How The Other Half Lives: Photos from Jacob Riis

This week you are going to study photographs of the slum-life in New York City at the end of the 19th century.

Visit these two websites, read the article and look at the photographs.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/new-york-immigrants-photos

https://allthatsinteresting.com/jacob-riis-photographs-how-the-other-half-lives

For the comment section, write 200 words on your reaction to the things you saw this week. (Questions to consider: What would life have been like? How could it have been solved? What emotions bubbled up when looking at the photographs? Etc.)

America Industrializes: Robber Barons

One fascinating aspect of this industrial age is the men who rose to great power and wealth, often at the expense of their workers.

These men, for better or worse, have been dubbed "Robber Barons".

For this week's blog, do a Google search on the phrase "American robber barons". Choose one person to study further.

In the comment section, write one paragraph (50 words) detailing positive contributions of that person and another paragraph (50 words) detailing their negative contributions. To conclude your response, write 100 words on whether you think the term "robber baron" is a fair label for the person you chose.

America Industrializes: We're Not In Kansas Anymore

Perhaps the single greatest change to American life in the 19th century, besides the ending of slavery, was the growth of business. We used to be a largely agrarian (farming) society, but that slowly began to change.

When factories and machines began to produce steel and mine coal at record speeds, cities became more modern and jobs became more plentiful.

With more jobs came a need to fill those jobs. Where would the workers come from?

Well...often these jobs were filled with immigrants from Europe. Most of those immigrants entered America through a processing station in New York harbor called Ellis Island.

This week, take some time to explore this fun website. There is a lot of great info and old pictures from this immigration age. Click "start the tour" to begin and follow it all the way to the end.

For the comments....

1) Create a list of the 10 most interesting things you learned from this "Ellis Island Tour".

2) Write a paragraph detailing what you think was the most difficult part of being an immigrant at Ellis Island.

Each part should be at least 100 words.

"The Old West": America Moves Onward

This week we are looking in depth at America's experience as it progressed westward across the nation. There were technological innovations that proved how far we had come (i.e. Transcontinental Railroad) but also many terrible social interactions (natives vs. army).

Take a look at this website this week. Choose any story, beginning with the Pony Express story, and explain in the comment section what it taught you about the "old west".

Make sure your post is at least 200 words and the word count is included.