Terkel #7 Florence Scala & Tom Kearney

   In the reading of Florence Scala this gave me a better perspective of Chicago, the city I was born in. She talked about how she loved the city because there was always excitement going on around the area. Her farther was a tailor who did not make a lot of money off of his job, and did not have enough money to send his kids to school. They spent a majority of their childhood at the Hull House and she became involved in the city planning.  More opportunities were displayed in her life as she encountered and advocated for change. Those who were immigrants understood the delicate balance of change. Change seemed to be disruptive at times to the people living through it.  As Florence said in her story, “ You cannot have the nice rich people at the top passing on a program for the poor, because they simply don’t understand, they can’t understand” (230).  Florence saw lives destroyed like Eric Hulbert, Jane Addams’ nephew, who tried to get his ideas across to an audience and they ignored him.  In 1965, society was still struggling for equality.  Communities were divided and Scala felt the need tocampaign for the preservation in her neighborhood.  She was campaigning for the past and the present.  Her father who was a tailor trying to make a life for his family reflected the hopes of a better life for his family in Chicago. Places like the Hull House led reform movements for improvements to cities, the creation of child labor laws, workers' rights, and other Progressive reforms. Florence Scala later volunteered at the Hull House and represented the advancement of the voice of a woman during this time. This can connect to the Civil Rights Movement because the minorities such as the African-Americans were fighting for their rights in order to have a voice in the decision made by others. Not only were they trying to make a change for themselves at the time, but they were advocating for everyone in the future to have the same equal rights. She may have run and lost for political office, but she courageously made her voice heard to save her neighborhood and the efforts of all those who worked hard to rebuild a better life. Though I am not really a minority in the community I can still relate to Scala and her experience. Since I am a young inexperienced kid, it will be hard for me to have a voice in several things that I want to have an opinion on. If I want to move up in the work society I will have to prove myself first to have a voice in my work.

              Tom Kearney was a policeman for twenty-three years and was born in Chicago. His father was also born in Chicago and worked as a fireman. Though his family was sacrificing their lives in these dangerous jobs they still did not have a lot of money. The hours were grueling and the pay was not very great. He came from an Irish Catholic family where there was a balance between change and the preservation of tradition.  He grew up in an Irish neighborhood where he said, “The streets, the names were Irish” (264).  Chicago seemed to be divided by neighborhoods made up of people with similar backgrounds.  How can people have greater tolerance and understanding of others if they are not exposed to lifestyles other than their own?  It seems that Tom did not have a lot of diversity in his life which may have made it hard when change came to his life. I can directly relate to this because in Deerfield the town that I live in, there is almost no diversity as a majority of the citizens are white, and a lot are Jewish. I wish there was more diversity in this town because it would create a different society and change the ways of this environment. When I visited my brother at college in Peoria, Illinois I was able to experience some diversity when I interacted with some other races such as African-American and Asian. It was nice to see some change to the area of the population and I enjoyed being around these people. This can relate to times in history such as WWII because during this time at the home front the neighborhoods were split up by people's race. The Japanese-Americans were segregated in neighborhoods with their similar backgrounds. The same thing was going on during the Civil Rights Movement when all the neighborhoods were separated by race as there were white neighborhoods and blacks ones. The lack of diversity still exists in many neighborhoods today and it seems like a large amount of change will not occur. Tom was raised in a family where children were excluded when the parent’s entertained. He didn't want his kids to experience the same thing so he exposed his son to adult ideas and conversation.  The hope for change and tolerance comes from exposure to an exchange of ideas and information.  Kearney’s experience of living a more isolated life than his children, allowed him to recognize what needed to be done to affect change. He believed the younger generation fought less because they communicated more.  Communication leads to the new ideas and information and from this exchange, comes change.