Museum Trustee Association

Description

The Museum Trustee Association (MTA) is the only organization dedicated to providing ongoing board education programs, services and resources for the special needs of museum trustees. Museum trustees are elected to govern institutions voluntarily. There are nearly 75,000 museum trustees in the United States; they set policy, ensure funding and oversee the management of their institutions, and in many cases are almost entirely untrained. The moral and legal obligations of museum trustees are complex, and in many respects, unique to the museum world.

The site offers resources for museum trustees and information on events sponsored by the association.

Help Wanted!

Quiz Webform ID
22411
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Teaser

Cork-cutter, soapboiler, or goldbeater —what could you be growing up in 1837?

quiz_instructions

Edward Hazen's 1837 Panorama of Professions and Trades described hundreds of occupations to which a young person might aspire in Jacksonian America. Match the names of the occupations below with Hazen's illustrations of them:

Quiz Answer




1. Glassblower




2. Milliner—a maker and trimmer of hats and other accessories




3. Schoolmaster




4. Cooper—a maker of barrels and other casks




5. Dyer




6. Cabinetmaker

For more information

For more engravings and descriptions of early 19th-century careers, skim through the full text of Edward Hazen's The Panorama of Professions and Trades. It covers more than 60 occupations, including soapboiler, comb-maker, goldbeater, and lithographer, with descriptions of the work of each craftsman and of the products he or she created.

Though originally printed in London in 1807, The Book of English Trades, and Library of the Useful Arts was reprinted in the U.S. in 1811. Like Edward Hazen's Panorama, the Book provides a brief description of many occupations, but also offers a history for each, and a summary of the education and certification necessary to pursue each trade.

For something a bit more contemporary, Eric Sloane's A Museum of Early American Tools presents line-drawn illustrations of tools from early American craftsmanship.

Sources
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Attention, Shoppers!

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Teaser

The evolution of the shopper's paradise—from rural sprawl to urban mall

quiz_instructions

Many developments in the manufacturing, wholesale buying, distribution, and advertisement of merchandise helped create the success of the urban department store. Several technological innovations also contributed. Arrange these in chronological order (1=earliest, 6=latest):

First department store in America
First rapid transit railway in America
First skyscraper in America (building with a structural steel frame)
First passenger escalator
First passenger elevator
First catalog mail order business

Quiz Answer

1. The first American department store was, depending on one's precise definition of a department store, either A. T. Stewart's "Marble Palace" on East Broadway in New York City in 1846, or R. H. Macy's store at 6th Avenue and 14th Street in 1858, or the Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) in Salt Lake City, established in 1868.

2. The first successful passenger elevator, constructed by Elisha Otis, was installed in 1857 in Eder V. Haughwout's five-story china emporium at 488 Broadway in New York City. This allowed buildings with more floors that could be easily accessed by customers.

3. The first rapid transit railway in the U.S. was the elevated train built in New York City starting in 1868. New York's subway opened in 1904. This allowed easy access to downtown locations for potential customers.

4. The first catalog mail order business was begun in 1872 in Chicago by Aaron Montgomery Ward.

5. The first building in the U.S. to use structural steel in its frame—the first "skyscraper"—was the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, at the corner of La Salle and Adams Streets, built in 1884. This innovation allowed behemoth multi-floor buildings in downtown real estate centers.

6. Escalators, first installed at a few elevated train platforms in New York City in 1900, soon appeared in several New York City department stores, including Macy's, and within a couple of years appeared in Philadelphia and Chicago department stores.

For more information

deptstore_escalators.jpg From about the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, the urban department store embodied America's highest ideal of retail shopping. It offered a variety of durable goods at various price levels in a single store.

By the beginning of the 19th century, customers at the largest department stores in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia could expect to enter, not just large "general stores," but expositions of the products of the world. In addition to making purchases, they could also receive various services and advice on merchandise and fashion. The customers could expect to be provided with doormen, taxicab service, waiting rooms for reading, writing, and telephoning, and assistance buying theater tickets, as well as full-service post offices that issued money orders and wrapped parcels, and railroad offices for making reservations, purchasing tickets, and checking luggage. Elsewhere in the building were hairdressers' shops and barber shops. Most department stores also had "style theaters" with fashion shows, as well as one or more tearooms, lunchrooms, or restaurants, and even a physician in attendance at the service of the customers.

