Titian Peale's Shells, Peale Museum, 1821
Image ID: 7981
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Peale Museum, Arts and Architecture, Beaches and Parks, Colombian and Other Expositions, Columbian Exchange, Discovery and Conquest, Early National Period, Environmental History, Exploration, Family to 1920, Frontier, Higher Education, Individualism, Technology, Nature and Civilization, Nineteenth Century Misc, Outdoor Life, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Victorian Culture
Region(s): Latin America, United States
CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.6 - The course and consequences of the American Revolution, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), An Age of Revolutions, 1750-1914
Card Text: Shells collected by Titian Ramsay Peale II, Peale Museum, Philadelphia, PA, 1821. The youngest son of Charles Willson Peale, Titian (1799 – 1885) was an accomplished artist, naturalist, and explorer. He was born in Philosophical Hall and given his name after a brother who had died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1798. Educated primarily at home, young Titian met some of America's most prominent naturalists and attended Caspar Wistar's anatomy lectures at the University of Pennsylvania. A precocious boy, he was apprenticed out at 13 to learn machine manufacturing, but soon returned to the family business, the Philadelphia Museum, learning to preserve natural historical specimens and help manage the museum.
Having inherited his father's artistic and scientific inclinations, Titian Peale began to contribute as an scientific illustrator while still in his teens. His first professional work of note, six colored plates for Thomas Say's "American Entomology" (Philadelphia: Mitchell & Ames, 1817), won him acclaim and election to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. More importantly, it opened the door to further work in natural history. In December of that year, he joined Say, George Ord, and William Maclure on an expedition to coastal Georgia and Florida, and in 1819, went as assistant naturalist on Stephen Harriman Long's expedition to the Rocky Mountains. With Say, George Jessup, and Edwin James, among others, the Long party traveled up the Missouri River in the steamboat Western Engineer before heading west on the Platte to the front range of the Rockies. They are credited with being the first scientific surveyors of the region.
Upon returning to Philadelphia in 1821, Titian Peale resumed work at the Philadelphia Museum, completing his field drawings and preparing the specimens collected on the expedition. His artistic output rapidly expanded. Peale executed several drawings of new American birds for Charles Lucien Bonaparte's supplement to Alexander Wilson's "American Ornithology" (Philadelphia, 1825-33), and was hired by Say to prepare 54 colored plates for a three-volume "American Entomology" (Philadelphia Museum, 1824-28). He exhibited four watercolors at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1822: three from his Long Expedition work, and the fourth of butterflies.
Peale continued to focus on scientific exploration throughout the 1820s and 1830s. In 1825, he returned to south Florida, and 1830-32 toured the Magdalena River in Colombia, sketching and collecting huge numbers of butterflies and other specimens. His endeavors on these expeditions and his artistic work won him election to the American Philosophical Society in 1833 at the young age of 34. The crowning achievement of his career as a naturalist came as assistant naturalist on Charles Wilkes' US Exploring Expedition (1838-42). A circumnavigation of the globe including stops in Fiji and the Philippines, the northwest Pacific Coast and California, the Wilkes Expedition was one of the most ambitious American expeditions of the mid-century.
Unfortunately for Peale, the Wilkes Expedition was a disappointment. A shipwreck in the mouth of the Columbia River cost him his most important specimens, and upon his return to Philadelphia, friction erupted between Peale and Wilkes over credit for the scientific discoveries and publication plans. Peale's "Mammalia and Ornithology" (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1848) appeared in a limited edition but was suppressed by Wilkes, with John Cassin's "Mammalogy and Ornithology" (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1858) taking its place.
After a period of difficulty supporting his family as an artist or naturalist, Peale took a position as an assistant examiner in the US Patent Office in 1849. Though never free of the political intrigues associated with a governmental post, he remained in the Patent Office until his retirement in 1873. Peale continued painting and took a strong interest in photography and became a founding member of the Amateur Photographic Exchange Club, the first in the US. He tried to produce a massively illustrated work on North American butterflies, but it was never completed. Peale died in Philadelphia in 1885.
Citation: Copyright Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Ben Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia, PA 19103. All rights reserved. Text: "Titian Ramsay Peale Sketches." https://search.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.B.P31.15d-ead.xml. © American Philosophical Society, 105 S. Fifth St, Philadelphia, PA 19106-3386. All rights reserved. Dec 10, 2021.
Peale, The Exhuming of the First American Mastodon, 1806-08
Image ID: 7984
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Peale Museum, Ancient History, Business 19th century, Colombian and Other Expositions, Developing Nations, Discovery and Conquest, Early Images -- America, Early National Period, Environmental History, Exhibition, Founding Myths, Individualism, Technology, Invention, Nationhood, Nature and Civilization, Paleo-Indian, Presidents, Success 19th century, Symbols, Victorian Culture
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.6 - The course and consequences of the American Revolution, 5.7 - People and events associated with the development of the U.S. Constitution and it's significance as the foundation of the American republic, 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Charles Willson Peale, "The Exhuming of the First American Mastodon," 1806-08. In 1801, naturalist and painter Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) assembled in Philadelphia the skeleton of a mastodon (Mammut americanum). While his mastodon was not the first fully-assembled fossil animal put on display, it was the first such display to capture widespread public attention, particularly in the US. The mastodon became an important symbol for the untold natural wonders of the American continent, still largely unexplored by Europeans by 1800. Peale’s mastodon also demonstrated to the public a crucial principle of modern biology: the idea that organisms can become extinct.
The story of the mastodon display began a full century before its 1806 debut. In 1705, a farmer in Claverack, New York, found an enormous tooth that had eroded out of a hillside. The farmer traded the tooth to a local politician and it eventually made it its way to New York’s colonial governor, Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon. Hyde in turn sent the tooth to London, describing it as a remnant of an antediluvian giant. As word of a giant spread, other Americans began reporting similar finds. Throughout the colonies, giant bones, teeth, and tusks began to be uncovered. While early reports called these fossils the remains of “incognitum,” or “the unknown,” naturalists soon understood that these were not the bones of giant humans but of elephant-like creatures.
For most of the 19th century, the American fossil elephants were invariably called “mahmot” or “mammoth.” This term was an Anglicization of the Old Vogul term "maimanto" ("earth-horn"), referring to giant tusks occasionally found in Siberia. It is unclear who first connected the frozen mammoths of Siberia and the American fossil skeletons. Credit for adopting the word “mammoth” as a synonym for “big” goes to Thomas Jefferson, who was fascinated by paleontology and the mammoth fossils in particular.
In 1817 French anatomist Georges Cuvier recognized that there were at least two types of extinct American proboscideans: the taller mammoths and stockier mastodons. He coined the name “mastodon,” meaning "nipple tooth," because apparently he thought its teeth looked like breasts.
The American elephantine fossils raised difficult questions for naturalists. The fossils clearly belonged to animals never seen alive, meaning that the entire species must have died out. This concept of extinction was new to science, and it challenged the biblically-inspired presumption that all species had originated in a single creation event. Cuvier was a leader in the 19th-c. scientific movement known as catastrophism–the idea that extinctions were the result of periodic disasters, such as floods. While he rejected the idea that organisms could avoid extinction by adapting and changing, his work on extinction would prove important when Charles Darwin worked out the process of evolution several decades later.
