the up market, middle age and the low market range. The strategy for You n Us supermarket has been its ability to include the finest brands, middle and low priced products so as to meet all the demands and expectations of the customers. Since 2001, the supermarket has been able to market itself using the phrase ââ¬Å"Home for Your Valueâ⬠slogan to describe its principles, mission and core values both locally and internationally. It has also been able to advertise both locally and internationally using the slogan ââ¬Å"you need it, we have itâ⬠. Most of its advertisement is done in major billboards along major highways, electronic media and the print media. In the television advertisements, they have been able to engage the services of major actors and actresses such as Look Brooke, James Upright and Young Heart (Armstrong, 2003). The supermarket is committed to corporate social responsibility by offering some of its pre-tax profits to charitable organizations, schools and community based activities. It has started a computer school for the disadvantaged in the
Sunday, February 2, 2020
Maximus and Aquinas Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words
Maximus and Aquinas - Essay Example Thomas Aquinas and St. Maximus the Confessors input on this issue. Will can be defined as choice or determination. Divine will is what a Divine being, God, chooses or determines. Even though it sounds clear enough, the question then becomes; who is God or what components make up God? This leads to a discussion on knowledge about God, including what is the true knowledge. Then influences on mens perception of true knowledge, like Plato or Aristotle need to be examined. Human will, or human choice or determination, appears less complicated, but in reality is not. The reason human will is not clear cut comes down to how much Divine will influences mans thoughts. This factor is unknown. Opinions range from human will that is totally free to human will being guided by completely by Divine will. Aquinas and Maximus agree that humans have a will, or choice when dealing with issues of God. Aquinas asserted ââ¬Å"that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs Divine help, that the intellect may be moved by God to its act.â⬠1 Despite this statement, Aquinas thought that humans have a natural instinct to have knowledge without Divine revelation. Aquinas also acknowledged that Divine revelation occurs from time to time, "especially in regard to faith.â⬠2 This means that true knowledge comes from God, but humans can also reason things out with and without Divine revelation. Through the working out of the commandments the mind puts off the passions. Through the spiritual contemplation of visible realities it puts off impassioned thoughts of things. Through the knowledge of invisible realities it puts off contemplation of visible things. And finally this it puts off through knowledge of the Holy Trinity.3 Maximus felt that knowledge comes in an abstracting from the realm of the senses into one of intellect.4 Maximus thought that any projection onto an thought of possible apprehension makes out perception of this object false.5 This
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Role of the Change Agent in Organisational Development
Role of the Change Agent in Organisational Development This paper had been concluded in order to interpret the importance of the organization development and how achieving the organizational development process is going to affect the welfare of the organization. The paper identifies the main methodologies and theories that are concerning with the way the changing process are going to be achieved. Through the paper, there would be a identifying to the role of the change agent and the main characteristics that should be available at this person. The paper will also highlight the main dilemmas and the opportunities that are going to face the organizational development agent through the changing process, and how the agent should get rid of the barriers and how the agent are going to seize those opportunities. Introduction The changing nature of the market had influenced the ways that many managers used to think. Many organizations now seek to cop with the change that occurs in the market place and in the management methodologies. This changing nature had derived the companies to lean to changing their old theories and to maintain new ways to run their businesses, and their institutions in many ways. However, the changes in the market nature are considered to be challenges for the companies and the managements, it also can provide them with new opportunities. Thatà ¢Ã ¢Ã¢â¬Å¡Ã ¬Ã ¢Ã¢â¬Å¾Ã ¢s why it is important for the managers and the businesses owners to be continuously aware with the newest methodologies and theories that help them manage their institutions more efficiently and effectively. Literature review What is the organizational development? Before interpreting the organizational development recently issues, there would be a discussion about the nature of the organizational development process and how this process started. The organizational development is a process that includes developing both of the organizational internal capacity in order to achieve effectiveness, to ensure its sustainability. Sometimes companies seek achieving the organizational development processes for maintaining certain missions, goals, or to cop with the development of the companys competitors. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley) The organizational development is based on the idea of changing the current state of the company. This change could be through restructuring, or re-engineering the internal structure of the company. Also, sometimes the company seeks changing the operations processes at the company. Those characteristics of organizational development process led Adam smith to come with a broader definition, stating that the organizational development is considered to be the processes that the organization are achieving, through the usage of the behavioral science approach, system improvement, planning, and self-analysis, in order to reach the highest rate of effectiveness. (Smith 1998) How to discover the need for change? The organizational management should develop an understanding of the need for change and create awareness and legitimacy, by seeking out and understanding both of the external data and the internal data, making sense of the perspectives of other stakeholders, and evaluating the organizational management concerns and perspectives. After maintaining those activities, the organizations should identify whether the organization is ready for change or not. This issue will be answered through reviewing the previous change experiences, identifying the organizational degree of openness to change, measure the executives support, and whether there are fair and satisfying rewards for change or not. When the organizational management successfully realizes that the organization is requiring change and is ready for maintain an organizational change process, the organizational management should assign the agent, who is going to develop the organizational developm ent process. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley) Who is the organizational development agent? The organizational change agent, who also called the organizational development practitioner, is the one, who performs the process of change in the organization. The agent should have some characteristics that would enhance his ability to achieve the process effectively. One of the main characteristics are his wide knowledge about the behavior of the people within the organization, this knowledge can be gained through his interaction with the employees personally, or by his observation to their behaviors. It is prefer that the agent has an academic study in sciences that study the human behavior like; psychology, sociology, and human resources management. The organizations have the freedom to hire the change agent from outside the company in order to change the companys system, or to develop the performance of the companys operations. In this case the change agent is called to be an OD consultant. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley ) Some organizations prefer to choose one of the inside employees to be responsible for the change process, as he will always has wider knowledge about the companys employees and also because the inside agent will be more caring for the interest of the company. The inside agent usually are chosen from the top management, as to be aware of all of the companys operations, values, and objectives. On the other hand the external agent will has some advantages over the insider, as the external consultant will hold different perspectives, views, and different experiences that the external agent had gained from dealing with other companies. Those advantages will give the company the opportunity to be able to get rid of the restrictions and constrains of the old regime. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley) What are the OD agents activities? The change agent or the OD agent, with the help of the top management of the company, should perform certain activities that lead an effective change management. One of the main activities of the change agent is motivating for the change, which can be concluded through creating readiness for change and by overcoming resistance to change. Also the change agent has the responsibility to create the organizational vision, through describing the core ideologies and creating the envisioned future. However the change agent plays an important role in the change process, the top management should also develop a political support for the change process, through assessing the change agent power, identifying the key stakeholders, and influencing the stakeholders. It is also essential that the top management manage the transition process, by planning for activities and commitment, and by structuring the change management. One last role that should be played by t he management is to sustain the momentum, by providing resources for change, build support system for change agents, and develop new competences and skills. Finally, Change requires time and many of the expected financial and organizational benefits from change lag behind its implementation. If the organization changed again too quickly or abandons the change before it is fully implemented, the desired results may never materialize. By concluding those activities, the company will ensure that the change agent is going to perform the organizational development process effectively and efficiently. (Dennis Stevenson) What are the organizational development theories? This is considered to be the most fundamental question in the study of the organizational development. The methods that the organizational development agent is going to use are considering whether the agent will succeed in what achieving the change process effectively or not. There had been many methods that had been used by many agents and many organizations, but there are three main theories or methods that are considered to be the most successful ones for planned change. Those theories are the Lewins change model, the action research model, and the positive model. (Alicia Kritsonis) First, according to Lewins change model, there are two particular groups, who hold two different attitudes about the change process. The first group is accepting the status quo and wish that nothing would change. This group of stakeholders restricts change and push employees away form change. On the other hand, the other group is actually pushing for achieving