HIST 100: Engineering The Past

11.2 First Reflection of the Fair

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Based on what I’ve read so far, to page 127, I think the most significant issue or tension in the United States in the 1880s and 1890s was the gap between the moral and the wicked in big cities, such as Chicago. Some of the other issues and tensions that were going on during that time were global economic depression, labor unions on the rise and union strikes, big business was on the rise, political corruption, and floods of new immigrants from over in Europe. I want to focus on the issue of declining morals in the big cities though. On page 12 in The Devil in the White City, Erick Larson says, “Everywhere one looked the boundary between the moral and the wicked seemed to be degrading. Elizabeth Cady Stanton argued in favor of divorce. Clarence Darrow advocated free love. A young woman named Borden killed her parents.” These are some examples of the changing times and how morals were declining and changing. There was also nightclubs, prostitution, bars, etc. which highlighted the changing times because before the 1880s and 1890s it was not very easy to find these kinds of services as they were fewer in number and weren’t really promoted. That period of time was filled with “turmoil and grief” as Larson said.

I think Larson has chosen to intertwine the story of the fair with that of Holmes because he wants to show the good and evil that occurred during the time when they were constructing the fair. Burnham represented the prosperity and good times of the fair, although he did overcome some tough obstacles. Dr. H.H. Holmes represented the evil during this time as you can see in this section from the novel, “It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.” This can be found on page 12 as well.

So we can see that there were many problems during this time such as promoting divorce, advocating free love, people murdering other people at a very high rate, prostitution, bars, nightclubs, and unsuspecting serial killers on the loose, which went unnoticed. As well it was fairly simple to find out why Larson intertwined two different characters/plots in order to achieve the distinction between the good and evil of the times.

Reflection

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Over the course of this semester I have learned more than I expected in this class. In the beginning of the semester I came into this class with the expectation of a normal history class. I imagined having a lot of reading and memorization over broad topics in human history, and then be tested over material I had little interest in. This class forced me to analyze history in a way I have never really done before. This type of critical thinking allowed me to gain a new level of understanding and appreciation for various topics I would usually just skim through and never truly learn the information. This class allowed me to not only improve on my writing, but also let me progress on the type of thinking I go through when analyzing information. Overall, history 100 was much more than I expected and allowed me to grow as a learner.

The best way to teach this course would be face to face. Over the semester there were lots of information to sift through and I think face to face interaction would help students understand the expectations of assignments better. There were a lot of times where I did not exactly understand the expectations of some assignments and being in class would have been more beneficial for my type of learning. Having this course online made me truly understand the material and forced me to analyze information more than I would have to in a regular class setting. Having face to face interaction allows me to gain more perspective on the topics we cover not only from the professor, but also from my peers; only so many ideas and perspectives can be learned from exchanging blog posts.

reflection

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The make college count initiative is interesting to me. I think all the course include the skills it highlights already such as ‘effective oral communication’ or ‘Analyze, interpret, evaluate information’. But stating that i feel gives students a concrete way of looking at the class and the assignments given. When they end the course they can say that a certain activity helped them focus on solving problems when before they may have just gone along with the assignment later forgetting it. At least for me personally that is what the highlighted skills due. All of the skills translate from good college student to successful employee really well because they focus on making people more attentive of their situations. Most of the concepts are common sense things honestly. To have a successful job of course you need to build and sustain good relationships but i feel a lot of common sense things often get over looked. It’s important sometimes to highlight them, i think the program in my experience is helpful.

I think that the course load and level of effort required is just fine for an online class. I think it would just as easily be taught face-to-face. I’ve taken online courses since high school , so comparing to previous experience i didn’t find too many challenges. The fact that we used another website was the biggest challenge just in terms of getting used to it. I think thats why i missed a lot of assignment in the beginning is because i had to log into wordpress and find the schedule there when im used to just having the syllabus on blackboard. The course has required a moderate level of reading which has also been a something to remember at times but even if it was taught in person we would still have that reading to do online . I think as long as students pay attention to the website, e-mails from the instructor ect. There is not reason to have a very difficult time in the course.