10.11: Pay Equity Issues
- Discuss current pay equity issues
- Discuss compensation best practices in regards to pay equity
One of the most discussed and divisive pay equity issues is the gender pay gap, or the difference between what men and women performing comparable work are paid. The National Women’s Law Center calculates that this gap costs women who work full-time $10,169 annually; over the course of a 40-year career, that translates to $403,440 lost due to the pay gap. [2]
Drilling down into US census data, the statistics are even more stark. Here’s the amount women earn, by race, for every dollar their white male counterpart earns: [3]
- Asian women: 85 cents
- White women: 77 cents
- Black women: 61 cents
- Pacific Islander women: 62 cents
- Native American women: 58 cents
- Hispanic women: 53 cents.
The National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE), a coalition of women’s and civil rights organizations, established Equal Pay Day in 1996 in an effort to raise awareness of this gap. Specifically, the organization declares a day in March to symbolize how much longer a woman would have to work to earn what a man made in the prior year. Or, how far women are “in the red” with their pay. Although the gender gap has narrowed since 1963, progress has been negligible since 2005.
Pew Research states that “Much of the gap has been explained by measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience,” [4] and attributes narrowing primarily to “gains women have made in each of these dimensions.” The New York Times gender editor and author Jessica Bennett counters that narrative: [5]
-
Educational attainment (read: women are paid less because they have less education)
- More women than men have earned bachelor’s and masters (since the 1980s) and doctoral degrees (for the last 10 years)
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Occupational segregation (read: women are paid less because they choose low-paying fields)
- While women are more likely to work in lower-paying professions such as education and health care, the pay gap is also evident in these fields.
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Work experience (read: women are paid less because they take time off to have children)
- Women do experience a baby penalty, but the gap is also experienced straight out of college, where women with a similar GPA and working in the same field earns 93% of what their male peers earn.
As Maya Salam mused in the introduction to her “Womensplaining the Pay Gap” article in The New York Times: “If I had a nickel for every time someone told me, ‘The gender pay gap is a myth,’ I may have made back the income I’ve lost over the years for being a woman.” [6]
The Pay Gap across the United States
As Figure 1 [7] illustrates, a gender pay gap exists in every state.
The National Women’s Law Center notes that “women fare best in California [also D.C., New York, and Florida], where women working full time, year round typically make 89 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make. Women fare worst relative to men in Louisiana and Utah, where women’s earnings represented only 69 and 71 percent of men’s earnings, respectively.” Of the 25 major cities profiled by the AAUW, Los Angeles had the highest overall gender pay ratio at 91%, outperforming New York (85%), San Francisco (83%), Portland (79%) and Chicago and Seattle, both posting a ratio of 78%. [8] For perspective, the gender pay ratio is calculated as women’s median earnings divided by men’s median earnings.
The American Association of University Women (AAUW) notes that “Employer practices—such as using prior salary history in setting current pay and prohibiting employees from discussing their wages—compound the problem.” [9] To the first point, a number of states and localities have passed laws banning employers from asking candidates for salary history. HR Dive notes that some “also prohibit an employer from relying on an applicant’s pay history to set compensation if discovered or volunteered; others prohibit an employer from taking disciplinary action against employees who discuss pay with coworkers.” [10]
California law, applicable to both private and public employers, prohibits requests for a candidate’s pay history and, further, prohibits employers from using information if volunteered or otherwise known to determine a new hire’s pay. Finally, the law requires employers to provide applicants with pay scale information if requested. Absent a state law regarding discussion of wages, an employer may be restrained by either the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) or Executive Order 13665, both of which support wage transparency.
For more on this point, read Nancy Owen’s article “ Is It Illegal to Prohibit Employees from Talking Salary? ”
Economics of the Pay Gap
The pay gap isn’t just a women’s problem, it’s a societal and economic issue. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) notes that women represent almost 50% of the workforce and are the sole or co-provider in half of American families with children. [11] Despite being paid less, women’s earnings are critically important to the stability of individuals, families and the extended family networks that women support. IWPR’s analysis found that equal pay would: [12]
- Reduce the rate of poverty for working women by over half, from 8% to 3.8%
- Reduce the rate of poverty for working single mothers by almost half, from 28.9% to 14.5%
- Reduce the rate of poverty for working single women from 10.8% to 4.4%
- Reduce the number of children with working mothers living in poverty from 5.6 million to 3.1 million
- Increase GDP 2.8%
Best Practices
Until changes are made to federal or state laws, progress on closing the pay gap will require business leadership and advocacy. And, based on their values or in response to employee expectations or both, a number of businesses are taking the challenge. In its 2019 Compensation Best Practices Report, PayScale notes that “It will prove increasingly difficult to attract and keep the right people without ensuring your compensation philosophy, strategy and practices are in close alignment with your values as an organization.” [13] As PayScale SVP of Marketing Tim Low notes “employees have become fed up when their organizations behave in ways that don’t align with their personal values,” [14] referencing demonstrations and court cases based on perceived pay discrimination at Google, Nike and Oracle in 2018.
For perspective on what’s at stake, a PaySale study found that “employees who rate their employers poorly on pay transparency are 80 percent more likely to say they want to leave in the next six months than those who give higher marks.” [15]
What does success look like? Companies taking the lead, for example, Adobe, Starbucks and Salesforce, have achieved full pay parity for women and underrepresented minorities and are “taking steps toward creating a better workplace for women and minorities to thrive, advance their careers and move into more leadership roles.” [16] As Adobe’s Executive Vice President of Customer and Employee Experience Donna Morris puts it: “If you fundamentally believe that people are the most important asset to your company, why wouldn’t you seek to establish practices and programs, and have a principal that you should compensate fairly based on their contribution?” [17]
Barbara Frankel picks up on the next steps point, stating that “pay equity is about more than just leveling salaries . . . [it] means creating equal opportunities for high-paying positions, evaluating areas of bias that may prohibit hiring and promotions, and factoring in work accommodations that could slow pay progress, such as flexible work arrangements and time off for family leave.” [18]
The following are best practice highlights based on Frankel interviews with executives: [19]
- Senior Leadership Commitment. L’Oreal’s global leadership committed to equity and, specifically, not only equal pay but also a succession planning initiative to recruit and develop women leaders.
- Conduct Regular, Objective Pay Audits. Companies recommend regular audits—including audits to reflect acquisitions—and use of experts or certification providers such as EDGE for validity and credibility.
- Communicate Results. Clearly communicate results to make transparency a part of the culture.
- Define Performance Metrics. Frankel relays L’Oreal USA’s head of Diversity & Inclusion Angela Guy recommendation to have “clear metrics on what defines good performance and [ensure], through unconscious bias training, that prejudices don’t influence what defines good performance.” The company also factors in the impact of maternity leave on performance and pay.
- Review Offer Process. Salary history questions should be banned, regardless of whether a company is subject to state or local laws.
- Collaborate & Share Learning. This was a requirement of the original White House Equal Pay Pledge, and it’s critical to accelerating progress.
-
Calfas, Jennifer. "
How These Major Companies Are Getting Equal Pay Right.
" Fortune. April 09, 2018. Accessed August 22, 2019. ↵
-
Salam, Maya. "Womansplaining the Pay Gap." The New York Times. April 02, 2019. Accessed August 22, 2019. ↵
-
Vagins, Deborah J. "The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap." AAUW. Accessed August 22, 2019. ↵
-
Graf, Nikki, Anna Brown, and Eileen Patten. "
The Narrowing, but Persistent, Gender Gap in Pay.
" Pew Research Center. March 22, 2019. Accessed August 22, 2019. ↵
-
Salam, Maya. "Womansplaining the Pay Gap." The New York Times. ↵
-
Ibid. ↵
-
"
Equal Pay Day
." National Committee on Pay Equity. Accessed August 22, 2019. ↵
-
"The Gender Pay Gap in 25 Major Cities." AAUW. April 2, 2019. Accessed August 22, 2019. ↵
-
Vagins, Deborah J. "The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap." ↵
-
"
Salary History Bans
." HR Drive. August 13, 2019. Accessed August 22, 2019. ↵
-
Milli, Jessica, Yixuan Huang, Heidi Hartmann, and Jeff Hayes. "The Impact of Equal Pay on Poverty and the Economy." Institute for Women's Policy Research. April 5, 2017. Accessed August 22, 2019. ↵
-
Ibid. ↵
-
"
The 2019 Compensation Best Practices Report
." PayScale. 2019. Accessed August 23, 2019. ↵
-
Ibid. ↵
-
Frankel, Barbara. "How Companies Are Achieving Pay Equity." Diversity Best Practices. April 9, 2018. Accessed August 23, 2019. ↵
-
Calfas, Jennifer. "
How These Major Companies Are Getting Equal Pay Right
." Fortune. April 9, 2018. Accessed August 23, 2019. ↵
-
Sheen, Robert. "Organizations Need to Take These Steps to Address Equal Pay." PayParity. May 30, 2019. Accessed August 23, 2019. ↵
-
Frankel, Barbara. "How Companies Are Achieving Pay Equity." ↵
-
Ibid. ↵
Contributors and Attributions
- Image: What Women Make for Every Dollar Men Make. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
- Untitled. Authored by : rawpixel. Provided by : Pexels. Located at : www.pexels.com/photo/people-gathering-inside-room-1345085/. License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
- Counting dollar bills. Authored by : Sharon McCutcheon. Provided by : Unsplash. Located at : https://unsplash.com/photos/-8a5eJ1-mmQ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved . License Terms : Unsplash License
- Walk walk walk. Authored by : NeONBRAND. Provided by : Unsplash. Located at : https://unsplash.com/photos/0VUe6qODBOU . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved . License Terms : Unsplash License
- Interior Office. Authored by : MagicDesk. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : pixabay.com/photos/interior-office-corporate-branding-4406027/. License : CC0: No Rights Reserved . License Terms : Pixabay License


12.1: Introduction
Some conditions that specifically occur during pregnancy and some that exist prior to pregnancy are linked to increased maternal, fetal, and newborn morbidity and mortality. Awareness of preexisting conditions and prompt diagnosis and treatment of pregnancy-specific conditions can optimize management through individualized collaborative plans of care and lead to improved maternal, fetal, and newborn outcomes. As primary caregivers, nurses play a key role in the implementation of the plans of care and early recognition of when the unexpected occurs.
