Connecting Literature to the Social Studies Classroom

The History Behind the Story

In this day-long session, teachers will investigate primary sources connected to picture books on Abenaki and early settlement history of the region. Brush up on your early settlement era knowledge, learn strategies for helping students investigate primary sources, and develop writing tasks directly connected to the Common Core. Teachers will leave with primary source packets connected to each picture book. The day will focus on three topics:

The Abenaki
In Malian's Song, by Marge Bruchac, a young Abenaki girl recounts the 1759 English attack on her village. This session will use maps and early documents to explore the relationships between the Abenaki and English settlers.

Early Settlement
Giants in the Land, by Diana Applebaum, tells the story of the giant pines used for masts for the Royal Navy in the days of early settlement. Tricking the Tallyman, by Jacqueline Davies, is set in 1790 and tells the story of the dilemmas of the tallyman who must deliver a count of the citizens of Tunbridge, Vermont. In this session we will look at town charters, maps, and the first United States Census to understand settlement issues in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Early Farming and Industrialization
Bobbin Girl, by Emily McCully, is the tale of a mill girl in 1830s Lowell, Massachusetts. Donald Hall's The Ox-Cart Man reveals the rhythms of the agricultural year and economy. This session will explore the lives of New Hampshire and Vermont children and their experiences on the farm and in the mills through letters, photographs, farmer's almanacs and other sources.

Cost: $150

Time: 8:30 am - 3:00 pm

Dates and Locations:

January 24, 2017: The Learning Collaborative, Dummerston, VT
January 30, 2017: Sugar River Development Center, Claremont, NH

REGISTER HERE

Neighborhoods Then and Now

Have you ever tried to sketch a map of your neighborhood? If you did, what would you include? What would your students include? What do you consider the center of your neighborhood? What bounds it?
David Sobel, in Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years, discusses a developmental approach to children's understandings of maps and geography. He argues that if children begin with what is closest to them, mapping their own world first, they will then better understand more distant maps of time and place.

Before introducing historic maps, consider having your students begin with what they know. Have them draw their own neighborhoods and narrate their own stories of place.

Beers Atlas maps are very detailed maps of New England counties and towns from the late nineteenth century. These maps include the names and locations of residents and businesses as well as the locations of schools, churches, and cemeteries. In addition to maps, the county atlases provide statistical information, engravings of important businesses, town histories, and biographies of prominent citizens. Many of these atlases can be found in local libraries and historical societies; they are rare and should be treated with care. Some can be found online at: www.davidrumsey.com. You can purchases Beers maps at www.old-maps.com.  

Print out a map of your town or, better yet, go to your local library and make a clean photocopy. Then enlarge the map and cut it apart along the school district lines to make a puzzle. Hand each small group of students a puzzle piece using the following procedure.

Hand out Beers Puzzle Pieces

OBSERVE DETAILS

• Look in silence

• Find geographical features 1 by 1. 

•       Color river and water features blue; mountains green and make a key

• What cultural features can we find? Color schools red; churches yellow; railroads orange. Add to the key. 

ANALYZE THE PIECES

• What is at the center of the puzzle piece? Anything there? Lead them toward seeing that the centers of the neighborhoods usually have a school or church. Why is that?

• Choose a name/home. Trace a route to school.  Would a child need to go over/through major geographical features to get to school?

INTERPRETATION

• Put puzzle pieces together. What town is it?  Where is the school today? Where do students live? How would you trace route to school today?

• Look at businesses. What businesses are in this town? What sort of trading would be going on? Where’s the general store?

• How have neighborhoods changed?

• How does geography relate to settlement?

Here is another source for Beers maps of Vermont:http://middarchive.middlebury.edu/cdm/search/collection/vtmaps

Village Life Lesson: From Farm to Factory

Overview: The sheep boom created new work for women and girls. On the farm women and girls had many new chores to help process wool and prepare it for market. Jobs in the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and other cities provided girls with new opportunities away from home.

Focusing Question

How did women’s work change with the sheep boom?

Topical Understandings

• The sheep boom spurred an increase in fulling mills (to wash wool), carding mills (to comb wool), and spinning mills in New England. These mills depended on rivers and streams for water power. 
• Farm women’s work became focused on processing wool. 
• Many farm girls left their homes to work in the new textile mills. 

Materials:

• Map and Worksheet: Vermont Textile Factories 1840—1849
• Diary excerpts from The Diaries of Sally and Pamela Brown and note-taking worksheet
• Letter Excerpts: AVermont girl goes to Lowell

Procedures:

1. As a class examine the Vermont Textile Factories map and use a Vermont state map to conclude that the factories were located on Vermont rivers and were water powered.

