The Year Without a Summer by Bea Tifton

My apologies for posting late, but I had a terrible migraine caused when the barometric pressure changed drastically and suddenly. Human beings are so affected by the weather, global warming, natural disasters, etc.  But did you know about the Year Without a Summer?

“The Year Without a Summer,” also called “Poverty Year” or “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death,” began in Indonesia on April of 1815 when Mount Tambora experienced the largest volcanic eruption in 1,300 years. The eruption and tsunamis that accompanied it killed approximately 10,000 people. The aftereffects killed approximately 80,000 more from disease, starvation, and hypothermia. 

In Switzerland, the resulting eerie fog and miserable weather inspired a group of friends to have an artistic contest at a house party that resulted in one Mary Shelley penning a little book called Frankenstein. The landscape artists of the period across Europe and the United States featured the yellow skies from the volcanic winter in paintings for years to come.

Lake Petworth Sunset Fighting Bucks JMW Turner

In the United States, New England experienced the worst of the weather, getting a foot or more of snow in the summer months. As far south as Pennsylvania, lakes and rivers froze over in July and August. On July 4, 1816 in Savannah Georgie, the high temperatures was 46 degrees. 

 People and livestock froze. Crops failed. Food prices soared. The haze made sunspots visible to the naked eye, so some people thought it must be some planetary alignment or the sun. Many thought that the weather was some sort of Divine judgement, signaling the end of the world. And no one knew when it would end.

But people are survivors. A hardy stock decided to move to parts of the country that had not been hit quite as hard. Many moved to the Midwest but many more continued to the West. The Year Without a Summer just might be why your ancestors became pioneers. Today, many scholars believe that this very event is the one of the biggest reasons for the westward expansion in the United States. 

Albert Bierstadt Oregon Trail

 

FORBIDDEN FESTIVALS ON THE PLAINS by Cora Leland

 FORBIDDEN FESTIVALS ON THE PLAINS  by Cora Leland

With the advent of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Native Americans rocketed into super star status.  This was the largest and most ornate Wild West show.  Its first ‘Show Indians’ were members of the Pawnee tribe, but when the popularity of Oglala Sioux came to light, these Lakota Sioux from the Rosebud Reservation dominated the market.

 

The Sioux weren’t about to obey every single government rule about performing for settlers and tourists. One benefit of working for a large wild west show was that they were strictly legal.  The Euro-Americans demanded to see dancing, and the wild west shows saw that they got it.

Oglala Sioux Leaders

It seems ridiculous now, to even consider that the Grass Dance, performed by almost every tribe, could be forbidden to dance and to view.  It’s made up entirely of lifting feet, right, then left, no more than a few inches off the ground, with a slight swaying, right and left, in imitation of the grasslands of the Great Plains.  There are no war whoops, rattles,leaps or twirls.  Just the gentle flat-footed dancing and slight swaying, performed in a traditionally moral manner.  Men and women are completely separated, with women occasionally dancing together in a different area.

 

The Grass Dance is also called The Omaha. Perhaps because it was banned, it became very popular and was highly in demand.  Though banned by the federal government, settlers and tourists themselves solved the problem by riding out to the reservations and watching the Natives dance there if they weren't away at a wild west show.

 

Settlers and tourists alike came to the reservation, paying well.  They also wanted to see war dances, traditional dances from the northern and southern US, both men's and women's.

 

The pueblo Indians of the southwest were not plains tribes, and they did not perform in the wild west shows.  But they were popular.    

 

Pueblo Indians and the Corn Dance

 

Today, the Oglala Sioux are the poorest tribe of Native Americans, and their situation wasn’t any better in the late 1880’s.  Dancing was the only marketable skill they had, and their rations of food were often very late.

Oglala drawing: Peace and Rest at Home

The owners of the big wild west shows paid Indians the same as white actors and men the same as women.  They prepared and served three hot meals per day as part of the actors’ wages.  By signing a contract, Indians promised to refrain from drinking, fighting or gambling, and the show's management hired Indian police, usually former Indian scouts.

 

The Native American actors themselves were enthusiastic about their work: they and their families were well-cared for and looked after, and could live away from the confines of the reservations, for as long as their contracts stated.   Although every dance was forbidden, by federal law, as was wearing traditional Indian clothes and speaking their languages, these things were perfectly normal in the world of the wild west shows.   

