Hi! My name is Morgan and I am currently studying to become a part of the film program here at CCNY. I was born and raised in a suburb outside of Buffalo, New York called Tonawanda. While none of my immediate family was raised outside of the United States, my heritage lies in Ireland, Germany and the United Kingdom. My hobbies include reading, watching movies, running, exercising and hanging out with my friends.

BLOG POSTS

Tenement Museum Reflection

Our class visit to the Tenement Museum showed a very raw and personal re-telling of early immigration. As someone who does not have an actual experience with family immigration, I found this tour to be incredibly realistic in being able to recreate what the Levines went through as they tried to make a living in New York City. Because our class relies to heavily on the immigration aspect, I sometimes felt like I could not one hundred percent relate because I was never able to connect the data we were shown to a personal story of my family history. Being able to, essentially, walk in the shoes of a family who came to the city with little to nothing, I believe I was able to better understand and make connections to the data that we are studying in class along with the meaning of the seminar as a whole. The information that was provided in the tour was surprisingly factual and helped to connect the personal story of the Levines with the economic and social happenings that were occurring all around them at that time. The recreation of the various rooms really helped to put things into perspective for me to show how little these families had and how hard they had to work in order to make ends meet, which makes me incredibly thankful for the family that I have who have worked equally hard to provide me the opportunity to be getting an education and living in New York, a city that practically leaks history out into the streets, the Tenement Museum being the perfect example.

BOOK REVIEW

Book in Review: You Must Remember This by Jeff Kisseloff

You Must Remember This by Jeff Kisseloff provides an in depth look into the lives if various New Yorkers through their oral retelling of their lives during the 1890’s up until World War II. This book gives the audience first hand accounts of how life really was like in Manhattan during this time period, from the Lower East Side to Harlem, while important changes were taking place all over the city. Each voice has a different story to tell, however, the voices mold together in each chapter to make a coherent story among strangers about life in Manhattan. You Must Remember This is truly a masterpiece that captures Manhattan during a time period that has remained a mystery to many for years.

The key elements that are addressed in the book stem from the individual stories that each person tells. Kisseloff frames these stories in a way that each person for each chapter does not story tell for an extended period of time. More effectively, he breaks up the dialog to two-three sentences per person, each “character” randomly contributing a sentence of their story when it is relevant. This element helps to create contrasting point of views as different events are discussed, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, thus highlighting the ever differentiating views that the characters have from their own experiences, even if they experienced the same event. For each chapter in You Must Remember This, a new section of Manhattan is introduced along with a new set of characters to impart firsthand point of views, keeping the narrative fresh and entertaining.

From these different narratives, the overall focus of the book is to provide different viewpoints on key events that happened in Manhattan from the 1890’s until World War II. Instead of revisiting these events like a history textbook, however, Kisseloff takes a refreshing approach by including actual people’s stories, from their perspective, on what happened during those times. This gives the book a sense of credibility since the “characters” the audience are introduced to are real, live people and creates a kinship between the readers and the characters that are opening up their lives to the audience. This focus is what separates this book from a historical review of Manhattan because of the personal touches given by these characters.

When thinking about You Must Remember This, I do not believe that Jeff Kisseloff is the sole author of the book. I believe that the people that were willing to share their stories so willingly to the public played a huge part in creating the impact that this book has, and consequently, deserve to hold the title of author as well. I think that the stories told by these New Yorkers gave a very personal, and sometimes shocking, outlook onto what significant events were like in Manhattan during this time period. Their stories went beyond what any facts could do; they made the event relatable to the reader, which is the most effective way to gain and hold a reader’s attention. In this aspect, I believe that I have employed this technique in my studies. When giving a speech or presentation, I always know who my audience is and aim to make an introduction that will not only capture their attention, but relate to them as well. I feel as though that this is incredibly important when trying to establish credibility with an audience, because without that personal touch the connection between the speaker and listener is lost, and so is the meaning behind the words that are said.

The obvious pro in You Must Remember This is that there are many different speakers that are able to give varying viewpoints from chapter to chapter. This keeps the material fresh and exciting, because the dialog is constantly changing with each sentence. Another pro that stems from this is the variety of events that the book covers. In one hundred pages, Kisseloff was able to breeze through years of history because of the numerous stories that were available to him. This also aids in keeping the book entertaining to the readers and stop it from becoming mundane, because the main event is constantly changing, even within the chapters. One con that I pointed out while reading the book was that keeping track of all of the speakers became difficult. While it is valuable and definitely worthwhile to have so many varying viewpoints, I feel as though some of the meanings were muddled because there were too many names being shown right after the other. This can become confusing to the reader, which does not help when Kisseloff is trying to hit on so many different events in one chapter.

The theory of constructivism generally known as how a person learns when they are forced to interact head to head with existing experiences that helps them gain knowledge, is reflected in You Must Remember This. In regards to the book, this theory is most effect because the reader is given a firsthand account of the events told from the person that actually experienced the events themselves. This helps to create a deep personal understanding within the reader, rather than just a general understanding of events that they would get if their were simply reading a history textbook.

Examples of the theory of constructivism are shown all throughout the book. In Chapter One, where the focus lies on the Lower East Side, each speaker revisits their own experience with boarders, who are people who pay separate rent in an apartment with a family as a means to make the family money. A majority of the speakers reexamines having to sleep on floors, with little to no blankets and most definitely no heat. In today’s society, most children and teenagers could not fathom the thought of having to share their home with a stranger, much less give their bed up for them, so this section offers a new perspective for the reader. Following along the same lines in Chapter Four, where the focus is on Northern Manhattan, some of the speakers remember experiences of their families owning farms that were as a big as one block. Certainly a person living in Manhattan today could not even imagine a farm being in the middle of 145^th Street This example, again, gives the reader new knowledge from a personal remembrance that establishes a connection. And finally in Chapter Eight, where the focus is on Greenwich Village, gave an in depth view to the “promiscuous” nature of the Village in the 1890’s. This may be a fact that is not popularly advertised, but because of the personal retellings of these events, the reader gains new knowledge that they would not have had before reading the book.

Jeff Kisseloff does a brilliant job in You Must Remember This of intermingling historical facts of Manhattan with personal touches of human experience. This personal touch is key to the success of the book, because it allow the reader to make connections with all of the speakers as they tell their stories, which in turn gives the reader a deeper understanding of what happened during this time period in Manhattan, which is the goal of the book itself. I believe that everyone who lives in Manhattan should read You Must Remember This, in order to gain a sense of knowledge and respect for the city that they live in, and how far it has come from the trials and tribulations from the 1890’s to World War II.

CENTRAL HARLEM