In 1789, Nicholas Collin of the American Philosophical Society proposed a search for a complete mammoth skeleton in order to resolve the animal’s identity and the question of its extinction. Collin’s call was answered by Charles Willson Peale, founder of America’s first modern museum. Peale is best known today as a portrait artist during the American Revolution, but he was also the founder of the Peale Museum in Philadelphia. Semi-formal collections of interesting natural specimens had existed before, but Peale uniquely fashioned his institution for public education rather than as a private vanity project. In Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, he arranged displays of mammals, birds, and plants. Peale intended the museum to be a public resource that would improve visitors’ moral character through science lessons, as was made clear by the slogan printed on every ticket, “The birds and beasts will teach thee.”
In 1799, a farmer named John Masten reported that he had found bones of “an animal of uncommon magnitude” on his land outside Newburgh, New York. Masten gathered a large party of friends and neighbors to help excavate the find. The crowd eventually descended into alcohol-fueled chaos, and many of the fossils were destroyed. Nevertheless, Peale decided to visit Masten to secure mammoth fossils for his museum. Peale ended up paying him $200 for the surviving fossils, plus another $100 for the right to search his land for more remains. He returned to Masten’s farm with a better-organized crew and $500 in additional funding from the American Philosophical Society. The ensuing excavation is the subject of Peale’s 1806 painting.
"The Exhumation of the Mastodon" provides the best available pictorial record of the event. Since the pit where Masten first found the bones had filled with water, Peale oversaw the construction of a huge wooden wheel to drive a conveyor belt hauling buckets of water out of the work site. Peale stands on the right, presiding over his small army of excavators. The well-publicized project eventually uncovered most of a mastodon. Exploring a few nearby farms, Peale’s workers eventually accumulated enough material to build a complete skeleton, notably a mandible. Out of showmanship or genuine confusion regarding elephant diets, Peale said of the find, “Gracious God, what a jaw! How many animals must have been crushed beneath it!”
Once the mastodon skeleton had been moved to Philadelphia, building the mount fell to Peale’s son Rembrandt and Moses Williams, a free man of color employed by the Peales. It took them three months to articulate the skeleton. Rembrandt filled in missing parts of the skeleton (the top of the cranium and the tail) with sculpted elements, and placed wooden discs between vertebrae, slightly exaggerating the mount’s total length.
The completed mastodon mount was unveiled in 1802 in the American Philosophical Society, and soon taken to the Peale Museum at Independence Hall. For 50 cents (plus regular admission), the visiting public could marvel at the creature Peale touted as “the first of American animals” and “the largest of terrestrial beings.” The mastodon, still called a "mammoth" at that time, was a sensation, fascinating the viewers with natural science, the prehistoric past, and plenty of ours-is-bigger-than-yours patriotism for the young United States. In 1822, Peale would commemorate the unveiling of the mastodon with his self portrait, "The Artist in His Museum." Ever the showman, Peale ensured that the skeleton in his painting is only barely visible below the rising curtain.
After Peale’s death in 1827, his museum floundered and was eventually reduced from a meritorious educational institution to a circus of cheap spectacle. It shut down for good in 1848, and the mastodon (by then one of many similar skeletons) was put up for auction. Peale’s mastodon has survived to the present day. Johann Kaup purchased the skeleton for the Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany, and it has remained on display there ever since.
Peale’s mastodon left an unmistakable legacy for both paleontology and public education. Today, the public conception of prehistory is inseparably connected to the image of towering mounted skeletons in museum halls. But fossils do not come out of the ground bolted to steel armatures, so it is largely thanks to Peale that mounts have become the most enduring means of sharing paleontology with the public. Oil on canvas. 49 x 61½".
Citation: Charles Willson Peale, "Exhumation of the Mastodon," c. 1806–08. Baltimore City Life Museum Collection. Gift of Bertha White in memory of her husband, Harry White. BCLM-MA.5911. Copyright Maryland Historical Society, 201 W Monument St, Baltimore, MD 21201-4674. All rights reserved. Text: "Extinct Monsters: The Artist in His Museum: Peale’s Mastodon," Oct 7, 2013. https://extinctmonsters.net/2013/10/07/the-artist-in-his-museum-peales-mastodon/. Copyright Extinct Monsters. All rights reserved. Dec 18, 2021.
Titian Peale's Butterflies, Peale Museum, 1821
Image ID: 7983
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Peale Museum, Arts and Architecture, Colombian and Other Expositions, Columbian Exchange, Discovery and Conquest, Early National Period, Environmental History, Exploration, Family to 1920, Frontier, Higher Education, Individualism, Technology, Nature and Civilization, Nineteenth Century Misc, Outdoor Life, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Victorian Culture
Region(s): Latin America, United States
CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.6 - The course and consequences of the American Revolution, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Titian Ramsay Peale II, Butterfly mounts collected for the Peale Museum, Philadelphia, PA, 1821. The youngest son of Charles Willson Peale, Titian (1799 – 1885) was an accomplished artist, naturalist, and explorer. He was born in Philosophical Hall and given his name after a brother who had died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1798. Educated primarily at home, young Titian met some of America's most prominent naturalists and attended Caspar Wistar's anatomy lectures at the University of Pennsylvania. A precocious boy, he was apprenticed out at 13 to learn machine manufacturing, but soon returned to the family business, the Philadelphia Museum, learning to preserve natural historical specimens and help manage the museum.
Having inherited his father's artistic and scientific inclinations, Titian Peale began to contribute as an scientific illustrator while still in his teens. His first professional work of note, six colored plates for Thomas Say's "American Entomology" (Philadelphia: Mitchell & Ames, 1817), won him acclaim and election to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. More importantly, it opened the door to further work in natural history. In December of that year, he joined Say, George Ord, and William Maclure on an expedition to coastal Georgia and Florida, and in 1819, went as assistant naturalist on Stephen Harriman Long's expedition to the Rocky Mountains. With Say, George Jessup, and Edwin James, among others, the Long party traveled up the Missouri River in the steamboat Western Engineer before heading west on the Platte to the front range of the Rockies. They are credited with being the first scientific surveyors of the region.
Upon returning to Philadelphia in 1821, Titian Peale resumed work at the Philadelphia Museum, completing his field drawings and preparing the specimens collected on the expedition. His artistic output rapidly expanded. Peale executed several drawings of new American birds for Charles Lucien Bonaparte's supplement to Alexander Wilson's "American Ornithology" (Philadelphia, 1825-33), and was hired by Say to prepare 54 colored plates for a three-volume "American Entomology" (Philadelphia Museum, 1824-28). He exhibited four watercolors at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1822: three from his Long Expedition work, and the fourth of butterflies.
Peale continued to focus on scientific exploration throughout the 1820s and 1830s. In 1825, he returned to south Florida, and 1830-32 toured the Magdalena River in Colombia, sketching and collecting huge numbers of butterflies and other specimens. His endeavors on these expeditions and his artistic work won him election to the American Philosophical Society in 1833 at the young age of 34. The crowning achievement of his career as a naturalist came as assistant naturalist on Charles Wilkes' US Exploring Expedition (1838-42). A circumnavigation of the globe including stops in Fiji and the Philippines, the northwest Pacific Coast and California, the Wilkes Expedition was one of the most ambitious American expeditions of the mid-century.
