Day 11: Cooperstown

It’s a misty day in upstate New York today. The mountains are in the clouds and yet somehow without the sun around, things seem more vivid. The lake that these little towns surround is beautiful, quiet today as people seemed to have stayed in upon threat of rain.
Today our visit began with the Baseball Hall of Fame. The museum educator provided us with a lot of great lesson plans regarding civil rights, geography, women’s rights, and economics. With 16 lessons to choose from there were many options for all grade levels. My favorites were the lesson on Jackie Robinson and the motivations behind integrating the major leagues and another lesson on labor, unions, monopolies and the Supreme Court. I am looking forward at trying video conferencing with my students in the distance learning lab at our school.
As the day continued we went to the Fenimore Art Museum. There we saw an exhibit on John Singer Sargent and the women he painted. Another exhibit was fashion over the years and showed beautiful dresses and the corsets women had to shoehorn themselves into in order to conform to the 18-20 inch waist ideal.
Then we walked across the street and visited the Farmers Museum. We walked into the 1840s and watched a blacksmith making nails and hinges. A blacksmith every four miles at the crossroads located in each village. Shoeing a horse got your foot in the door, then the business flowed. It was said that one blacksmith for 12 families kept a brisk business. We visited a printer and he set the letter type and printed broadsides while we looked on. He showed a local newspaper from the time period and explained how that four-page paper would take some 40 hours to set- individual letters upside down and backward to create the mirror image to print onto paper. Next was a doctor’s office. From the 1840s to the 1880s there was no licensing so anyone, anyone could become a doctor. The side effects of the mercury that was used to cure ailments was worse than the ailments. What will we discover in the 21st century that makes practices in the 20th century seem so far away, archaic.
The working farm, with animals raised for food seems to be the right way to live. I know it’s not realistic for most people today, but it is that connection with the land and animals that we are losing as our consumption drives us and we move away from production. Where will this take us?

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