Sources
  • "Otis Improved Elevator," Scientific American, November 25, 1854, p. 85.
  • "The Elevated Railway": "Proposed Railway Systems for New York," Appleton's Journal, June 25, 1870, p. 716.
  • Detail of advertisement for the Boston Store (Chicago), illustrating their new escalator, Chicago Daily Tribune, December 10, 1905, p. H4.
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Detail of advertisement for the Boston Store (Chicago)
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The Ice Cream Wars

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Teaser

Was there conflict in the past of one of our favorite summer treats? Take this quiz to find out!

quiz_instructions

The history of ice cream seems like it should be easy enough to determine, but many of its landmarks are hidden in the fog of historical controversy. Here are milestones in the history of American ice cream. Which ones are highly contested and which are not? (Hint: there are five that are contested):

Quiz Answer

1744 The first written record of ice cream in America (and the first use of the exact phrase "ice cream" rather than "iced cream" is made when a journal entry by William Black of Virginia notes that Maryland Colonial Governor Thomas Bladen notes servedice cream ("After which came a Dessert no less Curious; Among the Rarities of which it was Compos'd, was some fine Ice Cream which, with the Strawberries and Milk, eat most Deliciously…") to him and other dinner guests at the Governor's home in Annapolis:

not contested.

1774 Immigrant from London Philip Lenzi, a caterer, opens the nation's first ice cream parlor, on Dock Street in New York City. On May 12, 1777, Lenzi places the first advertisement for ice cream in America in The New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, noting that he would make it available "almost every day.":

not contested.

1780s George and Martha Washington often serve ice cream to their guests. In one year alone, President Washington spends over $200 on ice cream, a huge amount at the time:

not contested.

1784 Thomas Jefferson records a French recipe for vanilla ice cream (custard based) in his recipe book. In 1802 at a White House state dinner, he serves small balls of vanilla ice cream encased in warm pastry:

not contested.

1806 Frederic Tudor begins cutting and shipping ice from Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to states south and around the world:

not contested.

1813 James and Dolley Madison serve strawberry ice cream at Madison's second inaugural ball. Mrs. Jeremiah ("Aunt Sallie") Shadd, a freed black slave, who has a catering business in Wilmington, Delaware, makes the ice cream from her own recipe. Also working at the White House as a chef is African-American cook and entrepreneur Augustus Jackson, who, after he leaves the White House and moves to Philadelphia, creates many new ice cream recipes and a sophisticated system of distributing it to retail merchants in large tin cans:

not contested.

1832 Massachusetts brass founder John Matthews invents the soda fountain:

contested. Some sources credit Pennsylvania physician Samuel Fahnstock with inventing it in 1819. And some credit Jacob Ebert of Cadiz, Ohio and George Dulty of Wheeling, Virginia with inventing it in 1833, and taking out a patent on it.

1843 Philadelphia housewife Nancy M. Johnson invents the hand-crank ice cream freezer, and receives a patent for it, the rights to which she sells for $200 to wholesaler William G. Young:

not contested.

1851 Quaker Jacob Fussell, using icehouses and a large version of Johnson's ice cream freezing machine, begins to produce ice cream from his Baltimore, Maryland factory (and then in Washington, DC, Boston, and New York), and selling it on the street from carts, helping to turn ice cream into a cheap, regular treat:

not contested.

1867 J. B. Sutherland of Detroit, Michigan patents the refrigerated railroad car:

not contested.

1874 The ice cream soda is created by soda concessionaire Robert M. Green for the semicentennial celebration of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. He had been making soda drinks of sweet cream, syrup, ice, and carbonated water, a drink already well-known and called, fancifully, "ice cream soda." When he runs out of cream, he substitutes ice cream (Philadelphia-style vanilla ice cream, which means it was not custard based):

contested. Some sources say the ice cream soda was invented by two newsboys, John Robertson and Francis Tietz, at Kline's Confectionary Store in New York City in 1872, when they asked Mr. Kline to put a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a slice of pineapple into a glass of soda water.

1878 William Clewell, a confectioner in Reading, Pennsylvania, receives the first patent for an ice cream scoop. It is shaped like a candle snuffer:

not contested.

