Practices Encroaching on Modern Day

[robert-m]

Re: Practices Encroaching on Modern Day

In the past few years I have found that I also use a lot of the same mind sets in modern life that I use at an event. Yes I have worn some of my kit out and about. My girl friend also has asked me to get the blankets out, and she has even wore my frock to work a few times. Just because they were not as "educated" as we are to day. They still knew what was up in the world as far as clothing and warmth. One of the ways that i have always been good with the ladies is being able to cook, and keep a clean house and stuff like that. being able to fend for your self is not just an old time thing, it comes in very good use in every walk of life. Most people want someone that can take care of them, not just women "needing" that man to sweep them off her feet, but everything from cooking to just knowing what to do in times that others don't. I know how to sew and I do it often as a mater of fact,and the girl friend thinks its odd that I do, but she see's the things I make and the coats she sometimes wears and then she is sup prized at the quality and craftsmanship she never says a word.

[RJSamp]

Re: Practices Encroaching on Modern Day

In the 1860s, nothing went to waste...think recycling wool into shoddy. Waste is the part of modern living that is most different to me. I save everything, a musket part from a long forgotten project will come in handy years later. I save the buckle off my worn out haversacks if they are still serviceable, etc.

I wouldn't go that far Craig., and the word 'nothing' doesn't hold water. We're still finding PLENTY in their trash dumps.....and they certainly didn't recycle metals, glass, raw in process discards like we do today. And they went through millions of socks, and hundreds of thousands of uniforms, etc. darning be damned.

Their inablity to 'recycle' farm lands properly led to the Great Dust Bowl.

and slaughtered bison weren't wasted at all.....

There were hoarders then, and there are hoarders now. We are in a more 'disposable' society now, but that they HAD waste back then is indisputable.

[J. Donaldson]

Re: Practices Encroaching on Modern Day

To paraphrase, when nostalgia gets in the way of reality, go with the nostalgia.

That being said, there are ideas that seem to be coming back in to vogue due to the current economic climate. Gardening, food preservation, and clothing repair all fall in to this category. I will be teaching myself to darn socks this weekend in order to repair my smartwool socks, rather than dropping more money down a hole to replace them.

Each generation looks for lessons from the past when the right times present themselves. These lessons are then promptly forgotten when things get better.

[Ian McWherter]

Re: Practices Encroaching on Modern Day

Just because they were not as "educated" as we are to day.

If you were fortunate to receive a college education in the 19th century you received one Hell of an education!

Illiteracy may have been higher, on paper anyway, at that time then it is today (I think illiteracy in early America is generally grossly exaggerated by reenactors), but what education you did receive was pretty good. Just take a look at some original student textbooks, instructors, or various other original educational material.

By and by, while pretty much everyone in this country today is required to receive a basic grade school education how many of those kids are functioning illiterate, just floating through the grades but not really learning anything? This is quite a problem these days, I remember fellow classmates in high school who could barely read and their writing could hardly be called writing at all, who let those morons pass?

I think this thread is diverging from "Period Practices Encroaching on Modern Day," to "Modern Misconceptions of the Past Encroaching on the Period."

[Silas]

Re: Practices Encroaching on Modern Day

I think this thread is diverging from "Period Practices Encroaching on Modern Day," to "Modern Misconceptions of the Past Encroaching on the Period."

When the thread was commenced, I wondered how long it would take before it crossed the line. It's been straddling the line since the first page of posts. Keep it on the right side or take the conversation to that other forum.

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Practices Encroaching on Modern Day

The literacy rate was actually surprisingly high. I won't quote an exact figure without having the citation in front of me, but people who had spent their childhoods in America tended to have some kind of education. What kind, how much and through what agency (public, parochial, private, parents and neighbors) depended on the state, area and exact time.

Project Gutenberg and Archive.org both have period textbooks you can see for free. You will find them more thorough and less broad than today's. You would also find substantial differences in who could be a teacher, how school was conducted, in what seasons and at what times classes were held, and age requirements for students. In most areas, school attendance was not compulsory, the county board of education only oversaw local programs in a very general way, and many people went to school whenever they had no other work for as long as they cared to. One of our local diarists (b. 1856) remembered starting to the country one-room school with boys in the eighth grade who ended up enlisting because they were old enough; they had been getting as much school as they could between bouts of farm or mine labor. Consider the implications for a moment: no one was making them go to school, but they were making time to go because they valued education.

In those days, no one had yet thought of dyslexia as a cause for poor spelling or penmanship. Bad handwriting and poor spelling may be a result of little education, great haste, dyslexia or any combination. During wartime, when men were traveling, there's also the issue of trying to spell a word you've never seen written, but only heard from people around you--some of whom may have strong and unfamiliar accents. Medical terms then and now are especially subject to mangling and are not necessarily a symptom of general ignorance.

It is also true that fewer people ever attended a high school, let alone graduated,and that college attendance was not a given save for those who came from families whose trade demanded it. Most employers were less concerned with seeing even an eighth-grade diploma than with knowing a prospective employee could read, write and do enough arithmetic to handle the work at hand. The oft-cited "ordinary common school education" varied in length as well as quality, but in most cases seem to have produced a reasonably literate person capable of doing enough basic math to handle an account book at a store or keep farm records properly.

[Matthew Semple]

Re: Practices Encroaching on Modern Day

All,

There is a lot of great information in response to my original question that started this thread. As I am surprised at the number of responses, I think it will take me the better part of a day to read through and generate my own responses and follow on questions.

Thank you to those who have responded and provided information so far.

Very respectfully,