US History - Standards of Learning - USII.3
This site put out by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation in 2000 gives individuals the opportunity to research real people who arrived at Ellis Island by examining passenger lists. The site does solicit membership in order to delve deeply into an entry; however, students may be led on an introductory/exploratory journey. The site also offers albums of excellent captioned photographs. This site is especially valuable to students learning about the immigrant experience and can lead many to explore their own ancestry.
http://www.historychannel.com/ellisisland/index2.html
The History Channel.com/A&E TV is responsible for this site about Ellis Island. It began production in 1996 and is still running and adding material. There is almost everything that a teacher would need to do a unit on Ellis Island included in this site. Especially valuable are the audio and video accounts of people who immigrated through Ellis Island. There is a nice program included to help build a family tree which would be great for younger students. Like other sites on this subject, there is a rich collection of primary source photographs.
2. Searching Ellis Island
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB/ellis.html
Searching Ellis Island. This site was created by Stephen Morse out of San Francisco for the Jewish Genealogy, copy write 2002. While the site is especially valuable to track Jewish Immigration, it also works well for individuals of the general population. Not only is Ellis Island covered, but also other ports and immigration points are also included. Students can search passenger lists from ships using several different criteria such as ship name, date arrived, nationality or town of origin. This site is especially valuable to students learning about the immigrant experience and can lead many to explore their own ancestry. Since the criteria is so selective, students who know a lot about immigrating relatives can narrow down searches. This would work well with students as a group project, pairing students who have a lot of knowledge of family history with those knowing very little.
3. Angel Island, Immigrant Journeys of Chinese Americans
This site is authored by Lydia Lum, an independent photo journalist, Copy write 1998. It is sponsored by the Houston Chronicle, and focuses primarily on Chinese immigrants from the Houston area. The value of this particular site is that it listens to the stories of contemporary Chinese American elders who immigrated as children. Their perspective is unique because students can see the effects of a life in America following a negative early experience. Students can explore whether time can change some of a person’s perspective.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/Maps/poets/a_f/angel/gallery.htm
Modern American Poetry is part of an on-line multimedia companion to the Anthology of Modern American Poetry, (Oxford University Press, 2000). The link brings the student directly to the Angel Island Photo Gallery, which is an excellent starting point for a discussion of Asian immigration. The link can also follow the poetry of Angel Island as well as present the text of the Chinese Exclusion Act. This site can be used with students in a number of ways. Students many analyze poems and/or photographs as well as to be directed to write letters home or short biographies on behalf of the individuals documented on the site.
4. The American Experience, Coney Island
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/coney/gallery/index.html
This site is part of PBS’ American Experience Series. It is designed so that students can learn more about the popular entertainment at the turn of the 20th Century. It is especially relative to the immigrant experience because for some it was an introduction to American entertainment available right there in New York City. There are many original photographs, and especially significant are some vintage primary source video clips of people enjoying the rides over 100 years ago. This site can be used with students as an introductory class utilizing an in-focus projector, or part of an on-line assignment in the computer lab. I have used this with students as a fictional autobiographical sketch, having students put themselves in the place of a young immigrant experiencing Coney Island for the first time.
5. Immigration and Urbanization
http://www.sailsinc.org/durfee/cdpictures/beattiequarry3.jpg
Italian stonecutters came to Fall River to quarry the high quality granite used to build the mills and many other structures in the northeast. Italians almost categorically did not work in Fall River’s mills, as indoor work did not typically suit their sensibilities.
6. http://immigrants.harpweek.com/
The website: Harpweek-Immigrant and Ethnic America
This website offers a detailed look at the various immigrant and ethnic groups that were an important part of American culture during the second half of the 19th century. This focuses on the Chinese American Experience, 1857 to 1892. William Wei, professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder, gives an overview of anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States in this era.
-Katherine Silva
7. *Photograph: 580 Emigrants Coming To the Land of Promise (1902)
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/070_immi.html
This photograph shows emigrants coming to America. Many immigrants left their homelands in search of a better life. The voyage over was difficult, as ships carrying immigrants from northern Europe had such a high number of casualties they were known as “coffin ships.” When they arrived in the United States, immigrants were questioned and searched at processing centers such as Ellis Island in New York or Angel Island in California. Most immigrants discovered that life in the United States was more difficult than they expected. Without adequate financial resources, many immigrants settled close to the port from which they disembarked.
Students view, analyze and interpret the photograph to understand the immigrant experience on the transport to the United States.
