Syllabus Changes-FYI

William Titcomb, Portsmouth, 1854. Courtesy, Historic New England

Tomorrow I will discuss "Painting Portsmouth" based on last seasons exhibition at the Strawbery Banke Museum.  We will have time to discuss readings and other "housekeeping."  Sandra Rux will present "Paisleys in Portsmouth" on March 8th.  We will cover architecture and preservation on site at Strawbery Banke in April.  The painting shown here does double duty-for paintings in Portsmouth as well as Paisleys!

Welcome to Sandra Rux, Curator, Portsmouth Historical Society

Sandra Rux, Curator of the Portsmouth Historical Society and of the John Paul Jones House will discuss "Paisleys in Portsmouth. "  She will examine evolution, materials, technique and design of these much-sought after items-- even today.


For preparatory background, see  http://www.victoriana.com/library/paisley/shawl.html

Object of the week- what is it?

Okay, I was stumped by this one. Look at materials and set up (as well as the "prop").  I will not be able to bring it with me on Tuesday, but have fun!

An invitation...

Are you available for a breakfast meeting on March 4th, 5th or 6th at Young's at 9:30 to discuss assignments and final papers?

Please let me know.

Thank you all.

Children in Colonial America (Children and Youth in America) by James Marten - Powell's Books

Children in Colonial America (Children and Youth in America) by James Marten - Powell's Books

Another good read for a snowy day!

Boston 1775: The Mystery in Dr. Warren’s Recovered Letter

Boston 1775: The Mystery in Dr. Warren’s Recovered Letter: "This week the Massachusetts Archives reported recovering a letter that Dr. Joseph Warren wrote on 25 May 1775, happily passing on the news t..."

I wanted to share this site with you--it is a rich trove of information, well presented and researched and garners discussion. In short, everything a good blog should be or any well thought out discussion for that matter.

Read a few entries- what do you think?

Dressing the Colonial Lady, Old Berwick Historical, 2/24

file:///Users/kimberlyalexander/Desktop/Colonial%20Lady%20historic%20costumes%20February%2024.webarchive

This looks like a terrific program.  I hope to attend--perhaps you can too

Object of the week

As in earlier "what is it" discussions, please look carefully at this artifact: what is it made of? who might have used it and when? what was it used for and how? how does it fit into the rubric using material culture for instructional, research or museum purposes?  Prepare for informal discussion on Tuesday and/or comment below.

Chase House Follow Up

After Sheila Charle's lecture on archaeology and the Chase House, ponder the following:

Is there a house or barn or site which interests you and which you feel could benefit from an archaeological survey or actual dig?  What indicators would suggest this possibility?  What might the potential be for discovery and why?  Are there other sources available to guide or support potential finds-- family letters, town records, tax and census records, probate and inventories, oral history and so on.

For casual discussion on Tuesday, prior to the lecture by Marla Taylor.

Boston 1775 Blog

Boston 1775: The Mystery in Dr. Warren’s Recovered Letter

This blog is a tremendous resource, see especially the links and resources as well as the excellent subject matter and scholarly treatment.

George Washington, A National Treasure | Teachinghistory.org

George Washington, A National Treasure | Teachinghistory.org

Good ideas for teaching tools in history/mat culture

Object of the week

Take a careful look at this shoe- who wore it? when? how was it made? what different methodologies might you employ to delve into its background?  Please comment on the blog (via "post a comment" at the bottom of the page) and be prepared to review in class.  Footcandy - enjoy!

Guest Lecturers

February 15

Sheila Charles, Staff Archaeologist, Strawbery Banke Museum

“Recent Finds at Strawbery Banke Museum, The Chase House Site”

February 22                 

 Marla Taylor, Assistant Collections Manager, Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Phillips Andover Academy, 2008 UNH Graduate, MA History/Museum Studies

  "Using Objects in a Museum Setting"

In preparation for the upcoming lectures, please read the Strawbery Banke blog on the Chase House dig:

http://digsstrawberybanke.blogspot.com/  (also available from our blackboard site) 

Marla Taylor

Sheila Charles

and visit the Peabody Museum website

Material Culture, History Feast This Saturday, 2/12

Life and Death in the Piscataqua

Portsmouth Historic House Associates Annual Symposium

Saturday February 12, 2011

   10am to 3pm

   St. John’s Masonic Hall

      351 Middle Street

     Portsmouth, NH

    Schedule

9:30-10:00  Refreshments

10:00  Welcome

10:10-10:55  Tom Hardiman, Keeper, Portsmouth Athenaeum, “The Paintings of Joseph Greenleaf Cole”

11:00-11:45  Kimberly Alexander, Sr. Curator, Strawbery Banke Museum:  “General Fitz John Porter:  Monument to Memory at Haven Park”