Unfortunately for Peale, the Wilkes Expedition was a disappointment. A shipwreck in the mouth of the Columbia River cost him his most important specimens, and upon his return to Philadelphia, friction erupted between Peale and Wilkes over credit for the scientific discoveries and publication plans. Peale's "Mammalia and Ornithology" (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1848) appeared in a limited edition but was suppressed by Wilkes, with John Cassin's "Mammalogy and Ornithology" (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1858) taking its place.
After a period of difficulty supporting his family as an artist or naturalist, Peale took a position as an assistant examiner in the US Patent Office in 1849. Though never free of the political intrigues associated with a governmental post, he remained in the Patent Office until his retirement in 1873. Peale continued painting and took a strong interest in photography and became a founding member of the Amateur Photographic Exchange Club, the first in the US. He tried to produce a massively illustrated work on North American butterflies, but it was never completed. Peale died in Philadelphia in 1885.
Citation: Copyright Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Ben Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia, PA 19103. All rights reserved. Text: "Titian Ramsay Peale Sketches," https://search.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.B.P31.15d-ead.xml. © American Philosophical Society, 105 S. Fifth St, Philadelphia, PA 19106-3386. All rights reserved. Dec 10, 2021.
Fossilized Bird's Nest, Peale Museum, before 1825
Image ID: 7986
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Peale Museum, Colombian and Other Expositions, Discovery and Conquest, Early National Period, Environmental History, Exploration, Family to 1920, Frontier, Higher Education, Individualism, Technology, Nature and Civilization, Nineteenth Century Misc, Outdoor Life, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Victorian Culture
Region(s): Latin America, United States
CA Standard(s): 5.6 - The course and consequences of the American Revolution, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast.
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Fossilized bird's nest collected by Titian Ramsay Peale for the Peale Museum, Philadelphia, PA, before 1825. The youngest son of Charles Willson Peale, Titian (1799 – 1885) was an accomplished artist, naturalist, and explorer. He was born in Philosophical Hall and given his name after a brother who had died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1798. Educated primarily at home, young Titian met some of America's most prominent naturalists and attended Caspar Wistar's anatomy lectures at the University of Pennsylvania. A precocious boy, he was apprenticed out at 13 to learn machine manufacturing, but soon returned to the family business, the Philadelphia Museum, learning to preserve natural historical specimens and help manage the museum.
Having inherited his father's artistic and scientific inclinations, Titian Peale began to contribute as an scientific illustrator while still in his teens. His first professional work of note, six colored plates for Thomas Say's "American Entomology" (Philadelphia: Mitchell & Ames, 1817), won him acclaim and election to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. More importantly, it opened the door to further work in natural history. In December of that year, he joined Say, George Ord, and William Maclure on an expedition to coastal Georgia and Florida, and in 1819, went as assistant naturalist on Stephen Harriman Long's expedition to the Rocky Mountains. With Say, George Jessup, and Edwin James, among others, the Long party traveled up the Missouri River in the steamboat Western Engineer before heading west on the Platte to the front range of the Rockies. They are credited with being the first scientific surveyors of the region.
Upon returning to Philadelphia in 1821, Titian Peale resumed work at the Philadelphia Museum, completing his field drawings and preparing the specimens collected on the expedition. His artistic output rapidly expanded. Peale executed several drawings of new American birds for Charles Lucien Bonaparte's supplement to Alexander Wilson's "American Ornithology" (Philadelphia, 1825-33), and was hired by Say to prepare 54 colored plates for a three-volume "American Entomology" (Philadelphia Museum, 1824-28). He exhibited four watercolors at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1822: three from his Long Expedition work, and the fourth of butterflies.
Peale continued to focus on scientific exploration throughout the 1820s and 1830s. In 1825, he returned to south Florida, and 1830-32 toured the Magdalena River in Colombia, sketching and collecting huge numbers of butterflies and other specimens. His endeavors on these expeditions and his artistic work won him election to the American Philosophical Society in 1833 at the young age of 34. The crowning achievement of his career as a naturalist came as assistant naturalist on Charles Wilkes' US Exploring Expedition (1838-42). A circumnavigation of the globe including stops in Fiji and the Philippines, the northwest Pacific Coast and California, the Wilkes Expedition was one of the most ambitious American expeditions of the mid-century.
Unfortunately for Peale, the Wilkes Expedition was a disappointment. A shipwreck in the mouth of the Columbia River cost him his most important specimens, and upon his return to Philadelphia, friction erupted between Peale and Wilkes over credit for the scientific discoveries and publication plans. Peale's "Mammalia and Ornithology" (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1848) appeared in a limited edition but was suppressed by Wilkes, with John Cassin's "Mammalogy and Ornithology" (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1858) taking its place.
After a period of difficulty supporting his family as an artist or naturalist, Peale took a position as an assistant examiner in the US Patent Office in 1849. Though never free of the political intrigues associated with a governmental post, he remained in the Patent Office until his retirement in 1873. Peale continued painting and took a strong interest in photography and became a founding member of the Amateur Photographic Exchange Club, the first in the US. He tried to produce a massively illustrated work on North American butterflies, but it was never completed. Peale died in Philadelphia in 1885.
Citation: Copyright Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Ben Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia, PA 19103. All rights reserved. Text: "Titian Ramsay Peale Sketches," https://search.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.B.P31.15d-ead.xml. © American Philosophical Society, 105 S. Fifth St, Philadelphia, PA 19106-3386. All rights reserved. Dec 10, 2021.
Philosophical Hall, Philadelphia, PA, 1786-89
Image ID: 7985
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Peale Museum, 18th Century Cities, 18th Century Exteriors, American Revolution, Arts and Architecture, Developing Nations, Early National Period, Environmental History, Exploration, Future Progress, Greece Ancient, Higher Education, Invention, Moral lessons, National Events, Nature and Civilization, Symbols, Technology, Victorian Culture
Region(s): Europe, United States
CA Standard(s): 5.6 - The course and consequences of the American Revolution, 5.7 - People and events associated with the development of the U.S. Constitution and it's significance as the foundation of the American republic
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s)
Card Text: Philosophical Hall, the home of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA, built 1786-89. The American Philosophical Society is the oldest extant learned society in the United States. It was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743. At the beginning of the 21st century, it had more than 850 members, elected for their scholarly and scientific accomplishments in any of five areas—the mathematical and physical sciences; the biological sciences; the social sciences; the humanities; and the arts, professions, and leaders in public and private affairs.
From a group of young men called the Junto—formed in Philadelphia by Franklin in 1727, when he was only 21—there grew an interest in experiment and inquiry that resulted in his publication in 1743 of "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among the British Plantations in America." This proposal was so favorably received that the APS was organized, with Thomas Hopkinson as president and Franklin as secretary. In 1769 it joined another scientific society founded by Franklin, the American Society, and Franklin was elected president - an office he held until his death in 1790. The new society was incorporated in 1780. The astronomer David Rittenhouse was the united society’s second president (1791–96), and Thomas Jefferson was its third (1797–1814).
The American Philosophical Society occupies two buildings in Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia: the Philosophical Hall (erected 1785–89) and the Library, a replica of the original home of the (private) Library Company of Philadelphia (1798). The library and meeting rooms contain rich collections of manuscripts (some 7,000,000) and books on American science and culture. The society’s publications include Memoirs, Proceedings, Transactions, and Year Book.