Nurses also collaborate with other health-care professionals, such as obstetricians, nurse practitioners, midwives, social workers, nutritionists, and pharmacists, to develop comprehensive care plans that support health and well-being during pregnancy and beyond. In addition, nurses advocate for patients by promoting informed decision making and ensuring that patients receive the highest quality of care possible.


1.8: Independence of the Three Aspects of Relationships
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Learning Objectives
- Explain how the three aspects of love are independent of each other.
Watch this
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or scan the QR code to learn about the psychology of attraction.
Attractions, satisfactions, and the general or ethical value of relationships are independent of each other in the sense that people can, and do, sometimes become attracted to people who do not bring them much pleasure or who are not necessarily good for them, just as they sometimes do not become attracted to people whose actions they do enjoy and/or who are good for them. Of course, sometimes people do become attracted to people whose actions are good and/or satisfying, sometimes perhaps even because of that. Sometimes it can be particularly easy to become attracted to someone who treats you kindly, especially when that kindness is most needed. Yet sometimes people become attracted to others while knowing little or nothing about how satisfying or dissatisfying, good or bad, their character or actions might be; some instant attractions are like that.
Sometimes one becomes attracted to someone before discovering the other person is not good for them or displeases them; and yet the attraction may persist, simply because attractions are not always governed by rationality nor, once acquired, are they easily dispelled. (In the worst cases, they may even seem to be the work of spells.)
Sometimes people even become attracted to those they already know are bad for them or to those whose actions they know displease them. Why this is, I do not know. In some cases perhaps, it is to reform the other person or win them over out of some sense of challenge. Perhaps sometimes they become involved after feeling they are safe from involvement with such a person. Perhaps they become attracted because they can do so and yet still remain somewhat aloof, unconcerned, or uncommitted. Perhaps some people need to feel unhappy in their love life or can only be sexually attracted to someone they do not (otherwise) respect. But I am not particularly concerned here with the rationale, only with the fact that emotions, benefits, and happiness in relationships can be independent of each other in the sense that (1) people can and sometimes do become or stay attracted to people who do not make them happy or who are not good for them, and sometimes even to people who make them miserably unhappy or who are very bad for them, and/or (2) sometimes people do not become or stay attracted to those who are good for them or in whose company they are often happy. Also, (3) whether you are attracted to them or not, people can make you happy who are not otherwise in general or overall good for you; and (4) people who are good for you may not be very satisfying to you.
Further, though often you do tolerate or even come to enjoy with a loved one activities that you could not tolerate or like with someone you had no attraction for, it also sometimes happens that activities you could accept with regard to anyone else you cannot tolerate in a loved one. For example, say a person thinks golf is a waste of time and finds it hard to relate to people who spend lots of time on the golf course and who seem to be preoccupied with it. But if that person becomes tremendously attracted to someone who it turns out enjoys golf, he might even find himself taking up the game and enjoying playing it with his beloved. But in other cases, just the opposite may occur, in that one may tolerate the golfing of people one does not care about, but hate to see someone they love “wasting” their time and energy at the game.
Sometimes it is the like or dislike of an activity that influences the feelings one has for another. Jones may be unable to grow to like anyone who plays golf or smokes or…. On the other hand, if Jones does play golf, he may become terribly attracted to a girl who can keep up with him on the golf course. We often find ourselves attracted to someone because something they do pleases us. There are some times that we are more vulnerable to this than others. When one feels rejected or lonely, a person who smiles or listens with understanding and sympathy can be very attracting. When one has been unable to find companions who share some important interests, ideas, knowledge, or values, finding such a person may arouse strong feelings of attraction, if not just gratitude, for them.
But, as I have said, not all cases of attraction are like this, and this may make one wonder whether even in these cases attraction arises because of compatibility and benefit or simply beside it.
The independence of benefits from a relationship and any attraction in it can be exemplified by the case of people who learn from teachers or other adults to whom they may not be particularly attracted.
Further evidence for the independence of feelings from what is enjoyable or unenjoyable and from what is good or bad is the dual phenomena of:
- Having different feelings toward people from whom you may get the same satisfactions or dissatisfactions and
- Getting the same kinds of feelings from people who give you satisfactions or dissatisfactions that are different.
Likewise,
- Getting different feelings about people who do equally good or bad things for you and
- Getting the same kinds of feelings about people who are different in the amount of good and bad they provide you.
 But one might also have strong feelings of attraction for someone who treats them much better. Or one might fall in love with someone who treats them very nicely at first and remain highly or passionately attracted even after that person no longer behaves so kindly.
Or consider two people who treat you equally well and with whom you do things together that are equally good. Or two people whose company you enjoy very much. You still might have very different kinds of feelings toward them. One might be a dearly loved one for whom you have all sorts of feelings of attraction whereas the other might be described as a good friend, whose company and behavior might be very nice, but who is not a person for whom you feel passion or desire. Sometimes one may have a great conversation with an acquaintance and enjoy it very much, just as one might with a longtime friend or with a lover; it is not the joy of the conversation that is different from each of these people, but the surrounding feelings or emotions.
There may be people who do not treat you badly, but around whom you quite often have a terrible time anyway. You may still be attracted to that person. You may hate yourself for going to see them or for going out with them and each time resolve that will have been your last such time, yet not be able to keep that resolution.
There may be or may seem to be connections at times between the joy or good you get from someone and the feelings you have toward them and vice versa, but, based on the above evidence, that causal connection, if it exists, certainly seems to be indirect or quite complicated. For example, the fellow whose girlfriend taught him to play and enjoy golf might not have been able to do so had he not liked her; but perhaps other girls he had liked tried to persuade him before and were unable to; and perhaps he didn’t even like some girls just because they played golf. At times, just having a person introduce themselves with a smile will brighten your whole day and make you almost instantly infatuated with them; but at other times you may simply feel you are being put upon by them. And there are instances of people feeling differently toward two very similar people (in some cases, even identical twins) who seem to others to be alike in almost all respects. The attracted one may be sure there is some difference, say a twinkle in the eye, even when no one else can see the difference.
scenario 2
Imagine your dream mate (she or he) may be your fantasy. Imagine again that your ideal mate, the person you think you want, may not be the person that you need. How do you balance your fantasy with reality?
The Happy Couple
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Even strangers for whom you have no feelings may provide goodness and/or satisfactions. There is the Mary Worth comic strip kind of relationship of the kindly stranger who helps you with a personal problem; it actually happened to me once. I had taken a long train trip to see a girl I had met the year before, had become immediately attracted to, and had since frequently and passionately corresponded with by mail and spoken with by long distance on the phone. When I finally got to visit her, it was evident something was bothering her. She had a new boyfriend and had just not been able to bring herself to tell me. I was crushed. On the train ride back I began talking with an older lady seated next to me, told her what had happened, and felt better just because she understood and was sympathetic and said just the right kinds of reassuring things to make me feel not quite so alone, unusual, or inadequate. Yet I did not become attracted to her; I didn’t even learn her name.
Others have their own “Mary Worths”. A girl I met one time who had grown up and gone to school in Tuskegee talked about an old woman who lived in a house next to a vacant lot where many little kids played. Every day this woman brought out lemonade and cookies for those kids even though she was no relation to any of them. This girl had been one of those kids, and one of her hopes for herself as a person was that someday she would do the same kinds of thing for kids who would play near where she would live. She has no idea who that woman was.
One day I was walking to campus alone in the early morning when a girl in a Volkswagen Beetle drove by. I saw her coming from about half a block away and started to peer in to get a better look at her. You know how guys do. Anyway, at the time I stared in, I found her staring out, her head turned around — to check me out. Usually two people catching each other doing this both get embarrassed and turn away immediately, but somehow or other our moods in this case were both one of being pleasantly surprised and flattered, and instantaneously we each grinned at catching each other and being caught by each other, then cherishing those simultaneous grins, we each waved and kept on going our opposite directions, never knowingly to see each other again. Yet that brief second was one that to this day still makes me smile and feel good.
In the television play Silent Night, Lonely Night , the part played by Lloyd Bridges is that of a man whose wife is in a mental hospital, unable to do much but stare into space. Their only child had drowned. He says at one point that his mother always said the best part of a meal was sharing it, but he says that Christmas eve he finds best shared with strangers, not friends. He cannot bear to be with friends who know his sorrow and who, he feels, obligatorily have him over to try to cheer him up. He would rather spend that particular time with someone who does not know of his sadness and the particular melancholy that comes with Christmas and the new year.
And at times, even in the best of relationships, a new acquaintance, one who you may have little if any feelings for at the time, may be somebody it is more enjoyable to be around than your partner. Suppose one simply wants just to talk with someone to make them laugh or feel good.
Suppose your spouse or best friends already know all your funny jokes or deepest thoughts or most poignant stories, and you know theirs. What then might be very meaningful to a stranger most probably would just be repetitively boring to those you most care about. One simply cannot always have new and stimulating thoughts for friends or loved ones. Even the voluminous and creatively staggering works of Beethoven and Shakespeare could be performed in a two or three month period. One can imagine hearing a shrewish spouse or lover or an insensitive friend say even to them something like “But I have already heard this; can’t you come up with something new?!” So if you are in a mood to talk and please and you have no new thoughts or jokes for old friends, sometimes you must find new friends for your old jokes or ideas. Or find an old friend you have not seen since discovering some of those new ideas.
In fact, often what makes the reacquaintance of old flames or old friends so exciting is that you have the best of both worlds — the bond and understanding of a longtime relationship and the excitement and freshness of a new relationship; you have interesting new things to discuss with each other but without having to start to get to know each other from scratch, learning about each others’ characters and personalities. It is like meeting a fresh and exciting new person but without having to start from the beginning — without having to play any games, put on any airs, explain about yourself, sort through any trivia, or go through any sort of settling process.
