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fandomhigh2014-10-17 11:44 am
pasunereveuse.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2014-10-17 11:44 am
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American History: Lies Your Other Teachers Told You [Period 2]
Today, everyone had received a note (a handwritten note, not an email, in way-too-perfect cursive) to meet in the Danger Shop. And the explanation for the note was probably pretty obvious when it wasn't Josh there to greet them, but a very nervous-looking Celia. It had taken her the better part of the morning to figure out how to program everything, but after a call to Barry and several iterations of, "Technology is stupid and I hate it," she finally had the whole thing up and running.
She'd transformed the shop into a New York of her own time, complete with horse-drawn streetcars, tall smokestacks, and a much, much shorter skyline. She waved one gloved hand as she spotted people coming in, smiling a little shyly.
"Good morning. Professor Lyman couldn't be here today, and he asked me to fill in for him." God only knew why -- she'd never felt less prepared to teach anything, which was why she'd fallen back on what she knew, personally. "And I figured that...well, with the exception of Cosette," to whom she gave a conspiratorial little smileif she was there, "most of you don't know what the time periods we're studying look like first hand. So. This is New York City, circa 1880. You'll notice that there's no skyscrapers, and if you get a view of the harbor, you'll see that Lady Liberty's still under construction."
She gestured expansively behind her, to where the tallest buildings were probably about ten stories at the most. "The biggest thing you might notice is the air pollution, and the population," she added. "Right now we're right in the middle of the Industrial Revolution -- not that we call it that in my time, but that's what the books refer to it as, now. We're seeing a surge in immigration, which is only going to increase as industrialization does, and unfortunately, we haven't quite figured out clean fuel." So that would be why everything was sort of vaguely dirty. Oh, coal.
"Have a look around, explore. There's a tailor over there if you want to blend in, but no one's going to especially care if you don't. There's factories to tour, streetcars, and if you want to climb up to a rooftop, you can probably see the whole city -- it's not as tall as some of you might be used to." She smiled, clasping her hands together, then paused. "And watch where you step." Because horses.
She'd transformed the shop into a New York of her own time, complete with horse-drawn streetcars, tall smokestacks, and a much, much shorter skyline. She waved one gloved hand as she spotted people coming in, smiling a little shyly.
"Good morning. Professor Lyman couldn't be here today, and he asked me to fill in for him." God only knew why -- she'd never felt less prepared to teach anything, which was why she'd fallen back on what she knew, personally. "And I figured that...well, with the exception of Cosette," to whom she gave a conspiratorial little smile
She gestured expansively behind her, to where the tallest buildings were probably about ten stories at the most. "The biggest thing you might notice is the air pollution, and the population," she added. "Right now we're right in the middle of the Industrial Revolution -- not that we call it that in my time, but that's what the books refer to it as, now. We're seeing a surge in immigration, which is only going to increase as industrialization does, and unfortunately, we haven't quite figured out clean fuel." So that would be why everything was sort of vaguely dirty. Oh, coal.
"Have a look around, explore. There's a tailor over there if you want to blend in, but no one's going to especially care if you don't. There's factories to tour, streetcars, and if you want to climb up to a rooftop, you can probably see the whole city -- it's not as tall as some of you might be used to." She smiled, clasping her hands together, then paused. "And watch where you step." Because horses.
Listen to the lecture [10/17]
Re: Listen to the lecture [10/17]
Also, she was wrinkling her nose a little bit, because she most definitely had not missed that grimy essence of coal in the air. That was less je ne sais quoi and more je n'en veux pas.