the change process. This group is facilitating change and pushes the employees toward the change process. (Alicia Kritsonis) The German Kurt Lewin, who was considered to be the founder of social psychology, stated that the change process could be illustrated by a model, which is consisting of three main steps. The first step is to unfreeze the existing situation to overcome the strains of individual resistance and group conformity. This unfreezing action takes place through increasing the driving forces that direct behavior away from the existing status quo, decreasing the restraining forces that negatively the movements from the existing equilibrium, or find a combination of the both. The second step of Lewins model is the movement process of the target system to a new level of equilibrium. This step can be achieved through persuading employees to agree that the status quo is not beneficial to them and encouraging them to view the problem from a fresh perspective, working together on a quest for new and relevant information, and connecting the news of the group to well. Finally, the last step of the model indicates the refreezing process, at which the change had been implemented by the change agent in to sustain overtime the change over time, not to allow the employees to return to their old state. The unfreezing step can be achieved through reinforcing new patterns and institutionalize them through formal and informal mechanisms including policies and procedures. (Alicia Kritsonis) Second, according to the action research model, which had been introduced by Lippitt, Watson, and Westley in 1958, there are eight main steps to conclude change in the organization. Those steps are sequenced as followed. The organizational management should identify the main problem of the old regime, and then the management should ask for the help of a consultant with a behavioral science expert. The change agent should gather data and maintain diagnosis for the data that had been gathered from internal and external resources. After maintaining the diagnosis the agent should conclude processes of feedback to the organization, jointing diagnosing of the problem, jointing the action planning, and then the actions should be concluded. However the action of change had been concluded the data should be gathered after maintaining the action in order to evaluate the progress of change and to ensure that the change had been achieved successfully. (Kritsonis, A) Third, the positive model of change, which is also called the appreciative inquiry, had been established by David Cooperrider, who used the model to enhance a positively-focused perspective and an opportunity-oriented intervention. The proponents of the positive change model assumed that the organizational development models are considered to be too negative, as they focus only on the problems, neglecting the opportunities and its importance appreciative inquiry is considered to be focusing more in the humanistic matters, rather than being pragmatic and realistic. It is also considered to be more participatory; rather than being often top down driven. Appreciative inquiry had emerged over the past several decades as alternatives to the other models of the change to the shortly examined reasons. (Boyd Bright, 2007) (Cooperrider, Whitney, Stavros, 2008) (Egan Lancaster, 2005) The positive model of change involves five main phases. The first phase is to initiate the inquiry, through emphasizing the involvement of the members of the organization in order to identify the organizational issue. The second phase is to gathering the information that determines the best of what is in the organization. Then the third phase encourage the change agent should discover the themes; and examines the stories for identifying the set of themes that represent the common dimensions of peopleà ¢Ã ¢Ã¢â¬Å¡Ã ¬Ã ¢Ã¢â¬Å¾Ã ¢s experiences. The forth phase will include the creation of the preferred future; by identifying the best theme, challenging the status quo, and describe a required future. The last phase will enhance designing and delivering several ways to create the future, through activities and plans that are necessary to achieve the vision. (Herb Stevenson) There some differences between the three models. For instance, Lewins model differs from the other models as it focuses on the general process of planned change rather than the organizational development activities. Also, the Lewins model agrees with the action research model, in terms of level of the participants involvement and the high degree of focusing on change. They also are more concerned with what the organization does wrong, rather than what are the main opportunities that the company has. (Herb Stevenson) What is the general model of planned change? There is a general model of planned change. The model had been introduced by Cummings and Worley at 1993. This model consists of four main steps, which are taking place in a forward sequence. Those steps are entering and contacting, diagnosing, planning implementing process and the evaluating institutionalizing process. First, the entering and contracting stage, it involve making the top management of the organziation decide whether the organization need a planned change program or not. The management should define some resources to this change process. The managemnt should determine the consultant, who is going to runn the change process, and to clearly illustrate the organizational issue into presenting the problem and symptoms. (Miriam Y. Lacey) Second, the process of diagnosing that includes focusing on the understanding of the organizational problem, and the identification of the organizational positive and negative attitudes. Through the diagnosing stage, the management should choose a suitable model to understand the organization as a whole. The best