The humanities are the branches of knowledge that investigate human beings, their cultures, and their self-expression. Distinguished from the physical and biological sciences and sometimes from the social sciences, the humanities include the study of languages and literatures, the arts, history, and philosophy. The modern conception of the humanities has roots in the classical Greek paideia, a course in general education dating from the 5th century BC that prepared young men for citizenship. It also draws on Cicero’s humanitas, a program of training for orators begun in 55 BC. Renaissance humanists contrasted studia humanitatis (“studies of humanity”) with studies of the divine, but by the 19th century the distinction was drawn between the humanities and the sciences.
Citation: Copyright holder unknown. The American Philosophical Society, 104 S. Fifth St, Philadelphia, PA 19106-3387. Text: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "American Philosophical Society." Revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen. https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Philosophical-Society. Copyright Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Aug 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Philosophical-Society. Dec 12, 2021.
School Lesson, District School, c. 1810, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8058
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Interiors, Americanization and Political Activity, Architecture, Children, Class Separation, Colonial America, Developing Nations, Domesticity, Early National Period, Future Progress, Immigrants, Media, Middle-Class Culture, Moral lessons, Nineteenth Century Children, Nineteenth Century Interiors, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Success 19th century, Taxes, Victorian Culture
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.6 - The course and consequences of the American Revolution, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: The School Lesson, District School, c. 1810, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. This schoolroom was moved from Candia, New Hampshire to Old Sturbridge Village in 1961. Long before the American Revolution, most New Englanders were required to pay taxes to provide tuition-free schools for their children. By 1800, most towns were divided into districts with neighborhood schools. Schools were in session between December and March, when older children did not need to work on the family farm. Younger children, too small to help with chores at home and likely to be underfoot, also attended school between May and August. With up to 50 students of all ages in one room, discipline was often hard for the teacher to maintain, and punishments were sometimes severe. Teachers, or “school-keepers,” were usually between 17 and 25 years old and had only a district school education themselves.
New England children usually started school when they were four, learning the alphabet and then moving on to reading. At about seven, they began to study geography, followed by penmanship at nine, and arithmetic and more difficult reading between the ages of 10 and 12. Older students worked on history and grammar.
The main room of the District School at Old Sturbridge Village features the school’s original desks, which display carved graffiti from generations of schoolchildren. A stove in the center of the room provides heat on cold days, and the wood for the stove is stored in the entrance hall.
Citation: Image and text: "District School." https://www.osv.org/building/district-school/. Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. Feb 23, 2022.
Fenno House, c. 1725, with Man and Steers, Old Sturbridge Village, MA.
Image ID: 8136
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Exteriors, Arts and Architecture, Business 19th century, Class Structure, Colonial America, Domesticity, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental movement, Exhibition, Invention, Labor, Lowell, Market Economy, Middle-Class Culture, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Symbols of mass society, Technology, Women's work, Working Class Culture
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Training Young Steers, Fenno House, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Built in Canton, Massachusetts, c. 1725, the house was moved in 1949 to OSV, which also reproduced the Barn in 1988. The Fenno House textile exhibit explores cloth making in early New England. By the early 19th century, machine-woven cloth from Britain and New England’s own textile factories were eliminating demand for traditional handspun and hand-woven products. But some spinning wheels were still in use, and a number of handloom weavers continued to find custom work making blankets, coverlets, and cloth.
Weaving and spinning also allowed single women and widows to support themselves and their families since women at the time did not usually work outside the home.
The Fenno House is the oldest building at Old Sturbridge Village. For more than 100 years, the house had been dated to 1704. In 2006, however, the Village conducted a study of the tree-rings on the timbers used to construct the house and discovered that the wood had been cut down in 1724. This fact also aligns with the decorative details found inside the house.
Citation: Image and text: "Fenno House," https://www.osv.org/building/fenno-house/. Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved.
Mowing Hay with Scythe, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8121
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Exteriors, Agriculture, Class Structure, Colonial America, Domesticity, Early National Period, Environmental History, Family to 1920, Immigrants, Labor, Nature and Civilization, Nineteenth Century, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Sharecroppers and rural US, Technology, Victorian Culture
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Mowing hay with scythe, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Old Sturbridge Village demonstrates 19th century farming – before gas-powered tractors, mowers, balers or bale elevators. The hay is cut by hand with long-handled scythe blades, cured and “tedded” with hay forks, loaded by hand into ox-drawn carts, and unloaded by hand into the upper hay mows of the barn. Haying was hard work, all done by hand. To farmers past and present, the intensive farm chore of hay-making has been the most important task of the year. New England Yankee farmers of the 19th century primarily raised cattle for milk by-products like cheese and butter or for beef. Many farmers also raised sheep, and most kept a horse or two for transportation and one or more teams of oxen for heavy work. During the spring and summer, cattle, sheep and horses were put out to pasture for grazing and fattening. But during the fall, winter and early spring, hay was their primary diet. The success of a good hay crop dictated the number of animals a farmer could afford to keep through the winter, thus determining the annual success or failure of the farm.
"Making hay at Old Sturbridge Village was strenuous work and for me the hardest task was the actual mowing with a scythe blade. I found an old scythe in my grandfather’s barn and brought it to work so I could use the tool he used. The blade wasn’t authentic for the era depicted by the museum, so I had it refitted with a more appropriate blade.
"With a freshly-sharpened blade attached to my grandfather’s wooden 'snath,' I would trudge out to the hay fields first thing in the morning before the dew evaporated and the wet grass was easier to mow. Along with other farm interpreters, we would follow each other across the field of timothy, red top, and clover, and cut our wide swaths or windrows of hay. Reaching far to our right and pulling the blade in a wide arc to the left, we would cut as much hay grass in each pull as we could physically manage. Keeping the heel of the blade close to the ground would ensure a finely mowed field with little wasted. Around and around the field we would mow until the entire field was laid out in neat windrows of fallen grass. The idiom 'to cut a wide swath' means you are making a great display, and comes from mowing hay. Those who made big sweeps of the scythe while cutting hay certainly made quite a display of wide swaths. My experience is that is also a very good way to tire quickly.
"This week as I stacked fresh bales of hay into our barn, I thought back to those summer days almost 40 years ago when I was a mower of hay. The smell of the cured hay is still as sweet as I remember. My sweating arms and neck itched from the loose chaff just like before. The rush to get the hay in before a thunderstorm is just as maddening as years gone by. The smiles and pat on the back for a job well-done means just as much as it always did. The clink of cold beverages passed among tired hands is just as refreshing.
"Next time you pass a freshly-mowed farm field and see a tall wagon stacked high with bales of hay, be grateful we live in a region with strong farming traditions. If your car travel is delayed behind a farm tractor pulling a mower, just smile, slow down, and enjoy the farmer’s view of a country road. Next time you pause to enjoy the placid view of horses and cows in a roadside field, remember that lots of labor, sweat, and good old-fashioned hard work went into making that peaceful scenery possible. On small hobby farms, local vegetable farms, orchards and vineyards and on large dairy farms, our farming traditions are alive and well here in The Last Green Valley."
Citation: Image: "Mowing Hay with Scythe." Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. Text: Bill Reid, "Exploring The Last Green Valley – Haying Season in The Last Green Valley," Connecticut, June 27, 2016. https://thelastgreen valley.org/exploring-last-green-valley-haying-season-last-green-valley/. © 2021 The Last Green Valley. All rights reserved. April 7, 2022.
Cutting Hay, Old Sturbridge Village, MA.