1881 The ice cream sundae is created, in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, by Ed C. Berners, who operates an ice cream shop at 1404 Fifteenth Street. A teen-aged customer, George Hallauer, asks Mr. Berner to put some chocolate sauce on his ice cream. Prior to this, chocolate sauce had been used only in ice cream sodas. Berners complies and charges Hallauer—and other customers afterwards—5 cents. He serves it only on Sunday:

contested. Some sources say the ice cream sundae was invented on Sunday afternoon, April 3, 1892, by Chester C. Platt, proprietor of the Platt & Colt Pharmacy in Ithaca, New York, when he improvised a bowl of vanilla ice cream, topped with cherry syrup and candied cherry, calling it a "Cherry Sunday," in honor of the day in which it is invented. Other sources say the phrase "ice cream sundae" was created in Evanston, Illinois, sometime in the late 1800s, when, in an effort to circumvent the religious ban against frivolously "sucking soda" on Sundays, Garwoods' Drugstore offered its customers what was essentially a concoction of everything in an ice cream soda, without the soda.

1894 Edson Clemant Baugham patents a spring-handle, one-handed ice cream scoop, which is manufactured by the Kingery Company of Cincinnati:

not contested.

1897 African-American inventor Alfred L. Cralle, while working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, patents the lever-operated, half-globed-shaped, hand ice cream scooper:

not contested.

1902 Mechanical refrigeration takes over from ice and salts in the ice cream industry:

not contested.

1904 The ice cream cone is introduced, at the St. Louis World's Fair, Louisiana Purchase Exposition. An ice cream vendor named Arnold Fornachou runs out of dishes and a Syrian vendor named Abe Doumar (or a Lebanese vendor named Ernest A. Hamwi) seizes the moment to roll a "zalabia"—a sugar waffle—into a cone and comes to his rescue:

contested. Some sources say the ice cream cone was invented by Italian immigrant Italo Marciony of New York, a pushcart ice cream vendor in New York, in 1896, who also, perhaps, invented the ice cream sandwich by putting a slice of ice cream between waffle squares cut from a sheet. Other sources say the ice cream cone has its origins in the mists of history, but was first described in Mrs. Marshall's Cookery Book, whose author, Agnes Marshall, published it in London in 1888. Still others discern a woman licking an ice cream cone in an 1807 picturing fashionable customers eating at the Frascati café in Paris, although this is uncertain because cone-shaped ice cream bowls were not unknown at the time.

1904 Soda jerk (and soon-to-be graduate of University of Pittsburgh's School of Pharmacy) David E. Strickler invents the banana split (and the elongated dish to serve it in) while working in a drug store in Latrobe, Pennsylvania:

contested. Some sources credit Ernest Hazard, owner of Hazard's Restaurant in Wilmington, Ohio, with inventing the banana split in 1907, and his cousin, Clifton Hazard, with inventing the name "banana split."

1905 Eleven-year-old Frank Epperson leaves his fruit-flavored drink (powdered flavor plus water) outside in cold weather, with a stirring stick in it, and "invents" the "Epsicle ice pop," which he patents eighteen years later, in 1924. His children rename it the "Popsicle.":

not contested.

1906 In C. C. (Clarence Clifton) Brown's Ice Cream Parlour at 7007 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, the first hot fudge sundae is served:

not contested.

1910 President William Howard Taft begins keeping a Holstein cow named "Pauline Wayne" on the White House lawn, replacing one named "Mooley Wooly," who had provided milk (and from it, ice cream) for the First Family for a year and a half:

not contested.



1911 General Electric offers an electric refrigerator for home use:

not contested.

1919 Prohibition becomes law, causing some beer manufacturers to become ice cream manufacturers and some saloons to become ice cream parlors:

not contested.

1919 Onawa, Iowa inventor and high school teacher Christian Nelson, who moonlights as a soda jerk, invents the first chocolate-covered ice cream bar He calls it the "Temptation I-Scream Bar," and writes the advertising jingle, "I scream, you scream, we all scream for the I-Scream Bar." After going into partnership with confectioner Russell Stover, Nelson changes its name and patents it as the "Eskimo Pie.":

not contested.

1920 Youngstown, Ohio candy maker Harry Burt invents the first ice cream on a stick, the Good Humor Bar:

not contested.

1921 The Commissioner of Ellis Island provides that a scoop of vanilla ice cream be included in a "Welcome to America" meal for immigrants arriving through the facility:

not contested.

1922 Chicago Walgreens employee Ivar "Pop" Coulson takes a malted milk drink (milk, chocolate syrup, and malt), adds two scoops of vanilla ice cream, mixes it up, and creates the milk shake:

not contested.

