Local LH?

Today I attended Hillsboro, New Hampshire's Living History Event. I found out about it because it comes up toward the top in a Google search of "living history." I did not know about it because I live less than an hour away, nor because I am connected to the local LH community. The truth is, I am not connected to the local community. My LH community consist of those folks I've met through the Connecticut Renaissance Faire or Reenactorfest, and to confound that I don't do wars or typical American history. It just has not turned out that way. But there are local folks doing this history thing and in a time period a little more accessible than the 15th century. So I went to Hillsboro hoping to pick up something for my kit, learn local history, and possibly make some connections.

I sabotaged myself by arriving late and not having exact directions so I was anxious and self conscious by the time I arrived. The woman who sold me the ticket assured me that the reenactors at their encampment would stick around after 3 pm and I chose to believe her rather than trust my own experience which said that they all had to go to work on Monday and would pack up early. I stopped by the encampment, drove over to the Franklin Pierce Homestead for a quick tour, found my way to the lovely original town center, then trotted back to the encampment to discover the site covered in cars and half the tents already down by 3:30. In the little time I had I did get something out of the trip.

I went in intending to chat up the Rev War folks, in their encampment but the first person who acknowledged my existence was wearing Nike sandals with her colonial skirt and short gown. The next group had a good looking set up, but the cheese on their plate was still in its Stop & Shop wrapper, and their fruit was covered in stickers. I try not to be judgemental, I know we all do it for different reasons, but really, can't you at least remove the plastic? I did get up the gumption to ask one person where they were based, I think the guy was disappointed that I did not ask him a question about history, I'm just not that interested in warfare. He did answer me, it turns out he is from one town away from where I live. Why did I not ask any follow-up questions? I don't know, I just did not feel right.

I did manage to add to my kit. There is a pewterer (pewter smith?) in Hilsboro who had awesome spoons at reasonable prices. After 3 years, the Reischachs will finally have decent spoons! I saw a lovely local town that I had driven through many times but not actually seen, and at the very end I got to chat with someone who will hopefully be of great help in the chicken project.

So in the end I had a good day, but please people, remove the stickers from your apples. Read this entry on entry page

Death of a Podcast

The Living History Podcast is dead, long live the Living History Podcast.

Stephen and I love living history, we've been involved for ages and plan to be for the rest of our lives. But the ways we approach history, and LH change with time.

Over three years ago we thought a good way to connect might be to put out a podcast, focusing on the issues and topics that would be of interest no matter what time period one happened to be interested in. We purchased a domain name, some server space and some microphones, came up with a list of topics, then got all our friends to listen to our first attempts at podcasting before launching the podcast in December of 2009. We actually kept it up fairly well with only a few interruptions until July of last year. We made a few friends through the podcast, but we never reached large audiences. We needed to set aside time each week for the two of us to sit down together to plan, rehearse and record, and while that was a bit of a strain, it was not a bother when we had something to say.

But we still have things to say! We still are very involved in LH, and looking for ways to continue to reach out. Why exactly did we stop recording the podcast? Why did we let the domain expire and the web hosting lapse? I guess we both lost interest in the medium. We were not reaching the amount of people we wanted to, the feedback was not worth the effort anymore.

Now we've got to think of a new way to reach out to the LH community, because we are both still convinced that there is one, and that we could all benefit from more sharing amongst us.

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The Power of Suggestion

When school was still in session I ran a number of Strawbery Banke workshops on the topic of Archaeology. One of the locations the school kids and I visited during the workshop was the back yard of the Rider-Wood house, where we could talk about Widow Mary Rider and how we could learn about her life. In the back yard there are some bushes, plants, the back door step, and a recreated outbuilding. Half of the outbuilding might be a wood shed, or some other type of storage, that part does not really matter because the other half is a re-created privy. It is a multi-holer, some covered over, some just a hole into the darkness below. I always send the kids in and tell them they will have to tell me what the building is used for when they come back out. The usual reaction is that the kids jump up from where I've made them sit and they rush into the building, bottleneck at the door, and as some of them get their first glimpses the shrieks and the moans start. At least a few dramatic 4th graders will even come out holding their noses. They all tell me that it smells horrible in there.

The funny thing is...it does not smell horrible in Mary Rider's Privy. The thing is a small wooden shed that has never actually been used (to my knowledge.) It smells like wooden shed. I've been in there many times to check after the kids have come out, it does not matter whether the day is hot or cold, it smells like unused building. I could never convince the kids of that though. Read this entry on entry page

Now I'm Cooking

If anyone had asked me even 6 months ago if I thought in the span of a week I'd make pie crust, noodles from scratch, cook up 3 pounds of strawberries, and stew a roast in prunes, well I would not have believed the first bit let alone all the rest. I don't cook at home because both Stephen and Alysa enjoy cooking, and they both hate washing dishes. Usually at home by the time I am hungry enough to want to eat I am too hungry to cook.