Image ID: 8118
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Exteriors, Agriculture, Class Structure, Colonial America, Domesticity, Early National Period, Environmental History, Family to 1920, Immigrants, Labor, Nature and Civilization, Outdoor Life, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Technology, Victorian Culture
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 8.12 - The transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions…in response to the Industrial Revolution, 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Cutting hay with scythes, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Old Sturbridge Village demonstrates 19th century farming – before gas-powered tractors, mowers, balers or bale elevators. The hay is cut by hand with long-handled scythe blades, cured and “tedded” with hay forks, loaded by hand into ox-drawn carts, and unloaded by hand into the upper hay mows of the barn. Haying was hard work, all done by hand. To farmers past and present, the intensive farm chore of hay-making has been the most important task of the year. New England Yankee farmers of the 19th century primarily raised cattle for milk by-products like cheese and butter or for beef. Many farmers also raised sheep, and most kept a horse or two for transportation and one or more teams of oxen for heavy work. During the spring and summer, cattle, sheep and horses were put out to pasture for grazing and fattening. But during the fall, winter and early spring, hay was their primary diet. The success of a good hay crop dictated the number of animals a farmer could afford to keep through the winter, thus determining the annual success or failure of the farm.
"Making hay at Old Sturbridge Village was strenuous work and for me the hardest task was the actual mowing with a scythe blade. I found an old scythe in my grandfather’s barn and brought it to work so I could use the tool he used. The blade wasn’t authentic for the era depicted by the museum, so I had it refitted with a more appropriate blade.
"With a freshly-sharpened blade attached to my grandfather’s wooden 'snath,' I would trudge out to the hay fields first thing in the morning before the dew evaporated and the wet grass was easier to mow. Along with other farm interpreters, we would follow each other across the field of timothy, red top, and clover, and cut our wide swaths or windrows of hay. Reaching far to our right and pulling the blade in a wide arc to the left, we would cut as much hay grass in each pull as we could physically manage. Keeping the heel of the blade close to the ground would ensure a finely mowed field with little wasted. Around and around the field we would mow until the entire field was laid out in neat windrows of fallen grass. The idiom 'to cut a wide swath' means you are making a great display, and comes from mowing hay. Those who made big sweeps of the scythe while cutting hay certainly made quite a display of wide swaths. My experience is that is also a very good way to tire quickly.
"This week as I stacked fresh bales of hay into our barn, I thought back to those summer days almost 40 years ago when I was a mower of hay. The smell of the cured hay is still as sweet as I remember. My sweating arms and neck itched from the loose chaff just like before. The rush to get the hay in before a thunderstorm is just as maddening as years gone by. The smiles and pat on the back for a job well-done means just as much as it always did. The clink of cold beverages passed among tired hands is just as refreshing.
"Next time you pass a freshly-mowed farm field and see a tall wagon stacked high with bales of hay, be grateful we live in a region with strong farming traditions. If your car travel is delayed behind a farm tractor pulling a mower, just smile, slow down, and enjoy the farmer’s view of a country road. Next time you pause to enjoy the placid view of horses and cows in a roadside field, remember that lots of labor, sweat, and good old-fashioned hard work went into making that peaceful scenery possible. On small hobby farms, local vegetable farms, orchards and vineyards and on large dairy farms, our farming traditions are alive and well here in The Last Green Valley."
Citation: Karen Halttunen photo. Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. Text: Bill Reid, "Exploring The Last Green Valley – Haying Season in The Last Green Valley," Connecticut, June 27, 2016. https://thelastgreenvalley.org/exploring-last-green-valley-haying-season-last-green-valley/. © 2021 The Last Green Valley. All rights reserved. April 7, 2022.
Richardson House (Parsonage), 1748, in Autumn, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8074
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Exteriors, 18th Century Families, Arts and Architecture, Class Structure, Colonial America, Domesticity, Early National Period, Environmental History, Immigrant Societies and Organization, Invention, Labor, Middle-Class Culture, Religion, Technology, Work and Housing
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.6 - The course and consequences of the American Revolution, 5.7 - People and events associated with the development of the U.S. Constitution and it's significance as the foundation of the American republic, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Richardson House (Parsonage), 1748, in autumn, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. The Solomon Richardson house, c. 1748, was moved from East Brookfield, Massachusetts, to Old Sturbridge Village, MA, in 1940. The Barn, built in New York c. 1800, was moved to Old Sturbridge Village in 1937. The Richardson House is portrayed in Old Sturbridge Village as a parsonage, the home of the local minister. The "Parsonage" is painted white to complement the more modern Greek-Revival structures on the Common. Greek Revival was the most popular style of architecture in the US from 1830 to 1850, and this regional painting was known as a “whitening of New England,” as churches, commercial buildings, and dwellings reflected the white marble facades of ancient Greek temples.
The colonial lean-to style Richardson house was never actually a parsonage. In its current guise, however, it has proven an effective teaching tool about life in early New England. With a center chimney, two full stories in front and one in the back, and a long, pitched roof sloping down the back, modern architectural historians typically call this style of home a “saltbox house” due to its resemblance to that common early kitchen container with a sloped lid. The Richardson farmhouse was intentionally built in the saltbox style sometime in the mid- to late-1700s in neighboring East Brookfield, Massachusetts.
The kitchen garden at the home of the minister’s family illustrates the more scientific approach to gardening that some prosperous farmers and well-educated professionals practiced. The garden’s layout is based upon a plan in Thomas Bridgeman’s 1839 "The Young Gardener’s Assistant." Bridgeman described permanently raised beds, enriched with composted manures and household wastes. The beds were planted strategically with annual and biennial crops rotating around beds of perennial vegetables to help prevent insects, disease, and soil exhaustion. The minister and his wife were both involved in gardening and cultivated several vegetables less commonly grown in the 1830s. Modern favorites like tomatoes, celery, and peppers provided variety to the family’s diet although these flavors were often considered foreign to the 19th-century palate.
The minister also experimented with progressive garden structures to assist plant growth. A wooden frame with a glass cover made of window sashing extended the growing season. It was set over a mound of fresh horse manure, and the fermentation and decomposition of the manure provided bottom heat while the wood and glass frame provided shelter for tender, young plants. In the early spring, the hot bed was used to force early crops and to start tomatoes and peppers. In the autumn, it was used as a cold frame to extend the season for salad greens.
The fenced dooryard garden followed a common pattern of beds and borders. Hardy perennials and biennials were the mainstay of this garden. Crocus, primula, tulips, and forget-me-nots were the first to appear in the spring. Old fashioned shrub roses perfumed the garden in June. The delicate pink flowers of ragged robin appeared in late spring, giving way to the bright yellow sundrops, pink mallows, and scarlet beebalm with the coming of summer. Biennials such as dame’s rocket, foxglove, Canterbury bells, and sweet William self-sowed easily but had to be guarded through their first year. The care would be rewarded with bloom in their second season.
Citation: Image and text: "Parsonage." https://www.osv.org/building/parsonage/. Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. April 1, 2022.
Sap Trough at Boot Shop, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8150
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Exteriors, Agriculture, Business 19th century, Class Structure, Colonial America, Domesticity, Early National Period, Environmental History, Family to 1920, Frontier, Immigrants, Indian Civilization, Indian-White Relations Before Revolution, Labor, Native Americans, Nature and Civilization, Nineteenth Century Misc, Plantation Exterior, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Technology
Region(s): Canada, United States
CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast.