1923 H. P. Hood of Boston introduces the paper cup filled at the factory with ice cream at the National Ice Cream Convention in Cleveland. He calls it the "Hoodsie," but it is renamed the "Dixie Cup" in 1924:

not contested.

1923 A & P supermarkets introduce ice cream cabinets in their 1,200 stores nationwide:

not contested.

1926 The Hershey's Company expands its product offerings to include Hershey's Syrup:

not contested.

1931 Ernest Wiegand, horticulturalist at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University) in Corvallis, develops the modern method of firming and preserving maraschino cherries:

not contested.

1940 J. F. "Grandpa" and H. A. "Alex" McCullough, proprietors of the Homemade Ice Cream Company in Green River, Illinois, begin to market "soft serve" ice cream under the name of "Dairy Queen.":

not contested.

1984 President Ronald Reagan designates July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day:

not contested.

Sources
  • Anne Cooper Funderburg, Chocolate, Strawberry and Vanilla: A History of American Ice Cream. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Press, 1996.
  • Anne Cooper Funderburg, Sundae Best: A History of Soda Fountains. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 2002.
  • Jeri Quinzio, Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 2009.
  • Oscar E. Anderson, Refrigeration in America: A History of a New Technology and Its Impact. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1953.
  • Gavin Weightman. The Frozen-Water Trade: A True Story. New York: Hyperion, 2003.
  • Sara Rath. About Cows. Stillwater, Minn.: Voyageur Press, 2000.
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Paradise in a Breakfast Bowl

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Teaser

A morning meditation on flakes: Are you what you eat? Do your morals and values help you decide which cereal to eat in the morning?

quiz_instructions

Pre-processed, dry breakfast cereal was largely invented by American "food reformers" who wished to create a food that was convenient, healthy, and tasty, but who also believed that such a food would regenerate mankind. They wished to bring humans back to the original, "natural," spiritual state in which they lived in the Garden of Eden. Try to figure out, for each of the following products, if the inventor was motivated by religious ideas.

Quiz Answer

1. Graham Crackers

Yes. Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) was the most renowned food reformer of the 19th century. He wrote The Philosophy of Sacred History Considered in Relation to Human Aliment and the Wines of Scripture. Graham was known by the nickname of "Doctor Sawdust" because of his promotion of the virtues of bread made with whole-wheat ("Graham") flour. His followers set up "Graham hotels," like small, provisional utopias, where guests following Graham's dietary regimen could board with like-minded progressive reformers.

Russell Thacher Trall (1812-1877) was a water-cure physician who opened the Hygieo-Therapeutic Institute in Manhattan in 1843. Trall was the creator of Graham crackers (made with Sylvester Graham's "Graham flour") sometime in the 1850s.

2. Quaker Oats

No. Business partners Henry D. Seymour and William Heston of Ravenna, Ohio, registered the Quaker Man as a trademark in 1877 (the first trademark registered for a breakfast cereal). They made Quaker Oats, steel-cut oats packaged in 2-pound paper boxes with cooking directions on the outside, an innovation for the time. The name "Quaker Oats" would seem to tie the product to the owners' religious views, but Seymour said he chose it simply because he found an encyclopedia article on Quakers and decided that the qualities described there—integrity, honesty, and purity—were ones he wanted to link to his company's product. Heston credited himself with the name, saying that while walking on the streets of Cincinnati, he had seen a picture of Quaker William Penn, whose clothes and character inspired him to choose the name. Nevertheless, either way, it couldn't have hurt to conjure the figure of a religious Nonconformist, waving a scroll inscribed "Pure," on the package of a breakfast cereal. Potential customers would have associated it with the other Progressive health food items, especially wholegrain breakfast foods, that were being urged by food reformers descended from Protestant Nonconformists and Inner Light advocates.

3. Granola

Yes. Dr. James Caleb Jackson (1811-1895) invented the first dry, whole grain breakfast cereal, which he called "Granula." He took over the "Our Home Hygienic Institute" at Dansville, New York. Jackson did not serve red meat, tea, coffee, alcohol, or tobacco at the spa and emphasized fruits, vegetables, and unprocessed grains.

Ellen Gould White (1827-1915), the Seventh-Day Adventist prophetess, had a vision in 1863 in which the relation of physical health to spiritual health, the body to the spirit, was revealed to her. She set up the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek, as well as other sanitariums. She published the pamphlet, Health, or How to Live. Don't trust the appetite, she said, which has become perverted, or the dietary customs of society. She counseled eating grains, nuts, fruit, and whole-grain flour.

