New York Historical Museum Trip

             The New York Historical Society Museum was a very interesting place. It seemed to be a very fancy place and everything was very clean. The exhibit WWII in NYC was put together great. It was interesting seeing a war veteran with his kids going through the museum in his wheelchair. I noticed he was very into everything the museum had to offer, this made me feel that it's collection was accurate and rare. Being from Staten Island I was surprised at the information I learned of how Staten Island was home to a training base for many of NYC soldiers. New York City had 900,000 soldiers commit to the war cause and fight for their country. The exhibit really showed how honorable and brave the citizens of New York City really were.
            There were many things in the museum that were interesting but three of them caught my eye. The first was the piece of the Nuclear plant that developed the bombs hit on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was called The Manhattan Project, it was here in NYC where the development of the atomic bomb. This was started in 1939 and the bombs were released in 1945 virtually ending the war. The second part of the exhibit was the ticket and collage of the event at Madison Square Garden. It was titled "We Will Never Die" and it was a memorial for the 2 million Jews that were killed because of the war and concentration camps. Going to Knicks games at the Garden made me realize just how different NYC was during WWII. The third piece that was extremely interesting was the New York Times front page stating "Hitler Dead in Chancellery." This was a huge piece of history of the death of a extremely evil man and New Yorkers were rejoiced because of it.
       

Group Work Blog

         On page 87 in Lewis', "It Can't Happen Here," Buzz goes through his fifteen points he is running on. We discusses why people would have voted for Buzz. He claimed that he would give $5,000 to everyone who works hard in the country. This would increase the blue collar workers, lower class, and middle class. He also promised to tax the rich, which would in turn help him out with the lower class votes. In a fascism type government the votes were bought. Windrip was basically buying votes, Lewis wants to make this seem like a fascists type government in its early stages.
       When "Buzz" Windrip was running he seemed like a common man that could relate to the ordinary people in America. He could be there voice if elected president and Buzz ran on this type of campaign. Little did the citizens know that he would eventually gut the Bill of Rights and send his militia the Minute Men to set up his fascist government. He seemed to be a regular guy, very personable, and reasonable to the people. This would quickly change once he was elected. This is what the title of this book hints at, the unaware Americas that can never see this happening in here.

MET Assignment

                 The museum was a great trip and I learned more then I could of imagined. The experience was very interesting and was my first time at the MET. The people there were very different then I would imagine. There was a lot of students like us but also a ton of tourists. Also there was an older crowd that seemed to be dressed well and seemed to be studying every aspect of the museum. I walked around the rest of the museum after our exhibit and was blown away by the art work, especially Van Gogh's paintings. For the Civil War exhibit it was put together perfectly. I felt extremely informed walking through each room from the injured soldiers and to the devastation of big cities in the south.
               Three photos that stuck out to me was the wounded soldiers, the ruins of a town in Richmond Virginia, and the African American soldiers burying the dead soldiers in Virginia. For America to be in shambles with whole cities destroyed is something that is hard to imagine. The war went through southern towns and they were hit hard. The people in these towns lives would change dramatically as the war came through. But these towns could be rebuilt, the lives and limbs of the soldiers could not be replaced.
              The soldiers went through so much throughout the war that was shown in the photos. One that stood out to me was 22 year old Private James H. Stokes of New York. He had a bullet hole through his upper chest. Me being 22 and from New York I would of been in the same situation as this Union private. The African Americans that were burying the dead soldiers made me realize how hard it must of been after each battle to deal with all dead friends and family members.