For this project, we were given the opportunity to choose our partners and decide on a decade we wanted to learn more about. As a group, we decided to learn about Chicago in the 1930s. I learned many things from the decade that helped me visualize how it would be at the time. Knowing that the Great Depression was prevalent during the 1930’s causing a lot of sadness there was still a sense of happiness that kept attitudes high. This was due to the music, an outlet and escape from what happening in the economy. Swing is was the most prevalent music including having the optimistic feeling that everyone at the time needed to be given that the stock market showed no signs of relenting. I found it interesting how during the Great Depression the negative occurrences are mentioned but not a lot of light is shined on how the people coped with the sadness. In the midst of sadness, there was still happy that shined through. I was able to make connections with the decade I chose and the decade we are living in now. In the 1930s and year before there was a great number of listeners to jazz music along with swing. Artists that to this day are well recognized like: Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Cab Calloway, to mention a few. Segregation is no longer here to impede a color of skin from doing the same task as someone else. Although there is discrimination that we still see today, it is far less than the segregation of people based on their color of skin. As a group, we created four artifacts, as it was required not only were we allowed to choose our artifacts we. My personal favorite was the one I created, which was a Wildcard option. I created a video demonstrating the various songs that were popular at the time and I included a performance that was part of a film showing Cab Calloway and his band performing the Jumpin’ Jive. All of the other artifacts were really well done however given that I put a lot of work into the making of the video, I was proud and enjoyed the video itself. There was a lot of information on all three aspects (political, economical, and social) however due to working on my artifact I was able to dedicate more research towards the social and cultural of the decade. Considering the artifact I produced was the video which incorporated music from the decade I had to spend time researching the music. This lead to discovering that music was their form of an outlet from the depression. If I could change something about this project it would be the I did not read the same book as my group since I have read the book (To Kill a Mockingbird). Instead, I read Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald which is taken place outside of the U.S set on the French Riviera in the late 20s. The book is about a young actress named Rosemary who is 18 years old and Dick a 34-year-old psychiatrist who contemplate having an affair. Dick is his wife's doctor since she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Potluck
At the end of the project we had a potluck in which we needed to bring food related to our book or decade. I decided to bring a dozen of donuts since Al Capone did charity work during the Great Depression he opened various soup kitchens. He provided free soup, coffee, and donuts.