Another example of the independence of feelings (particularly of passion or sexual attraction), joys, and benefits is the fact that people with particular sexual inclinations, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are not likely to become passionately or sexually attracted to anyone outside that interest no matter how happy the other person makes them or how good they are for them. Most people simply feel differently about men and women no matter how much they might enjoy or benefit from either. There was a perverse cartoon that traded on something like this one time — two homosexual fellows are in a bar talking to each other when a particularly exciting looking woman, provocatively attired, walks in. They both captivatingly stare at her and finally one of them says to the other, “Gee, that’s enough to almost make you wish you were a lesbian.”
But, even apart from sexual inclinations, the point remains that we can become attracted to people who treat us well or ill or both, to people we enjoy or not, or both. And we can enjoy or be treated well by people to whom we do not necessarily become attracted, whether emotionally, sexually, romantically, or physically.
And, apart from any sort of attractions, we can enjoy the company of people who are not good for us — children and adolescents often become friends with people who lead them “astray”. Adults, particularly in some vulnerable states, are also susceptible though they may be more circumspect than inexperienced children. And we often do not enjoy or find pleasure from people, such as some teachers or parents, who may be very good to us and very good for us, but whose benefit to us we do not understand or appreciate. Quite often, just as the taste of foods is inversely proportional to their nutrition, and just as the most fun activities are not always the most beneficial ones, the most enjoyable people are not always the ones whose company is best for us.
Key Takeaways
- Recognize that you can be attracted, and even remain attracted, to someone who is not good for you or even very enjoyable or satisfying for you.
- Understand that you can find someone enjoyable not good for you but you may also find someone who is good for you not satisfied.
Key Terms
- Further evidence for the independence of feelings from what is enjoyable or unenjoyable and from what is good or bad are the dual phenomena of (1) having different feelings toward people from whom you may get the same satisfactions or dissatisfactions and (2) getting the same kinds of feelings from people who give you satisfactions or dissatisfactions that are different.
Review Questions
- Question: What does the book refer to as the 3 aspects of relationships?
- Question: What is a “ Mary Worth ” type of relationship?


2.4: Rational Inequalities
Solving rational inequalities involves finding the zeroes of the numerator and denominator, then using these values to investigate solution set regions on the number line.
Solve the inequalities and write the solution sets in interval notation:
- \(\dfrac{x − 1}{x + 1} ≥ 0\)
- \(\dfrac{2x − 3}{x + 1} ≤ 0\)
- \(\dfrac{x + 2}{x − 2} ≥ 0\)
Solution
- \(\begin{array} &&\dfrac{x − 1}{x + 1} ≥ 0 &\text{Example problem} \\ &\dfrac{x − 1}{x + 1} ≥ 0 &\text{The quotient must be greater than or equal to \(0\).} \\ &x − 1 = 0,\; x = 1 &\text{Find the zeroes of the numerator} \\ &x + 1 = 0, x = \;−1 &\text{Find the zeroes of the denominator} \end{array}\)
\(\begin{array} &&\text{For } x < −1, \text{ choose } x = −2. \;\;\dfrac{−2 − 1}{−2 + 1} = \dfrac{−3}{−1} = 3 ≥ 0 \\ &\text{Replacing \(-2\) for \(x\) results in the answer \(3\), which is greater than or equal to \(0\). This region \(x < −1\) is included in the solution set.} \\[0.25in] &\text{For } −1 < x < 1, \text{ choose } x = 0.\;\; \dfrac{0 − 1}{0 + 1} = \dfrac{−1}{1} = −1 < 0 \\ &\text{Replacing \(0\) for \(x\) results in the answer \(-1\), which is less than \(0\), not fulfilling the given inequality in the problem.} \\ &\text{This region \(−1 < x < 1\) is excluded from the solution set.} \\[0.25in] &\text{For } x > 1, \text{ choose } x = 2.\;\; \dfrac{2 − 1}{2 + 1} = \dfrac{1}{3} ≥ 0 \\ &\text{Replacing \(2\) for \(x\) results in the answer \(\dfrac{1}{3}\), which is greater than or equal to \(0\). This region \(x > 1\) is included in the solution set.} \\[0.25in] &(−∞, −1) ∪ (1, ∞) \\ &\text{Final answer written in interval notation (see section on Interval Notation for more details).} \end{array}\)
- \(\begin{array} &&\dfrac{2x − 3}{x + 1} ≤ 0 &\text{Example problem} \\ &\dfrac{2x − 3}{x + 1} ≤ 0 &\text{The quotient must be less than or equal to \(0\).} \\ &2x − 3 = 0,\; x = 1.5 &\text{Find the zeroes of the numerator} \\ &x + 1 = 0,\; x = −1 &\text{Find the zeroes of the denominator} \end{array}\)
\(\begin{array} &&\text{For } -1< x, \text{ choose } x = -2. \;\;\dfrac{2(-2) - 3}{-2 + 1} = \dfrac{−7}{-1} = 7 ≥ 0 \\ &\text{Replacing \(-2\) for \(x\) results in the answer \(7\), which is greater than or equal to \(0\). This region \(-1 < x\) is excluded in the solution set.} \end{array}\)
\(\begin{array} &&\text{For } -1< x < 1.5, \text{ choose } x = 0. \;\;\dfrac{2(0) - 3}{0 + 1} = \dfrac{−3}{1} = -3 ≤ 0 \\ &\text{Replacing \(0\) for \(x\) results in the answer \(-3\), which is less than or equal to \(0\). This region \(-1 < x < 1.5\) is included in the solution set.} \end{array}\)
\(\begin{array} &&\text{For } x > 1.5, \text{ choose } x =2. \;\;\dfrac{2(2) - 3}{2 + 1} = \dfrac{1}{3} ≥ 0 \\ &\text{Replacing \(2\) for \(x\) results in the answer \(\dfrac{1}{3}\), which is greater than or equal to \(0\). This region \(x > 1.5 \) is excluded in the solution set.} \end{array}\)
\(\begin{array} &&\text{(-1, 1.5)} \end{array}\)
\(\begin{array} &&\text{Final answer written in interval notation (see section on Interval Notation for more details).} \end{array}\)
- \(\begin{array} &&\dfrac{x + 2}{x − 2} ≥ 0 &\text{Example problem} \\ &\dfrac{x + 2}{x − 2} ≥ 0 &\text{The quotient must be greater than or equal to \(0\).} \\ &x + 2 = 0, \;\;x = −2 &\text{Find the zeroes of the numerator} \\ &x − 2 = 0,\;\; x = 2 &\text{Find the zeroes of the denominator} \end{array}\)
\(\begin{array} &&\text{For } x < −2, \text{ choose } x = −3. \dfrac{−3 + 2}{−3 − 2} = \dfrac{−1}{−5} = \dfrac{1}{5} ≥ 0 \\ &\text{Replacing \(-3\) for \(x\) results in the answer \(\dfrac{1}{5}\), which is greater than or equal to \(0\). This region \(x < −2\) is included in the solution set.} \\[0.25in] &\text{For } −2 < x < 2, \text{ choose } x = 0. \;\; \dfrac{0 + 2}{0 − 2} = \dfrac{2}{−2} = −1 < 0 \\ &\text{Replacing \(0\) for \(x\) results in the answer \(-1\), which is less than \(0\), not fulfilling the given inequality in the problem.} \\ &\text{This region \(−2 < x < 2\) is not included in the solution set.} \\[0.25in] &\text{For } x > 2, \text{ choose } x = 3. \;\; \dfrac{3 + 2}{3 − 2} = \dfrac{5}{1} = 5 ≥ 0 \\ &\text{Replacing \(3\) for \(x\) results in the answer \(5\), which is greater than or equal to \(0\). This region \(x > 2\) is included in the solution set.} \\[0.25in] &(−∞, −2) ∪ (2, ∞) \\ &\text{Final answer written in interval notation (see section on Interval Notation for more details).} \end{array}\)
- \(\dfrac{x + 3}{x − 2} ≥ 0\)
- \(\dfrac{x − 2}{x − 1} ≤ 0\)
- \(\dfrac{8}{x + 2}\) ≤\(\dfrac{1}{x + 2}\)
- \(\dfrac{2x − 3}{x + 1} ≥ 0\)
\(\dfrac{x + 3}{x − 2} ≥ 0\)
Solution
Set x + 3 = 0 and solve for x.
x + 3 = 0
-3 -3
x = -3
Set x - 2 = 0 and solve for x.
x - 2= 0
2 2
X + 0 = 2
x = 2
Because we have the line under the inequality, ≥, we will include -3 and 2 in the solution.
The number line is divided into three regions. Left of -3, between -3 and 2, to the right of 2. Pick a point in each region.
x = -4
\(\dfrac{-4+3}{-4-2}\) = \(\dfrac{-1}{-6}\) = \(\dfrac{1}{6}\) ≥ 0. The area to the left of -3 is a solution. The interval notation is
x = 0
\(\dfrac{0+3}{0-2}\) = \(\dfrac{3}{-2}\) < 0. The area between -3 and 2 is not a solution.
x = 3
\(\dfrac{3+3}{3-2}\) = \(\dfrac{6}{1}\) = 6 ≥ 0. The area to the right of 2 is a solution. The interval notation is
The solution is in Interval Notation.
\(\dfrac{8}{x + 2}\) ≤\(\dfrac{1}{x + 2}\)
- Answer
-
Add texts here. Do not delete this text first.
Subtract \(\dfrac{1}{x-2}\) from both sides
\(\dfrac{8}{x + 2}\) - \(\dfrac{1}{x + 2}\) ≤ 0
\(\dfrac{7}{x + 2}\) ≤ 0
There is only a variable in the denominator so we set x + 2 = 0 and solve for x.
x + 2 = 0
-2 -2
x + 0 = -2
x = -2Since x = -2 results in 0 in the denominator x = -2 is not a part of the solution. -2 breaks the number line into two parts: to the left of -2 and to the right of -2.