                    11:45-12  Kelvin Edwards, African Burying Ground Committee:  Update on Portsmouth’s African Burying Ground Memorial Park Project

        LUNCH

     1:15-1:30  Molly Bolster, Executive Director, The Gundalow Company:  

Update on building the new Gundalow

                  

1:30-2:05 Sandra Rux, Curator, John Paul Jones House Museum:  “New Discoveries in Piscataqua Region Samplers”

2:10-3:00  Craig Tuminaro, Regional Site Manager, New Hampshire and Maine Properties, Historic New England:  “The Historian and the Reality Show:  Participating in “Colonial House”

Cost includes morning refreshments and lunch.  $10 for pre-registrants; $15 at the door. 

For more information or to register, please call 603-430-7968.  

Visit to UNH Museum of Art tomorrow, 2/8

Greetings-

Tomorrow will we visit the Museum of Art and have an opportunity to meet with Director Wes LaFountain.  In preparation for our visit, please check out the website (if you are not already a regular.)  We can meet at the Gallery at 4:15 and they have booked a classroom for us, so we will spend the remaining class time at the museum.

http://www.unh.edu/moa/

Object of the week- what is it?

Take a look at the object--what might it have been used for?  what materials? who might have used it? how was it created?

Specialized Readings

Greetings!  Several of you have made requests about reading material:


The Art of Family: Genealogical Artifacts in New England, D. Brenton Simons and Peter Benes, 2002
ISBN #088082-132-9


Painted with Thread: The Art of American Embroidery, Paula Bradstreet Richter, University Press of New England and Peabody Essex Museum, 2002


Women's Painted Furniture 1790-1830: American Schoolgirl Art, Betsy Krieg Salm. University Press of New England, 2010.

Red Riding Hood, ca. 1780-1800
Courtesy MFA Boston

Island Wedding, 2002
Courtesy, Peabody Essex Museum

Boy's Sailor Suit, c. 1850s, prob. New England
Courtesy, Strawbery Banke Museum

Perfect for these snowy days and to guide your thinking about your object analysis and final project!

Excellent Film Series, Gundalow Company

All films are free and open to the public and held at the

Gundalow Company office, 60 Marcy Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  I particulary recommend the Feb. 16th film. February 16, 7:00 pm "Abandoned in the Arctic" Introduced by Executive Producer, Dr. Geoffrey E. Clark In August 1881, Lt. Adolphus W. Greely and a team of 24 determined men set out as part of the First International Polar Year to build a research station on Ellesmere Island, 450 milesfrom the North Pole. The Lady Franklin Bay Expedition began as the most ambitious arctic expedition in United States history, but was destined to descend into a three year journey through frozen hell - a voyage of forced retreat, starvation, brewing mutiny and cannibalism. Against all odds, six men survived. "Abandoned" attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding what really happened during the three years Greely and his men were marooned in the arctic.   March 16, 7:00 pm "Fame: The Salem Privateer"   Explore the career of Fame, from her triumphant first cruise to her stormy end in the Bay of Fundy, and chronicles the building of a full-scale, double-sawn-frame replica some 200 years later. This documentary follows Harold Burnham through every step of construction, from lofting to launch. "Canal Schooner Lois McClure" Post film discussion with Paul Rollins In 2002, a team of boat builders, including Paul Rollins, spent three seasons constructing a full-scale replica of an 1862-class sailing canal boat. Constructed in Burlington, Vermont, the schooner Lois McClure was built while keeping the shipyard open for visitors to view the work in progress. The Gundalow Winter Film Series is free and open to the public. For more information, call (603) 433-9505 or email info@gundalow.org.

Sam Lane's World - Study Guide and Questions

Sam Lane's compass, courtesy New Hampshire Hisotrical Society

Study Guide and Questions for Sam Lane's World

Dr. Kimberly Alexander

Professor Dane Morrison, Salem State University

Reading Guide

Brown, Jerald E. The Years of the Life of Samuel Lane, 1718-1806:A New Hampshire Man and His World

Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2000.

Background

 History courses often emphasize the extraordinary events and the “great men” of the past, privileging the study of change across time and place. This course differs, seeking to understand, via material culture, instead the ordinary rituals and rhythms and the “common people” of the past, focusing on the study of continuity across time and place. This approach, which first emerged during the late 1960s, has been called “history from the bottom up” or the New Social History. Jerald Brown’s study of Samuel Lane’s journals, complemented by the material culture of Strawbery Banke Museum and numerous other institutions, offer a rich trove of material for our exploration of the everyday and the common, of continuity amidst change.

