Hand-Me-Down History

Hand-Me-Down History, this year's Society of Cicero Day Camp, is being held from Monday, July 13, to Friday, July 17, at the Doak House Museum grounds on the Tusculum College Campus. The 9-12 year olds are this year studying life from the period of the 1840's and 1850's. While most of the students are from Tennessee, the states of Texas and Virginia are also represented.

Said organizer Brenda Knott, the camp is each year designed to offer "a true enrichment-learning" alternative to other camps. "We offer the finest quality supplies we can get," Knott said, "and the instructors are all qualified and credentialled in their field. That makes an important difference."

"It's more fun than real school," one student commented.

Cindy Lucas, Associate Director of the Doak House Museum and the Andrew Johnson Museum and Library, who organizes activities for the camp, said that an upcoming project will be "Storytelling and Gingerbread," in mid-November through mid-December. Students will, among other activities, make tin-punch ornaments and participate in storytelling. For more information call (423) 636-7348.

The activities for this year, Lucas said, are based on her own research of the 1840's and 50's, from which she picks projects appropriate for the age range.

	At left, the group takes a break for lemonade and cookies.
At right, Claude Griffith, of Jonesborough, Tenn., a museum volunteer, shows the children how to cast pewter buttons, which they later used to make necklaces. Mr. Griffith explained why pewter, "poor-man's silver," was used for many utensils from the Colonial period to the 19th century.

Students recreated the early practice of making silhouettes, which in the days before photographs were one way to create personal likenesses. At right, Courtney Whitaker (standing, left), Emily Parson (standing, right), and Katie Clark (kneeling) show off their finished products. "It was fun," Courtney said of working on the silhouettes, "but it was hard if they moved." The girls are pictured in the Tusculum Academy building, a replica of where Samuel Doak, one of Tusculum's founders, first taught school.