The Gingerbread Connection

Gingerbread persons drawn by first grade students at Washington and Lee Elementary in Bristol, Va.

Though it sits in the shadow of its better-known younger step-brother, it has quietly become one of the area's most valued educational resources.The Doak House Museum may not be the subject of national news attention equal to that our President Andrew Johnson Museum and Library has seen the past year, but among educators and parents in the area it’s known as a great place to take students for a day of learning and fun.

The Museum has in fact become so popular that it's near to outgrowing its bounds. For just one example: 990 students attended last fall's "Storytelling and Gingerbread" program within only six weeks, and another 600 students had to be turned away. Overall attendance for 1998 was up 440 percent. Not bad for a place that’s only held educational tours for two years.

According to Museum Director Alvin Gerhardt, educators and students have been flocking to the Doak House because there has been a vacuum of such programs in the area. "The programs we have here fit into a certain niche that the schools need. We relate to what they're teaching.... That's the secret of success when it comes to school groups."

"We serve as a laboratory for what students learn in the classroom," agrees Cindy Lucas, associate director of the Museum. The "Storytelling and Gingerbread" program, she says, succeeded so well because "very little is offered in this area for the younger children."

For the adults, museum staff taught two in-service sessions and workshops at East Tennessee State University. Over 500 educators attended the two sessions. "The response was overwhelming. That’s another reason our fall programs were so successful," said Lucas, adding that several teachers from the Johnson City area are now working with her to develop this year’s programs.

On the recommendation of several museum professionals in the area, the curriculum-based "Storytelling and Gingerbread" program has been submitted for a Tennessee Association of Museums Award of Merit.

An authentic frontier farmstead and a seat of frontier education, the Doak House made a big impression on nearly 1,600 school children who visited last year, thanks to the work of Director Alvin Gerhardt (left) and Associate Director Cindy Lucas '97.

And more is planned to keep up the interest. "We educated them last year," says Gerhardt. ''If we want them to come back we have to come up with something different for them."

One new addition to the Museum's attractions this year will be a collection of 19th century blacksmith's tools, donated by a patron in Virginia. The tools, originally used at a shop in Cosby, Tennessee, are returning to their native state after more than a hundred years' absence.

The museum staff says the tools will lend authenticity to their recreation of 19th century life. "We needed this blacksmith shop, because any farm of this size would have had a blacksmith's shop," said Gerhardt. "Getting all the pieces together as a working shop will be a great asset in our educational programs," he said.

Longtime museum volunteer and colorful history-interpreter Claude Griffith knows the process of smithing and will be able to demonstrate the practice for visitors, said Lucas. Lucas is currently planning how best to integrate the tools into different programs for different age levels.
What's needed now is space to display and demonstrate the new resources. "We need to recreate a barn. As far as I can tell from his account books, Doak had three," said Lucas, mindful of authenticity. "And it would be a good workstation for students. Once we have more buildings, it'll give us more room to grow and expand in our outreach programs."

Among the many other items on the list of the Museum staff's long-range plans are converting the small building which currently holds the restrooms into a reception area and gift shop to provide needed revenue for the Museum.

In part because of this need for revenue to expand its outreach to the community, the Doak House will begin charging a small fee for attendance this year.

For school groups, programs later in the year will involve learning about how early Tennesseans grew certain crops, particularly corn and apples. These programs will also be curriculum-based, so Gerhardt and Lucas are preparing for a large number of visitors again this year.

The Museum, as part of the Northeast Tennessee Museum Association, has also received Heritage and Community Tourism funding to develop and distribute a brochure to promote its programs and collections.

Getting ready for the future is no problem for the Doak House, though it remains firmly grounded in the past. "We want to be ready for the millennium," says Lucas. "We're going to hit it in style."

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