model that many of the organization seek to use is the open system model, which is suggesting that the organization is operating within both internal and external enviroment. This open system gathers specific inputs from the enviroment and transforms those inputs into outputs through social and technological procedures. Then the output of the transformation process is considered to be returning to the enviroment and can be used as feedback to the organizational evaluation. (Miriam Y. Lacey) The third stage of the general planned change model is the planning and the implementing process. This stage enhances the organizations members and the chanage agent to align together to plan and implement the orgaznaitional interventions that is required to achieve the change. The interventions design can be implemented through creating the organizational visions and goals, and through making action plans to implement them depending on the organization readiness for change, current change capablilites, culture power distributions, change agents skills and abilities. There are four types of interventions that could be emplemented. The interventions could be human process interventions (process consultation and team building), techno-structural interventions (downsizing), human resources management interventions (performance appraisal), or strategic interventions (transformational change, transorganizational change, continuous change). The forth stage would be the evaluating and the institutionalizing process. This stage involoves evaluating the effects of the interventions and managing the institutionlization of successful changes programs. (Miriam Y. Lacey) How to evaluate the effectiveness of the change? This could be the most critical question that the top management should ask. The origination should maintain a full evaluation to the results of the change. The main goal of the change management is to close the gap between the planned outcomes and the actual outcomes of change. There are differences in the evaluation process, this differences occur according to whether the change occurred by an internal or external agent. The external consultant rely on repeat business and customer, while the internal agent would prefer relying on repeat business, pay rise and promotion, considering them the main key measures of success. Also, the external consultant focuses on the long-term results, while the internal agent has a little recognition for a job well. (Miriam Y. Lacey) Summary The organization should focus on many issues to be able to survive in todays changing environments. The main issues are the continuously checking for the problems and the new changes inside their company and outside, in the other companies and the markets. This continuous monitoring leads to successfully recognition for the need for change. The organization management should also carefully choose the most successful and knowledgeable agent who is enriched with the highest experience and skills. The successful choice of the internal or external agent will ensure the success of the change process. Also change agent, should manage the change process through the main issues and problems of the organization through a way that will be compatible with the organizational goals. However, the organization could manage the change process successfully; the results may not be as same as planned, because of the continuously changing nature of the environment. Thatà ¢Ã ¢Ã¢â¬Å¡Ã ¬Ã ¢Ã¢â¬Å¾Ã ¢ s why the company should develop an open system model that facilitates the continuous change process.
Friday, January 17, 2020
The Four Types of Essay Organization
* The four types of essay organization that was discussed in the course readings were topic, time order, space order, and informative process. The characteristic that makes these essays expository for topic expository develops by topic systematically organizes information about topic in the most logical fashion. Time order developed by time order involves the sequential or chronological organization of information form one period to another. This types of expository developed arranges information according to date or specific time, for instance, from the earliest to the most recent or vice versa.Space order an expository essay developed by space order involves the spatial organization of idea. This arrangement refers to information that deals with location of people, places, or things. Finally, the informative process developed by informative process may best be described as how essay, or demonstration. * How to distinguish space organization from time organization or informative pro cess organization is that space organization arranges deals with people, places or things.And informative just involves step-by-step process, with arranged in their natural order, for example, ââ¬Å"How to Write an Expository Essayâ⬠. * The organization of each essay can help the reader understand the subject matter because it helps defines and understand of each type of expository essays. * The essay I read that had the most effective organization was ââ¬Å"A Soul as Free as the Air: About Lacy Stoneâ⬠; because the essay explained everything about Lacy Stone by giving examples and details about her life.It also was developed in the four basic expository essay format with the topic giving the information about the whole essay, and with the time order it basically arranged everything and order that happened in her life, space order it stated how she lived her life in different place, and also the time she spent, and as for informative process the essay was basically writt en step by step giving details about the whole essay. * The type of essay organization that is suitable for my essay topic is topic because it would contain systematically organize information about a topic in the most logical fashion.