But when food is a method to learn about history, I'm finding my appetite for cooking is fairly unbounded! there are 2 houses at Strawbery Banke where cooking takes place: Wheelwright House, where a modern person shows off 18th Century hearth cooking, and Shapiro House where Mrs. Shapiro makes kosher meals on a coal stove that has been converted to gas. I am assigned to both houses at various times over the course of the week, and I always end my week with Saturdays in Shapiro.

One of the ways that the museum saves money on supplies is by asking us cooks to bring raw ingredients in, with the understanding that we can bring home anything we cook. It guarantees the museum a variety of food offerings while Stephen and Alysa get to take a break from cooking to try things like sweet & sour cabbage stew, and Colonial meat pies. I am having so much fun, learning by cooking, and helping teach museum visitors about the seasonality of food or about the rules of koshering. It is a little nerve-wracking trying to plan out menus in advance so I can purchase the ingredients, luckily I build enough time into most mornings that I can stop at the store on the way in to work if necessary. So far I have not had any major failures, I have burnt some fritters when I was too busy chatting with the school children to remember to flip them, and this week it was too hot for my pie crust to hold together, but for the most part I've been very pleased with my undertakings.

In Shapiro I am working from the International Jewish Cookbook. It was published in 1917 and is available online here and my mother found a version printed in 1947 with ration substitutions added in. I started the summer by making a chicken soup (so traditional) and followed it the next week with Cholent, a Jewish dish made up on friday night and stewed all night so it could be eaten on Saturday. Since I was cooking on Saturday and serving on Sunday I made a sweet & sour cabbage soup the week after, stewed beef with prunes & sweet potatoes the week after that.

My biggest cooking accomplishment in Shapiro House came on a day when one of the other Mrs. Shapiros called out sick, and I got to cover in the middle of the week. Since I did not get time to prepare I was dependent on the supplies already in the house. In looking through the little pantry I found plenty of flour and sugar, a box of dried up prunes and a jar of apricot jelly. My mind went instantly to hammentashen, so I used my smartphone to look up a recipe that sounded the most like the way my mom makes them, dug up some yeast and went to town. Before that dy I had never made any recipe with rising dough on my own. But when you have all day and no-one is required to eat what you make it seemed like a good time to take a risk.

I set the prunes to stew in some water and made my dough, went to lunch and when I came back the dough had risen nicely and the prunes were well stewed. I spent the rest of the afternoon making small batches of little triangular pastries that turned out delicious.

Colonial hearth cooking is its own unique experience but this post is long enough. I'll have to tell you all about my wheelwright exploits at a future time.

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Cluck Cluck

About a month ago now I received an email, sent to all members of the SBM educational staff asking if anyone had any interest learning more about chickens, with the possibility of the museum starting a livestock program.

Strawbery Banke does not currently have a livestock program. Some of the tenants who rent apartments at the museum have dogs, there is a local cat named JD that considers the museum his territory, and there is a woodchuck that has taken up residence under the carpentry building (he has reduced Mrs. Shapiro's turnips to stalks.) but no deliberate programs. There is historical evidence of livestock in residence, I have heard stories of Mrs. Shapiro's chickens as well as the chickens raised behind the WWII Corner store. And I imagine with more research we could find plenty more evidence spanning the earlier centuries as well.

But Portsmouth is a small city, and SBM is right in the downtown area, so there is a lot of regulation zoning, and historical commissions in between SBM and a livestock program.

I'm sure you've figured it out by now, I answered the email. I was given the opportunity to attend a lovely workshop on backyard chicken farming at Hancock Shaker Village. Alysa came with me, so we got to tour the village in a freezing cold downpour. We were saved from misery by the adorable baby animals filling up the barn. Alysa fed the calfs and kids all afternoon while I learned all about chicken care.

But caring for chickens is not the only consideration in a museum setting. I reported on the workshop but only in brief because I did not feel like a chicken care report was needed. In the meantime, I've gone back to school.

Yup, I did not have quite enough on my plate, so I enrolled in a master's level course on museum evaluation. So far I am finding it fascinating and overwhelming at the same time. I am really enjoying learning about social research methods, as well as keeping up to date on the museum world. For the class our big project will be an evaluation of our own. Preferably at a museum with which we are affiliated. Guess what I chose to do mine on?

One of the questions I have about hosting chickens at SBM is the impact on visitors, so I mentioned in class the possibility of doing a visitor survey about chickens, and the professor thought it would be a great idea. We even used chickens at Strawbery Banke for a program theory mapping activity.


I let my boss know I'd be willing to put in some more hours to write up a study on the feasabity of a livestock program at SBM and that I'd like to do a visitor survey for my class as part of it. I got the okay late last week and now I've started slowly gathering my resources for a full out study. I must say I'm pretty excited at the prospect of engaging in a big study like this, and I'm just as interested to see what I will learn!

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