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Sap trough in front of boot shop, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Maple trees are usually tapped beginning between 30 and 40 years of age. Maples can continue to be tapped for sap until they are more than 100 years old. Once temperatures stop fluctuating between below freezing at night and above freezing during the day, sap stops flowing.
Maple sugaring is one of the few American agricultural processes not imported from Europe; it was taught to European settlers by the Algonquin and Iroquois tribes. Some early farm families, especially in northern New England, tapped 100 trees or more for a yield of 400 pounds of sugar each season. Unlike today, early New Englanders didn't make syrup, which developed mold without refrigeration; they boiled the sap all the way down to sugar. "Everybody helped with the sugar making - women, children, friends, neighbors - and the favorite children's taste treat of 'maple snow' was actually the result of testing the syrup's consistency before granulating it for storage," said OSV Coordinator of Agriculture Adam Halterman, of West Brookfield. Homemade maple sugar was a cheaper alternative to expensive cane sugar, which was imported from the West Indies. Boiling the maple sap required a high heat and lots of wood, but in the 1830s, after years of clearing forests for farm fields, wood was scarce and the cost was high. Because of this, early New Englanders used waste wood to stoke sugar camp fires. "Broken boards, old fence posts, chunks of pine, shingles, you name it - all kinds of scrap wood were burned for sugar making," Halterman said, adding that cheaper wooden troughs were also used to collect the sap, rather than more expensive buckets. At OSV, the sap is boiled in large iron kettles suspended over an open fire. Both sugar maples and red maples are tapped to make sugar. "Although sugar maple sap has more sugar, about 2 to 3 percent, red maples grow more abundantly in our area, so we tap both kinds of maple trees," Halterman said. "Most people equate the smell of spring with flowers, but for us it's the smell of wood smoke and maple syrup. That's the surest sign that spring is coming," said Halterman.
Citation: Image: Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. First text: "Maple Sugar Days at Old Sturbridge Village," Mar 3, 2015. https://www.valleybreeze.com/lifestyle/living/maple-sugar-days-at-old-sturbridge-village/article_dd206491-10d9-5e71-8b86-ecc53d88f2c6.html. © Copyright 2022 The Valley Breeze, 6 Blackstone Valley Pl, Ste #204, Lincoln, RI 02865. All rights reserved. Second text:
Wally Hersee, "Sugar Camp at OSV: Maple sap to flow at OSV 'sugar camp.'" http://www.sturbridgecommon.com/2008/03/sugar-camp-at-osv.html?m=1. March 05, 2008. ©2008 The Republican. © 2008 MassLive.com. All rights reserved. April 15, 2022.
Thompson Bank, 1835, Fitch House, 1737; Common/Village Center, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8152
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Exteriors, Arts and Architecture, Business 19th century, Class Structure, Colonial America, Domesticity, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Exhibition, Invention, Labor, Middle-Class Culture, Nineteenth Century, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Pullman and Model Towns, Success 19th century, Symbols, Victorian Culture
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Thompson Bank, 1835, Fitch House, 1737; common/village center, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Thompson Bank, 1834-35, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. The bank was built on the town common of Thompson, Connecticut, in 1835 and served as a bank until 1893. It was moved to OSV in 1963. It was one of a growing number of commercial banks in the 19th century that loaned money to promote rural industry and trade. These commercial banks were chartered and regulated by each state government. Designed in Greek-Revival style, the bank is furnished with astral lamps, a cast-iron stove, classical columns, and a regulator clock attributed to celebrated clockmaker Simon Willard. There is also a counter, cashier’s desk, and a granite-walled vault safeguarded by a massive iron door.
Built in Willimantic, Connecticut, c. 1737, the house was moved to OSV in 1939. This symmetrical Cape-style home, with a gambrel roof and a kitchen ell off the back, had several additions made through about 1820. With its white picket fence, rose trellis at the door, and a colorful flower garden designed for the children in the side yard, the Fitch House suggests the prosperity of a center village tradesman. The garden’s circular layout, bright blossoms, and rustic arbor of birch saplings is based on one of New England’s earliest books of horticultural advice, Joseph Breck's “The Young Florist,” Boston, 1833. The Fitch House also features several outbuildings, including an original corn barn from Scituate, Rhode Island, built c. 1790–1820, and a reproduction woodshed that also houses the family privy (toilet). The large reproduction barn was built by Old Sturbridge Village in 1968 using the frame of an old barn from Westfield, MA. It contains an exhibit, “Tools of Agricultural Change,” displaying part of OSV’s extensive collection of agricultural tools and equipment.
Citation: Image and texts: "Thompson Bank." https://www.osv.org/building/thompson-bank/. "Fitch House." https://www.osv.org/building/fitch-house/. Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. April 14, 2022.
Helping on Wash Day, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8084
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Exteriors, Child labor, Class Structure, Colonial America, Domesticity, Environmental History, Family, Immigrants, Invention, Labor, Luxury, Middle-Class Culture, Nineteenth Century Misc, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Slavery, Working, and Living Conditions, Sweatshops, Williamsburg, Women's work, Working Class Culture
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s...
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Helping on wash day, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. For most early 19th-century New England families, laundry day was a weekly occurrence, usually followed by an ironing day. Though not every article of clothing worn or used was washed weekly, the same washing, rinsing, and drying was done by hand. A few products used in the early 19th-century laundry are missing from many modern laundry rooms: bluing and starch, which improved the final look of early American textiles. Made from indigo, bluing gave clothes a slight blue tinge, making them appear whiter.
In England and America, country and town houses often had a laundry room dedicated to cleaning fabrics of all kinds. Its basic elements were a hearth, a space to manipulate the vast copper tubs of hot water, dressers or tables for ironing, ropes or racks overhead for drying, and a water source. In most cases, that source was a brigade of free or enslaved servants who trudged back and forth to a nearby well or stream.
As with the American kitchen, the laundry moved out of the house as the 18th century wore on. Originally, most people washed their clothes in the room where they cooked and lived. But in elite households, both operations moved outside to a separate one-room structure, in which laundering and cooking were again done at the same hearth. Shakespeare calls a laundry basket a “buck basket,” a term possibly related to the back-and-forth action of washing laundry, agitating water, soap, and clothes in a tub, like the motion of a bucking horse. A "buck" was a tub for soaking or washing, and a small buck was a bucket. Mangles were ironing machines that came into wide use in the late 18th century. Also called a "box mangle," it was a box of stones resting on two large cylinders. When it was rolled across carefully folded items of washing that had been tucked inside the clean mangle cloths, many items could be smoothed and ironed at once. Tiny remaining wrinkles would be corrected with a small finishing iron.
So much equipment, so many tubs and laundresses: the laundry was the domain of women, but it was a cramped, steamy, busy place. As a rule, only linen and cotton were washed. Silk or woolen clothes never touched water. Instead, wool was dry-cleaned by people called fullers, who erased stains with fuller’s earth, a clay that absorbs grease. Fullers also used fuller’s teasel, a thistle, to rough up the fibers and mechanically shake away the offending dirt. Silk was cleaned by scourers, who fully cleaned gowns only once a year. Scourers mainly spot-cleaned them, using salt, chalk, or fuller’s earth and solvents like turpentine, lemon juice, warm milk, or even urine. The whole gown was never immersed and scrubbed. As a result, silk garments tended to last. They were loosely stitched, because sooner or later they would be taken apart and remodeled. In 1763, one of Martha Washington’s old dresses was sent to London to be retailored in a more modish style. Silk and woolen clothes that survive from the colonial period tend to show little underarm staining because underclothing prevented them from coming into direct contact with human skin. Women’s gowns were worn with a shift underneath, and men wore linen undergarments to protect their suits. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson regularly used this sort of “body linen.” Linda Baumgarten, curator of textiles and costume at Colonial Williamsburg, says, “It’s skin oils that ruin clothes, not the drinks and soup you spill on them. Dirty undergarments, not clothes, are what kept the laundries busy.”