As one Lakota chief testified at a government hearing, through the wild west shows they could save large sums of money for caring for their children.  When they left the shows, they were skilled professionals.  They were asked to dance for tourists and settlers alike.

Chief Iron Nation

 Buffalo Bill was an agency (another name for reservation) employee when he started thinking about his show.  This was a frequent road for show managers, though no one achieved the grandeur of his shows.   The shows played for large towns across the US, playing two times at each town, then moving on.  The actors slept in sleeper cars, or when they were billed to play for more than a few days, they slept in special tents.  The show had their own cooks, too.

 

Settler Festivals

 

The largest groups of migrants were Germans, Swedish, and English.  It would have been impossible for people of German ancestry to keep the many half-days of silence, ¾ days of silence, full days of silence, full holidays (such as Easter and  Christmas) and be farmers or ranchers.  The Swedes also brought their vigorous Christian beliefs across the seas, and bonfire dancing was but one of their contributions.  The English, Finnish and Swiss, to name a few, had escaped persecution and their religions meant a great deal to them.

 
Danish migrant at Ellis Island

A second wave of immigration took place from 1820-1880; a third wave of immigration took place from 1880-1920.  The number of migrants was now tremendous.  For example, 4,000 migrants arrived each day in the US.  

 

Dutch migrants

Especially on the Great Plains, farming and ranching meant closely watching for any signs of changing weather and carefully tending the plants and animals.  Residents of the Great Plains needed no excuse for getting together and having fun, and they celebrated each holiday, feasting and dancing, making their traditional dishes, even making their own wine.

 

Parade 1885

Another important group came from Mexico.  Hispanic Americans contributed deeply to the ways that ranches were managed and even contributing the American cowboys’ ranching vocabulary.  For example, round-ups, or rodeos, occurred at certain times and places; American cowboys rode in Mexican saddles; and by the end of the 19^th century, ranches were managed almost entirely as they had been in Mexico.

 

The role that the US played in accepting and putting migrants to work has helped make America great, despite any lapses over the years.

 

 

 

CHILDHOOD TOYS AND GAMES OF YESTERYEAR Part 2 By Cheri Kay Clifton

 

Continuing from last month’s blog, I’ve added a few more toys and games to the list that entertained children in 19^th century America.

As stated before, the early immigrants brought their toys and games to America from many countries. The rules and ways of playing them were handed down from generation to generation and many of them are still enjoyed by children today.

The history of rocking horses can be traced back to the Middle Ages, when a popular children’s toy was the hobby horse – a fake horse’s head attached to a long stick. Children would place the stick between their legs and “ride” the horse around. These toys can still be found today.

 

The hobby horse was replaced in the 16th century by the barrel horse, which consisted of a circular log supported by four legs and adorned with a fake horse head. Crude in nature, this toy mimicked the back of a horse better than a hobby horse.

The rocking horse in its current form is widely believed to have first appeared in the early 17th century. It was around this time that bow rockers were invented, introducing rocking to the world of toy horses. There were, however, improvements to be made to the first rocking horses. Being made from solid wood, they were heavy and their center of gravity was high, so they could easily topple over.

It was in the Victorian age that the ‘safety stand’ was introduced and the idea of making the horses hollow was conceived. This made the horses lighter and more stable, and gave birth to the idea of a secret compartment being fitted into the horse’s underbelly.

The family heirloom horse could store photographs, mint coins, locks of baby hair and other such trinkets for future generations to find. During this era, the style of choice was the dappled grey rocking horse, which was a favorite of Queen Victoria. Her love of rocking horses was instrumental in increasing the popularity of the toys.

During the 19^th century, the popular wooden toy horses evolved from a cottage industry into a factory production. Today, antique wooden rocking horses have become collectors' items while new artists have emerged with their own design to make the collectors' items of the future. There is a great range of designs and styles available and horses are made in a wide variety of materials from cloth to plastic and with a wide range of prices.

Paper Dolls have existed as long as there have been paper and creative people to apply images to it. Examples of the first true paper dolls have been found in fashion centers of Vienna, Berlin, London and Paris from as early as the mid-1700’s.

