Migrant Mother---The background

October, 29. Just 3 days ahead of us, almost 80 years ago. Up till now, October 10, 2008 – Black Friday – was the worse.On that day the bigger DJIA point drop in history was found. A collection of these photos (below) are available at “A Photo Essay on the Great Depression“. Plus, to compare what happened in 1929 versus today I vividly recommend you this New York Times Journal graphic comparing severity versus time for several historical crashed.

1920s-MID-1930s Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes was a prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance -- a movement during the 1920s of black writers and intellectuals who engaged in intense debate regarding the place of the African American in American life, and on the role and identity of the African-American artist.

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke. Though it was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York CIty, many French-speaking black writers from African and Caribbean colonies who lived in Paris were also influenced by the Harlem Renaissance.

Historians disagree as to when the Harlem Renaissance began and ended. The Harlem Renaissance is unofficially recognized to have spanned from about 1919 until the early or mid 1930s. Many of its ideas lived on much longer. The zenith of this "flowering of Negro literature", as James Weldon Johnson preferred to call the Harlem Renaissance, was placed between 1924 (the year that Opportunity : A Journal of Negro Life hosted a party for black writers where many white publishers were in attendance) and 1929 (the year of the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression).
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Julius chambers

    Excerpt from book: Having seen so many fools in all stations of life, you are naturally led to believe that it is the easiest thing imaginable to systematically play the unmethodical madman. In this, however, your judgment deceives you, for you will encounter much study and many difficulties. And here a word of kindly advice, cruelly given, perhaps, to ambitious young actors. If you are a sentimentalist, with a weak mind, ask your manager to " underline " you for some other part. The leading one throughout this play is a dangerous experiment, unless you have the utmost command of all the faculties you possess by nature. You decline to be warned ? You would know how to judiciously and thoroughly master your part ? Listen! There are before you at least two weeks of desperate study. Begin with a careful reading of the most elaborate treatise upon the general subject of mental disease. If you have never " crammed " for a college examination, you will find it hard work to study earnestly, even violently, an uninteresting subject. The first three or four days, groping among medical terms, will be found dreary enough. Then go into a hasty perusal of the entire range of medico-legal and general literature bearing upon Insanity. Hunt out every horror. Keep BucknuTs valuable work constantly at hand; it is a wonderful book for your purpose. From it you will get all the prosaically described symptoms, which you mustafterwards galvanize into living, moving action. There, too, if I mistake not, are the tests for feigned madness as applied to criminal law : these yon must thoroughly memorize in order to be prepared for the " experts in lunacy." You need fear nothing original; stick to your memory and defy surprises.

     Julius chambers having himself committed with the help of some of his friends and the city editor. His intent was to obtain information about alleged abuse of inmates.After ten days, his collaborators on the project had him released.When articles and accounts of the experience were published in the Tribune, it led to the release of twelve patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff and administration of the institution and, eventually, to a change in the lunacy laws. This later led to the publication of the book A Mad World and Its People(1876).          

Julius Chambers

forty years' recollections of the American metropolis by Julius Chambers 

    "Every owner of rentable property understands the desirability of having a competent and watchful agent to collect his rents and see that the character of his houses in maintained. Many excellent buildings, with advantageous sites, have been allowed to deteriorate owing to inattentive owners or negligent agenets. Aaron Rabinowitz belongs to the ever-watchful class of agent who makes his principal's interests his own. He was born in this city and derived his education from the public schools and the University of the City of New York. Through the advice of Henry Morganthau, one of the leading realty owners and operators of this city, he entered the real estate business in 1903.     

Julius Chambers

Why was it important in those times? What was eventually done about it?

Julius Chambers intent was to obtain information about alleged abuse of inmates in 1872

    Later in 1872, he returned to work and undertook a journalistic investigation of Bloomingdale Asylum, having himself committed with the help of some of his friends and the city editor.

    His intent was to obtain information about alleged abuse of inmates. After ten days, his collaborators on the project had him released. When articles and accounts of the experience were published in the Tribune, it led to the release of twelve patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff and administration of the institution and, eventually, to a change in the lunacy laws.This later led to the publication of the book A Mad World and Its People (1876). From this time onward, Chambers was frequently invited to speak on the rights of the mentally ill and the need for proper facilities for their accommodation, care and treatment.

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Julius Chambers

Who was he/she? What did they write about? Why was he/she effective?

 

Born:1850 Died:1920 Occupation:journalist,travel writer Nationality:America

   Julius Chambers was borned in 1850.He was died in 1920.He was journalist and travel writer.

  Julius Chambers is considered by many to be the original muckraker who undertook a journalistic investigation of Bloomingdale Asylum in 1872,His intent was to obtain information about alleged abuse of inmates. When articles and accounts of the experience were published in the Tribune, it led to the release of twelve patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff and administration of the institution and, eventually, to a change in the lunacy laws. This later led to the publication of the book A Mad World and Its People (1876).   

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