This class was part game part primary document reading. The game part was set in 1913 Greenwich Village, New York, New York. The last session had us transported to 1917 facing the challenges to the ‘views’ of our Historical Actor. Within the game, there were three factions, The Suffragist, The Workers, and The Bohemians. My Historical Actor was Crystal Eastman, a Bohemian, a writer, and activist. My idea of her is a woman who was all about the Big Picture. She was the one who would say OK, these are all great ideas but what is next? How do we move on and make this the beginning of everything else wrong in the world? She saw suffrage as a starting point, not an end all be all, supporting her brother in his writings. Moreover, for her, Workers rights were a passion as well, she was part of the Women’s trade league. Crystal Eastman was interesting to me because she was a strong, ‘rebellious’ woman in an age where that type of woman was frowned upon.
Later in the class, I had the pleasure of studying Neith Boyce, another villager, another Bohemian. A woman who also pursued a career in Journalism, who is now most well known for being married to Hutchins Hapgood. A woman who was in an open relationship but respected for her writings. Who wanted something more in life than a house and husband and children to cater to. Yet her open marriage was a big part of her life, it was what inspired her writings, her marriage to Hutchins, however, was one of the everlasting things in her life. It was what made her interesting to me.
The Masses Article – C. Eastman
- Written in my interpretation of Crystal Eastman’s voice
- This was a paper on was the wave of radicalism of the 1950’s through the 1970’s, a continuation of what the country had seen during the early nineteen hundreds or was it a break; an evolution into another kind of radicalism?
- The ‘final’ for the game, it was to be a paper on why we did certain things within the game and what I thought during the game.