Local History in the Classroom: Connecting Community & Curriculum

Learning by interacting with real objects and engaging the senses is a proven winning technique.  It also addresses experiential learning styles.  Presented are a few very inexpensive ways to engage the senses while learning about history, that relate to the local community.

GOAL:

• Awareness of the global economy as it was experienced in local material culture.

MATERIALS: 

• One 12" swatch each of: 100% cotton;  100% wool; 100% fine linen;  100% coarse linen ("osnaburg");100%f silk.
• Printout of 18th century map of the world.
• Additional:  Unspun cotton, wood roving, flax yarn, silk yarn, examples of today's clothing with garment tags.

INTRO & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

• These are the most common fabrics that the people of (your community) in Colonial & Revolutionary Day used for clothing and around the house.  In this time period, most fabrics were imported, until non-importation agreements encouraged local production.  
• What are they called & what are they made from?
  • Cotton:  From cotton plants.
  • Wool:  From sheep
  • Linen: From flax plants.
  • Silk: From silkworm cocoons.
• Related at home activities:
  • : What is the clothing you have on made from?  Check the tag tonight at home-- most kids don't know many modern fabrics are actually petroleum products (acrylic, nylon, polyester, and spandex being the most common.)
• QUESTIONS:
  • Where did they get these fabrics from?  Locate on the world map:
    • Cotton: India (plantations in the U.S. South not producing. (East India Company). It was rather expensive, but most people wanted to have it, for "fancy."
    • Wool: England,with some local production.
    • Linen: England, with some local production.  The most common fabric.
    • Silk: Primarily China, with manufacturing centers in France.  The most expensive.
    • Hemp fiber was also used, for coarser fabrics like sails.
  • Why were many fabrics imported? (Mercantilism encouraging consumer culture.)
• Related Activities:   
  • What fabrics are mentioned in Hudson Valley "runaway" ads?  Why was the clothing described, and what does it tell us?
  • Hemp production in the Hudson River Valley:  
    • Colonial Williamsburg research on flax and hemp.
    • "Hemp Lands" marketing of the Drown Lands

GOAL: Experience the past lives of the community through the senses of smell and touch.

• Gather different teas and spices, place in clear containers with removable lids. 
• Allow students to touch and smell. 
• TRADE & NETWORKS: Use the East India Company trade map and "Portable Instructions", explore where herbs and spices came from in the 18th century.  What items came from far away?  Were there any that were native plants whose uses were taught to the colonists by the local Indigenous people?  What did the colonial settlers bring with them from their home places?
• FOODWAYS & SOCIAL DIVERSITY: Where did the local Munsee Lenape and other Native American groups get their salt from? Would different social groups of immigrant settlers use different spices?  Indigenous?  Enslaved? Dutch? French? Spanish?  Did the ports have more diversity of spices due to the frequency of trans-Atlantic and Caribbean sailors being there?
• TRANSPORTATION: How did the spices travel from New York or other ports to the local area?  
• HOME:  Show a few advertisements or recipes from local newspapers or local books.
  • Activity: Have students bring in family recipes tell about them.
  • Discussion: Do the recipes and spices we use today in our households differ from the historic ones?  Where do they come from?
  • Salt: Examine the document about the "Salt Riot" in the Village of Florida.  Why was salt so important?  Where did it come from? Why was there a shortage during the Revolutionary War?

Activities for experiencing "sounds of the past." ("what makes a video game immersive?  Partly, the sounds)

• Take class to an area outside as far as possible from a roadway, air conditioners, etc.
• Ask them to listen.  What do they hear that would not be present in the past?
• What do they think they WOULD hear in the past?  What would be different, from the city to the country?
• Examine a primary source (memoir excerpt, advertisement, etc) to prompt exploration of the sound environment.
• Use simple tools or sound effects on your phone to demonstrate; students with eyes closed, can they identify the sounds.  What tools were used, outside or inside, what did they sound like? 
• Are there sounds that are gone?  Why?  (birds, work activities, etc.)
• What did people sound like when they spoke?  Formal vs. informal speech; expressions, slang.  Read a few sentences of primary sources aloud.
• Did they have music as part of their daily round, like we do?  (Working songs?)

Co-Curricular Activity MUSIC, ENVIRONMENT:  Have students collaborate  a "sound scape" recording of their community in the past.  Where possible, creating the sound sample from real objects. (cow bell, bird song.)  Discussion: What sounds were easy to find?  What sounds were hard or had to be sourced electronically?

Co-Curricular ELA:  Reading aloud to the family in the evening was a common practice.Have students read aloud, a poem from the past from your community, scanned newspaper, etc.  Example: Anne Finch's "A Nocturnal Reverie."