[imported_delmonico]

I'm still working on the fort pictures from this weekend so I thought I would put a picture up on another subject.

There are a lot of misinformation out there on historical clothing, in fact a friend coined the term "The John Ford Referance Library." This term covers everything you learn from watching movies and TV.

Here in Nebrassky the 4th graders study Newbrassky history. There are several 1 room schools in the area that are restored, including on at the State Fair Grounds. Every 4th grade class in the area get to go for a day. I carry some clothing for kids, boys are easy, a long sleeve cotton shirt and a pair of bib overalls, plus leather lace up shooes will put them right on. Girls can be a problem, we carry a few dresses, but many of the teachers use "Little House on the Prairie as their guide, so the folks come in looking for floor length dress for the girls. This is wrong, they went longer when the became adults. Kids wore higher length dresses.

I just go to my computor and do "schools" as a search on the Butcher Collection.

You can see the teacher has a full lenght dress, but most of the kids are knee length.

(Picture 13627 of the Butcher Collection. 1887 Eastern Custer County.)

I have had teachers in shopping and they all like the history lesson and they take the link to the collection with them for further study.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/nbhihtml/pshome.html

Note the frame school house in the era most were living in sod houses. A common thing in the area, issue bonds for a frame school and pay them off over time. That way the later settlers pay the bulk. ;D

 

[Chester B. Dickens]

They're all looking at something REALLY interesting to their right........

 

[imported_delmonico]

They're all looking at something REALLY interesting to their right........

Maybe the outhouse, might have taken a while to set up the picture. ;D

 

[MidwestGirl]

GREAT pic.. I have seen a lot of those school pics!! Our kids got to visit a one room school house around 3rd or 4th grade field trip. They had to take their lunch in a pail and dress like that era. ;D

 

[imported_delmonico]

The search "schools" will get 200 pictures on the Butcher Collection.

 

[WeHeartLabs]

If I lived closer, I would have begged you to come in and talk to my students (back when I was teaching)...kids love this stuff.

 

[imported_delmonico]

I doubt you'd have had to begged. ;D

 

[Paddysmom]

That's a HUGE class!

 

[Chester B. Dickens]

That's a HUGE class!

29 kids by my count. Our grade school had 30+ kids in three classrooms for each grade (this was 1969-1977). That was upwards of 100 kids!

 

[Paddysmom]

I got to thinking as soon as I posted that about the class size. I looked again at the children and realized there must be several different grade levels represented there.

 

[imported_delmonico]

Would have been grade 1-8, we had some of those yet around here, 2005-2006 was the last year, forced mergers. Went by one just a few miles out of Lincoln yesterday, sad seeing it boarded up, the folks in those districts gave it a good fight. Another passing of an era.

 

[imported_delmonico]

I drove by the marker for this event this last weekend, was about 20 miles from where I went, this account was written in 1905.

"The manner in which this modest and unaspiring school teacher saved the lives of all her pupils during the great storm of Jan. 12, 1888, has won for her wide renown. The forenoon of that day was mild and damp, with a warm breeze from the south. But just at noon, without a minute warning, a hurricane blast came from the north. In an instant the temperature fell several degrees below zero, and the flying snow made it impossible to see but a few feet away. The first blast broke in the door of Miss Freeman's school house. With the aid of her larger pupils she closed and nailed it. A moment later the door gave way again and was irreparable; and to add to the dilemma, a portion of the roof was torn away also. Something must be done at once. There was no alternative. Her sixteen pupils must be taken to the nearest house, a half-mile against the storm. At the peril of her own life, and with calm presence of mind and forethought she hastily but carefully covered the faces of her younger pupils and to prevent them from being lost-for in the terrible storm to wander away (195) a few feet was to be certainly lost--she tied them together. The older pupils she placed in the lead, and to see that none faltered, she brought up the rear. Thus was the heroic march begun and successfully accomplished."

The Headlight, in a late issue, tells us that "her school consisted of nine small children, and when the blizzard struck the school house and tore off a large portion of the roof, she gathered her children together and, tying them with a cord, one end of which she took in her hand, she started for the sod house above, about half a mile distant, where she arrived safely, after suffering from fatigue and cold, for which heroic act her name has been immortalized in story and song. Miss Freeman is now the wife of Mr. Penny, a prosperous merchant of Lexington, Neb."

 

[Chester B. Dickens]

I SWEAR that tying-the-students-together-in-a-blizzard story was a Little House episode.

 

[imported_delmonico]

Writers have to get ideas somewhere. ;D

 

[MidwestGirl]

I loved Little House on the Prairie books and the show!!!