First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

[tarwater_mess]

When we refer to "First Person", the ability to participate depends upon the knowledge we have of the every day life in the 19th century. Who were we? What did we do as citizens before the war? Were we Store-keepers, Blacksmiths, Farmers, Homemakers, etc? To begin with, you will first need a foundation to build upon, and something that will give you the ability to act upon, or refer back to, while engaged in "First Person". If, for example, one is engaged in farming today, your knowledge of equipment, materials, daily routines, and crops are first hand knowledge, something you must know in order to be productive. The same general knowledge of mid 19th century farming and every day life is a necessity in order to claim ones self as both, a farmer, and rural citizen. The knowledge gained from research into ones own local history is very helpful in building a solid foundation to work from.

For example, I will refer you to a tid-bit copied from a local periodical that will shed a small amount of light onto the life of a famer in Indiana circa 1860.

The farmer raised corn, wheat, flax, buckwheat, sugar cane but not much stock. The farmer averaged one cow, 6-10 hogs, two horses, 15-20 sheep. Jean suits made from wool off their own sheep were the clothing. No overcoats, underwear, overshoes, or anything in the way of fine dress was in evidence. The women wore calico and flannel, and fancy gingham dress for Sunday.
The merchants in Fairmount bought coon skins, sheep pelts, bees wax, sorghum, flax seed, feathers, dried peaches and apples, rags, eggs, butter, beef and sheep tallow. Nearly all farmers in those days raised sugar cane, some as much as five or ten acres. Nearly all raised some for molasses or sorghum. It was one easy crop to grow. After the cane was done growing and the head ripened and turned black in the late fall, they went through with corn cutters and cut off the heads about one foot from the head and let them fall to the ground. They next went through with a sharp edge board and strip the cane. The cane was the cut close to the ground and hauled to the mill.

Cyrus W. Neal
Age 70
Marion, Indiana
Dec 26, 1916

[Hoosier Yank]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

Mark,

Another source that I find invaluable are the many county histories that were being published in the late 1880’s. They are also very useful for genealogists such as myself.

Anyway, often they have information on the towns in the county, political figures, transportation info, voting results for state and national level elections, prices on livestock, goods, and land, locations of schools, churches, etc…

In the Hoosier state, another good series on life between 1840 to 1870 ish is “Indiana in the Pioneer Era” and the “Indiana in the Civil War Era”, which are still available at the Indiana State Museum and the Indiana Historical Society gift store(s).

One book even though it doesn’t go into great depth as the two books mentioned above but gives a real nice “snap shot” of life in Southern Indiana is “Looking at History, Indiana’s Hoosier National Forest Region, 1600 to 1950”.

Next time you come down from Anderson to see the “big city lights” stop in! ;)

[Matthew.Rector]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

Just to add to Bill's mention of the 1880s-1900s county histories.
They are wonderful resources!
Not only do most have a biography section on prominent figures of the county, but usually they include the history of the county's establishment, geography of the county, short stories and at times military roster's for various wars.
I think when developing first person it is not only important to know what you do in life, but also know where you came from. By knowing more about this aspect, you can begin to talk about specific neighbours and their context in your life as well.

[tarwater_mess]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

This is where the info that I have comes from ..

[Glenn Milner]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

Hello Folks,
I thought I would mention a couple of on-line resources that I have found particularly useful in developing FIRPER background for a particular locale (usually a county that a particular company was raised in from a military point of view but it would work equally well for civilians from that county or a multi-county area):

- DeBow's Review: This is a period periodical containing articles about agriculture, commerce and industry. Sometimes, you can luck up and get a very detailed article on the very locale you're interested in. It'll typically tell you about the types of livestock and crops raised in the area including things like crop yield. Many 1850's issues are available on-line at the Making of America website and can be searched using their engines. Warning: the Making of America Website can be highly addictive.

- The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection: This is a digitized on-line collection of historical maps from all over the country. You'll probably have to download one of their browsers onto your computer, but once you get it worked out, its neat. The high resolution digitized maps from the late 1850's will tell you all sorts of useful period info such as local streams/rivers, railroads, nearby town names, county seat, local post offices and distances from your FIRPER homeplace to all of these places. It basically gives you the period "lay of the land" for your FIRPER home county and the definitive answer to the question "Where ya from?". Printing is bit of a pain but can be done through downloading portions of the files. Take a look at www.davidrumsey.com.