McLoughlin Brothers, founded in 1828, became the largest manufacturer of paper dolls in the United States. They printed their paper dolls from wood blocks engraved in the same way as metal plates. The largest producer of paper dolls and children’s books, McLoughlin Brothers was sold to Milton Bradley in 1920.

A smaller publishing company, Peter G. Thompson, published paper dolls in the 1880’s and sold for eight to fifteen cents per set. Also in the 1880’s, Dennison Manufacturing Co. added crepe paper to their line, starting a trend that lasted for about forty years. Crepe paper added dimension to the costumes of paper dolls and provided countless hours of fun for children at home and in schools. In the 1890’s Frederick Stokes and Co. published sets of paper dolls with likenesses of European royalty and America’s Martha Washington.

In November 1859, Godey’s Lady Book was the first known magazine to print a paper doll in black and white followed by a page of costumes for children to cut out. This was the only paper doll Godey’s ever published, but it set the trend that many women’s magazines followed in years to come. The 1900’s saw an explosion of paper dolls in many lady’s and children’s magazines.

Paper dolls were most popular during the era of the 1930’s through the 50’s. During the Great Depression, paper toys could be afforded by all. Despite the product shortages of World War II, paper dolls were still manufactured. Children in the 1950’s spent many an hour playing with their favorite paper dolls, just as their mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers had before them.

How to jump rope was a selection in a book published in 1833 by Lydia Maria Child, titled The Girls Own Book. Why did girls in early 19^th century America need instructions on how to jump rope? Up until then jumping rope had been considered a game only suitable for boys. By the early 19^th century, the new gendered ideology promoted passiveness and domesticity that limited girls’ play. Yet the recommendations of antebellum child-rearing advisors suggest that many believed active play was good for girls. Along with Child, other experts predicted that open-air exercise would improve girls’ dexterity, diligence and strengthen their bodies, also rid them of debilitating medical conditions.

Girls’ new freedom of movement had been made possible by changes in clothing fashions as well. Their shorter dresses (frocks) enabled them to skate, sled, run and romp. Yet it was the introduction of pantalettes or pantaloons (loose pants worn under dresses) that enabled girls to make the game of jumping rope their own.

Jumping rope is traditionally a girls’ activity in which two players turn a rope (holding it by its end and swinging it in a circle) and the other players take turns jumping it while chanting a rhyme or counting. When it is played as a game, each player is required to move in while the rope is turning, complete the jump, and move out without contacting or stopping the rope; the jumps required usually become more complicated as the game proceeds. There are many types of jumps, including single, double, backward, and two at a time jumpers, even double Dutch with two ropes turned simultaneously in opposite directions.

 

The first recorded pair of roller skates were used for a theatrical performance in London in 1743, unfortunately the inventor’s name has been lost to history, but the idea soon caught on and by 1819 M. Petitbled patented the first roller skates in France. These early skates were the predecessors to the inline skates we use today, although it would have been hard to do more than skate in a straight line. By 1863 the four-wheeled skate (or quad skate) with an added rubber piece to allow skaters to curve when they moved was developed in New York City and it was such a hit that the first roller rink was opened in the city shortly thereafter. Over the rest of the century the design of the roller skate was fine-tuned with the addition of things like toe stops, making it easier and more enjoyable for people to roller skate. By the end of the 1800s roller skates were being mass produced in the U.S.

Besides the more common outdoor games of hide & seek, leapfrog and tag, board games such as tic-tac-toe, checkers and chess, other popular games of the 19^th century were:

Battledore & Shuttlecock, an outdoor game played since the earliest American settlements, the forerunner to both modern badminton and table tennis.

Graces, brought to America by the French, also known as Flying Circle and French Hoops, most popular during the Victorian Period, particularly with young ladies and used for exercise and to teach gracefulness.

Tiddlywinks, a table game quite popular in the 1890’s, played by adults and children alike, in which players used a larger disk to flip smaller disks called winks into a cup.

Typical with researching historical topics, there’s no end to the fascination of reading about the games and toys of our ancestors. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and reminiscing about some of these toys and games we may have enjoyed playing ourselves…and maybe, still do!

www.cherikayclifton.com