Many Seventh-Day Adventists, including Ellen G. White, were guests at Dr. Jackson's health resort. He argued that controlling the appetite and passions would make the person more spiritual. Granula was a mix of Graham flour and water baked in brick ovens, then broken up into bean-sized bits, and baked again and then broken up into smaller bits. They had to be soaked in order to be soft enough to eat. Jackson created the "Our Home Granula Company" and sold Granula by mail order.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) was a follower of Ellen White. He studied medicine in New York City, where he conceived of revolutionizing "the breakfast food idea" after growing weary of preparing his own daily breakfasts of seven graham crackers and an apple. When he opened his Adventist health sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, he found a way to make already-prepared breakfast food for his patients, inventing Granola, which was clearly indebted to Dr. Jackson's Granula.

4. Shredded Wheat

Yes. Henry Drushel Perky (1843-1906) was a dyspeptic who studied and practiced law in Nebraska and was a member of the Nebraska State Senate. He moved to Colorado for his health in 1880, where he was a lawyer for the Union Pacific Railroad, and then a partner in a steel railroad car manufacturing company. He came to believe that, "The evil in man cannot be legislated out of him, but it can be fed out of him," and opened a vegetarian restaurant in Denver. In 1892, he developed "little whole wheat mattresses," Shredded Wheat. He founded the Cereal Machine Company, eventually moving it to Niagara Falls. His mission was to provide food to the human body so that man would revert to his "natural condition."

5. Kellogg's Corn Flakes

Yes. In 1894, in order to "replace the half-cooked, pasty, dyspepsia-producing breakfast mush," John Harvey Kellogg and his younger brother Will Keith Kellogg (1860-1951) developed a method of flaking and toasting cooked wheat kernels, producing a breakfast food cereal they called "Granose." Will then turned to corn, inventing Corn Flakes.

In 1898, they founded the Sanitas Food Company, to sell health food via mail order. In 1906, Will established the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flakes Company. When J. H. sold to W. K. his interest in the corn flakes company, J. H. used the proceeds in 1911 to create the influential Race Betterment Foundation, in order to prepare the way for a super race of "new men," and to set up a "eugenic registry" that evaluated couples for breeding based on their genetic pedigrees in order to stop the propagation of "defectives."

6. Grape-Nuts

Yes. Charles William Post (1854-1914) went to Dr. Kellogg's sanitarium as a patient, but then became interested in making breakfast food himself. In 1895, he founded the Postum Cereal Company, with the sole product of Postum, a coffee replacement made from wheat and molasses, the idea for which he probably got from Dr. Kellogg's similar product. In 1897, he also developed Grape-Nuts, a breakfast cereal from wheat that had a nutty flavor and, as a sweetener, used malt dextrose, which was commonly called grape sugar. Post founded his own highly successful breakfast cereal company. Each package of Grape-Nuts came with a kind of religious tract, The Road to Wellville, on how to gain a healthy body and spirit.

7. Post Toasties

Yes. C. W. Post's cereal flakes, which he first marketed in 1908, were called "Elijah's Manna," but when people objected on religious grounds, he changed their name to Post Toasties.

8. Ralston Purina Wheat

Yes. William Henry Danforth (1870-1956), a St. Louis mill owner, founded the Robinson-Danforth Commission to feed the nation's farm animals in 1894, but a hurricane leveled his mill a year later, and he was forced to rebuild, after which he began making a breakfast cereal, Purina Wheat.

Danforth then contacted "Dr. Everett Ralston," whose real name was Albert Webster Edgerly (aka Edmund Shaftsbury or Shaftesbury) (1852-1926), a debarred lawyer, con man, cult leader, self-appointed health expert, and elocution teacher, who had founded perhaps the world's first multilevel marketing scheme. This was the Ralston Health Club, a Washington, D.C.-based, national membership health products club, with 800,000 members in 1898.The Club required its members to pay large amounts for a series of books that told the secret of how to live for 200 years by collecting and preserving in the body the occult force of "Glame" and learning to speak his invented "Adam-Man tongue." Danforth secured "Dr. Ralston's" endorsement of Purina Wheat, and added his name to Danforth's company—Ralston-Purina. Danforth's cereal became Ralston Health Club Breakfast Food, then Ralston Purina Wheat, then Instant Ralston.