Thursday, January 9, 2020
Dorothy Day, Founder of the Catholic Worker Movement
Dorothy Day was a writer and editor who founded the Catholic Worker, a penny newspaper that grew into a voice for the poor during the Great Depression. As the driving force in what became a movement, Days unwavering advocacy for charity and pacifism made her controversial at times. Yet her work among the poorest of the poor also made her an admired example of a deeply spiritual person actively engaged in addressing societys problems. When Pope Francis addressed the U.S. Congress in September 2015, he focused much of his speech onà four Americans he found particularly inspiring: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. Days name was no doubt unfamiliar to millions watching the Popes speech on television. But his effusive praise of her indicated how influential her lifes work with the Catholic Worker Movement was to the Popes own thoughts about social justice. Fast Facts: Dorothy Day Born: November 8, 1897, New York City.Died: November 29, 1980, New York City.Founder of the Catholic Worker, a small newspaper published in the Depression which became a social movement.Named by Pope Francis in his 2015 speech to Congress as one of his four most admired Americans.Is widely expected to be declared a saint in the Catholic Church. During her lifetime, Day could seem out of step with mainstream Catholics in America. She operated at the fringe of organized Catholicism, never seeking permission or official endorsement for any of her projects. Day came late to the faith, converting to Catholicism as an adult in the 1920s. At the time of her conversion, she was an unmarried mother with a complicated past that included life as a bohemian writer in Greenwich Village, unhappy love affairs, and an abortion that rendered her emotionally devastated. A movement to have Dorothy Day canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church began in the 1990s. Days own family members have said she would have scoffed at the idea. Yet it seems likely that she will one day be an officially recognized saint of the Catholic Church. Early Life Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 8, 1897. She was the third of five children born to John and Grace Day. Her father was a journalist who bounced from job to job, which kept the family moving between New York City neighborhoods and then onward to other cities. When her father was offered a job in San Francisco in 1903, the Days moved westward. Economic disruption caused by the San Francisco earthquake three years later cost her father his job, and the family moved on to Chicago. By the age of 17, Dorothy had already completed two years of study at the University of Illinois. But she abandoned her education in 1916à when she and her family moved back to New York City. In New York, she began writing articles for socialist newspapers. With her modest earnings, she moved into a small apartment on the Lower East Side. She became fascinated by the vibrant yet difficultà lives of impoverished immigrant communities, and Day became an obsessive walker, ferreting out stories in the citys poorest neighborhoods. She was hired as a reporter by the New York Call, a socialist newspaper, and began contributing articles to a revolutionary magazine, The Masses. Bohemian Years As America entered World War I and a patriotic wave swept the country, Day found herself immersed in a life filled with politically radical, orà simply offbeat, characters in Greenwich Village. She became a Village resident, living in a succession of cheap apartments and spending time in tearooms and saloons frequented by writers, painters, actors, and political activists. Day began a platonic friendship with playwright Eugene ONeill, and for a period during World War I, she entered a training program to become a nurse. After leaving the nursing program at the wars end, she became romantically involved with a journalist, Lionel Moise. Her affair with Moise ended after she had an abortion, an experience that sent her into a period of depression and intense inner turmoil. She met Forster Batterham through literary friends in New York and began living with him in a rustic cabin near the beach on Staten Island (which, in the early 1920s, was still rural). They had a daughter, Tamar, and after the birth of her child Day began to feel a sense of religious awakening. Though neither Day or Batterham were Catholic, Day took Tamar to a Catholic church on Staten Island and had the child baptized. The relationship with Batterham became difficult and the two often separated. Day, who had published a novel based on her Greenwich Village years, was able to purchase a modest cottage on Staten Island and she created a life for herself and Tamar. To escape the winter weather along the Staten Island shore, Day and her daughter would live in sublet apartments in Greenwich Village during the coldest months. On December 27, 1927, Day took a life-changing step by riding aà ferry back to Staten Island, visiting the Catholic church she knew, and having herself baptized. She later said she felt no great joy in the action, but rather regarded it as something she had to do. Finding Purpose Day continued writing and taking jobs as a researcher for publishers. A play she had written hadnt been produced, but somehow came to the attention of a Hollywood movie studio, which offered her a writing contract. In 1929 she and Tamar took a train to California, where she joined the staff of Pathà © Studios. Days Hollywood career was short. She found the studio not terribly interested in her contributions. And when the stock market crash in October 1929 hit the movie industry hard, her contract was not renewed. In a car she had purchased with her studio earnings, she and Tamar relocated to Mexico City. She returned to New York the following year. And after a trip to Florida to visit her parents, she and Tamar settled in a small apartment on 15th Street, not far from Union Square, where sidewalk speakers advocated solutions to the misery of the Great Depression. In December 1932 Day, returning to journalism, traveled to Washington, D.C. to cover a march against hunger for Catholic publications. While in Washington she visited the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, the Catholic Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception.à She later recalled she had been losing her faith in the Catholic Church over its apparent indifference to the poor. Yet as she prayed at the shrine she began to sense a purpose to her life. Afterà returning to New York City, an eccentric character turned up in Days life, someone she regarded as a teacher who may have been sent by the Virgin Mary. Peter Maurin was a French immigrant who worked as a laborer in America though he had taught at schools run by the Christian Brothers in France. He was a frequent speaker in Union Square, where he would advocate novel, if not radical, solutions for societys ills. Founding of the Catholic Worker Maurin soughtà out Dorothy Day after reading some of her articles about social justice. They began spending time together, talking and arguing. Maurin suggested Day should start her own newspaper. She said she had doubts about finding the money to get a paper printed, but Maurin encouraged her, saying they needed to have faith that the funds would appear. Within months, they did manage to raise enough money to print their newspaper. On May 1, 1933, a gigantic May Day demonstration was held at Union Square in New York. Day, Maurin, and a group of friends hawked the first copies of the Catholic Worker. The four-page newspaper cost a penny. The New York Times described the crowdà in Union Square that day as being filled with communists, socialists, and assorted other radicals. The newspaper noted the presence of banners denouncing sweatshops, Hitler, and the Scottsboro case. In that setting, a newspaper focused on helping the poor and achieving social justice was a hit. Every copy sold. Thatà first issue of the Catholic Worker contained a column by Dorothy Day which outlined its purpose. It began: For those who are sitting on park benches in the warm spring sunlight.For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain.For those who are walking the streets in the all but futile search for work.For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition of their plight ââ¬â this little paper is addressed.It is printed to call their attention to the fact that the Catholic Church has a social program ââ¬â to let them know that there are men of God who are working not only for their spiritual, but for their material welfare. The success of the newspaper continued. In a lively and informal office, Day, Maurin, and what became a regular cast of dedicated souls labored to produce an issue every month. Within a few years, the circulation reached 100,000, with copies being mailed to all regions of America.à Dorothy Day wrote a column in each issue, and her contributions continued for nearly 50 years, until her death in 1980. The archive of her columns represents a remarkable view of modern American history, as she began commenting on the plight of the poor in the Depression and moved on to the violence of the world at war, the Cold War, and protests of the 1960s. Dorothy Day addressing a protest against the Vietnam War. à Getty Images Prominence and Controversy Beginning with her youthful writings for socialist newspapers, Dorothy Day was often been out of step with mainstream America. She was arrested for the first time in 1917, while picketing the White House with suffragists demanding that women have the right to vote. In prison, at the age of 20, she was beaten by the police, and the experience made her even more sympathetic to the oppressed and powerless in society. Within years of its 1933 founding as a small newspaper, the Catholic Worker evolved into being a social movement. Again with Peter Maurins influence, Day and her supporters opened soup kitchens in New York City. The feeding of the poor continued for years, and the Catholic Worker also opened houses of hospitality offering places to stay for the homeless. For years the Catholic Worker also operated a communal farm near Easton, Pennsylvania. Besides writing for the Catholic Worker newspaper, Day traveled extensively, giving talks on social justice and meeting activists, both inside and outside the Catholic Church. She was at times suspected of holding subversive political views, but in a sense she operated outside of politics. When followers of the Catholic Worker Movement refused to participate in Cold War fallout shelter drills, Day and others were arrested. She was later arrested while protesting with union farm workers in California. She remained active until her death, in her room at a Catholic Worker residence in New York City, on November 29, 1980. She was buried on Staten Island, near the site of her conversion. Legacy of Dorothy Day In the decades since her death, the influence of Dorothy Day has grown. A number of books have been written about her, and several anthologies of her writings have been published. The Catholic Worker community continues to flourish, and the newspaper which first sold for a penny in Union Square still publishes seven times a year in a print edition. An extensive archive, including all of Dorothy Days columns is available for free online. More than 200 Catholic Worker communities exist in the United States and other countries. Perhaps the most noteworthy tribute to Dorothy Day was, of course, the comments by Pope Francis in his address to Congress on September 24, 2015. He said:à In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints. Near the end of his speech, the Pope again spoke of Days striving for justice: A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to dream of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton. With the leaders of the Catholic Church praising her work, and others continually discovering her writings, the legacy of Dorothy Day, who found her purpose editing a penny newspaper for the poor, seems assured.
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