FRONT PAGE

CAMPUS NEWS:
    RELAY FOR LIFE
    SOUL FOOD
    NYC HISTORY
    SUICIDE AWARENESS
    PLAGIARISM
    HISTORY CONFLICT

  SPORTS
   BASKETBALL HOME OPENER
   STEELERS VS CHARGERS

   
HOMETOWN HERO
    CALLERY

PROFS INTO PEOPLE
    UKUMBWA SAUTI

SENIOR PROFILE
    DEVINE

NEW!
     HE SAID,
        SHE SAID

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

SHENANIGANS
   
COUPON

PAST ISSUES

Two history classes visit Tenement Museum on day trip to New York

by Ashley D. Saari
Exchange Staff    

     Two history classes experienced what early immigrant life was like when they visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum on a day trip to New York City.
    
     History professors Mary Kelly and Doug Ley took 26 students from the Religion and Politics in American History and US Labor History classes to New York for an all-day trip to experience first-hand the concepts they had been studying in class.
   
     "We wanted students to have the experience of seeing the streets and actual immigrant workers, how they spent their days, and how they worked, lived, and worshiped. This was a way to do that," said Kelly.

      Senior Kim Ruth, a history and mass communication major who went on the trip, said, "Instead of just going to a museum where you look at pictures, diagrams, or artifacts, the Tenement Museum is unique, because you go into an essentially preserved tenement from 1930, and you have an actress acting like she's from 1913."

     Senior Bradford Sirois-Szafir, a history major who is taking Kelly's Religion and Politics class, claimed in an e-mail interview that while the actress "provided an interesting perspective on the daily life of someone living in a tenement" it was more interesting that the students were allowed to interact with all of the artifacts in the tenement.  "Direct access to original materials is something you don't usually get with conventional museums," said Sirois-Szafir

     The students viewed houses that had once served as transitional housing for new immigrants. According to Kelly, about 7,000 immigrants had cycled through the house throughout the years as they got on their feet and gained employment.

     According to Ruth, Professor Ley's US Labor History class has been studying the book Low Life by Luke Sante and this trip was a good way to experience things that they had been reading about.

     Sirois-Szafir also mentioned that it was interesting to see the reality of the tight quarters and overcrowding which had been referenced in the book that his class had been studying.

     Kelly said the trip "made what was in the textbook become real" for the students who attended.

     "They found the smallness of the rooms shocking. It made their dorm rooms look luxurious," she said.

     Besides visiting the museum, the classes also looked at old neighborhoods on the East Side, including Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Bowery, to get a better sense of immigrant life, both in the past and present. Kelly said that the students found the experience interesting. "Some of them had not been to New York before, so they were excited."

     Ruth, who is originally from New York, agreed, "They got to see a part of New York that isn't as 'touristy.'"