Pick a number both regions.
x = -3 and substitute it in the rational expression.
\(\dfrac{8}{-3 + 2}\) = \(\dfrac{8}{-1}\) = -8
\(\dfrac{1}{-3 + 2}\) = \(\dfrac{1}{-1}\) = -1
-8 < -1 The region to the left of -2 is part of the solution. Interval Notation .
x = 0
\(\dfrac{8}{0 + 2}\) = \(\dfrac{8}{2}\) = 4
\(\dfrac{1}{0 + 2}\) = \(\dfrac{1}{2}\)
4 > \(\dfrac{1}{2}\) Therefore, this region is not a part of the solution.
The solution is .


11.5: Applications I- Translating Words to Mathematical Symbols
- be able to translate phrases and statements to mathematical expressions and equations
Translating Words to Symbols
Practical problems seldom, if ever, come in equation form. The job of the problem solver is to translate the problem from phrases and statements into mathematical expressions and equations, and then to solve the equations.
As problem solvers, our job is made simpler if we are able to translate verbal phrases to mathematical expressions and if we follow the five-step method of solving applied problems. To help us translate from words to symbols, we can use the following Mathematics Dictionary.
| Word or Phrase | Mathematical Operation |
|---|---|
| Sum, sum of, added to, increased by, more than, and, plus | + |
| Difference, minus, subtracted from, decreased by, less, less than | - |
| Product, the product of, of, multiplied by, times, per | ⋅ |
| Quotient, divided by, ratio, per | ÷ |
| Equals, is equal to, is, the result is, becomes | = |
| A number, an unknown quantity, an unknown, a quantity | \(x\) (or any symbol) |
Translate each phrase or sentence into a mathematical expression or equation.
\(\underbrace{\text{Nine}}_{9}\underbrace{\text{More than}}_{+}\underbrace{\text{some number}}_{x}\).
Solution
Translation: \(9 + x\).
\(\underbrace{\text{Eighteen}}_{18}\underbrace{\text{minus}}_{-}\underbrace{\text{a number}}_{x}\).
Solution
Translation: \(18 - x\).
\(\underbrace{\text{A quantity}}_{y}\underbrace{\text{less}}_{-}\underbrace{\text{five}}_{5}\).
Solution
Translation: \(y - 5\).
\(\underbrace{\text{Four}}_{4}\underbrace{\text{times}}_{\cdot}\underbrace{\text{a number}}_{x}\underbrace{\text{is}}_{=}\underbrace{\text{sixteen}}_{16}\).
Solution
Translation: \(4x = 16\).
\(\underbrace{\text{One fifth}}_{\dfrac{1}{5}}\underbrace{\text{of}}_{\cdot}\underbrace{\text{a number}}_{n}\underbrace{\text{is}}_{=}\underbrace{\text{thirty}}_{30}\).
Solution
Translation: \(\dfrac{1}{5} n = 30\), or \(\dfrac{n}{5} = 30\).
\(\underbrace{\text{Five}}_{5}\underbrace{\text{times}}_{\cdot}\underbrace{\text{a number}}_{x}\underbrace{\text{is}}_{=}\underbrace{\text{two}}_{2}\underbrace{\text{more than}}_{+}\underbrace{\text{twice}}_{2}\underbrace{\text{the number}}_{x}\).
Solution
Translation: \(5x = 2 + 2x\).
Practice Set A
Translate each phrase or sentence into a mathematical expression or equation.
Twelve more than a number.
- Answer
-
\(12 + x\)
Practice Set A
Eight minus a number.
- Answer
-
\(8 - x\)
Practice Set A
An unknown quantity less fourteen.
- Answer
-
\(x - 14\)
Practice Set A
Six times a number is fifty-four.
- Answer
-
\(6x = 54\)
Practice Set A
Two ninths of a number is eleven.
- Answer
-
\(\dfrac{2}{9} x = 11\)
Practice Set A
Three more than seven times a number is nine more than five times the number.
- Answer
-
\(3 + 7x = 9 + 5x\)
Practice Set A
Twice a number less eight is equal to one more than three times the number.
- Answer
-
\(2x - 8 = 3x + 1\) or \(2x - 8 = 1 + 3x\)
Sometimes the structure of the sentence indicates the use of grouping symbols. We’ll be alert for commas . They set off terms.
\(\underbrace{\text{A number}}_{(x}\underbrace{\text{divided by}}_{\div}\underbrace{\text{four}}_{4)}\underbrace{\text{minus}}_{-}\underbrace{\text{six}}_{6}\underbrace{\text{is}}_{=}\underbrace{\text{twelve}}_{12}\).
Solution
Translation: \(\dfrac{x}{4} - 6 = 12\).
Some phrases and sentences do not translate directly. We must be careful to read them properly. The word from often appears in such phrases and sentences. The word from means “a point of departure for motion.” The following translation will illustrate this use.
Solution
Translation: \(x - 20\)
The word from indicated the motion (subtraction) is to begin at the point of “some number.”
Ten less than some number. Notice that less than can be replaced by from .
Ten from some number.
Solution
Translation: \(x - 10\).
Practice Set B
Translate each phrase or sentence into a mathematical expression or equation.
A number divided by eight, plus seven, is fifty.
- Answer
-
\(\dfrac{x}{8} + 7 = 50\)
Practice Set B
A number divided by three, minus the same number multiplied by six, is one more than the number.
- Answer
-
\(\dfrac{2}{3} - 6x = x + 1\)
Practice Set B
Nine from some number is four.
- Answer
-
\(x - 9 = 4\)
Practice Set B
Five less than some quantity is eight.
- Answer
-
\(x - 5 = 8\)
Exercises
Translate each phrase or sentence to a mathematical expression or equation.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)
A quantity less twelve.
- Answer
-
\(x - 12\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{2}\)
Six more than an unknown number.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{3}\)
A number minus four.
- Answer
-
\(x - 4\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{4}\)
A number plus seven.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{5}\)
A number increased by one.
- Answer
-
\(x + 1\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{6}\)
A number decreased by ten.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{7}\)
Negative seven added to some number.
- Answer
-
\(-7 + x\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{8}\)
Negative nine added to a number.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{9}\)
A number plus the opposite of six.
- Answer
-
\(x + (-6)\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{10}\)
A number minus the opposite of five.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{11}\)
A number minus the opposite of negative one.
- Answer
-
\(x -[-(-1)]\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{12}\)
A number minus the opposite of negative twelve.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{13}\)
Eleven added to three times a number.
- Answer
-
\(3x + 11\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{14}\)
Six plus five times an unknown number.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{15}\)
Twice a number minus seven equals four.
- Answer
-
\(2x - 7 = 4\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{16}\)
Ten times a quantity increased by two is nine.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{17}\)
When fourteen is added to two times a number the result is six.
- Answer
-
\(14 + 2x = 6\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{18}\)
Four times a number minus twenty-nine is eleven.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{19}\)
Three fifths of a number plus eight is fifty.
- Answer
-
\(\dfrac{3}{5} x + 8 = 50\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{20}\)
Two ninths of a number plus one fifth is forty-one.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{21}\)
When four thirds of a number is increased by twelve, the result is five.
- Answer
-
\(\dfrac{4}{3} x + 12 = 5\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{22}\)
When seven times a number is decreased by two times the number, the result is negative one.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{23}\)
When eight times a number is increased by five, the result is equal to the original number plus twenty-six.
- Answer
-
\(8x + 5 = x + 26\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{24}\)
Five more than some number is three more than four times the number.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{25}\)
When a number divided by six is increased by nine, the result is one.
- Answer
-
\(\dfrac{x}{6} + 9 = 1\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{26}\)
A number is equal to itself minus three times itself.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{27}\)
A number divided by seven, plus two, is seventeen.
- Answer
-
\(\dfrac{x}{7} + 2 = 17\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{28}\)
A number divided by nine, minus five times the number, is equal to one more than the number.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{29}\)
When two is subtracted from some number, the result is ten.
- Answer
-
\(x - 2 = 10\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{30}\)
When four is subtracted from some number, the result is thirty-one.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{31}\)
Three less than some number is equal to twice the number minus six.
- Answer
-
\(x - 3 = 2x - 6\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{32}\)
Thirteen less than some number is equal to three times the number added to eight.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{33}\)
When twelve is subtracted from five times some number, the result is two less than the original number.
- Answer
-
\(5x - 12 = x - 2\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{34}\)
When one is subtracted from three times a number, the result is eight less than six times the original number.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{35}\)
When a number is subtracted from six, the result is four more than the original number.
- Answer
-
\(6 - x = x + 4\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{36}\)
When a number is subtracted from twenty-four, the result is six less than twice the number.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{37}\)
A number is subtracted from nine. This result is then increased by one. The result is eight more than three times the number.
- Answer
-
\(9 - x + 1 = 3x + 8\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{38}\)
Five times a number is increased by two. This result is then decreased by three times the number. The result is three more than three times the number.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{39}\)
Twice a number is decreased by seven. This result is decreased by four times the number. The result is negative the original number, minus six.
- Answer
-
\(2x - 7 - 4x = -x - 6\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{40}\)
Fifteen times a number is decreased by fifteen. This result is then increased by two times the number. The result is negative five times the original number minus the opposite of ten.
Exercises for Review
Exercise \(\PageIndex{41}\)
\(\dfrac{8}{9}\) of what number is \(\dfrac{2}{3}\)?
- Answer
-
\(\dfrac{3}{4}\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{42}\)
Find the value of \(\dfrac{21}{40} + \dfrac{17}{30}\).
Exercise \(\PageIndex{43}\)
Find the value of \(3\dfrac{1}{12} + 4 \dfrac{1}{3} + 1 \dfrac{1}{4}\)
- Answer
-
\(8\dfrac{2}{3}\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{44}\)
Convert \(6.11\dfrac{1}{5}\) to a fraction.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{45}\)
Solve the equation \(\dfrac{3x}{4} + 1 = -5\).
