I read an essay, "The Mirror with a Memory" written by James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle. As a photography student, I found the essay to be very interesting. It does make an impact on me in some ways. For many years, people were debating the issue of whether or not "photography is art?" I feel that this essay helped my perception in considering photography as an art. The main idea of the essay is that pictures present a distant meaning to a story and have an impact on the audience while showing a picture of reality. Sometimes, written history is not necessarily that important in the history of photography. The bodies of paragraphs will point out the importance of the history of immigrants during that period such as, how does muckrakers such as Jacob Riis make an impact on journalist history during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the assumption on old immigrants vs. new immigrants, and lastly, my opinion of "The Mirror with a Memory."
             During the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were about 2 million immigrants who arrived in New York City. This caused a lot of poverty problems in terms of quality of life in New York City. There also were a lot of problems in another American city as well. Epidemics such as typhus, scarlet fever, cholera, and many more spread through the cities. There was a lack of indoor plumbing and running water. The countless list of problems that new immigrants faced every day in their lives almost destroyed their dreams of pursuit for happiness, wealth, and better lives. It was said that realtors renovated many mansions of the rich so they were able to put as many families as they could in one mansion. This shows the hardship in each American's daily life as every family member, from children to adults, had to work so hard to support themselves. The essay, "The mirror with a Memory" vividly describes how they actually lived in small filthy apartments: "It caught fire six times last winter, but...