Consider Lane’s life amidst the news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775. “This course of events, however disturbing, had little effect on the rhythm of life in Stratham,” Brown writes (Brown, Samuel Lane, 63). For most people, we are reminded, the ordinary spring cycles of planting, childbirth, and town meetings were the driving themes of life, regardless of the extraordinary events that made up the news—and later the History—of their times.

Questions

1. Historiography

— How did Brown come to write this book?

— What are the major primary sources from which Brown designed this study of Lane’s life and times?

— What does this tell about how historians of early America work?

— Why did Brown use Samuel Lane as a representative example of everyday life in early America?

(See Priscilla Lane Moore Tapley’s Forward (vii-ix) and Donna Belle Garvin’s Editor’s Acknowledgements)

2. Introduction

— Why does Garvin begin with Lane’s 1793 Thanksgiving prayer? What themes of everyday life are we alerted to look for in the book? (Brown, Samuel Lane, xv)

Issues of time and place:

— How did Samuel Lane’s concepts of time shape the rhythms of everyday life for his family?

— Consider how his days, weeks, months, seasons, and years were structured

— To what degree were these structures under the control of Lane himself or of external forces?

— How did Samuel Lane’s concepts of place influence his sense of identity and of loyalty?

— Was his sense of identity primarily that of local, state, or national affiliation, or of something else entirely?

3. Chapter 1, “Mastering a Trade” (Issues of Work)

— How did the need to “master a trade” influence the early years of Lane’s life?

— How did Lane’s concepts of “mastering a trade” shape everyday life for him?

— How did Lane’s trade influence issues of family and community for him?

4. Chapter 2, “Shaping Community” (Issues of Community Relationships)

Knowledge:

— How did Lane construct his community relationships as “a life of service?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 45)

— Why were writing and surveying such important skills in early America? How did Lane come to learn the “art and mystery” of writing and “to Cypher and Survey?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 46)

— How did the need to “master a trade” influence the early years of Lane’s life?

Religion: (Brown, Samuel Lane, 64-83)

— How did Samuel Lane’s religious concepts influence the rhythms of everyday life?

— How did his membership in the church converge with his participation in town affairs?

— How did the extraordinary happening of the Great Awakening complicate the ordinary flow of religious practice in Lane’s life?

— How did the Stratham community go about the business of building a new meetinghouse? (Brown, Samuel Lane, 72)

Place:

— How did Samuel Lane’s concepts of place influence his sense of identity and of loyalty?

— Was his sense of identity primarily that of local, state, or national affiliation, or of something else entirely?

5. Chapter 3, “Exchanging Commodities” (Issues of Economy and Exchange)

— How was Lane’s life interwoven in networks of exchange, locally and within the Atlantic community?

— What do we make of the Lanes’ “family-based economy, in which all members contributed to building the household’s resources?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 105)

— How did Lane’s attempt to find “safe investments that maintained their value and served as a means for passing wealth on to succeeding generations?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 123)

— How did Lane respond to “a challenging variety of currencies, fluctuating widely in value” across time and place? (Brown, Samuel Lane, 131)

6. Chapter 4, “Building Continuity” (Issues of Family and Legacy)

— Why was it that land “above all else . . . the asset around which Samuel Lane’s life and that of his family revolved,” yet “individual farms . . . could never be self-sufficient” and “necessity forced farmers like Samuel to enter the world of trade?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 139)

— How was it that “diversified land holdings offered a flexibility critical to a farm family’s security?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 141)

— Why was “the mere survival of cattle in the harsh New Hampshire climate the farmer’s overriding concern? (Brown, Samuel Lane, 155)

— How did the cycles of planting and harvesting structure everyday life in farming communities? (Brown, Samuel Lane, 164)

— In planning for his children’s welfare, why did Lane need to consider “of their families as economic units?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 184)

For images of almanack pages, Lane's tools, family furniture and additional sources, follow link below:

http://www.nhhistory.org/eimages/October2009/lanejournal.html

Page from Lane's 1742 Almanack, courtesy New Hampshire Historical Scoeity

Good reading on material culture and writing

This study examines books as examples of material culture, employing a consumerist method.  Also good for basic "how to" write and analyze objects.

http://individual.utoronto.ca/klinauskas/objectstudy.html


Very good use of material culture to discuss the British Infantry of mid 18th century:

http://www.trackofthewolf.com/categories/partdetail.aspx?catid=4&subid=24&styleid=71&partnum=book-aslw&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1&as=1
(for purchase but possibly available via Library, Amazon)

Samples for exhibit reviews

Paste this into your browser for a recent review of new Civil War exhibition:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/29/AR2010042904657.html

Or try this for exhibit review blogs:

http://www.arlisna.org/resources/bibnotes/art_exhibit_review_blogs.pdf