The Hallifordian - 2016-2017

15 History trip to New York and Washington On the last Friday before October half term, a group of 20 Halliford students ranging from Year 8 through to Year 13 set off for a week in New York and Washington DC. In New York, we spent three days focused on getting to know and understand the roots and experiences of its inhabitants over the years. On our first full day there, we took the boat from Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty and to visit Ellis Island. Over 12 million immigrants to the United States between 1892 and 1954 were processed at Ellis Island, and today, nearly 40% of Americans can trace at least one direct ancestor back to it. The National Museum of Immigration, based in the main building of the immigration processing centre, brings alive the immigrant experience in the USA, and contextualises it with a wider history of migration patterns around the world. The next day, we visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, a five-story tenement building which was home to as many as 7,000 people from over 20 countries between 1863 and 1935. Here, we took in the Irish Outsiders tour, in which we learnt about the true story of the Moors, an Irish immigrant family, and visited their restored flat in the build- ing, in which they lived in 1869. On our final day in New York, we had a walking tour of Harlem, where we had an insight into the history of lives of African-American New Yorkers. We visited some of Harlem’s iconic sights including the Apollo Theater, 125th Street and the Abyssinian Baptist Church, as well learning more about Harlem’s historical signifi- cance. The second half of our week was spent in Washington DC where our focus shifted to a na- tional perspective on the history and politics of the USA. We took advantage of the extraordinary range of National Museums that line the National Mall, and visited the American History Museum, the Na- tional Air and Space Museum, and the American In- dian Museum. All three museums provided us with a strong sense of the vastness and variety of the histo- ry and geography of the United States. We were also able to enjoy some lovely autumn sunshine, walking the length of the National Mall, the National Park at the centre of the city, and visiting memorials to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Vietnam Veterans. We rounded off the trip with a guided tour of the US Capitol building, the home of Congress, where we saw the Crypt, the Rotunda, and National Statuary Hall. All in all, it was a fabulous trip, in which we were able to experience and learn about many dif- ferent aspects of the history of the United States. I must also thank Mrs Wagner-Hall and Mr Shales for their stirling support throughout the trip. Mr McMillan, Head of History