Yesterday I visited the LaGuardia and Wagner archives. The Archives are located within the college; they house many of the written and physical artifacts of New York Cities history. Our class visited these archives in order to gain a better understanding of how to utilize research facilities. We were shown a historical document as well as many artifacts that had to do with past mayors.
The document we examined was a written version of a speech former mayor Robert F. Wagner made to address the Harlem riots of 1964. This was useful and relevant to our class because it gave us an idea of the aftermath of the riots. We have been studying the causes of the riots and what actually occurred, but we have heard no input on the riots from an authoritative perspective. As a group we analyzed the document and drew conclusions on what we thought Wagner was trying to say. He mentions touring Harlem after the riots and finding much of it untouched and unaffected. He also mentions the obligation of local government to maintain law and order. When we went over this part I felt as though he was trying to justify the brutality performed by the NYPD. My classmate Elvia felt he was trying to minimize the severity of the event. Our guide to the archive, Tara, used our differing perspective to exemplify the effect of secondhand sources. Although the speech itself was a firsthand account, anybody could put their own ideas into Wagner's words. This is why she stressed the importance of checking facts. I found the tour of the archive very useful. For one, it showed me a place within the college i could go to access real historical documents. These documents may prove useful while i am writing any of my three research papers this semester. The trip to the archive was also useful in that i was given a lesson on reading and analyzing documents.
My name is Wendy Yanez and i am in Professor Rogers seminar teaching writing and I am learning how to become a tutor. I just finished reading your blog and I think in the beginning you could have written a little bit more about what happened to you in the archives and explain a little more what they are and what you used the archives for.I like the way you spoke about the document but I would have liked to see more about what the Harlem riots are and what is the significance of the riots. In the end of your blog you could have wrote what you personally think about these riots and what you believe Wagner could have done. I hope my points help you out and good luck.
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