Give these things a whirl and I hope that you'll find them useful.
Glenn Milner

[PigPen]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

One source that I have found to be invaluable is Agriculture Manuals from the time period. I have a collection that spans 1855 (1st year they were printed) to 1870 with several others from the late 19th century. They are realitvely inexpensive, have great pictures, and great articles. By studying the charts you can tell what crop was good for the year and what wasn't growing well. One can also research what major crops would be grown in a particular area.

I also rely on several other antique text books. I have a history book from 1850 and a math book from the same time frame to name a few. I have transcribed the History book on our website and portions of the math book dealing in weights and measures also.

http://www.geocities.com/Texasgroundhornets/articles.html

[Linda_Trent]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

Here is a list of primary sources on the web that I like to use when developing characters.

http://kgcivcoi2003.homestead.com/primary.html

You can find just about everything including the kitchen sink, if you search the documents :p

We also have several original books as well, such as the 1857, 1860 and 1863 Ohio Agricultural Reports and the Patent Office Reports (Agricultural) from 1854-1860 and the USDA 1862.

Linda Trent
lindatrent@zoomnet.net

http://struggleforstatehood.homestead.com/index.html

[KLCoombs]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

GREAT list of links on the Kearny Guards civilians website, Linda!

If it's okay, I'll link to your page from the AGSAS website.

Here's the link to our overall "How To" section -- which includes subsections on first and third person interpretative techniques, period skills/occupations, period leisure activities, etc etc -- all of which can be broadly useful in developing a mid 19th c. persona, depending on the type of person being portrayed.

http://www.agsas.org/howto/

--Kathryn Coombs
President, Atlantic Guard Soldiers Aid Society

https://www.AGSAS.org

(matron? How in the heck did I get to be a "matron"?)

[BorderReb]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

[I]The farmer raised corn, wheat, flax, buckwheat, sugar cane but not much stock.


Bear in mind that Suger Cane can't grow in Indiana and Sorgum and Molasses are different products. Sorgum comes from sorgum which can be and still is grown in Indiana. So the first person source sometimes can be faulty. I am a Hoosier Farmer and have grown the cane and love the sweet syrup on my corn bread.

[markmason]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

[I]The farmer raised corn, wheat, flax, buckwheat, sugar cane but not much stock.


Bear in mind that Suger Cane can't grow in Indiana and Sorgum and Molasses are different products. Sorgum comes from sorgum which can be and still is grown in Indiana. So the first person source sometimes can be faulty. I am a Hoosier Farmer and have grown the cane and love the sweet syrup on my corn bread.

David Harrison Homan Biographical Information

From Hazard’s History of Henry County, Indiana published in Chicago by the Interstate Publishing Co., in 1884, and provided by the Henry County, Indiana, Public Library in New Castle, IN.


Many of our farmers are making sugar and molasses from the Chinese sugar cane. I have no doubt it will be a valued addition to our farm products as the yield is large and the syrup made from it is excellent. I have not yet saw any of the sugar produced but am told it is a good article.

[Hank Trent]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

The farmer raised corn, wheat, flax, buckwheat, sugar cane but not much stock.

Bear in mind that Suger Cane can't grow in Indiana and Sorgum and Molasses are different products. Sorgum comes from sorgum which can be and still is grown in Indiana. So the first person source sometimes can be faulty. I am a Hoosier Farmer and have grown the cane and love the sweet syrup on my corn bread.

I'd advise being very careful before telling someone born in 1846 that you know more about the 1860s than he does. :)

There's nothing inaccurate or unusual about saying "sugar cane" when referring to sorghum in the 1860s. "Chinese sugar cane" was also a common alternative name for it, as was "sorgho," and occasionally "imphee" was used as well, though less often by the 1860s. It was such a new crop at the time of the Civil War, having only been introduced commercially less than 10 years previously, that the name hadn't really solidified yet.

In the period, "molasses" was used to refer to any sweet syrup, so "molasses" and "sorghum" were not necessarily two separate things--though one could also say they were two separate things because the first referred to a foodstuff and the second referred to a plant.

