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Vacations with a Vocation – Using the Summer Recess to Light a Flame of Interest in Children

© Katie Anne Gustafsson

In the case of women's history, how has life changed for women? In a 19th Century Fort, how did the women keep their houses clean - think about the dirt and dust floors? How did they keep cool? Look at the clothes they wore through the various eras. How were they laundered - how often were they laundered? This information along with personal hygiene habits usually results in a wrinkled nose from many youngsters! How did they prepare their food? Where did they buy their food? Women's History, like other genres within the history field, isn't just about famous people, or events that shaped the world. It's also about how everyday people, just like your child, lived their everyday lives. Grandma may have some interesting stories about how life was when she was younger, and how her life was different - and easier - still to that of her mother.

Where did the children go to school? What did they learn and for how long did they study? What kind of chores did they have? What clothes did they wear? What games did they play? What kind of life did they have without the modern technology and media that today's children take for granted? Choosing a period that your child will study at school as the timeframe for the information will give some background that will bring the period to life later.

For example, learning about the civil war may be a boring prospect for most girls, so do some preparatory work now. Not many schools will deal with the involvement of women during the civil war - although current research shows that this was not as small a contribution as has been generally thought. Does your area have any exhibits that would help you to highlight this fact to your daughter? Women were on the battlefield, they nursed the sick, they became spies, their enemy was not just the north or south, it was survival for them and their families. Imagine for example, being a mother living in a cave in Vicksburg during the siege, how would that woman manage to feed her children and keep them safe? Women also stitched. Stitching doesn't seem a very exciting theme for history - and yet there were quilts stitched that showed how slaves in the South had escaped to the free North. There were others that included some kind of secret code within the stitching. Your library may contain books that have colour photos of these quilts if you have no access to the museums that actually house them (a search at Amazon.com for civil war quilts ought to give you a starting list). Local garden societies may also have information as to where you could find such items locally, if they exist, and are in private collections.