Wet laundry seems to have been customarily draped across shrubs and hedges to dry in the sun. Shakespeare’s jokester, Autolycus, in "The Winter’s Tale" loves to see a “white shirt bleaching on the hedge.” He says, “My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen.” He loves filching unwatched laundry left out to dry. A 1575 map of London shows the grassy Moorfields, just outside the city wall, dotted with laundry bleaching in the sun. And a 1697 oil painting of the Nottinghamshire country house Wollaton Hall shows the buildings and landscape in all their glory, but with the household whites spread along a hedge and covering a half-acre of green lawn as well. It was laundry as landscape. In his 1745 "Directions to Servants," Jonathan Swift suggests that “the place for hanging” laundry “is on young Fruit Trees, especially in Blossom; the Linnen cannot be torn, and the Trees give them a fine Smell.”
Citation: Image and first text: Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. Second text: Adapted from Michael Olmert, "Laundries, Largest Buildings in the Eighteenth Century Backyard," Colonial Williamsburg Journal, Autumn 09. https://research.colonial williamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/Autumn09/laundries.cfm. Copyright Prof. Michael Olmert, English Dept, 2119 Tawes Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. All rights reserved. April 13, 2022.
Mending, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8086
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Interiors, Arts and Architecture, Business 19th century, Domesticity, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Invention, Labor, Nineteenth Century Furniture, Nineteenth Century Interiors, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Pullman and Model Towns, Technology, Victorian Culture, Women's work
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s...
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Mending, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Sewing was a constant companion for women in the early 19th century. Though the making and mending of textiles for the family was a daunting task for many of them, having the proper sewing tools and accessories certainly made the work easier. Many early 19th century sewing tools were also decorative or had sentimental significance for the owner.
Sewing and weaving were two of many tasks that fell onto the women. For almost two centuries the majority of the preparation of material for clothing was done by the family; the spinning, weaving, dyeing, and making of thread preceded the creation of a garment. The spinning and sewing were done in the spring and winter. The colonists grew and harvested the flax plant to make cloth. Linen was the first material used in the colonies because flax could be planted in May and harvested at the end of June. The tough fibers of the flax plant were spun on a spinning wheel to create linen thread. If a woman was a quick spinner she could spin six skeins of yarn a day, but spinning was a very tiresome job. The backward and forward movement required to run a spinner was very quick and active, and spinning six skeins in one day would have been equal to walking twenty miles. The linen thread was woven into linen cloth for clothing and bedding. After the spinning and weaving, the cloth was dyed or bleached, and this task alone was trying and difficult. However, the tasks of sewing, weaving, and knitting did not fall solely on the housewife. Young girls were taught to knit as soon as their fingers could grasp the needles. It was common for girls as young as four or five to make excellent mittens and stockings. Spinning was one of the few "honorable" occupations for women during colonization. The term "spinster" was given to women who spun linen for a living, and they were typically unmarried; "spinster" is used to this day to describe a single woman. Spinning, sewing, weaving, and knitting eventually transformed from tiring chores done at home alone into social gatherings for women. Colonial women created events referred to as “bees”: quilting bees, spinning bees, knitting bees, sewing bees, paring bees, and others. These “bees” made the work more enjoyable and helped develop a spirit of community. Women in colonial times had to work constantly to care for their families. They were responsible for making goods for daily use in their homes and in the community. Without the work of women the colonists would not have survived; the items they created made life possible for everyone in colonial America.
Citation: Image and first text: Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. Second text: "Role of Women in Colonial America: Making Cloth." https://roleofwomenincolonialtimes.weebly.com/making-cloth.html. April 7, 2022.
Children at Home, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8078
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Interiors, 18th Century Families, Children, Class Structure, Colonial America, Dolls, Domesticity, Early National Period, Family to 1920, Games 19th century, Middle-Class Culture, Moral lessons, Nineteenth Century Children, Nineteenth Century Interiors, Plantation Interior, Popular recreation to 1865, Victorian Culture, Women
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.7 - People and events associated with the development of the U.S. Constitution and it's significance as the foundation of the American republic, 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Children at home, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. The early 1800s saw an increasing awareness of “childhood” as separate from infancy, yet distinctly different from young adulthood. And while the 19th century saw the advent of many child-rearing trends that continue today, the child’s world of the Early Republic was far from the toy-filled nurseries of the Gilded Age of the 1890s and the cavernous toy super-stores of the 21st century.
Like their modern counterparts, children in the 19th century played with dolls and toy animals, were expected to help with household work, went to school and looked forward to being “grown up.” Through diaries, letters, and reminiscences, the sometimes humorous and sometimes poignant voices of early 19th century children and their parents bring their material culture to life.
Long before the American Revolution, most New Englanders were required to pay taxes to provide tuition-free schools for their children. By 1800, the majority of towns were divided into districts with neighborhood schools. Schools were in session between December and March, when older children did not need to work on the family farm. Younger children, too small to help with chores at home and likely to be underfoot, also attended school between May and August. With up to 50 students of all ages in one class, discipline was often hard for the teacher to maintain, and punishments were sometimes severe. Teachers, or “school-keepers,” were usually between 17 and 25 years old and had only a district school education themselves.
New England children usually started school when they were four, learning the alphabet and then moving on to reading. At about seven, they began to study geography, followed by penmanship at nine, and arithmetic and more difficult reading between the ages of 10 and 12. Older students worked on history and grammar.
Citation: Image and text: "Dennison Schoolhouse - A Child's World." https://www.osv.org/building/dennison-schoolhouse-a-childs-world/. Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. April 11, 2022.
Northwest Bedchamber, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8081
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Interiors, Arts and Architecture, Class Structure, Domesticity, Early National Period, Environmental History, Exhibition, Family to 1920, Individualism, Technology, Luxury, Middle-Class Culture, Success 19th century, Trade, Work and Housing
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast.
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Northwest bedchamber, Salem Towne House, wall painting of cedars of Lebanon (?), 1796; Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Built in Charlton, Massachusetts, c. 1796, this house was moved to OSV in 1952. From its hipped roof, featuring a row of monitor lights, to its elegant doorway, the Towne House was built to impress. The home was inherited by Salem Towne, Jr., and his wife, Sally, in 1825. Like his father, Towne, Jr., was a businessman, land surveyor, Justice of the Peace, community leader, and progressive farmer. The furnishings of the sitting room reflect some of these pursuits. The Townes ran a large, complex household with seven children still at home in 1830, farm laborers, hired women, and sometimes visiting relatives. The first-floor kitchen of the Towne House boasts a cast-iron stove—a relatively new appliance in the 1830s. The house’s furnishings are elegant and expensive by rural standards and a blend of imports and New England–made goods. Outside, the formal garden indicates the growing interest of many prosperous New England families in ornamental gardening, with its symmetrical layout, variety of plantings, and decorative elements.