2. Provide students with the following two diary excerpts and note-taking worksheet.

The Diary of Sally Brown (born 1807) 1832 – 1838 Plymouth Notch, Vermont

June 1833 4. Tues. Worked about. A.M. Asa came down to attend the training*, brought Lephia and is to stay and  help Father shear sheep. In the evening finished knitting George’s stockings. 5. Wed. Worked about house. Tonight three men have come to shear the sheep Father is keeping for  Squire Walker. 6. Thurs. Worked about house. Susan found some ripe strawberries. The men finished shearing sheep. 7. Fri. Washed and did some other housework…Mother finished my gown. 8, Sat. Ironed and other housework. Marcia and I went to the old place for some green currents. 10, Mon. Helped milk morning and night. Did some chores and picked tag locks*. Father had given  lots of wool to me. Father has finished planting tiny potatoes. 11, Tues. Worked the same as yesterday. 12, Wed. Two Tin Peddlers stayed here tonight. 13, Thurs. Worked about house. Picked locks as I could get time. Mr. Pratt and Mr. Henry came  and bought Father’s wool. Two hundred and thirteen pounds. They gave fifty-three cents a pound.  He is to carry it to Woodstock Saturday or Monday. They were here to dinner… 14, Fri. Did some chores about house and finished picking tag locks except the dirtyest which I washed.  Last night was a heavy thunder shower. Today is some cloudy…

The Diary of Pamela Brown (born 1816) 1832 – 1838 Plymouth Notch, Vermont September 1836 Thur. Sept. 1st. Spun five skeins. Fri. 2nd. Spun some and went to the funeral. It was at Joseph Moore’s House. Mr. Davis preached. Sat. 3rd. After Mr. and Mrs. Jennison had gone I spun five skeins and worked on Marcia’s veil. Mon. 5th. Spun six skeins and began me a pair of stockings. Wed. 7th. Spun six skeins. Thurs. 8th. Spun two skeins and worked on my veil. Marcia and I went to the post office for a letter but found none. Friday. 9th. Spun six skeins. Silas and Rebbeca Brown and Mrs. Leland a girl Silas brought from Grafton took tea with us. Sun. 11th. I am twenty today. A rainy day. Mon. 12th. We had a housefull all day but they are all gone. Tues. 13th. Spun some stocking yarn to send to Michigan. Wed. 28th. The ground was white with snow this morning. Spun my days work and made Hannah’s’ work bag. I think it very handsome.

3.  Discuss their answers and summarize women’s work on a sheep farm. What sort of chores were they doing? Have students write a summary paragraph describing a woman’s typical day on the farm.
4. Provide students with the excerpts of Mary Paul’s letters. Ask them to take their own notes about work in a textile mill. Have students write a summary paragraph describing a woman’s typical day in a textile mill.
5. Create a 2-column chart comparing women’s work on the farm and women’s work in a textile mill.
6. Discuss as a class. Would they have left home to work in a textile mill? Why or why not?

Village Life Lesson: The Village Economy

Overview: The village economy was based on a form of debit and credit bookkeeping known in the nineteenth century as bartering. In the barter economy local merchants, craftsmen, and farmers maintained records of transactions and trusted their neighbors enough to allow a line of credit. Customers would settle accounts with goods and labor and—less often—with cash.  This lesson uses Donald Hall’s Ox-Cart Man and a nineteenth-century daybook to illustrate the barter economy.

Focusing Questions

How did farmers, merchants, and artisans trade for goods and labor without cash?

How did the barter economy work?

Topical Understandings

Farmers, merchants, and artisans bartered their goods and labor.

Bartering was a form of bookkeeping that allowed farmers, merchants, and artisans to provide each other with lines of credit.

The season of the year dictated what was being traded in the New England village.

Background Information

TheDebit Economy of 1830s New England

Materials:

Picture Book Connection: Donald Hall, Ox-Cart Man

Primary Source: Daybook, December 25, 1848, and worksheet

Procedures:

1. Ask your class what they think bartering is. Ask what happens if one person has something to trade that is worth more than what the other person has. What do you do?

2. Read Ox-Cart Man to your students. Afterwards, make a list of what the Ox-Cart Man traded. What did he sell? What did he buy?  Explain that even though the story shows the Ox-Cart Man with some coins in his pocket, there was actually very little cash in New England at this time. People traded with each other instead.

3. Ox-Cart Man is told from the point of view of someone who would have been a customer at the general store. What if the story were about the storekeeper? What might his day have been like? What did he sell and what did he buy or trade?  When the Ox-Cart Man came to the general store, the storekeeper would have opened a big 2-columned account book and listed everything the Ox-Cart Man sold to him in a credit column and everything the Ox-Cart Man bought from him in a debit column. 

Create a 2-column chart on the board and list everything the Ox-Cart Man bought and sold in the appropriate debit and credit columns.

4. Merchants also kept daybooks, which were like diaries listing every transaction that happened over the day. If someone came in to sell, say, pork, the merchant would write down the amount of pork and how much it was worth. He would put a big CR next to the entry for the pork because the customer would now have credit with the store. If someone came in to buy some fabric, the merchant would list the amount of fabric and how much it was worth. He would put a big DR next to the fabric entry because the customer now owed him that much money. If the customer was a farmer, he would pay back his debt by bringing a farm good to sell to the store at another time.

Provide students with the December daybook page and worksheet.

Have them circle all the DR transactions in red and all the CR transactions in green. Use the worksheet to categorize what was being traded in this village store.

5. Return to the class definition of bartering. Can they expand their definition?