- Answer
-
\(x = -8\)


16: Commons, Mills, and Corporations
Along with their traditional European ideas about culture, farming, and social organization, the English men and women who colonized North America brought with them a legal tradition known as the Common Law. English Common Law is a set of legal principles dating back to the Middle Ages. In this tradition the sources of the law and its authority are not royal decrees or legislative acts, but rather the accumulation of judges’ decisions on specific cases. Murder, for example, is a Common Law crime in Britain. It never required an Act of Parliament to declare murder illegal. Government can influence the Common Law, however; as it did when the British Parliament changed the mandatory sentence for murder from the death penalty to life imprisonment. The interaction between legislation and Common Law is important in American Environmental History because throughout most of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries our relationship with our environment has been shaped less by legislative deliberations than by routine court decisions that have created a series of legal precedents regarding property, usage rights, and liability.
The detached, somewhat alienated relationship modern Americans have with our physical environment and America’s culture of large corporations that often seem above the law actually developed together, because many of the most successful early corporations radically changed their physical environments. The Common Law America inherited from England contained a long list of precedents that guided judges in arbitrating between the claims of people whose interests conflicted. Some of these precedents dated back to the Roman Empire, giving judges clear guidance in deciding the rights and responsibilities of individuals. But as American commerce and industry became more complex, the law came to grips with the fact that society was not made up only of individuals. Even though Americans had left behind the royalty and hereditary nobility of British society, there were still some tasks that seemed too big for individuals to accomplish separately. Towns raised militia when needed, and the national government commanded an army and a navy and collected customs duties at ports. The States ran criminal and civil courts. But who was going to build colleges, hospitals, and bridges? As America grew there were institutions and services that society needed but that no individual had the resources to create on their own.
Early America’s answer to the challenge of projects too big for individual action was incorporation. Corporations during the colonial period had been quasi-public organizations given a royal charter to do a particular job. The Virginia Company and the Massachusetts Bay Company had both been royally-chartered corporations. They earned profits for their shareholders, but they also had (or at least they claimed to have) important social functions that transcended mere business. Without this social dimension, businesses—even very large ones—were normally organized as partnerships or sole proprietorships. State legislatures in early America continued the English tradition and chartered corporations to do particular tasks in the public interest. Colonial governments had begun this practice very early in American history, when the Massachusetts legislature established Harvard College in 1636 and then chartered the Harvard Corporation, North America’s first corporation, in 1650.
Corporate influence on the environment actually begins with this original American corporation. In 1640, Massachusetts’ colonial legislature gave Harvard College a license to run a ferry between Boston and Charlestown across the Charles River, to raise money to pay the school’s operating expenses. 145 years later, when the State of Massachusetts granted a corporate charter to the Charles River Bridge Company, to build the first bridge across the river in 1785, the new charter specified that the bridge company had to pay the Harvard Corporation £200 per year to compensate the college for the revenue the old ferry operation would lose to the new bridge.
The Charles River Bridge was a privately-operated toll bridge. Although it had originally been conceived as a public corporation that would provide a social benefit, the bridge company was wildly successful. The corporation had been capitalized at $50,000, meaning that $50,000 had been raised to build the bridge by selling shares to investors. Once built, the bridge collected $824,798 in tolls between 1786 and 1827. Although the original plan had been to eliminate the tolls once the bridge had paid for itself, the shareholders decided to continue profiting from their monopoly. So they voted to continue charging tolls and paying the profits out to themselves as dividends on their shares.
Enriching a few wealthy corporate shareholders at the expense of everyone else was not what Massachusetts legislators had intended when they had granted the corporation a charter to build a bridge that would monopolize river crossing. But although the Charles River Bridge Company had violated the spirit of their agreement with the State, it had not actually broken any laws. So the legislature chartered a new corporation, the Warren Bridge Company, to build a second bridge across the river, right next to the Charles River Bridge. Learning from their mistake, the legislature made sure the new charter specified that the Warren Bridge Company would only be allowed to collect tolls for six years or until the bridge paid for itself, whichever came first. Then ownership would revert to the Commonwealth and the bridge would become toll-free.
Outraged by the challenge to their privileged position as monopolist of foot and wheeled traffic across the river, the Charles River Bridge Company sued the Warren Bridge Company, claiming their 1785 charter had granted them a perpetual monopoly on traffic across the river. As the legislature that authorized the new bridge had expected, the Charles River Bridge Company’s revenues disappeared as travelers chose to pay the lower tolls on the Warren Bridge. The lawsuit failed in Massachusetts courts and the aggrieved plaintiffs took their suit all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In spite of hiring famous orator Daniel Webster to argue their appeal, the Charles River Bridge Company lost. The court’s decision reflected the justices’ agreement with lower court judges’ belief that the profits of the corporation and the interests of its shareholders were less important—and legally came second—to the State’s authority to charter corporations to meet public needs. Even so, the tremendous profits taken by Charles River Bridge shareholders during the period of their government-granted monopoly and their ability to push their lawsuit to the highest court signaled the beginning of a change in the way corporations viewed their roles in society and the responsibilities that went with their public charters.
Streams and Mills
Although by chartering a bridge corporation to connect Boston and Charlestown, Massachusetts had legislated a solution to an environmental problem, most early environmental issues were of smaller scale. So they were typically handled locally, by reference to Common Law. In pre-industrial America, lakes, rivers, and streams were considered community resources. This was another inheritance from feudal England, where peasants had shared fields (often owned by noble landlords) and had grazed their animals on common pastures. Early New England towns and cities were often built around a central Common which served as a meeting-place for militia as well as a pasture for grazing cattle and sheep. Like town Commons where all residents could let their animals graze, rivers, streams, and coastal fisheries were understood to be shared resources. Waterways were important means of transportation; often the only way to move people and supplies to and from remote back-country settlements. And rivers were vital food sources for many Euro-Americans, just as they had been for the Indians before the colonists arrived.
Fish such as Alewife, Herring, Shad, and Atlantic Salmon migrated from the ocean into rivers to spawn each spring. The annual run happened at a critical time of year, when supplies of food stored for winter use were often beginning to run out, and provided a common resource that was open to all. Fish from rivers and lakes were an important part of annual subsistence food supplies for many poorer Americans. The annual runs had been a major source of springtime nutrition for native and Euro-Americans for several centuries. But from the earliest period of European settlement, there were other uses for rivers that could conflict with free travel and fishing. Colonial and early American settlements used a great deal of timber for building and grew a lot of wheat for home use and for sale. So every settlement needed mills.
When towns were chartered in colonial times and in the early national period, organizers usually offered a reward of free land and sometimes even cash incentives to anyone willing to start a grist mill or a sawmill in the new town. Heavy mill machinery would have to be carried to the town-site and assembled, and then operating the mill required some expertise and took valuable time away from building a house and clearing fields. It made sense for new communities to offer some type of bounty to attract millers, since everybody in town would need lumber and flour, but no individual needed or could easily afford to build a private mill.
The idea that some projects were too big for everybody to do individually and that it made sense to share expensive, seldom-used tools is ancient. Today economists call these types of goods natural monopolies. Sawmills and grist mills, although they were frequently owned and run by individuals, clearly existed for the common good. Very few individual farmers grew enough wheat or needed enough lumber to justify building a private mill for their sole personal use. And no miller could afford the expense or expect to recover his investment in land, building, and machinery without the market provided by the rest of the townspeople. So millers received special incentives, and in return the mills would be open to everyone at affordable rates. There was a social contract involved in this activity that everyone understood.
The earliest homes in a new township were typically log cabins. But it’s difficult to build large structures using logs. Early town records usually show a rapid shift from log houses and barns to frame construction as soon as a sawmill opened in a town. Sawing lumber for a small project could be done by hand, if necessary. And small mill-wheels could be turned by animals like horses or oxen. But producing enough lumber for a large house or barn or driving a large millstone required much more power. So any township site that included a stream with a decent fall of water was considered a prime location for a settlement.
The mill operators who ran sawmills and grist mills were seen as providing a necessary service to the whole society. Their mills were usually private in the sense that they were owned by individuals rather than by the town government. But they were public in the sense that they were open to everybody, rather than existing to serve only a single family’s needs. Millers were also often involved in combining local farmers’ harvests and in selling flour to cities back east. They provided a widely-needed public service, because very few families in the northeast and the Yankee west produced enough grain individually to justify the expense of traveling east to sell their flour. The situation was considerably different in the South, where large plantations often operated their own mills. Planters such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson often tried to build self-sufficient, free-standing societies on their properties, with their own mills, workshops, and even small factories. The self-contained nature of plantations (enabled by the low cost of slave labor and the ability of plantation owners to minutely direct all aspects of their slaves’ lives) is one reason the story of industrialization takes place in the Northeast and the Yankee West rather than in the South. Outside the plantation economy, people needed mills and millers needed to be open to the public in order to have enough work to be profitable. So the benefit went both ways.
The streams and rivers that early American millers used for power did not belong to them. At some township sites, a river’s volume and fall were large enough that a miller only needed to divert a little water into a channel called a millrace, to power the mill’s wheel. In other places, a partial or a full dam was required to generate enough force to turn a wheel. When a miller needed to build a dam and change the natural flow of the stream, he was responsible and legally liable for the effects of his dam on people upstream and downstream from him.
Dam Breaking
With so many people depending on rivers for transportation, food, irrigation, and drinking water, changing a river’s flow was often controversial. A mill pond might flood a farmer’s field upstream or cut off water to a farm or another mill downstream. A dam might prevent fish from running upstream to their spawning grounds, endangering not only one year’s food supply but future fish populations. The issue was considered so serious and the stakes so high that it was actually legal in early America for people who felt they had been injured by a mill’s dam to go ahead and break the dam. If their farmland had been flooded or if the flow of water to a downstream farm or mill was cut off, the injured party could break the dam and restore the flow of water while the dispute was being settled in court. People were legally entitled to restore the stream to its original condition until society decided the fairest solution for everyone. The common law approach to water rights was so ancient that it was expressed by a Latin phrase that had been used in the Roman empire two thousand years earlier, aqua currit et debet currere, ut currere solebat: water flows and ought to flow, as it has customarily flowed. Any human-made change to a river’s natural state could be challenged, because everyone had equal rights to the river.
