In the 1320s, a Franciscan friar left Ireland to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Friar Simon Fitzsimons journeyed from Ireland, through London, Canterbury, Paris, to Venice, where he and his companions took a ship to Alexandria, Egypt. They toured the sites around Cairo, and then traveled overland through the desert to Jerusalem. … Continue reading What Amazing Egyptian Chicken Hatcheries Can Tell Us about Perceptions of Other Places
What’s a shoat? Before the Civil War, cookbooks included dozens of recipes for shoat. Today, this word for pork only appears glossaries for journalists covering agriculture. A shoat (also spelled shote) is a young pig under one year old. Antique words and old recipes, like antique tools or technology, illustrate changes in daily life. Weird old … Continue reading What’s a shoat?
Clothing patterns from the past century reflect changing fashion – from long, ruffled hemlines to mini-skirts, corseted waists to pant suits, pinafores to prom dresses. Vintage clothing patterns also tell the story of changing technology, communication, and transportation. Dress making before the 1850s Before the mid 19th century, average American women sewed their own clothing by hand. The … Continue reading Dress Patterns: A Fashion Revolution
My refrigerator died . . . in July! I’ve had to re-think how I buy, store, and prepare food. During this household drama, I wondered – how did people survive for millennia without refrigeration? Before the refrigerator . . . Until the invention of refrigeration in the late 19th century, average working people ate less fresh … Continue reading How did humans survive without refrigerators?
Should government regulate the food industry? How do these regulations impact our individual food choices? These essential questions help students connect their individual experiences and opinions of school lunches to issues behind government regulation today and in past civilizations. Food has always been connected to politics. Rulers and leaders from ancient, medieval, and early modern cultures … Continue reading From Medieval Bread to School Lunches: Government Regulation of Food
Words come and go and meanings change over time. Exploring the story behind a word can illustrate changes daily life, social behavior, and technology over time. Introduce a word that has fallen out of daily use and ask students to guess the meaning. For example, words related to food and cooking change as technology and … Continue reading Saleratus, Pudding and a Gill: How Old Words Reflect a Changing World
Hot trends in home decorating in the late 19th century were parlor organs and hall stands. These objects are rarely seen in 21st century homes. But both symbolize something that modern home buyers on popular television shows declare is a “must have.” Home buyers, then and now, demonstrated their social status with a dedicated “space … Continue reading Hall Stands and Parlor Organs: Status Symbols in the 19th Century Home
One hundred years ago, 25.8 million Americans got the flu in the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. Fifty percent of the U.S. military deaths in World War I were caused by the flu and 670,000 Americans died. And quack cures offered frightened Americans false hope. Below are just a few quack cures and preventative nostrums that were … Continue reading Cure for the Flu!? Don’t fall for quack cures.
Scrapbooks are stories created from re-purposed media and ephemera of the era. Historical scrapbooks are also primary sources for the classroom. Students analyze texts and images to more about daily life in the past and compare them to modern digital scrapbooking on social media (Facebook, Pinterest, or blogs) A short history of scrapbooks “Our life … Continue reading Scrapbooks: Comparing 19th century primary sources to 21st social media
Cookies can illustrate the relationship between food and politics in the classroom. A good cookie must have fat – but should the cook use oleo/margarine or butter? Butter, the fat from milk, has been used in baking for centuries. On the other hand, margarine was just invented about 150 years ago and was one of … Continue reading Cookies and how government regulation affects daily life
Images of home decor from the past are primary sources for daily life and culture of the era. But the viewer must distinguish between idealized depictions and reality. The printmaking firm of Currier and Ives provided prints to decorate the walls of American homes from the 1830s to the early 20th century. The firm produced … Continue reading What can historical home decorations tell us about the past?
How do historians recreate the daily lives of average people in the past? What primary sources exist to tell us how regular people worked, cooked, slept, or played? Historical estate or probate inventories provide many clues to answers these questions. Estate inventories are lists of the belongings of a person made after his or her … Continue reading Estate Inventories: Primary Sources for Daily Life in the Past
Civil behavior is required for civil society and a civil classroom. Web articles about why, how, and where children and young adults should learn manners are common. But can lessons on polite behavior in the classroom mask important truths that should be addressed rather than concealed? A common classroom rule is “Show respect to others.” But … Continue reading Classroom Manners: Analyzing behavior with primary sources
Nostalgia – a sentimental longing for the past. Many primary source texts and images suggest the past was a better place. But was it really? The word comes from Greek roots: nostos means to return home, aliga/alegein means pain, to care about, longing. Homesickness is a similar feeling – a longing for home. Historical sources are often nostalgic, … Continue reading Beware of nostalgia in primary sources
Looking for primary source images for social studies lessons? Beware of Google image searches – you may get more junk than historical sources. Knowing the date and original context of a historical image is essential for a good primary source lesson. If you locate an interesting image on the internet that does not include historical … Continue reading Primary Source Images: Context Matters
“What did you do and see on your pilgrimage?” This question was probably the medieval equivalent of “What did you do on your vacation?” If your curriculum includes history of the European Middle Ages, studying medieval pilgrimage can offer insight into the lives pre-industrial people as well as our own modern motivations for travel. Mixed … Continue reading Pilgrimage as a Medieval “Vacation”
What did you do on your summer vacation? Teachers often start the school year by asking students about their summer vacations. Modern media is full advice about how, when, where, and what to do on a vacation. Vacationing is such a popular media topic that it appears everyone takes a vacation. But many families are unable … Continue reading The problem with asking students “What did you do on your summer vacation?”
Did bundling, as pictured in the movie The Patriot (2000) really happen in colonial America? Yes! Examining historical relationship etiquette can provide students with insight into their own behavior. In 1811, an English dictionary described “bundling” as “a man and woman sleeping in the same bed, he with his small clothes, and she with her … Continue reading An Eighteenth Century “Date”- Bundling
Manners were changing in the 1920s, but did everyone act like a flapper? Or did people prefer the old-fashioned advice of the late 1800s, codified by Mary Elisabeth Wilson Sherwood in Etiquette, The American Code of Manners and hundreds of other nineteenth-century etiquette books? In reality, both were practiced depending on one’s age, location, and … Continue reading Was everyone a flapper in the 1920s?
Your local library, historical society, or university archives is a treasure trove of primary sources from your community – letters, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, local publications, and all sorts of other ephemera. In most cases, these local institutions are thrilled to work with teachers developing place-based lessons. The staff will know about local history and have … Continue reading Hotels in the Nineteenth Century: Place-based Primary Sources