Just a reminder that your blog posts are due to Jonathan and me by Sunday, July 17th. We would like your three best posts plus your summary post, reflecting on what you learned on the trip and how it will affect your teaching in the classroom. One of the three posts must be your evaluation of a historic marker or monument. Also, send us the links to three of your best comments on other peoples’ posts. This again is another way to engage in the discussion by sharing ideas or insights with your fellow teachers.

Thanks again for a very memorable trip!

Matt

Comments are a little harder as you can’t get a separate URL for each comment. There is, however, a URL for the comments section of each post. Just click comments on that part of the person’s post that you commented upon and we’ll find it below.

If you can’t remember where you left comments and are worried about finding them again, there is a long list of everything you do on WordPress labeled “Your Stuff” at the bottom of your dashboard. That includes links to all of your comments in reverse chronological order.

One last thing I don’t think we’ve stressed enough. You don’t have to blog every night for the post to count. I’m not sure what the deal is with the Internet here at otherwise lovely Salem State University, but if you want to finish off this assignment from the comfort of your own home (where even the biggest pictures probably upload fine), that’s totally OK with us. Matt will make a pronouncement on the final due date for this assignment shortly, but expect about two weeks after you return to get everything specifically from the trip finished.

If you would like to eat a lobster in Maine, I’d recommend these two restaurants:

Jameson Tavern (207) 865-4196
Location: White old antique home next door to LL Bean just north of the store.
Prices: $17.99-25.99 entrees and (can also order salads, sandwiches, burgers under $12) have informal and formal menus
Lobstaaaa prices: One and a fourth pound is $26.99. Two pounds will cost $32 and three pounds $42. If you go to this restaurant and would like a demonstration on how to crack the lobster just ask for Jason.

Broad Arrow Tavern–inside the Inn Harraseeket (207)865-9377
Directions from LL Bean: They are on 162 Main Street –walk North 2 blocks across from McDonalds.
Prices are: $12-26 range of menu items. The waitress can give you a demonstration on how to crack the lobster.

Feast up!!!

Matt

In the Puritan tradition common in the New England Colonies, fathers ruled families with absolute authority. “The patriarchal family was the basic building block of Puritan society.” S. Mintz, Huck’s Raft 13 (2004) (hereinafter Mintz); see also R. MacDonald, Literature for Children in England and America from 1646 to 1774, p. 7 (1982) (hereinafter MacDonald). The Puritans rejected many customs, such as godparenthood, that they considered inconsistent with the patriarchal structure. Mintz 13.

Part of the father’s absolute power was the right and duty “to fill his children’s minds with knowledge and . . . make them apply their knowledge in right action.” E. Morgan, The Puritan Family 97 (rev. ed. 1966) (hereinafter Morgan). Puritans thought children were “innately sinful and that parents’ primary task was to suppress their children’s natural depravity.” S. Mintz & S. Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions 2 (1988) (hereinafter Mintz & Kel- logg); see also B. Wadsworth, The Well-Ordered Family 55 (1712) (“Children should not be left to themselves . . . to do as they please; . . . not being fit to govern themselves”); C. Mather, A Family Well-Ordered 38 (1699). Accordingly, parents were not to let their children read “vain Books, profane Ballads, and filthy Songs” or “fond and amorous Romances, … fabulous Histories of Giants, the bom- bast Achievements of Knight Errantry, and the like.” The History of Genesis, pp. vi–vii (3d ed. corrected 1708).

This conception of parental authority was reflected in laws at that time. In the Massachusetts Colony, for example, it was unlawful for tavern keepers (or anyone else) to entertain children without their parents’ consent. 2 Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, p. 180 (1912); 4 id., at 237, 275 (1914); 5 id., at 143 (1916); see also Morgan 146. And a “stubborn or rebellious son” of 16 years or more committed a capital offense if he disobeyed “the voice of his Father, or the voice of his Mother.” The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts 6 (1648) (reprint M. Farrand ed. 1929); see also J. Kamensky, Governing the Tongue 102, n. 14 (1997) (citing similar laws in the Connecticut, New Haven, Ply- mouth, and New Hampshire Colonies in the late 1600’s).

Discuss with respect to the history you’ve learned here and the ban on the sale of violent video games to children. There’ll be a test on this later.

According to the RAFT collaborative (RAFT stands for Renewing America’s Food Traditions), the turkey was first domesticated more than 2,000 years ago. Carried back to Europe by the Spanish, those turkeys bred with local wild species. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, eight to ten American breeds have been recognized.

In RAFT’s 2008 book Renewing America’s Food Traditions (edited by Gary Paul Nabhan), the collaborative profiles the Narragansett Turkey and other rare regional foods picked from American culinary history such as the Clearstone Peach and the Tennessee Fainting Goat. Each of these foods, RAFT suggests, are a reflection of the local culture that used to consume them.

Ironically, as the book explains, the best way to preserve that culture is often to eat the threatened food, thereby creating a market for it. This can save not only the species itself by making it profitable to raise or grow, but the cultural practices that surround its consumption. Particular foods take on historical significance because of what they meant to the people who ate them.

The dinner you cooked today was made from ingredients bought at a modern grocery store. [And by the way, people at my table, the pickles came out of a jar.] Does that matter or is there something else involved which made the experience historical? If so, what was it?

Put your answers in the comments below.