Mid-Semester 2 Reflection
1. The most important thing I learned about immigration in the late 19th century is that immigration was a difficult process. Before research, I assumed migrating to the US wouldn't necessarily be easy, but I didn't associate any of the hardships and obstacles that came with immigrating to the actual process in the 19th century. For example, some of the boats that the early 19th century immigrants traveled to the US were called "coffin ships", due to the fact that the ship and travel conditions were terrible and contaminated with disease which lead to this name and many immigrants dying in the proses of travel. Something else that existed during this time period that made things more difficult towards the immigrants was nativism. This was known as hostility towards the immigrants, which created hardship and difficult relationships for the new coming immigrants possibly making their lives more difficult than they could have been before.
2. The most important, along with the most interesting thing I learned about immigration today, is how long and time consuming the process of immigration is. Similar to question one, I assumed that the process of coming into the US wouldn't be completely easy, but I was not aware of the time and consideration that goes into this process. For example, I focused on health concerns and inspections for the new coming immigrants, and I found it very interesting how many certain requirements there are for one to be even allowed to enter the US. For example, there are numerous vaccines every immigrants must make sure to have, along with an intense physical inspection to make sure immigrants are healthy enough to come into the US. Through this research, I discovered that the process of entering the US today is still quite difficult, possibly even more so than it would have been in the 19th century due to the new technologies that have been discovered. This allows for heavier inspection for the new-coming immigrants, making for a still difficult and diligent process.
3. I would say the most 2 challenging aspects of living in 19th century urban settings would be the crime rates, along with low wages. Specifically, I researched crime rates, and because of these areas being urban, along with the nonexistent law system, the crime rates were extremely high. Along with crime rates, Americans feared in erosion of wages. This was because employers used immigrants to break strikes and to reduce pay. These low wages meant for the public to live in unfitting conditions such as small and unsanitary households. As the years passed, a law system was created and for the most part, urbanization issues with wages was demolished, therefore showing how America meet all of these specific challenges which now makes for our country to be a better, more successful place.
4. Progressivism in the late 19th and 20th century was a term that applied to the economic and social problems that industrialization introduced to America. In other words, this was a group of people that believed problems of society could be solved by providing food, education, safe environments, and an efficient workplace. The effort to build the Highline has definite similarities to this definition. For example, the Highline was something that was just sitting there into something beautiful that any person is New York could enjoy. Similar to the progressivism definition, the Highline was originally a so called "problem", for it was not being put into use, therefore it was just taking up space. In order to fix this problem, people turned it into a safe and enjoyable environment, which is how this could be related to progressivism. Despite these similarities, the Highline does differ from the progressivism movement all together. The progressivism movement began as a social movement, but grew into a political movement which is not similar to the Highline. The Highline building process consisted of countless meetings and consideration in order to perfect the idea of turning this unused land into something beautiful, taking the root of the problem and turning it into something that could benefit every single person in the areas enjoyment. This therefore could be considered a social movement rather than political, disconnecting this process of building the Highline to progressivism, and closer linking it to Philanthropy. There is a huge difference between the progressivists during the 19th-20th century verses the ones that were involved in the Highline. For example, during the time period of the 19th and 20th century, they were purely focused on more serious issues such as things that were involved with the law and economy issues, while for the Highline, of course it was not necessarily benefiting New York before renovation, it was not hurting the city either, making for this act of progressivism not being as "serious". This further changed the people that were involved, such as in the 20th century, it was more government and important figures in the area, rather than in the Highline, where it was more architectures, lawyers, designers, and photographers.
Here is an image of what it might look like during the immigration inspection.
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