This unit will provide the elementary school teacher with a framework for the study of everyday American artifacts representative of the time period between 1800 and 2000. Because the specific functions of rooms have changed over these two centuries, the organizational rubric for this unit is the ‘period room.’ The consideration of the context of function is further elaborated through the analysis and interpretation of specific objects that structure and enable the activities within these room settings. By studying period rooms across time, students will be able to observe the different technological, industrial, social, demographic, economic, and cultural changes that took place. These changes from a pre-industrial, to industrial, to modern interior can be seen and understood in every room, in every region of the country to one extent or another.
This unit is based on the premise that artifacts are essential to the interpretation of past history. Through the study of objects as social and historical documents, one can have a better, or at least tangible understanding of history. While traditional history has often used written documents to study politics or military action, material history based on artifacts permits a more concrete, and less abstract, understanding of everyday life. In this unit artifacts become primary sources from which we can extract historical information. That is, objects are a more tangible link to the past. This unit creates a methodology of study that will be able to be applied to other material culture regardless of the time period of those artifacts.
Fundamental to the thesis of this unit is the belief that objects grow out of, respond to, and shape specific cultural contexts. Furthermore these individual objects need to be interpreted as parts of an assemblage of interconnected objects. The mode of analysis is the room, because here both form and function are interlinked. I introduce the term ‘period room’ as the unit of analysis in the study of everyday life of ordinary things.
In looking at material objects, regardless of the time of their creation or use, these are some of the overarching questions that frame the unit:
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· What are the functions that take place in these period rooms (i.e. social calling, entertaining, bereavement)?
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· How do the functions of these period rooms change over time?
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· What material objects played the most significant role and what were their functions
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· How are the artifacts related to larger cultural issues?
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· What is the meaning of the artifact and which is the relation to other cultural activities of the time?
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· How do the objects change over time?
These are the following concepts I want my students to be able to understand and know by the completion of this unit:
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· Objects can play multiple purposes (function versus form)
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· Our cultural values shape how we feel about the objects that surround us
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· The cultural value of an object changes according to the times
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· Artifacts are expressions of a culture and at the same time a medium in the creation and reinforcement of current cultural values.
In order to begin this process, I start by looking at what it is that students need to be able to know and do by the completion of this unit. In other words, the ‘why’ behind the studying of material culture as a means to meeting age and grade level appropriate content, and the skills needed to be able to successfully progress to the next grade. For such a purpose, I look into the Connecticut State Department of Education Framework
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and focus on the following three specific goals related to the Social Studies curriculum.
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· Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of culture and how different perspectives emerge from different cultures;
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· Apply geographic knowledge, skills and concepts to understand human behavior in relation to the physical and cultural environment;
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· Describe how people organize systems for the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services;
Although I only list the social studies frameworks, the different activities and extension tasks also target content standards in language arts, science, visual arts, and mathematics. As a matter of fact, it would be very difficult not to take into account both the language arts and English as a Second Language standards at the same time
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