The following is from Prairie Farming in America, 1859, speaking about crops in Illinois:

Sorghum saccharatum, or Chinese sugar-cane, is cultivated in every part of the State, as yet experimentally, for the production of sugar... Some carefully conducted experiments show that the yield of sugar, per acre, from this plant has amounted to 1221 pounds, with seventy-four gallons of molasses.

The enthusiasm about making more expensive sugar from sorghum, rather than cheaper molasses, was a nationwide phenomenon when sorghum was first introduced, but growers soon discovered that sugaring-off the syrup was difficult and inconsistent, and settled on producing molasses only.

It's still tradition today to see sorghum syrup being made at county fairs and harvest festivals around here (Ohio), and the funny thing is, the tradition started when get-rich-quick types were exhibiting their sorghum-made sugar at fairs, trying to sell patent evaporators and other equipment that they promised would let you turn your sorghum crop into high-profit sugar. So much controversy arose about whether it was possible, that during the Civil War, the Ohio state fair required any sorghum product exhibited at the fair be actually produced on site, so there could be no fraud.

Whether sorghum at the time of the war tasted the same as modern sorghum is another question. A modern author, Robert Leslie Jones, in History of Agriculture in Ohio, says at "There was no real revival of interest [after a post-Civil War decline] until the end of the 1870s, when a much better tasting syrup became available through the introduction of the sorghum variety called 'Minnesota Amber.'"

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[billmatt04]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

This is a question for all of you. I was wondering if I would be allowed to share the information that you have posted with some co-workers of mine who are working on first-person personas. I will give full credit to those of you who posted here. But I would like permission first before I do anything. Thanks!

Sincerely,
Matthew Cassady
Pvt. 104th IL Vol. Inf.

[dusty27]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

While I admire those of you who can absorb and remember all of the 19th century minutia allowing you to converse as if you lived then, I am not one of those with this ability.

My "first person" consists of talking of being homesick, how tired I am, reading period literature (including newspapers) and such. I find that the easiest way to "stay in first person" is to avoid any modern conversation, gestures, words, and the like.

My advice (I'm no expert) is to not try too hard and not to stress about doing it. Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing.......

[BorderReb]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

I am not familiar with the Chinese Sugar Cane and wonder if it has been re named or just abandoned due to lack of profitablity. I am not afraid to point out that a first person source should not be taken as gospel, I still question writers and reporters today when they publishs items. That is why it is always good to check several sources. Many Southern writers claimed that Gettysburg was a victory. Depends on the writer and their point of view. It is common place for people today to refer to all soft drinks as a "coke" or a photocopier as a "xerox" even though these things are commonplace to them, and perhaps historians will have to solve these problems of lazy speach in the future.

[Hank Trent]

Re: First Person: Building a Solid Foundation

I still stand by the fact that Molasses and Sorgum are not interchangeable, and it is a misnomer to say sorgum molasses,

Are you saying it's historically inaccurate to call the syrup made from sorghum "molasses" in the 1860s? I posted one example from the period, but I can post more.

If you mean from a grammatical standpoint, someone forgot to tell Webster. ;)

\Mo*las"ses\, n. [F. m['e]lasse, cf. Sp. melaza, Pg. mela[,c]o, fr. L. mellaceus honeylike, honey-sweet, mel, mellis, honey. See Mellifluous, and cf. Melasses.] The thick, brown or dark colored, viscid, uncrystallizable sirup which drains from sugar, in the process of manufacture; any thick, viscid, sweet sirup made from vegetable juice or sap, as of the sorghum or maple. See Treacle.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Speaking of different varieties, Frances Peyre Porcher wrote in Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests (1869, but mostly reprinted from war-time publications): "The best varieties of cane for Syrup are the old-fashioned Chinese, or Black Top, and the Red Top, or Liberian cane. The most successful for producing Sugar, so far as yet demonstrated, is the Oomceanna, or Black Imphee, or African variety." I don't know whether any of those varieties still exist today--there were complaints even in the period that seed wasn't pure, and because it hybridizes easily with broom corn as well as other sorghum varieties, it would be easy for the older varieties to be lost in the race to adopt new improved ones.

And here's yet another name... In another part of the above section, Porcher writes, "the Chinese Sugar millet is an industrial plant of great utility to the South, in these our times of trial, blockade and war."

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net