How in the world could this be used at a pioneer party?
I'll tell you how today on Pioneer Wisconsin.
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Hello boys and girls.
How would you like to go to a pioneer party?
Well, that's what we're going to do today.
We're going to learn about fun on the frontier.
Now some of this fun was carried on by people
alone or in small groups.
And some of it by lots of people who were helping each other,
helping each other to build cabins and to carry on
some of the ordinary but necessary tasks
of everyday life.
Now one of the things that little boys
and little girls too, like to do in the long winter
nights, was to whittle, to make things out of wood.
Some of these things were useful things like bowls and dishes
or handles for all kinds of farm implements, but some of the
things were made just for fun.
Now every boy liked to have his night, his
very special Jack night.
The Barlow knife was the favorite one
of Pioneer children.
This isn't a real Barlow knife, but it's very much like it.
And you can see that this one has been much used.
Now the Pioneer boy or girl or even his mother or father would
take a small piece of wood.
And from it would whittle the most intricate
and delicate things.
This is a dagger that has been whittled out
of one piece of wood, but it doesn't have
any moving parts.
This is a rather simple example of whittling.
Here is something that is much more complicated.
I don't know whether this would be a pair of scissors or tongs,
but you notice it has many little joints
and intricate parts.
And I don't really think it was used for anything.
It was just something for amusement and lots of fun and to
show how clever the artist was.
Now here is something even fancier.
This again was made from a single piece of wood.
And first the outside portion was carved
just the outside shape.
Then these little hollow places were made.
And the piece of wood left in the middle was
carved into a ball, which actually moves
back and forth.
This was not made out of two pieces of wood,
but out of one only.
And here is something perhaps the most complicated of all.
Again from a single piece of wood, this chain,
and the chain was carved and linked together.
And then inside the chain are more moving
parts, little circles.
And here is a wheel.
This is a wheel that goes around and could have a
pulley or a rope placed on it.
And at the bottom of the chain is a little dog, little animal.
And here is one more fancy piece of weaving.
This is a griffin, a winged figure.
And inside the cage below it is an eagle or some sort of a bird.
All of these made from a single thing.
And of course there was no game involved in these.
These were just done by one person.
However, there were some games that were made by boys and girls
and their parents to play with.
And here is one of them.
This is a set of dominoes, homemade
dominoes in a wooden box.
And here are the dominoes themselves,
smooth pieces of wood.
The wood we are told was often smoothed with glass,
so that it was just as hard and smooth as ivory.
You can see the numbers these had been put on in pencil
with a little indentation.
Now another game that boys and girls like to play, they didn't
make this one out of wood, but they often made
it themselves with the game of marbles.
Now these marbles, many of them, are just made of clay.
So they are not perfectly round.
They have lumps and bumps in them, and they don't roll in
a straight and smooth line.
I have a couple of fancy marbles here.
These were made of glass, not made at home.
This one has stripes, and this one has a little horse inside.
These were more just fancy decorations.
You couldn't really play a game with them.
Now in addition to the things that were made just
to play with in the house, boys and girls sometimes
twiddled and made things they could play with outdoors.
And I'd like to show you this snow snake.
Actually this piece of wood was used by the
monomony Indians at Kishina, but it was also similar to
one used by boys and girls.
Now if you'll notice at the end is the head of the snake,
and the little eye of the snake is there.
The boys and girls in pioneer days, and
perhaps some even today, would go out on the icy plains
and hills and throw this just as far as they could.
And the one that was able to throw it the furthest away,
of course, was the winner.
Another thing that boys and girls like to do then as
now was to go ice skating.
And ice skating was very popular with the pioneers.
It was inexpensive, and the ice ponds and rivers
were usually nearby.
In New York in the early days of the colonies, the Dutch
people often went skating.
They were the ones who brought the very interesting
and fascinating art of skating to America.
And you'll notice perhaps if you look closely, the curved
points or blades of the skates.
Then in the 1860s, here in Wisconsin, there were many other
skaters who resembled a little more our skaters of today.
We learned that in Milwaukee in 1853, there were
about 150 boys and girls, because girls at first
weren't allowed to skate, but later they could.
