Reading this last section of the book one of things that I was surprised by, was how much New York’s City economy was negatively affected by the war. My initial thought was that the war would have benefitted the city’s economy, by increasing the demands for products and increasing employment. However, it was quite the opposite, as the book noted. While other major cities were benefiting from the war economically, some didn’t have sufficient workers to fill the positions, New York’s unemployment rate was rising. Ships couldn’t enter the city’s harbor safely and this affected many people that were employed in this field.  Due to the way the city was structured and what was produced in the city, the industry and machinery needed to provide products that could be used in the war was not available. La Guardia went to great efforts to get contracts for small business and to redesign machinery that could be useful to the war, and in return build the city’s economy.  Reading this book you get the idea that the government within the city was always a bit more involve in the local affairs, forming regulations and trying to build the states economy. La Guardia’s action then as set the example or standard for what the city’s people expect from the government.

The book parallels the actions of President Roosevelt and Mayor LaGuardia. During this section of the book both men came into very important roles. They came in at a time when the economy of the state and the country was in desperate state. This part of the book highlights a lot of the laws and changes that took place during the New Deal and the challenges they faced in their attempts to improve the country’s economy and to help the lower class.  What drew my attention the most was a section where they were talking about the amount of money they would need for the country to recover.  Because of the relationship that the two had New York was given a bit more funding than other areas. Which I see as a rational idea, as New York plays a very important role in the country’s economy and the faster it recovers the more the state could contribute.  Also very important was La Guardia efforts to appeal to other groups and he made decisions that didn’t favor solely his party.

Bread Givers by Yezierska is about a young woman who is struggling to find her place in a new society. Born to a poverty stricken family, she has to take on the responsibility of an adult at a young age. Though the story in set in an earlier time in New York some of the circumstance that she has to face are still issues that families migrating to the city, today, have to overcome. Sarah the narrator and protagonist grew up with a father that was very religious. He devoted a lot of time to his religion and this was reflected in his views and how he raised his girls. He wanted his daughters to share the same ideas and belief as him. However, this was not the case. Sarah and her sisters were growing up in a society that was different from the one that her father grew up in. The clashing of new world and old world ideas was a cause for the divisions and ultimately the separation of the family. Similarly today many families that come to the city from other countries have to now face the change about what role religion will play in their life and that of their children. Will the new world ideas out rank the traditions?

Sarah growing up in poverty, knew that she wanted a change for her future that was beyond her time. In her family the women were the ones that worked and took care of the bills. It was engraved in them by their father that needed to be married, to be wives and mothers. Sarah ultimately leaves her home and her parents. By doing so she gives herself a “bad name” because this was not the norm. Never the less she did it because she wanted more meaning and an education in life. Many women of the time did not seem to value this. Similar to Stansell New York Bohemia, Sarah was the new woman of the time. She forgoes all traditions to peruse her education and to be a teacher, a face of the generation that was to come.

Throughout the text you are able to see the progress that women made and the changes that took place in how they were viewed by society. Women and men in earlier years were placed into separate spheres of influence. The men were supposed to be the breadwinners and the head of the house. While the women were suppose to be mothers and care givers that stayed home and looked pretty. For some time it seem that the women were “okay” with the roles they played as it had been that way for generations. However, as time passed the idea of a new woman developed. Support for women rights grew and women began to take on different roles. Women had jobs, in place garments factories but they were not allowed the same privileges as the men. In Stansell, “American Moderns” the New Woman become more involved in areas like the arts and politics. They were allowed to enter the saloons and interact freely to an extent with the men. They drank beers and spoke on similar issues but there was always that idea of there being a limit to what a women could say and do, as there were still certain ideas of what a “woman” should be, engraved in society.

The idea of the New Woman challenged the older ideas of woman because she was now holding positions in areas that were once dominated by men. By coming into this new role “she” also challenged the idea of men. “Contemporaries saw a general failure of nerve among young men”[Stansell page31].Fast-forwarding a couple chapters and years later, this idea of the new women branches off into feminism. In the section Sexual Modernism, Stansell discusses this feminist idea that’s focused completely equaling the playing fields between men and women. It was no longer just about allowing women to be educated and beautifying their roles as wives and caregivers. It was a type of freedom and independence that redefine the term woman.

Throughout the texts that we have been reading this semester, there is a common idea of divisions, and the need for there to be a lower class in the society. “The Privatization of Risk” by Calhoun also to an extent incorporates this idea of a division between the wealthy and the poor. In Calhoun’s article the focus is more on the shift that has been taking place in American society, where institutions that were once public or were ran by the government is being passed into the hands of private owners. The private owners of these institutions are not fulfilling their responsibilities to public, or the people who are really in need of assistance.  Instead is comes down to how the people in power will benefit, politically or economically. The people of the lower class that are in need of public assistance become dependent on the private institutions whose primary intentions are to make sure they are benefitting.  This in returns widens the gap between the poor and wealthy and leaves a lot of people without the resources that at one point the government use to provide.

Throughout, “All of the Nations Under Heaven” you are exposed to the idea that New York, from is early beginnings was a city that attracted people from all over the world. Some of reasons that people first came to the city, way back then are still reasons why many people still chose to migrate. From the text you are able to see, that with time the areas from which people first immigrated from has changed and the amount of people entering the city from different countries across the world has also change.  With these changes, a new group of people is added to city’s heterogenousity. When the Dutch East Indian Company first started transporting people to Manhattan Island, their reason for doing so was based purely on the economic gains. However, through the transportation that the Dutch East Indian Company provided, many people were able to benefit, and travel to a new area that they thought would be a better home. From the many examples throughout the first few chapters you can see how over the years the city becomes more diverse with people from many different ethnic backgrounds. You can see how different groups ended up living predominantly in one region within the city, and some of reasons that led up to them choosing to move to that area.

It is very interesting to see that even though a lot of the early immigrants,  were moving to New York City for similar reasons, because of cultural differences they could not get along.  One topic that the text draws attention to is the role that religion played in dividing up the groups. For example, the Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant did not mix well. Even though they were from the same country, trying to escape the same problems and shared the need to prosper economically, they chose to associate with people from different countries, like Germany that shared the same religious values. Religion is just one part of what governed each group’s decisions as they settled throughout the city, and it interesting to see how some of ideas presented in the first few chapters still impact the city today.