9. Wheat Chex

Yes. Eventually Ralston-Purina introduced Wheat Chex and its sister cereals. Danforth advocated a proto-New Age, positive-mind-over-matter approach to life, which also combined elements of "Muscular Christianity" and the Social Gospel, summed up in his "four square" philosophy which inspired his company's checkerboard logo, and which was echoed in the form of the little squares of Wheat Chex. "I dare you to develop a magnetic personality," he wrote in his book, I Dare You!

10. Wheaties

No. Like Quaker Oats, Wheaties was not developed out of the religious conviction of its inventors. In 1921, a clinician at a Minneapolis health clinic accidentally spilled wheat bran gruel onto the top of the stove. When the heat dried bits of it, he thought it had become a candidate for a marketable breakfast cereal product. He took the idea to the Washburn Crosby Company, whose head miller, George Cormack, perfected the product, and it was first introduced in 1924. Although its originators had no direct religious motivations, the aura surrounding other breakfast cereal products would seem to have made possible the company's extraordinary claims about Wheaties' ability to endow the body with strength and links to an array of athletic superstars.

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When Whales Lit the World

Quiz Webform ID
22414
date_published
Teaser

Up to the 20th century, whalers provided oil for the industrial revolution.

quiz_instructions

Up to the 20th century, men shipped out whaling—risking their lives and spending up to five years at sea per voyage. Why? Because whalers lit the world, providing oil for lamps and for the machines of the industrial revolution—at no small cost to the whale population. Test your whaling knowledge.

Quiz Answer

1. Many idioms and words we use today arose from maritime jargon. Which of the following is not true?

b. "Blackstrap" was a sailor's nickname for tar.

"Blackstrap," today used for thick molasses, was a nickname not for tar, but for a cheap wine typically served in the Mediterranean. Sailors stationed in the area were said to be "black-strapped."

As for the other terms, cooks were permitted to keep a portion of the "slush," or fat scum from boiling meat, in the ship's stores. They then sold the fat to tallow merchants, providing the cooks with a handy "slush fund." Plates were generally square in the British Navy, for easier storage—leading to our adoption of the phrase, "a square meal." Finally, the word, "junk" originated as a word for rope worn to the point that it was useless for anything beyond making fenders or friction-reducing sail cushioning (baggywrinkle). Eventually, according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, it also was used to refer to the meat, often of poor quality, fed to sailors, and then to anything discarded or broken.

2. There are many whales in the sea, and each had its own peculiarities noted by whalers. Which of the following is not true?

a. American whalers sought out the blue whale, as its immense size provided the most blubber, and therefore, profit.

Blue whales were unmanageable with American whaling technology. (Groups with more advanced tools, such as the Scandinavians, did hunt them.)

Right whales were given their name based on their by-products and the comparative ease of the kill. Sperm whales were similarly prized; however, they often dove deeply when injured. Secured to the line of a harpoon, attendant whalers had to sever the line fast, or follow the whale to the bottom. John Smith was interested in whaling in early America. However, he failed to locate any whale species considered valuable at the time.

3. Among seafaring tales, few are as well known as Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Which of the following is not true?

c. The name of Ahab's vessel, the Pequod, is taken from a type of indigenous vessel used in Rokovoko, the island from which the character Queequeg came.

The Pequod is likely named after the Pequot, a Native American group native to what is now Connecticut. Rokovoko (or Kokovoko in some versions) is a fictional island created by Melville.

Moby Dick is thought to be based on a real white sperm whale, known as Mocha Dick. As for the chapel in New Bedford, the pulpit was added after the release of the 1956 film Moby Dick, starring Gregory Peck. The pulpit was redesigned to meet the expectations of tourists, disappointed by the lack of the prominent film feature. Finally, the Coffin and Starbuck families intermarried in the 17th century, creating a long line of Quaker whalers. Both Coffin and Starbuck remained Nantucket surnames.

4. Different groups of people were considered bad luck on ships, and treated with suspicion when on board. Which of the following groups was not considered a risk?

b. One-eyed men

There was no stigma attached to sailors or passengers with one eye—although this was not true of the cross-eyed or "swivel-eyed."

Finns were believed to whistle the winds, have the second sight, or be in league with the Devil. In contrast, preachers, as men of God, could cause harm to vessels carrying them, as the sea was considered godless. Bringing a godly individual aboard was taunting the sea. Similar superstitions, although less common, applied to the Bible. Last, but not least, women were generally considered ill luck on board. However, a naked woman would bring favor to the voyage by shaming the sea into submission. This sparked the tradition of naked female figureheads. Women were also believed to be the best navigators.