Between the 1780s and the 1820s, the first years of the American federal republic, this "Federal" style was the architectural high style for both civil and domestic buildings. Using details from the Mediterranean region, architects of the mid- to late-1700s published works that provided builders with scale drawings and plans for creating contemporary buildings. One such book was "The Practical Builder, or Workman's General Assistant," by William Pain, published in London in 1774. An American edition of this book was published in Boston in 1792. Many of the details in the Salem Towne house, such as the trim and fanlights of its doors, came from this book, although modified to fit the preferences and wallet of Salem Towne, as well as the skills of the builder.
Citation: Image and text: "Salem Towne House." https://www.osv.org/building/salem-towne-house/. Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. March 26, 2022.
West Face, Salem Towne House, 1796, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8137
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Exteriors, Arts and Architecture, Class and Status, Colonial America, Domesticity, Early National Period, Environmental History, Exhibition, Family to 1920, Individualism, Technology, Luxury, Middle-Class Culture, Success 19th century, Trade, Work and Housing
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: West facade facing common, Salem Towne House, 1796, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Built in Charlton, Massachusetts, c. 1796, this house was moved to Old Sturbridge Village in 1952. From its hipped roof, featuring a row of monitor lights, to its elegant doorway, the Towne House was built to impress. The home was inherited by Salem Towne, Jr., and his wife, Sally, in 1825. Like his father, Towne, Jr., was a businessman, land surveyor, Justice of the Peace, community leader, and progressive farmer. The furnishings of the sitting room reflect some of these pursuits. The Townes ran a large, complex household with seven children still at home in 1830, farm laborers, hired women, and sometimes visiting relatives. The first-floor kitchen of the Towne House boasts a cast-iron stove—a relatively new appliance in the 1830s. The house’s furnishings are elegant and expensive by rural standards and a blend of imports and New England–made goods. Outside, the formal garden indicates the growing interest of many prosperous New England families in ornamental gardening, with its symmetrical layout, variety of plantings, and decorative elements.
Between the 1780s and the 1820s, the first years of the American federal republic, this "Federal" style was the architectural high style for both civil and domestic buildings. Using details from the Mediterranean region, architects of the mid- to late-1700s published works that provided builders with scale drawings and plans for creating contemporary buildings. One such book was "The Practical Builder, or Workman's General Assistant," by William Pain, published in London in 1774. An American edition of this book was published in Boston in 1792. Many of the details in the Salem Towne house, such as the trim and fanlights of its doors, came from this book, although modified to fit the preferences and wallet of Salem Towne, as well as the skills of the builder.
Citation: Image and text: "Salem Towne House." https://www.osv.org/building/salem-towne-house/. Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. March 26, 2022.
Kitchen Hearth, Fenno House, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8076
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Interiors, Arts and Architecture, Class Structure, Colonial America, Domesticity, Early National Period, Environmental History, Exhibition, Invention, Labor, Middle-Class Culture, Women's work
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.7 - People and events associated with the development of the U.S. Constitution and it's significance as the foundation of the American republic
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: The Kitchen Hearth, Fenno House, Old Sturbridge Village, MA. Built in Canton, Massachusetts, c. 1725, the house was moved in 1949 to OSV, which also reproduced the Barn in 1988. The Fenno House textile exhibit explores cloth making in early New England. By the early 19th century, machine-woven cloth from Britain and New England’s own textile factories were eliminating demand for traditional handspun and hand-woven products. But some spinning wheels were still in use, and a number of handloom weavers continued to find custom work making blankets, coverlets, and cloth. Weaving and spinning were also ways that single women could support themselves and their families since women at the time did not usually work outside the home.
The Fenno House is the oldest building at Old Sturbridge Village. For more than 100 years, the house had been dated to 1704. In 2006, however, the Village conducted a study of the tree-rings on the timbers used to construct the house and discovered that the wood had been cut down in 1724. This fact also aligns with the decorative details found inside the house.
Citation: Image and text: "Fenno House," https://www.osv.org/building/fenno-house/. Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. April 13, 2022.
Tin Shop, c. 1800-50, Old Sturbridge Village, MA
Image ID: 8091
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Exteriors, Arts and Architecture, Business 19th century, Class and Status, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Labor, Technology, Work and Workers
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.6 - The course and consequences of the American Revolution, 5.7 - People and events associated with the development of the U.S. Constitution and it's significance as the foundation of the American republic, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Tin Shop, c. 1800-50, reconstructed by Old Sturbridge Village, MA, 1985. The tin business in New England grew rapidly after 1820. Tin shop owners imported tinplated sheet iron from Great Britain, shaped it into a variety of forms, and distributed their finished goods through peddlers and country stores. They also sold tinware in their shops. Colanders, dippers, dish kettles, funnels, measures, and pans were in greatest demand. Other common items included lanterns, foot stoves, teapots, coffeepots, “tin kitchens,” skimmers, and sconces. The Tin Shop at Old Sturbridge Village is a reconfigured early 1800s shed. Here, “tinners” work with hand tools and machines that were innovations in the early 19th century. These machines turned tinplate, made grooves and folds, and inserted wire, increasing a shop’s production.
Citation: Karen Halttunen photo. Text: "Tin Shop." https://www.osv.org/building/tin-shop/. Copyright Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. March 31, 2022.
Interior, Gristmill, built 1938 by Old Sturbridge Village
Image ID: 8129
Collection: Karen Halttunen
Topic(s): Eighteenth Century, Sturbridge, 18th Century Interiors, Arts and Architecture, Business 19th century, Colonial America, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Industrial Revolution, Labor, Nineteenth Century Interiors, Pullman and Model Towns, Technology, Work and Workers
Region(s): United States
CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
Card Text: Inside gristmill, built 1938 by Old Sturbridge Village, Inc., after an ancient pattern. The Gristmill was one of the first buildings constructed at Old Sturbridge Village. Built on the site of the Wight family’s original gristmill, it is made of recycled old timbers and new lumber. The mill’s massive millstones and other parts came from the Porter Gristmill in Hebron, Connecticut. Gristmill owners served their customers by grinding grain into flour and meal for baking or livestock feed. By Massachusetts law, a miller could charge a fee or toll of 1/16th of the grain brought to him or her as payment for milling the rest. But rural milling was changing along with the rest of the economy; even in the countryside, cash fees were beginning to replace traditional tolls.
To mill grain (grist) into meal for baking, the massive waterwheel rotates a 54” diameter “runner” stone just above a stationary “bed” stone in the floor. Grain from a wooden hopper is poured through a hole in the spinning runner stone between the two millstones. As the upper stone revolves inside a wooden cover, the grain is sheared into meal and falls into a meal chest in the floor. From there, the miller scoops the fresh “grist” into the customer’s bag or barrel. The power to turn the 3,000-pound millstone is provided by a 16-foot-high waterwheel mounted on the side of the mill. It is called a low breast wheel because water fills troughs on the wheel’s rim just below the midpoint (breast). The weight of water on one side of the wheel causes it to turn wooden gears and shafts in the mill basement, transmitting power to the millstones. Winter snow and ice often idle exposed, slow-moving wheels like this one.
Citation: Karen Halttunen photo. Text: Excerpted from Old Sturbridge Village Visitor's Guide. © 1993-2004 Old Sturbridge Inc., 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd,
Sturbridge, MA 01566. All rights reserved. March 29, 2022.