-Katherine Silva
8. The sinking of the Titanic
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/docs_archive_titanic.html
Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg roughly 400 miles off the cost of Newfoundland. Two and a half hours later, at 2:20 a.m., the ship sank with approximately 1500 people still on board. Since that time, people have continually been drawn to books, movies, documentaries and exhibitions featuring the ill-fated liner, her passengers, and her crew. This letter, written on Carpathia stationery by first class passenger Doctor Washington Dodge, is a vivid account of the sinking that describes the Titanic's final hours. It is one of the earliest, most immediate, and compelling accounts of the disaster. In addition, the carelessness of Dodge's handwriting offers a glimpse into his state of mind as he penned his testimony
-Kathleen Cwikla
9. Expalination of the San Francisco earthquake
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/docs_archive_SFearthquake.html
This April marks the 100th anniversary of San Francisco's Great Quake of 1906. Our two featured documents, an account of the earthquake written by U.S. Commissioner Silas W. Mack and a broadside issued by San Francisco Mayor E. E. Schmitz, still speak vividly of the approximately 700 lives lost and efforts to rebuild a city left in shambles.
-Kathleen Cwikla
10. Emma Lazarus—“The New Colossus”
http://www.libertystatepark.com/emma.htm
Written in 1883, this poem is inscribed on the tablet in the Statue of
Liberty’s hand. The statue was originally designed as a gift from France to
the United States as thanks for the idea of freedom and republicanism but
after Lazarus’ poem was read and inscribed, the Statue become the
international symbol of America for the millions of Americans coming to the
United States at the end of the 19th century.
-Christopher Borden
11. Jacob Riis—How The Other Half Lives
http://www.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/title.html
Jacob Riis’ book details his travels through the tenements of New York City.
Written in 1890, it discusses and shows in picture and illustrations, the
effects of the combination of an immigrant population with the growth of
industrialism in urban America. It also foreshadows the coming Progressive
era.
-Christopher Borden
12. Chapter 15: The Problem of the Children
www.cis.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/chap15.html
This chapter comes from a book written by Jacob Riis, who in 1890 wrote a book on the poor living conditions of New York City’s tenement life; his book also included early flash photographs that showed urban slums at their worst. The book is significant in American history because it increased public awareness, particularly in the middle and upper classes, of the plight of laboring people. It also started a wave of Muckraking journalism that led to a wave of progressive legislation and labor organization.
The Mass Frameworks cover the major roles of immigrants in US industrialization. The particular chapter cited in this source is about the condition of children in New York City’s tenements.
This chapter was an appeal to the morals of conservative, capitalist elites on the issue of tenement conditions in New York. For example, not only does Riis discuss the crowded and filthy conditions that children lived in, but also mentions that the children have never been to church or heard of Jesus. Riis wrote sensationally to drum up public outrage about tenement conditions and the exploitation of American labor, picking out juicy details like drowning children to support his argument. I would use this chapter with an honors level class and would have them: (a) pick out specific, concrete statistics on tenement life in the chapter that supported Riis’ conclusions (b) list examples of Riis using sensationalism to sell his argument that tenement conditions were a moral outrage. As a culminating activity, I would have students write a 1-page response on whether or not they think Riis made a compelling argument.
- Benjamin Pease
13. Working Girls of New York
www.cis.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/chap5.html
This chapter on the conditions of New York tenement women comes from Riis’ book How the Other Half Lives. This book shed light on the conditions of the New York City tenements and the immigrants who suffered there; the book not only increased elite awareness on the issue of tenement life, but also started a wave of Muckraking journalism that helped cause progressive legislation and the growth of labor unions. Mass Framework US II.3 specifically makes reference to the major roles of immigrants in US industrialization.
Riis wrote this entire book to give attention to the plight of what he called ‘the proletariat’ and appealed to the conservative morals of upper class Americans to foster change. For example, not only does Riis discuss how women are paid so little they can only eat one meal per day, but he makes it clear repeatedly that some women are forced into prostitution to survive, all the while defending the poor women of the tenements as ‘virtuous’ and ladylike, citing one woman who preferred ‘death to dishonor.’ Riis clearly wants labor to organize and believes there should be a ‘community of interests’ and ‘justice’ for the workers of New York’s tenements. Based on what I see, Riis appears to have Marxist sympathies, given the language that he uses, and he appeals to Christian morality and racial prejudice (two very separate things) to make a case for change.
This source is rich in details of conditions faced by the working women of the tenements, so that is how I would use it. Students would pull out details from it on salaries, labor conditions, meals (or lack thereof), hours worked, etc.; next, I would have students find flash photos of tenement women from Riis’ book and have students create a Powerpoint presentation combining facts about tenement women and images of them.
- Benjamin Pease
