Reflections on First Semester

When I first stepped foot into History this year, I’m not going to lie, I was not excited. All I could think about was the number of projects I was going to have to create, the amount of lectures that I was suppose to stay awake through, and the numerous power points that were bound to be shown.  When we were told to write three adjectives to describe our thoughts on history the results reflected my feelings perfectly, but to my surprise it has not met my stereotypical beliefs of how I perceived history itself and the class to be. We started learning interesting facts in ways that did not fit the mold I had created for a history class. One of the numerous facts that I found interesting was how rural people ordered and received their clothes, food, and other necessities. They would receive a catalog that contained anything from horses to kitchen appliances and order it all at once. A while later it would all appear at their door.  Unfortunately along with the interesting facts came facts that need to be known, but are not as pleasant to learn. One of these would be learning about the environment that the tenements were forced to live in. The images that Jacob Riis captured gave the world a glance into the circumstances that people below the poverty level had to live in. Another way that we were able to learn was through movies. The movies that we watched were based around one concept, slavery, whether it was the Civil war portrayed in the movie “Glory” or the life that a slave lived portrayed in “12 Years a Slave”, they enriched the learning experience and kept my attention in contrast to another lecture on why and how the Civil war occurred. I believe that ten years from now I will be able to accurately discuss slavery and the different tactics that were used to try and keep it and to abolish it. I will be able to explain the Jim Crow Laws and  the Plessy VS Fergussen case. I will be able to talk about the limited leadership roles that were available to the Southern states after the Civil War and the stipulations that Southern men had to follow if they wanted to be elected to congress. One problem that is a common thread through out American history and is still apparent today is greediness and the willingness to take whatever actions necessary to abolish the competition. This was exemplified by people such as Rockefeller. If I had to give a name to the accumulative period that contains the years from 1865 to 1920 I would title it the age of expansion. American cities grew in size along with the country itself, but the number of opportunities and ideas grew too. I am very happy that history did not turn out to be like I first expected and look forward to new opportunities to learn interesting facts the rest of the year.