VOA慢速英语2009-THIS IS AMERICA - Irish in America: Remembering

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Shirley Griffith. March seventeenth is Saint Patrick's Day, a time to celebrate Irish culture. The Census¹ Bureau says that in two thousand seven, thirty-six and a half million people in the United States claimed Irish ancestry². That was more than ten percent of all Americans -- and more than eight times the number of people in Ireland itself.

VOICE ONE:

This week on our program, we remember three Irish-Americans: the labor³ activist⁴ Mother Jones, the early photographer Matthew Brady and the entertainer Bing Crosby.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

That song is called "The Death of Mother Jones." Gene⁵ Autry recorded it three months after she died in nineteen thirty.
　
Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones

Mary Harris Jones was one of America's most effective labor organizers. Yet few people knew her real name. She rarely, if ever, used it. She was known as Mother Jones. Those on the other side of the labor struggle called her "The Most Dangerous Woman in America."

That is also the name of a book from two thousand one by Elliott Gorn, a professor now at Brown University in Rhode Island. His research produced new information about Mother Jones.

For example, she said she was born in Ireland in eighteen thirty. She was born in Ireland but Professor Gorn found that the year was eighteen thirty-seven. In other words, she was seven years younger than she claimed.

VOICE ONE:

Mary Harris was a schoolteacher in the state of Tennessee when she married an iron worker named George Jones. They had four children.

But in eighteen sixty-seven her husband and all four children died of yellow fever.

Mary Jones moved to Chicago and became a successful dressmaker. Then everything she had was destroyed again -- this time, in the Great Chicago Fire of eighteen seventy-one.

After that she became involved in the labor movement. Mary Jones seemed to appear whenever and wherever there were labor problems.

She often worked with coal miners. They began calling her "mother," and she started using the name Mother Jones. Sometimes she was called "the Miner's Angel."

VOICE TWO:

Coal was produced mostly in six states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia and Colorado.

In eighteen forty, the United States had seven thousand coal miners. They dug about two million tons of coal from the ground.

By nineteen hundred, the number of miners had reached almost seven hundred thousand. And that year they produced three hundred fifty million tons of coal.

Accidents killed thousands of mine workers. Miners were low paid and generally lived in towns owned and operated by the mine owner. Under this system, the company paid the miners, then the miners paid the money back to the company in return for goods and rent.

VOICE ONE:

Mine workers who attempted to organize met fierce opposition⁶, and sometimes violence. Mother Jones believed that unions represented the best hope for coal miners and other workers to improve their lives.

She spoke⁷ out against child labor and unsafe working conditions. "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living," she would say.

She worked for an early union called the Knights⁸ of Labor. Later she became an organizer for the United Mine Workers union. She was also a founder⁹ of the union known as the Industrial Workers of the World.

And for several years she traveled as a speaker for the Socialist¹⁰ Party. But, in the end, she found that she liked the ideas of Socialism more than the party and its supporters.

Mother Jones led protests to further the cause of unions. Many of the protests involved women and children. She led a march of miners' wives in western Pennsylvania in nineteen hundred. And three years later she led a children's march to President Theodore Roosevelt's New York home to protest child labor.

VOICE TWO:

Mother Jones was arrested many times. In West Virginia in nineteen twelve, violence connected to a miners' strike led to her trial and conviction for conspiracy¹¹ to murder.

The state governor freed her, but only after the United States Senate ordered an investigation¹² into conditions in the West Virginia coal fields.

In nineteen thirteen, she was kept under house arrest for nine weeks after helping¹³ to organize mine workers in Colorado.

Mother Jones died after celebrating, supposedly, her one hundredth birthday in nineteen thirty. Professor Gorn says she was really ninety-three. But her place in labor history is undisputed. Mother Jones is recognized in the National Women's Hall of Fame and the United States Labor Department's Labor Hall of Fame.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:
　
Matthew Brady

Now, we move on to an American whose father was born in Ireland. Matthew Brady documented the American Civil War in pictures. He has been called the father of photojournalism.

He was born near Lake George in New York State around eighteen twenty-two. His father was a farmer.

Matthew Brady moved to New York City where he learned about photography, still a new technology then.

He began taking pictures of famous people in eighteen forty-four. Among his subjects were Abraham Lincoln, John Quincy Adams, Walt Whitman and Edgar Allen Poe.

He wanted to photograph more political leaders, so in eighteen forty-nine he moved to Washington, D.C.

VOICE TWO:

The Civil War began in eighteen sixty-one. Matthew Brady decided¹⁴ to document the conflict. Yet he suffered from poor eyesight. So he put together teams of photographers to help him.

Brady took some of the battlefield pictures himself. But he got credit for all the photographs because they were made by his teams.

People could now see battlefield deaths as captured by a camera rather than an artist's pen or paintbrush. But Brady could not sell enough pictures to pay the costs of taking and processing them. He had to sell his offices to pay his debts.

In eighteen seventy-five, Congress bought all of his Civil War pictures for twenty-five thousand dollars. But even that was not enough to save him from financial ruin.

Matthew Brady died a poor man in eighteen ninety-six. But the pictures that he and his photographers made left a wealth of history for all future generations to see.

(MUSIC: "Too Rah Loo Rah Loo Rah")

VOICE ONE:

Bing Crosby was a singer and actor whose mother's family came from Ireland. He was born Harry¹⁵ Lillis Crosby in nineteen hundred and three in the northwestern city of Tacoma, Washington.

There are different stories about how he got his nickname. One version says his friends started calling him Bingo, and later Bing, after characters in a local comic strip, the Bingville Bugle¹⁶. Another story goes that when he was a boy playing cowboys and Indians, he shouted "bing" instead of "bang" after a make-believe gunshot.

VOICE TWO:
　
Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby started to sing professionally in the nineteen twenties. His group the Rhythm Boys joined the famous Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. When the group broke up, Bing started singing alone in nightclubs and on the radio. And he started appearing in movies.

He made more than sixty films. He won an Academy Award for best actor for the nineteen forty-four movie "Going My Way." He played an Irish priest, Father O'Malley. Later, he had his own radio and television shows.

As a singer, Bing Crosby's biggest recording¹⁷ success came from a nineteen forty-two movie. In "Holiday Inn" he sang a new song by Irving Berlin. That recording of "White Christmas" has sold more than one hundred million copies. That puts it among the best-selling singles of all time. Bing Crosby died in nineteen seventy-seven.

(MUSIC: "White Christmas")

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Caty Weaver¹⁸. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Shirley Griffith. You can find our programs with transcripts¹⁹ and MP3s at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

1 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

2 ancestry   

n.祖先，家世

参考例句：

• Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
• He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。

3 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

4 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

5 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

6 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

7 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

8 knights   

骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马

参考例句：

• stories of knights and fair maidens 关于骑士和美女的故事
• He wove a fascinating tale of knights in shining armour. 他编了一个穿着明亮盔甲的骑士的迷人故事。

9 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

10 socialist   

n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的

参考例句：

• China is a socialist country,and a developing country as well.中国是一个社会主义国家，也是一个发展中国家。
• His father was an ardent socialist.他父亲是一个热情的社会主义者。

11 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

12 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

13 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

14 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

15 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

16 bugle   

n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集

参考例句：

• When he heard the bugle call, he caught up his gun and dashed out.他一听到军号声就抓起枪冲了出去。
• As the bugle sounded we ran to the sports ground and fell in.军号一响，我们就跑到运动场集合站队。

17 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

18 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

19 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句