Daniel Fairclough

SOC
10/22/2016
4. . Discuss two (2) demographic data from the museum exhibit
that were useful in understanding how social institutions influenced
social life? Explain. Show an image of this demographic data or
describe the artifact in the museum and the data being presented
and explain how these were useful. Define and apply at least 3 key
concepts listed in the reviewer in Chapter 2 of the textbook in
discussing this option.
The tour guide at the museum of African American History told me
that at least 80 students, both black and white would fill the
basement of the meeting house to be educated by two teachers. 50
more students than the overcrowded classrooms of modern day
Boston, as a comparative-historical model. This means that back
then, and this feels almost obvious to say, that African Americans
did not have much access to public education, if they had to be
packed like Sardines in a basement to learn basic skills like reading
and writing. None the less, those skills were important, and because
the were important, they were necessary to the values of African
Americans and whites, and thats why there were so many, with so
few resources.
5. The textbook's approach to learning about sociology is to focus
on developing the "sociological imagination" of a student of
sociology. How did the approach of using the Horton and Horton
book "Black Bostonian" and the museum trip and/or Black Heritage
tour achieve this objective of developing one's sociological
imagination? Define and apply at least 3 key concepts listed in the
reviewer in Chapter 1 of the textbook in discussing this option.
The trip to the Museum of African American History in Boston
developed my sociological imagination in a way that it defined the
limited space African Americans had to create a social network,
operate as the start of an integrated society, and create an
institution, to be educated in as well as to foster growth with whites
in America.

6. Describe the social structure (both hierarchies and institutional

environments) that shape that lives of Black Bostonians. Use the
information collected from the museum that discuss the various
community organizations that existed in the community during the
pre-civil war era. Define and apply at least 3 key concepts listed in
the reviewer in Chapter 4 of the textbook in discussing this option.
Frederick Douglas used photography and his political position to
foster a better standing with whites, but that didnt come without
ridicule as illustrated in the comics that were about him and his run
away life style. While still discriminated against, he and the African
Americans that met in the meeting house, could established and
institution that showed that black could be respected and well
thought of in the United States of America.
As Douglas saw the use of photography as a democratic art, the
means for a social movement, so did the African Americans at the
meeting house, use that same building as a platform to rally against
inequality that they had to face, everyday.