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The Story of an Emigrant ~ Hans Madison



     ~19th Century~

 


 Let's start with ✨Hans Mattson ✨, a Swedish, man who heard through the grapevine that North America was an opportunity to start a new and productive life. "But we knew that it was a new country, inhabited by a free and independent people, that it had a liberal government and great natural resource" (Blaisdell, 2013). Hans jumped at the opportunity just as thousands of others in the 19th century. A man with no knowledge of the English language, and only a friend to accompany his set out to Boston. 

Shortly, after arriving in America, Hans was hit with challenge after challenge. From becoming extremely ill to being poor, even faced the possibility of losing his fingers. Hans realizes that maybe America wasn’t rainbows and kittens. He was sold a dream and given a nightmare. To be fair, Hans did make a lot of friends along the way, but none really stuck around. 

In a nutshell, America wasn’t exactly what Hans expected it to be. Just like the example professor McCoy gave this week. It was just a gold, shiny toilet. Beautiful on the outside not so much on the inside. 


Enough about Hans let’s talk about how this story ties into our lesson for this week. Hans isn’t the only one who went through the hardship that is America, hundreds of other people can attest to this. And that’s basically what this module went into detail about. How the rapid growth of industrialization and urbanization affected immigrants, which then changed how they viewed America. 

This module gave me a better insight into the 19th century and how so many people were under the impression that moving to North America was their chance to get lucky. Unfortunately, was faced with a much harsher reality. 

Hopefully, I explained that as best as I can so that you understand it. I feel way less confused than I did walking into this lesson. In the next blog posts we're going to dabble in the late 1800s and early 1900s. 


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world"- Nelson Mandela 


Baisdell, Bob. (2013). Essay on Immigration. Dover Publication






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