In addition, mill dams in early America were often seasonal structures that would be partially broken each year to allow freshets of snowmelt to pass by without flooding and damaging the area. Dams were also often taken down to allow the fish to run upstream in the spring. And flour milling or sawing lumber was seasonal work in many small towns, so mill races and ponds did not need to be permanent and always in use.
In early American towns, mills and their dams were well-understood technologies that had existed for many generations, authorized by the townspeople and used for the common good. The mills and their technology existed in a social system that emphasized their status as shared resources for community use. There was a reciprocal give and take between people who had different interests in the society, both in social customs and in common law. Millers were given special incentives to move to new towns and help them grow. In return, they were responsible for keeping the mills running and available to everybody, and for responding to their neighbors when they changed the flow of streams in ways that caused problems. In return, many millers enjoyed what amounted to a local monopoly on sawing wood and grinding flour. Although other millers were rarely prohibited from opening competing mills, there was only so much need and there was only so much water power. But there were always new towns needing millers, so common customs and common sense were effective ways to regulate early mills.
Textile Factories
As new technology was developed and as the pace of change accelerated, this common law, common-sense social contract began to break down. One of the specific events that accelerated this change was a visit to Scotland in 1810 and 1811 by a pair of prosperous Boston merchants named Nathan Appleton and Francis Cabot Lowell, who toured the textile mills at New Lanark. These woolen mills on the River Clyde southeast of Glasgow were run by an innovative industrialist named Robert Owen, and were the largest completely water-powered mills in Great Britain. Owen’s textile operation employed so many people that the company had built an entire community around the factories to house the mill-workers and their families.
Robert Owen and his partners had bought the mills in 1799 from David Dale, Owen’s father-in-law. Sensitive to the negative social changes that industrial growth had brought to other parts of Britain, Owen built schools for the children of his workers and social organizations for the families. He put an end to the long-standing custom of forcing workers to buy only from the company store and tried to make New Lanark a real, living town. Owen’s partners had objected to his philanthropy, claiming that healthy, happy, well-educated workers did not really boost the bottom line. Rather than fight with them, Owen simply bought his partners out.
Appleton and Lowell returned to America and immediately began the Boston Manufacturing Company (BMC) in 1813 on the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts. At that time there were already twenty-three other mills on the Charles, but the BMC was something different. Appleton and Lowell’s mill was a completely water-powered textile factory on the model of New Lanark. The Boston Associates also followed Owen’s example in social engineering, and began building complete industrial cities in New England. Nashua, Manchester, and Concord on the Merrimack River grew from small agricultural towns to large textile cities. Lawrence and Lowell were built from the ground up as textile factory cities. Young people throughout the region, especially the daughters of farm families, flocked to these new industrial centers for the relative independence of factory employment. But the Boston Associates not only created cities and filled them with industrial wage workers. They helped change the way all Americans understood their environment.
The BMC’s textile mills employed mostly young women, aged 15 to 30. Between 1840 and 1860, the number of mill girls working in the Massachusetts textile industry rose from about ten thousand to over a hundred thousand. For context, the population of New England’s largest city, Boston, was about 93,000 in 1840 and 178,000 in 1860. By 1848, Lowell was the largest industrial city in America.
When the BMC opened their first mill, only seven out of a hundred Americans lived in cities. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the nation’s urban population was approaching twenty percent, with a lot of help from the mill girls. Some of the women were immigrants, but most had come from farm families. A hundred thousand young women moved to the city to work twelve hours a day in the textile mills. In spite of harsh work conditions and low pay, many of these women were experiencing personal freedom for the first time, and liking it. Most never went back to the countryside. As cities like Lowell, Lawrence, and Manchester grew around the mills, they created a new American population group, the urban wage-worker. The mill girls and other factory workers lived a different life and had very different concerns from those of the families they’d left behind in the countryside. Although they joined the new labor movement and were often critical of the mills they worked in, the mill girls’ lives became tied to the wellbeing of the industry that employed them.
Too Big to Fail
The creation, financial viability, and even the continued existence of new industrial cities like Lowell depended completely on the Boston Manufacturing Company’s profitability. Prosperity for Lowell’s citizens relied on the success of the business that paid their wages. The BMC was too big to fail. Over time, it was only natural for the city’s dependence on its creator and main employer to transform the way people understood the public good.
At the height of its power, the BMC controlled the entire Merrimack River from its source in Lake Winnipesaukee to its outflow in the Atlantic. The Boston Associates decided how much water would be let out of the New Hampshire lake and built dams to control the flow along the entire river so that all of the Merrimack’s water power was available to power the turbines of the BMC’s textile factories. River transportation, fishing, and all other competing uses of the Merrimack’s water were considered secondary to the BMC’s water-power requirements.
How did this happen? How did one corporation gain control over what only a generation earlier had been universally understood as a common good, a shared resource open to everyone? There was no bill presented in Congress. No elected representatives voted for this change in social priorities. If the issue had been debated in the legislature, things might have gone differently. Instead, the decision to grant control of one of the region’s major natural resources to a single corporation happened very slowly and under the radar, through a series of legal changes stemming from court decisions and reinterpretations of contract law.
It is important to remember that the public benefited from early corporations. The social good provided by natural monopolies explains why communities chartered corporations and allowed them to inconvenience or even injure the interests of individuals, in the same way towns allowed their local millers to occasionally flood a field, as long as the miller compensated the injured farmer for the loss. It was an issue of the public good coming before the private good. And corporations had public responsibilities: in exchange for special treatment (usually some form of a natural or legislated monopoly) the corporation was expected to act in the public interest. How did that all change between then and now?
The first step was a gradual shift in the interpretation of the mill laws. In every state there were laws that regulated how disputes over water rights would be addressed by the courts. Before the nineteenth century, the common law approach to water rights had been expressed by that Latin phrase, “water flows and ought to flow, as it has customarily flowed.” In Massachusetts, the mill laws dated from 1713 and they only allowed the property of other landowners to be compromised by mills “for the publick good.” But as time went on and case after case was brought before Massachusetts courts, judges began to rethink the phrase public good. As the users of water power grew from village grist and sawmills to textile factories, the judges began to see industry itself as a public good. By the time the Boston Associates were building entire cities from the ground up and providing employment that supported hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts families, it was difficult to argue there wasn’t a public interest in the BMC’s success, even if the profits of the enterprise were restricted to just a few shareholders.
Because textile factories used water power, even if it was on a much larger scale, Massachusetts judges tried to regulate them using mill laws that had been designed to settle the types disputes that applied to village sawmills and grist mills. Not only did the scale of the BMC’s operations make this legal treatment inappropriate, the judges lost sight of the fact that the Boston Manufacturing Company was a private corporation operating for the profit of its shareholders, while village mills had operated for the public good. Thus, through a series of judgments, mostly in lower courts, the BMC was allowed to redefine its relationship with society and with the environment. As a result, so slowly that almost no one noticed at the time, the nature of corporations themselves changed and the idea of a social contract for the public good was lost.
The Boston Associates were not the first textile operators in New England. When Samuel Slater had opened America’s first textile mill in 1793 on the Blackstone River in Pawtucket Rhode Island, he had organized his company as a partnership. But as business opportunities grew, the idea of incorporation changed. Between 1800 and 1809, only fifteen corporate charters were given to Massachusetts manufacturers. In the next ten years, the number jumped to 133. Corporations gradually stopped presenting themselves as public-spirited foundations operating institutions such as hospitals and colleges in the public interest. They became more like the business corporations we would recognize today, whose missions are clearly understood to be building share price and returning a profit to their shareholders. But because incorporation had once been about providing public services in exchange for special privileges, the new corporations frequently retained their special privileges, even after they had stopped providing public services.
Evading Responsibility
Along with the legislated monopolies many enjoyed, one of the special privileges corporations coveted was limited liability. Rather than being held responsible for all the damages that might be caused by a potentially dangerous business such as a textile mill, shareholders only risked the amount they invested. This not only helped firms raise more money, it allowed businesses to take bigger risks, since the worst that could happen in case of a disaster would be that the company would be forced to declare bankruptcy. Shareholders would lose only the money they had spent to buy company shares; their other assets could not be taken to compensate the victims of their company’s risky behavior.
Once again, it is important to remember that the reinterpretation of business law and contracts that allowed these changes to happen was not done by elected representatives in legislative debate, but by lawyers and judges who were often friends, relatives, and investors of the new textile industrialists. They shared not only an interest in the mills’ success, but a cultural orientation that made it easy to see the the textile industry itself as a public good to be protected.
The most environmentally-damaging change caused by the New England textile industry, in the long run, was the gradual elimination the idea of common resources. First, legal reinterpretations separated the old mill laws from an idea of common good and used them to arbitrate property disputes of people who owned land beside rivers. Next, lawyers working for the textile corporations and judges sympathetic to their interests subverted the common law understanding of equal rights to water resources and shared responsibility for their upkeep. Finally, industrialists and their allies in the courts actually eliminated the idea that waterways were a community resource, so the flow of the river could be treated as a commodity that could be bought and sold by individuals. They did this by creating a water power company called the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals (PLC) which invented a concept called mill-power, that they sold to the textile mills.
Mill-power was an accounting tool: a number that measured the work that could be done by river water pushing the textile factories’ turbines. Although it had been a long-standing tradition that running water should never be considered private property, mill-power evaded that restriction. It was just a measurement invented by the PLC for accounting purposes. While the courts might have rejected the sale of the river by one corporation to another, there were no laws preventing the PLC from selling mill-power to BMC factories along the Merrimack River.
