A Living Essay about Progressivism

For this assignment, I worked with Andrew and Mary Leigh and how we connected each of are different topics, which included Jewish immigration, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Titanic.

During the Progressive Era, the new ways in which it was possible for people to move from place to place demonstrates that this was a period of great innovation. Jewish Immigration from eastern Europe, the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the voyage of the Titanic all exemplify people being open to new ways of changing their lives.

With all of these innovations, there were great intentions and promise but each innovation brought its own risks.When stringing the cables for the Brooklyn Bridge, one of them snapped and resulted in several deaths but over all the bridge was a great addition to New York City. Even though the sinking of the Titanic was a terrible tragedy, the overall impact of the boat helped to better the innovations of ships. When the Jewish immigrants came to America, they were living in hard times, but as time went on and more immigrants made their way over, it was overall well worth the struggle in the end.

Progressivism: Brooklyn Bridge

    What I learned from theses different articles about the Brooklyn Bridge was how it was linked to Progressivism. There were different articles not even from the New York area. In my opinion the Brooklyn Bridge was a ideal example of the progressivism era, because it was a social movement the citizen in Brooklyn and Manhattan had to get to the other side of the east river but the ferry boats were not most affiant. The building of the bridge was dangerous. Covered by a newspaper in Louisiana about one of the bridges cabled snapped, and it flying around killed some people, working conditions were not ideal. The thought and what the bridge would bring to NYC was in the theme of Progressivism. When I was looking at the different articles and what they wanted the bridge to be for was very similar to the High line. The bridge would be for pedestrians and horses and carriages to safely transport them, similar to the High Line they builders wanted to get the people off the busy street. Mr. CC Martin said about the narrowing at the top of the two towers was "gives a relief to the gloomy heaviness." The builders of the bridge wanted to be pretty and nice and strong on its own like the progressive era and what it stood for and citizens social movement.

List of articles used:

Connecticut Herald, November 17, 1829, Bridge across the East River 

Albany Evening Journal, September 27,1870, A Marvelous Accident in the Caisson of the East River Bridge

Times-Picayune, June 20, 1878, One of the Bridge's Cables Snaps

Annapolis Gazette, May 13, 1873, The Great East River Bridge

St. Albans Daily Messenger, August 29, 1876, Stringing the Cables

St. Albans Daily Messenger, April 3, 1883, The Brooklyn Bridge Informally Opened

Trenton Evening Times, May 26, 1883, A Vivid and Well Connected Account of Thursday's Great Celebration

Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, May 31, 1883, Frightful Panic on the Great Thoroughfare

Self Reflection of Third Quarter

This quarter we learned about Imperialism, and watching the the Eddie Aikau documentary. I like watching the the documentary because it helped show some of the history of Hawaiian culture. The documentary helped break down the media aspect and how they can control your emotions by the video clips, from that time, interviews, the music, and reenactments. Also during this quarter, we started to do multiple choice reading questions. At first I wasn't a big fan because the questions weren't straight forward, but now I like them because I think its more helpful for to understand what we are learning. The High Life video I thought was very interesting because the creator took a creative thinking to make the old railroad system, in New York, and turned it into a fascinating park.

Progressive Era

1.  I define progress as being able to do actions to reach a goal.
2. The Progressive era is between 1890 to 1920s. This time period is referred as the Progressive era because of all social activism and political reforms.
3. The actions were trying to eliminate corruption in the government. Also, in this time women's suffrage was promoted to "pure" female vote to the political arena. The Efficiency Movement that would be in every sector to modernize and bring scientific, medical, and engineering solutions. Also in the Efficiency Movement scientific management and Taylorism played a key part in the movement. Mostly the movements were operated on a local level.
4. The progressive forms seem to have in common is that they would help the government become better and that these reforms to benefit they people as well.
5.   Progressive moments:
        1. Essential goals/ Necessary changes: Civil Rights, Government Reform, Women's Rights
        2. Good Goals:  Protects peoples health and welfare,
        3. Strange Goals: illegal to sell and make alcohol
       4. Not Good Idea Goals: federal government acting as a mediator between opposing sides.

How Do You Analyze a Political Cartoon

2. For analyzing political cartoons, I already knew that there is either some irony and some of prior knowledge. I learned that prior knowledge is a big part of knowing how to read political cartoons and what message the artist is trying to get across.
3. From now on when analyzing political cartoons I will go to the Library of Congress Cartoon Analysis Guide. When looking at a Political Cartoon I will look for symbolism, exaggeration, labeling, analogy, and irony.
4.

Imperialism Philippine War

In this political cartoon the Philippines are being portrayed by a donkey and America as Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam is tied to the imperialism tree and has control over the donkey (the Philippines) by the rope, and also trying to tie the donkey to the tree as well. 

Philippine Conflict 

This political cartoon is portraying that America is with drawing from the Philippines, but they will still have a foot hold there. 

Spanish American War

I think this political cartoon is about America, portrayed by Uncle Sam, that claims that they will give independence to the caribbean and other pacific islands, but in actuality America will not.

Hawaiian, The Legend of Eddie Aikau

1. The filmmakers called the documentary Hawaiian, The Legend of Eddie Aikau because he is a Hawaiian symbol of his culture and what he was able to bring the the surfing community and around the world.
2. The angle of this documentary is the life of Eddie Aikau played a role in spreading his Hawaiian culture  and that Hawaiian people are proud of their culture and can achieve great goals. He could also bring his culture to the surfing community.
3. The filmmakers assumed that their audience is watching this film because they are interested in sports since this film was produced by ESPN. Therefore surfing is a huge part of this film and Eddie's love of the ocean.
4. If the documentary had been produced by either PBS or the History channel the filmmakers would have gone more in depth about Hawaiian culture and what it meant to Eddie and his family.
6.
Topic: Americas entry in the Spanish War
Focus: The US ship, the Maine, blowing up in Havana harbor and how the media created a bigger problem out of this and inaccurately reported the accident.
Angle: How the media in this time period inaccurately reported the Maine blowing up and started a national chant for revenge "remember the Maine" and how they were spinning the  Spanish war just for rating even though most of what they reported not accurate.

Phrenology

I looked at a phrenology bust and started with googling what phrenology is and more questions to find out more about it. I learned about research that googling the broad terms is good do find basic background about what I am researching. Then when learning more about the topic make the search more specific. I did find out that depending on the question given can determine if the artifact is a primary or secondary source. Provenance is the earliest place of something that is known and where its from. Provence can provide value to an antique by knowing the history of where its from and how old it is.