Kelli Janssen US History 2017/2018!

          Learning in new ways with different materials is often helpful in expanding our knowledge, especially in history, when most get used to only reading out of a textbook. Movies such as "Lincoln", "Hacksaw Ridge", and "Hidden Figures", are all in my opinion movies which accurately illustrate events from the past and what that time period was like. These films help one to fully grasp and put oneself in another's shoes. Although details may be added to these movies to make them more interesting, if it does not effect the way one views what happened at that point in history, then it is helpful in our understanding of the past. For example producers often add new characters, or conversation to a story so that the audience does not get bored and continues to watch the film, if these changes are just for effect and change nothing about events in history then they are okay. On the other hand movies can often be interpreted wrong and teach us inaccurat...

  Through reading just a small portion of Solomon Northrup's narrative I gained new knowledge and insight on the topic of slavery. I discovered how different the lives of African Americans in the north and south could be and that those born free slaves were almost oblivious to how different their lives were from slaves. Solomon mentions in the beginning of his narrative, " We always returned home from the performance of these services with money in our pockets; so that, with fiddling, cooking, and farming, we soon found ourselves in the possession of abundance, and, in fact, leading a happy and prosperous life." He explains his life in a way where he seems content, his life is normal, "happy", and "prosperous". Most slaves would describe their lives in a complete opposite way. It is evident in the narrative that Solomon did not realize how different his life was when he states " While living at the United States Hotel, I frequently met with slaves...