The immediate effect of reducing the physical Merrimack River to nothing more than an input into an accounting calculation was that the rest of society (who were unaware this was happening and in any case had no interest in buying mill-power) was no longer involved in these transactions. Society had not been prevented from participating, but the sale of the river had been hidden from the public and transacted in such a way that it made no sense for them to participate. But as a result, everyone who did not own a turbine suddenly lost access to the river and no longer had any say in its use. Worse, once a market price had been established even people with riverside property could be bought out, and by accepting a settlement payment could be effectively silenced forever.
There were never any bills introduced into the Massachusetts or New Hampshire legislatures, allowing citizens to debate whether control or ownership of the Merrimack River should be handed over to the corporation begun by Nathan Appleton and Francis Cabot Lowell. Appleton himself was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1842, and although Lowell died in 1817 at age 42, his son Francis Cabot Lowell Jr. became a U.S. Congressman and a Federal Judge. In 1850, the BMC’s textile empire earned $14,000,000 in annual revenue, which was half the combined Gross Domestic Product of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. BMC profits were high because they were the largest supplier of cotton fabric in the market and because they had been able to control their costs by keeping the mill girls’ wages low. After an unsuccessful strike, mill workers formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association in 1845 to fight for higher wages, lower rents in company-owned boarding houses, and a ten-hour day. A Legislative Committee looked into the mill girls’ demands and decided it was not the state’s responsibility to set work hours. Another important source of BMC profits was the low price of raw cotton, which of course was produced on Southern plantations by people who didn’t have to be paid at all.
When the PLC and the BMC gained complete control, shad and the salmon were no longer able to swim up the Merrimack River to breed. New Englanders lost a food source that had sustained generations every spring. The BMC was sued for damages by fishermen and residents along the river. In 1848 the corporation settled these lawsuits with payments totaling $26,000 to the plaintiffs. In return for a one-time cash payment, the plaintiffs and their descendants relinquished all future claims against the corporation. In other words, for $26,000 the destruction of a major New England fishery was settled once and for all. The fish were gone for good, but the only people compensated were a handful of plaintiffs in a single lawsuit. When the case was settled the issue was considered permanently closed. No one else would be allowed to sue for damages in the future, even though a resource that had always been available for common use had disappeared. This result illustrates not only how much power goes along with controlling a revenue stream worth half the economy of two states, but also how difficult it can be setting a one-time economic value on long-term environmental changes.
Was the destruction of the habitat of the salmon, shad, and of the other animal species that depended on those fish worth $26,000? Was the elimination of a major seasonal food source for rural working-class people in the region worth $26,000? How long would it take until people had spent $26,000 buying food to replace the fish they could no longer catch in the river? No one knew, because the questions were never asked. The public had become divided into groups that no longer shared common interests. Whether there were fish in the river was not a question that particularly concerned factory employees or many other residents of cities like Manchester, Lowell, or Lawrence, whose lives now revolved around urban wage-workers’ concerns such as work hours, rent in company dormitories, prices at the company store, and factory conditions. For the first time in America there was a population of working people that was permanently separated from direct contact with the land, and from the people who lived and worked on it. As we will see in later chapters, the separation of the American working class into urban and rural groups with different concerns had a profound impact on both social justice and the environment.
Externalities and Alternatives
In addition to privatizing the Merrimack River, the textile industry polluted it. In a sense, it did not matter that the fish could no longer run up the river. They would not have been able to survive the water and residents would not have been able to eat them. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the BMC’s mills and bleacheries were producing over fifty million yards of colored and printed fabric annually. The residues from production processes included dyes, bleaches, sulfuric acid, lime, and arsenic. Since there was no law against it, these residues were all dumped into the river. It was a widely-accepted belief that the running water of streams and rivers purified waste thrown into them, although no one really understood why. It is actually true that the microorganisms in water can digest and neutralize a reasonable quantity of (especially organic) waste. Unfortunately, the mills and the new cities the BMC had created overwhelmed the Merrimack’s ability to renew itself. Some mills actually discovered that river water could only be used for dying dark-colored fabrics because the water was too stained to use on whites and lighter shades.
Fish were regularly killed in large numbers up to two miles downstream from the mills’ outlets. A state commission advised the public against drinking river water downstream from Lowell on the Merrimack and pronounced the Nashua River unfit for drinking along its entire length. But the commissioners, pressured by their industrial sponsors, concluded that cleaning up the river or preventing further contamination would be too expensive, and recommended taking no action.
Although the Lowell mills and their canal power system had been meticulously engineered, the same could not be said for the city the BMC had created. Lowell grew haphazardly. As late as the 1870s, the city had no general sewage system. Cesspools leaked into ground water, contaminating the wells scattered throughout the city that provided Lowell’s residents with drinking water. Deaths in Lowell from typhoid fever, a water-borne disease, peaked in the 1870s and exceeded typhoid deaths in Boston through the end of the century, even though by 1900 Boston had five times Lowell’s population. In 1878 the Massachusetts legislature was forced to respond to public pressure, and passed “An Act Relative to the Pollution of Rivers, Streams, and Ponds Used as Sources of Water Supply.” Ironically, bowing to industry pressure, the lawmakers exempted the Merrimack River from the law’s pollution-control provisions.
The New England textile industry is usually remembered in history books as an enormous achievement. The Boston Manufacturing Company was indeed wildly successful, and created a model for American industrialism. Some of that praise is deserved. Nathan Appleton and Francis Cabot Lowell, and the men who led the BMC after them, pioneered industrial organization and built cities for New England and fortunes for themselves. But often when we celebrate progress we forget the cost.
Water pollution was not the only danger the textile industry posed to the public, however. In January 1860, the five story Pemberton Mill in Lawrence collapsed with about 800 workers inside. The firm had been sold recently and its factory building filled with newer, heavier machines. 700 looms had been updated, and a business that had been near failing seemed to have been turned around with great success. The collapse killed 145 workers, mostly women, and left 166 seriously injured. In an investigation after the accident, the collapse was declared the result of preventable factors such as the overloading of the floors with heavy equipment, overcrowding, and even gross negligence in the original construction of the mill buildings. The disaster rallied some activists in the fight for workplace safety. But there were never any consequences for the people who owned and ran the factory. Life just went on. The Pemberton Mill’s owner bought out his partner and built a new factory on the site of the old one. After his death, the new factory was inherited by the owner’s sons. The building is still a prominent landmark of Lawrence.
Avoidable disasters such as the Pemberton Mill’s collapse add human costs that are difficult to quantify. But even setting these considerations aside, how much of the success and profit attributed to the Boston Manufacturing Company and the other mills of the Merrimack River Valley was the result of not having to count the costs their operations imposed on the environment and on people like New England mill girls and Southern plantation slaves who had been written out of the equation? In a sense, the privatization of profits and socialization of costs that allowed the textile industry to dominate the New England economy was just another special privilege given to a corporation by society, in spite of the broken social contract that no longer asked the corporation for anything of comparable social value in return. If economists and historians accounted for all the social and environmental costs, then how profitable was the Boston Manufacturing Company really? We will return to this idea, which economists call externality, in later chapters.
The development of the New England textile industry illustrates how subtle, often unnoticed changes in laws and customs accumulated over time to create the world of global corporatism we live in today. Through a combination of becoming too big to fail and slowly changing the way the law understood the concepts of common resources and social responsibility, corporate industrialists turned the waters of the Merrimack River, one of New England’s most valuable natural resources, into a steady flow of profits for the BMC and its owners. Changes begun in the New England textile industry lead directly to the ways we understand corporations, shared resources, and social responsibility today. But we should never conclude that the way things ended up was inevitable. The present is the result of hundreds of decisions, big and small, that people made along the way. To illustrate that point, we return to the beginning of this story, to Robert Owen.
Robert Owen organized a modern industrial city from the ground up in New Lanark. Appleton and Lowell learned from Owen that social engineering on a grand scale was possible, and they returned to New England inspired and followed Owen’s example in Waltham and then along the Merrimack River. What did Owen do after meeting Appleton and Lowell? Owen became the father of the British cooperative movement. In addition to being a wildly successful entrepreneur and capitalist, Owen promoted a system of corporate welfare that his critics, then and now, called socialist. Owen, however, embraced the term.
Robert Owen tried to improve the society his father-in-law had created around the textile factories, by building schools and by taking care of the health and welfare of his workers. New Lanark became a model of humane industrialism and socially responsible urban planning. But that wasn’t enough for Owen. After his success in Scotland, Owen wondered how much farther he could go. So he sold his interest in New Lanark and moved to Indiana, where he founded a cooperative community called New Harmony. Like Appleton and Lowell, Robert Owen seems to have experienced an “Aha!” moment when he realized how much power he held to change society and perhaps even to change people. But unlike the Boston Associates, who built a textile empire that made them millionaires, Owen chose to do something different with that power. Robert Owen’s decision suggests that as hard as they sometimes may be to see, history often comes down to a series of human choices.
Further Reading
- Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton, A Global History. 2014.
- Benita Eisler, ed., The Lowell Offering: Writings By New England Mill Women (1845-1940). 1997.
- Morton Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860. 1977.
- Ted Steinberg, Nature, Incorporated. 1991
Media Attributions
- Wayside_Grist_Mill by Dudesleeper adapted by Dan Allosso © CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike)
- 3a45717v by Samuel Hill © Public Domain
- 3a24977u copy by Samuel Hill © Public Domain
- Warren_Bridge_-_Boston-Charlestown_-_1 by Map by Thomas G. Bradford, engraved by G.W. Boynton © Public Domain
- 2880px-Gwash_map02 by George Washington © Public Domain
- New_Lanark_buildings_2009 by mrpbps © CC BY (Attribution)
- Boston_Manufacturing_Company by Elijah Smith © Public Domain
- Merrimackrivermap by Karl Musser © CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike)
- acf8e511d20d2f1f6009c2c974c1b394 by E. A. Farrar © Public Domain
- 01830v by Lewis Wickes Hines © Public Domain
- 1975_map_of_canal_system_in_Lowell,_Massachusetts by National Parks Service © Public Domain
- D11023.jpg by Winslow Homer © Public Domain
- Pemberton by Frank Leslie © Public Domain
- 9c520918366467e2db21afbef8ceb0da by Vanity Fair © Public Domain


Children in early childhood classrooms will come from families with a variety of religious beliefs. This chapter will introduce major religions in the U.S. First let’s look at the religious make-up of the United States based on a 2016 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute.