The boys and girls skating on the pond, and you could
rent skates and chairs, and you could even buy
oysters and hotcakes and coffee for a nickel.
And we're told that the ladies had very pretty red
skirts trimmed with white fur, not like the snow
suits of today.
Now here are a couple pairs of skates.
This skate is similar to the ones that you saw the Dutch
people in New Amsterdam using.
This is a wooden skate, and here are the straps,
the holes for the straps that go over the shoes,
and hold the skate to your foot.
And then there's also a little screw or nail in the heel that
fits into the heel of the shoe, so that it will be kept on.
And here are the fancy points.
Now here is another skate.
This one is a racing skate.
It's about 13 inches long.
It has a wooden top, and again the holes for the
straps, the three of them, to go over your shoe, and
then the screw nail that fits into the heel, and
then the actual blade.
We're told that the very first skate had blades of bone,
beef bone, or animal bone, and then the metal skates
were used, and sometimes even wooden runners for
the smaller children.
Well, people love to skate together, and they also
love to go sleigh riding.
And some of the sleds were very fancy.
They were cutters, and they had very fancy carriage robes,
and the horses were decorated with rosettes and ribbons.
But then out in the woods, the pioneers didn't have
quite such fancy slaves.
They had more of the kind that you could see in museums, or
even on some old farms today.
And when people went sleigh riding, and they went in
bigger wagons, two bob sleds, and wagons on runners,
then they liked to go and visit each other, and help
each other, and have parties.
And one of the places they went in the springtime was
to a maple sugar gathering, or a maple sugar party.
They would ride over the snowy woods of March in their slays
and their wagons, and would come to the place where the
sap was running in the woods, and where someone might have
a cabin, and then they would stay overnight and visit.
You see them sitting on buffalo robes on the ground, pouring
the sugar into the snow, so that they could have
the good candy to eat.
They helped each other then, the pioneers, and they also
had lots of fun doing it.
Another way in which the pioneers might help
each other was to have a candle dipping bee,
because of course there were no electric lights or lamps, and
the pioneers needed candles.
We have a candle rod here.
I think I showed it to you before, but you might
like to see it again.
This candle rod has the strings or wicks attached to it, and
the strings are dipped into the mutton tail again, and
allowed to dry, and again, so that eventually the candle is
built up.
It's not smooth like the commercial candles that
you buy today, but rather lumpy.
Six candles could be made on this one rod, and 15 rods
were made all together for the supply of 90 candles
for the pioneer winter.
One candle each night was supposed to last the
family, and it was fun to get together and help each
other with a candle dipping.
Another way in which the neighbors helped each
other was at a husking bee, a corn husking bee.
Before the days of all machinery and automatic equipment
were husking corn and showing it, the neighbors had to
get together and have a big party where they could have
the corn husking going on.
Now we showed you some of this corn before the dry corn and
the husks are removed from it.
Most of the corn was yellow, the kind that you usually see.
But once in a while, a very special
ear was found, like this one.
Now this is an ear of red corn, and you know what this
meant? Well, when a man found an ear of red corn when he
was husking, that man he had the privilege of kissing
the ladies at the party.
And if a lady found the red ear, she had the privilege
of kissing the gentlemen.
And the last ear that was husked was the prize ear,
and everyone cheered the person who was able to get
this particular last ear.
And after that came the feasting and the dancing.
Would you like to see a movie of a corn husking bee?
Would you like to see just how this
was done?
Let's take a look.
Here they are, the pioneers and their son Bonnets and their
farmers hats and plaid shirts.
Hustling away, and the corn is still on the shock, they
have to pull that off too.
It isn't simple.
Their hands got pretty scratched up and
kind of worn out from this.
They would have needed a lot of hand lotion.
And say, I believe someone
has found a red ear there.
Yes, he has, and he's going to kiss the lady.
And she's quite happy about that too,
you can see.
And probably is hoping maybe she'll find one.
Well after the husking is over, then comes the feasting.
Apples are passed around, and cider,
and pie, and all the things that the ladies have brought to
make the party a big success.
And then after they've had their eating and feasting, then they
start their square dancing.
The fiddler is playing, and all the people are dancing
together. You notice someone is giving the calls for the
square dancing.
There they go.
