Investigating Family, Food, and Housing Themes in Social Studies, a book of social history by Cynthia W. Resor, asks readers to critically examine their own daily routines by comparing them with those of average people in the past.
What people ate, where people lived, and the functions of families are examined from ancient times to the 20th century. These daily realities are contrasted to subjective, cultural ideals prescribing what families, food, and housing ought to have been. Readers are asked to consider if what historical sources communicate about family, food, and houses are always accurate. In other words, is everything we know about the past “really a thing?”
Investigating Family, Food, and Housing Themes in Social Studies is social history, emphasizing the relationship between housing, food, and family and social class, status, and sex and gender. How everyday life and routines from the pre-industrial era evolved into our modern lives, what has changed, and what has stayed the same are explored.
This book is excellent for general readers who love learning about everyday life in the past. Educators in museums, public history sites such as historic houses, and classroom teachers will find this book especially helpful. Investigating Family, Food, and Housing Themes in Social Studies is a concise history of family, food, and housing from the ancient, pre-industrial era, through the transformations of the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th century, providing the background busy educators need for effective teaching of these topics.
Each chapter includes excerpts from key historical/primary source texts, historical images, essential or compelling questions to focus inquiry, and suggestions for learning activities. Critical analysis and literacy skills are addressed through the suggested primary source excerpts and activities.
This unique approach to teaching history and social studies in the elementary, middle, or secondary classroom supports thematic instruction. Thematic teaching or thematic instruction highlights a theme through a thematic unit, or a course, or a series of courses within the social studies, or across disciplinary lines to make connections to other classes. Thematic teaching of social history themes connects the past to the daily lives of students, creating more interest in the past and encouraging students to more closely analyze their own lives and culture.
Each themed chapter also includes suggestions for extending each theme to current events, the local community through place-based education, and across cultures for culturally responsive teaching.
READ A REVIEW IN TEACHING HISTORY, A JOURNAL OF METHODS
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PRIMARY SOURCE BAZAAR BLOG POSTS Related to Food, Family, & Housing:
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- Thanksgiving Recipes from 1796
- What’s a shoat?
- Consider Domestic Laborers this Labor Day
- Hall Stands and Parlor Organs: Status Symbols in the 19th Century Home
- Estate Inventories: Primary Sources for Daily Life in the Past
- Mrs. Bryan’s “Kentucky Housewife”: Managing a Household in the 1830s
- Saleratus, Pudding and a Gill: How Old Words Reflect a Changing World
- Beware of nostalgia in primary sources
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
MORE BOOKS ON SOCIAL HISTORY/EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE PAST BY CYNTHIA RESOR:
About the header image: Panoramic postcard of the interior of a mercantile store in Rush City, Minnesota, 1909.
Library of Congress