Table 13.1 – Religious Affiliation in the U.S.
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Religious Affiliation
Percent of U.S. Population
Christian
70.6
Protestant
46.5
Evangelical Protestant*
25.4
Mainline Protestant**
14.7
Black church
6.5
Catholic
20.8
Mormon
1.6
Jehovah’s Witnesses
0.8
Eastern Orthodox
0.5
Other Christian
0.4
Unaffiliated
22.8
Nothing in particular
15.8
Agnostic
4.0
Atheist
3.1
Non-Christian
5.9
Jewish (Judiasm)
1.9
Muslim (Islam)
.9
Buddhist
0.7
Hindu
0.7
Other non-Christian
1.8
Didn’t know/Didn’t answer
0.6
* Evangelic Protestants are found across many Protestant denominations. The main movements are Baptist churches, Pentecostalism, and Evangelicalism
**Mainline Protestant includes: Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal, American Baptist, United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Quakers, Reformed Church of America, and others
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Religion in California
In 2019, California had the following representations of religious beliefs:
Protestant (Christian) %
Catholics (Christian) - 28%
Non-Religious (atheist, non-affiliated theists, and agnostics) - 27%
Jewish - 3.2%
Muslim - 1%
Other (Buddism, Shinto, Sikhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Mormon, and others)
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Unaffiliated/Non-Religious
As shown in being the second most identified religious practice/belief in both the in the U.S. in general and specifically in California, it is important to note that every society also has nonbelievers, such as atheists, who do not believe in a divine being or entity, and agnostics, who hold that ultimate reality (such as God) is unknowable. While typically not an organized group, atheists and agnostics represent a significant portion of the population. It is important to recognize that being a nonbeliever in a divine entity does not mean the individual subscribes to no morality.
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A Quick Look at the Most Practiced Religions in the U.S.
Religions have emerged and developed across the world. Some have been short-lived, while others have persisted and grown. In this section, we will very briefly introduce the five most praticed religions in the U.S. This is not intended to be a replacement for learning more about world religions or about the specific religious views and practices of each of the families in your program.
Christianity
Today the largest religion in the world, Christianity began 2,000 years ago in Palestine, with Jesus of Nazareth, a charismatic leader who taught his followers about caritas (charity) or treating others as you would like to be treated yourself.
The sacred text for Christians is the Bible. Different Christian groups have variations among their sacred texts. For instance, Mormons, an established Christian sect, also use the Book of Mormon, which they believe details other parts of Christian doctrine and Jesus’ life that aren’t included in the Bible. Similarly, the Catholic Bible includes the Apocrypha, a collection that, while part of the 1611 King James translation, is no longer included in Protestant versions of the Bible.  The Holy Spirit is a term Christians often use to describe religious experience, or how they feel the presence of the sacred in their lives. One foundation of Christian doctrine is the Ten Commandments, which decry acts considered sinful, including theft, murder, and adultery.
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Judaism
After their Exodus from Egypt in the thirteenth century B.C.E., Jews, a nomadic society, became monotheistic, worshipping only one God. The Jews’ covenant, or promise of a special relationship with Yahweh (God), is an important element of Judaism, and their sacred text is the Torah, which Christians also follow as the first five books of the Bible. Talmud refers to a collection of sacred Jewish oral interpretation of the Torah. Jews emphasize moral behavior and action in this world as opposed to beliefs or personal salvation in the next world.
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Identifying Jewish is not necessarily indicative of religious beliefs or practices. Many people identify themselves as American Jews on ethnic and cultural grounds, rather than religious ones.
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Islam
Islam is monotheistic religion and it follows the teaching of the prophet Muhammad, born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in 570 C.E. Muhammad is seen only as a prophet, not as a divine being, and he is believed to be the messenger of Allah (God), who is divine. The followers of Islam are called Muslims.
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Islam means “peace” and “submission.” The sacred text for Muslims is the Qur’an (or Koran). As with Christianity’s Old Testament, many of the Qur’an stories are shared with the Jewish faith. Divisions exist within Islam, but all Muslims are guided by five beliefs or practices, often called “pillars”: 1) Allah is the only god, and Muhammad is his prophet, 2) daily prayer, 3) helping those in poverty, 4) fasting as a spiritual practice, and 5) pilgrimage to the holy center of Mecca.
In example of how different cultural identities may intersect, Muslims are the most likely to be born outside of the U.S. and are the most diverse religious community. They are also the most likely religious group to report discrimination (which is referred to as Islamophobia).
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Buddhism
Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama around 500 B.C.E. Siddhartha was said to have given up a comfortable, upper-class life to follow one of poverty and spiritual devotion. At the age of thirty-five, he famously meditated under a sacred fig tree and vowed not to rise before he achieved enlightenment ( bodhi ). After this experience, he became known as Buddha, or “enlightened one.” Followers were drawn to Buddha’s teachings and the practice of meditation, and he later established a monastic order.
Buddha’s teachings encourage Buddhists to lead a moral life by accepting the four Noble Truths: 1) life is suffering, 2) suffering arises from attachment to desires, 3) suffering ceases when attachment to desires ceases, and 4) freedom from suffering is possible by following the “middle way.” The concept of the “middle way” is central to Buddhist thinking, which encourages people to live in the present and to practice acceptance of others (Smith 1991). Buddhism also tends to deemphasize the role of a godhead, instead stressing the importance of personal responsibility (Craig 2002).
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Hinduism
The oldest religion in the world, Hinduism originated in the Indus River Valley about 4,500 years ago in what is now modern-day northwest India and Pakistan. It arose contemporaneously with ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures. With roughly one billion followers, Hinduism is the third-largest of the world’s religions. Hindus believe in a divine power that can manifest as different entities. Three main incarnations—Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva—are sometimes compared to the manifestations of the divine in the Christian Trinity.
Multiple sacred texts, collectively called the Vedas, contain hymns and rituals from ancient India and are mostly written in Sanskrit. Hindus generally believe in a set of principles called dharma, which refer to one’s duty in the world that corresponds with “right” actions. Hindus also believe in karma, or the notion that spiritual ramifications of one’s actions are balanced cyclically in this life or a future life (reincarnation).
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1.8: Medication Safety
Now that the basic concepts of medication onset, peak, and duration have been discussed, it is important to understand the value of the therapeutic window and therapeutic index in medication administration.
Therapeutic Window
For every drug, there exists a dose that is minimally effective (the Effective Concentration) and another dose that is toxic (the Toxic Concentration). Between these doses is the therapeutic window, where the safest and most effective treatment will occur (see Figure 1.7). [1] Think of this area as the dosing “sweet spot.”
For example, warfarin (Coumadin) is a medication used to prevent blood clotting and is monitored using a blood test called INR. Too high of a dose of warfarin would cause the INR to increase above the therapeutic window and put the patient at risk of bleeding. Conversely, too low of a dose of warfarin would cause the INR to be below the therapeutic window and put the patient at risk of clotting. It is vital that the nurse frequently monitors INR levels for a patient receiving warfarin to ensure the dosage appropriately reaches the therapeutic window and does not place the patient at risk for bleeding or clotting.
Peak and Trough Levels
Now let’s apply the idea of therapeutic window to the administration of medications requiring the monitoring of peak and trough levels, which is required in the administration of some IV antibiotics. It is important for the dosage of these medications to be titrated to achieve a desired therapeutic effect for the patient. Titration is often accomplished by closely monitoring the blood levels of the medication. A drug is said to be within the “therepeutic window” when the serum blood levels of an active drug remain consistently above the level of effective concentration (so that the medication is achieving its desired therapeutic effect) and consistently below the toxic level (so that no toxic effects are occurring). A peak drug level is drawn at the time when the medication is being administered and is known to be at the highest level in the bloodstream. A trough level is drawn when the drug is at its lowest in the bloodstream right before the next dose is given. Medications have a predicted reference range of normal values for peak and trough levels. These numbers assist the pharmacist and provider in gauging how the body is metabolizing, protein-binding, and excreting the drug, and assist in the adjustment of the prescribed drug doses to keep the medication within the therapeutic window. When administering IV medications that require peak or trough levels, it is vital for the nurse to time the administration of the medication according to the timing of these blood draws. [2]
Therapeutic Index
Therapeutic Index is a quantitative measurement of the relative safety of a drug. It is a comparison of the amount of drug that produces a therapeutic effect versus the amount of drug that produces a toxic effect.
- A large (or high) therapeutic index number means there is a large therapeutic window between the effective concentration and the toxic concentration of a medication, so the drug is relatively safe.
- A small (or low) therapeutic index number means there is a small therapeutic window between the effective concentration and the toxic concentration. A drug with a narrow therapeutic range (i.e., having little difference between toxic and therapeutic doses) often has the dosage titrated according to measurements of the actual blood levels achieved in the person taking it. For example, patients who start taking phenytoin to control seizures have the drug levels in their blood stream measured frequently.
Mr. Parker has been receiving gentamicin 80 mg IV three times daily to treat his infective endocarditis. He has his gentamicin level checked one hour after the end of his previous gentamicin infusion was completed. The result is 30 mcg/ml. Access the link below to determine the nurse’s course of action.
View information on Therapeutic Drug Levels
(Within the activity link, be sure to select “click to keep reading” in order to view drugs that are commonly checked, their target levels, and what abnormal results mean).
Based on the results in the above patient scenario, what action will the nurse take based on the result of the gentamicin level of 30 mcg/mL?
Note: Answers to the Critical Thinking activities can be found in the “Answer Key” sections at the end of the book.
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