And then after that sort of a party, a husking bee party,
there was another party that especially the ladies went to,
and that was a quilting bee.
They liked to help each other make quilts, gave the
ladies a good chance to do some talking and gossiping.
Now I have a few quilt pieces here that you might like
to look at.
Actually, these pieces are just made of paper.
These are hexagons.
That means they are six-sided
figures. Now the pioneers used to take a piece of tin or
a piece of heavy cardboard, and they would cut their
patterns for making quilts.
And then these would fit together almost like tiles
or mosaic, and they could make a beautiful pattern.
Now they didn't always make a perfect pattern.
Sometimes there were just a rag bag patches put together any old
way, but the ladies were pretty proud of their handiwork, and
they often did figure out a very careful pattern for the quilt.
And sometimes those pieces represented a wedding dress
or an old soldier's uniform or a cape that was brought to
America by an early ancestor.
Everyone said a quilt was a sort of memory book, because you
could remember the things that happened.
Now today we're going to have some people pretending
to have a quilting bee for you.
You will have to use your imagination, and think of this
cabin as being filled with maybe 20 ladies quilting, whereas
we only have a couple of them.
But at least you can see about what they might have done.
Our rota stop of our museum staff is the hostess and
the lady of the house, and she has her quilt laid
out, and she's waiting for her company to arrive.
Remember perhaps she hasn't seen one, anyone, any other lady for
many weeks, and she's eager to do some talking and gossiping.
Well pretty soon there's a knock at the door, and she knows
that the first of her neighbors has arrived, and this is Sherry
Hughes also from our museum.
She's coming with her arms laden with goodies in the
basket, because the ladies always brought things.
Maybe tea or sugar, very precious
items, or cookies or pies or something that they had made.
And now they're going to sit down and look at this quilt,
a lot of that you see has been done.
Now actually the quilt would be on four bars like
curtain stretchers, and as they quilted they would roll
the quilt up on the bar, and it would become smaller and
smaller as they finished it and rolled it up as they went along.
And again you'll have to pretend that there are many
ladies sitting here chattering together working on the quilt.
The quilt pattern is laid over a lining, and in between is
some wool or cotton wadding, and then they are sewing
the whole together, the two parts to upper part the
lining and the middle portion.
Well we'll pretend that a lot of time has gone by, and it's
time for tea, and so they're going to have a little bit
of refreshment, and then they're hoping their husbands
are going to arrive quite soon, so that they can have
a party and have some fun after their hard work is over.
Sometimes the ladies even took a snuff, these ladies aren't
doing that, but they would have their tea and their
gossiping and their cookies and a little snuff too, and they
would have quite a good time.
And this was more exciting probably than
a bridge party today.
Well after they've had their tea they know that the men
will be coming in very soon.
Don't spill any of that tea on the quilt.
Well very soon they hear some noise out in the woods, perhaps
a gunshot, or they hear people talking or tranting a seat,
and they know that the men are coming home from their day of
hunting and will soon be there.
And pretty soon they hear a sound outside the door,
and they put their tea cups down, and they run over
to see what's happening.
Well here they come in from the woods, and you see it's
really been cold, they have lots of fur mittens and fur
hats, buffalo coats, and this big buffalo rug which will keep
your feet very warm if you happen to be riding in a sleigh.
Well the ladies say you take your things off, and you'll have
to help us move this table away because we just can't dance if
we have all this furniture here.
So come on hurry up, let's go because these
ladies have been so eager to have a dancing party.
Well the men get their hands warmed up, and perhaps they're
not quite as eager to start, I think they are though.
And here goes the table out of the way, and the quilt has
been pulled back, and now the dance is going to begin.
This cabin has only two couples dancing, but it
could have many many more.
And so here you have a pioneer party, one that perhaps
your great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers, who might
have been actual pioneers, might have had in pioneer Wisconsin.
Goodbye boys and girls.
[Music]
Miss Doris Platt is your historian on this series of
programs, Pioneer Wisconsin, about many pictures of life in
the early days of our state.
Miss Platt is a supervisor of at-telementary school
services for the Wisconsin State Historical Society.
Pioneer Wisconsin is a presentation of the
Wisconsin School of the Air.
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