Growing up in the 19th century

[LindaTrent]

Somewhat along the line of the "This old thing" thread...

This is the recollections of my ggg grandmother of her growing up days in western New York state. What I find interesting is that it is very much the same upbringing that most people seemed to face on the "frontier," whether that frontier was in New York state, Ohio, etc.

Harriet Stevens was born in 1818 and presented this in 1900 to the Harriet Stevens Literary Club in Dayton, Ohio. She was 82 years old.

http://www.lindatrent.homestead.com/...NISCENCES.html

Linda Trent
lindatrent@zoomnet.net

[10nycav]

Hello Linda,

Thanks for sharing this. It is so wonderfully written that I could see pictures in my head. Harriet Stevens must have been a very intelligent woman judging from the quality of her writing.

A couple of observations:
She notes the perfection of the apples and potatoes in the frontier era. I don't think that was nostalgia speaking. When the farms were small and isolated there were fewer problems with pests. Get large contiguous tracts under cultivation, the conditions for the spread and proliferation of pests were ripe.

Any more info on the tradition of finding the red ear of corn? What exactly did it mean?

I also found the descriptions of looming cloth very interesting. Are there good examples of hand-loomed patterned cloth from this era still in existence?

I also note that in writings from New England and NY State, the use of maple sugar is frequently mentioned. I have seen many a letter home from soldiers from these regions during sugaring season, speaking wistfully of how nice it would be to have some "warm shugar." I was wondering, was the maple sugar cooked until crystals formed, and stored in crystal or dry cake form? Is this what they were speaking of eating, still warm from the sugaring pan? Or were they speaking of warm syrup? It sounds like they were eating the sugar plain, like candy, and not even put on anything. Just curious . . .

Ken Morris

[ElizabethClark]

The Red Ear:

In other "pioneering" accounts I've read, the one who finds a red ear gets to: kiss thier sweetheart, request a dance from their sweetheart, or some other token of affection... and in some instances, it was seen as an "omen"--rather like a girl peeling an apple in one long curly swoop, and tossing it behind her; the "letter" it formed on the ground was meant to be the initial of her future husband.

On sugaring: to make maple sugar, you boil down the sap until it becomes so densely concentrated the sugars fall out of solution and crystalize. That mixture can be cooled in pans and then stored. If you don't boil it all the way to supersaturation and crystalization, you get syrup. Maple sugar, plain, could be poured hot into smaller molds, and made into candies that way, or scooped up with the spoon from the sugar pan and snitched.

My father-in-law, whose New England people still had this tradition up into the 1950s, adored maple sugar, plain, as a "candy."

The soldiers might have been talking about these little sugar pieces, or might have been referring to maple sugar taffy, which could also be made during the sugaring party--somewhere between syrup and crystal fall-out.

[cwbelle]

Having grown up participating in the maple sugaring process I can well understand the soldiers missing the chance to eat the warm sugar crystals and syrup. For the fun of it we tapped and "sugared-off" several gallons of sap every March (which in comparison boils down into very little of the final product), and would eat a lot of the sugar "plain"...it's better than you might think.

I've also read several accounts of the finding of the "red ear"...to my understanding it helped "liven" up the cornhusking parties in the fall, and if found by an individual meant what Elisabeth Clark mentioned above.

Anyway, thank you, Linda, for sharing that account! It was much appreciated!
Sincerely,

[Tom Ezell]

She notes the perfection of the apples and potatoes in the frontier era. I don't think that was nostalgia speaking. When the farms were small and isolated there were fewer problems with pests. Get large contiguous tracts under cultivation, the conditions for the spread and proliferation of pests were ripe.

Ken:

A lot of the insect pests 1898 (and today) were not a problem in the early and middle part of the century because they had not made their way into the continental United States at the time. Good examples are the boll weevil (cotton) and the bollworm or corn earworm which are significant pests since the 1890s or so. These pests made their way up from Mexico late in the century as addtional cropland was opened up via irrigation in Texas.

Tom

[MrsArmstrong]

Thank you Linda, that was wonderful! I liked the mention of the two platters that she thought were heirlooms. The collecting of the goose feathers and how they were saved to make bedding and future bedding for the girls in the family to take with them. Also the pieces of fabric left from the making of their dresses to pass on to friends.
Inventions seemed to create much amazment in their lives unlike today where it is almost expected. Thanks again.
Susan Armstrong

[mobluegraysoldier]

One of my aunts brothers used to tap and make maple sugar at his farm. As CWBelle mentioned, the yield is very low due to the volume of water that has to be boiled off to produce it. My aunt would horde the maple sugar he gave her for her most special recipes, rarely were we kids even allowed to know where she kept it!

I wonder if the tradition of "bundling" had gone out of fad by the the 1860's, or if it might still have been apart of some regions or groups. (For those who are unsure of what I am referring to, in the early colonial period young, often engaged couples, were permitted to sleep together in the same bed. The only thing that "seperated" them for the night was either a one by ten plank which was set up between them, running from head to foot board, or they were wrapped individually in a blanket so that they "couldn't" physically touch the other one.) Sorry if this takes this thread off topic, but this is just one more aspect of our culture which went by the wayside.

Kevin Baker; aka, mobluegraysoldier.

[1stMaine]

For what it's worth,

I spent two years in a :H program at Growstown School, in Brunswick, Maine. This school was built in 1849, and my job was portraying the teacher, Master Thomas Crawford. What's interesting is that we have all of his lesson plans, including his seating charts, lists of textbooks, etc, from 1855. It gave us an incredible look into what was going on inside a one-room school before the war.

A few points from those materials. they might not apply everywhere, but this is what was happening in this particular school.

1.) Seating was by age, with the youngest in the front, and the oldest all the way in the back.

2.) Everyone was taught the same subject at the same time, but it was nuanced by age. In other words, more detail was given to the older children, harder math problems, etc. Children got lessons and work commensurate with their age group.

3.) There were no "class" ratings, per se. The students were grouped by age classes, for example, the younger, the middle and the older students. There were no 2nd, 5th, etc, grades.

4.) Students graduated when they could show competancy in all the subjects.

5.) there were jobs assigned for the students, sort of daily chores. Some swept the classroom after school, others filled the water cask, some brought in firewood and stacked it, others wiped down the desks, etc.

6.) there were segregated (boys and girls) outhouses.

7.) there were 2 recess/play times scheduled, along with a fixed lunch period. The children brought their own foods, but the school provided fresh water and a rack of tun cups for them to use.

8.) Some of the kids walked as far as 3 miles to get to the school. This is known from comparing the list of student's names to the census data showing where the properties were related to the schools, and the existing roads then. Surprisingly, even in the darkest of winter, and having to walk, attendance was pretty high.

9.) Students used small slates and chalk pencils for the majority of their work. penmanship was taught with chalk first, then graduating to ink and paper.

10.) Each year, the students had recitals, where every child had a part, and sometimes several. These included parts of poems, plays, songs, etc. Not unlike tofay, except ALL ages were involved as opposed to classes today.

11.) Although alcohol was not mentioned in any of the lessons, there was a STRONG emphasis on anti-tobacco messages.

Just thought I'd throw that out for your perusal.

Respects,

[Emmanuel Dabney]

An interesting compilation of memoirs from people generally born in the late 18th century and who died 1860-1880 is Recollections of the Early Republic: Selected Autobiographies (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997) ISBN 1-55553-301-9. I will say the bias is toward northern and western states (i.e., what would have been west in most of these people's adolescent and adult years like Kentucky, Missouri, and the Midwest).