5. One final question, a "grab bag" of whaling fact and fiction. Which of the following is not true?

a. A sea shanty is a type of dance, akin to a jig, in which the watch would take turns performing.

Sea shanties were, in fact, work songs, used to time tasks that required group coordination, such as furling sails. They featured call and response singing and were highly rhythmic.

Whaling expeditions chose to freeze their vessels into the ice knowing that they would be among the first whalers in prime hunting locations come the thaw. One of the better known captains involved in the practice, George Comer, also used the winter to conduct ethnographic studies of the local Inuit. Lewis Temple, an African American man, did invent the toggle head harpoon, which released a hook on the harpoon head when it entered the whale. This prevented the harpoon from easily sliding out of the wound, and revolutionized the whaling industry. Scrimshaw was a recognized whalers' art. Common forms included pie crimpers, walking sticks, and corset busks, frequently given to sweethearts as gifts.

For more information

Want to know more about the history of whaling in America? The best place to start would be the museum of "the city that lit America," New Bedford, MA. The New Bedford Whaling Museum offers a multitude of sources to introduce you to the fascinating world of the country's now defunct whaling industry, from the biology of whales to the life of the whalers. Six online exhibits cover everything from whaling ports to U.S. whalers and the opening of Japan. Also be sure to read over the curriculum guide which looks at the uses of whale products, signing up for a whaling voyage, conditions at sea, sailors' free time, whaling tasks, and information on whaling and conservation today. The packet includes primary sources, making it easy for educators to introduce whaling as a vital part of U.S. history—without ignoring its environmental implications. Finally, the Collections Search (accessible from the main page) is a fantastic resource for artifacts and prints to illustrate handouts, PowerPoint presentations, or other materials.

Should the opportunity ever arise, be sure to visit in person! In addition to the museum, the area offers the sailors' chapel mentioned in Moby Dick, a National Park Service visitor's center, and a modern working waterfront.

Sources
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Building America: Minnesota's Iron Range, U.S. Industrialization, and the Creation of a World Power

Description

From the Minnesota Humanities Center website:

"How would you like to spend a week discussing your passion for American history with distinguished university professors, traversing Minnesota's historic Iron Range, and planning activities for your students? Would you like to experience the geography, geology, the mines and their contributions to American history, as well as the differing ethnic and immigrant populations in order to bring the learning out of the books and into living history?

"The story of Minnesota's Iron Range is rarely, if ever told. It is absent from general treatments of American history, absent from examinations of industrial America, and absent from studies of the U.S. military build-ups in the first and second World Wars; the Iron Range appears as only a footnote in historical treatments of the American steel industry. The history of the people who came to work these mines is part of the history of Americans; it is the story of immigrants, of conflict and assimilation, of people creating lives for themselves, their families, and for others.

"School teachers, university scholars, and museum curators will explore this story during [this] week-long teacher workshop developed by the Minnesota Humanities Center."

Contact name
Casey DeMarais
Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
National Endowment for the Humanities, Minnesota Humanities Center
Phone number
6517724278
Target Audience
K-12
Start Date
Cost
Free; $1,200 stipend
Duration
Six days
End Date

America's Industrial Revolution at the Henry Ford

Description

From the Henry Ford:

"How would you like to spend mornings discussing your passion for American history with distinguished university professors, mid-days on field trips to more than a dozen historic farms, mills and laboratories, and the afternoons planning activities for your students? Would you like to develop methods of using all five of your senses and your students' different learning styles to bring America's Industrial Revolution out of the books and into living history?

The story of America's Industrial Revolution is an epic tale, full of heroes and heroines, villains and vagabonds, accomplishments and failures, sweated toil and elegant mechanisms, grand visions and unintended consequences. How did the United States evolve from a group of 18th century agricultural colonies clustered along the eastern seaboard into the world's greatest industrial power? Why did this nation become the seedbed of so many important 19th century inventions and the birthplace of assembly-line mass production in the early 20th century? Who contributed? Who benefited? Who was left behind?

School teachers, university scholars and museum curators will explore this story during [this week-long workshop]."

Contact name
Dorothy Ebersole
Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
National Endowment for Humanities, The Henry Ford
Phone number
3139826100
Target Audience
K-12
Start Date
Cost
Free; $1200 stipend
Duration
Six days
End Date