Introduction:
Education:
Education on the frontier was erratic. Some children learned the alphabet and numbers from their mothers. Others went to make-shift schools a few months a year. Here they learned basic reading and writing skills. Most of the life skills children needed they learned at home.
Household Jobs:
The most important job for the pioneer wife was taking care of the household. Even though she might expect to receive help from her children, it was considered her duty to ensure that the house was in order. This task was a large one. The woman had to make sure that the family was properly clothed, food was prepared, the house was clean, and children were cared for, among other tasks. Taking care of the home included making items for use within the home. Brooms, candles, soap, linens, bedding, and clothing were all made by hand.
In addition, food preparation was a slow and ongoing process. Butter had to be churned using a wooden churn, beans had to be snapped by hand, and corn might have to be ground using a log pestle and mortar. Cooking went on all day long since several meals had to be prepared. Also, the fire, which was a source of heat and light, had to be kept going. Food had to be preserved to be saved for winter use. Peas, beans, corn, and meats were often dried for that purpose.
Children’s Chores:
Some of the homemaker’s duties were parceled out to children. Even small children could sweep the floor or help snap beans. Children as young as three or four were expected to help by gathering kindling, collecting eggs, emptying chamber pots, fetching water, and removing ashes from the fireplace. Young children also tended the babies, calling for their mother if she was needed. By age 12, children did such adult chores as grinding grain, sewing, hunting small animals, milking cows, helping with crops, and chopping wood. Older children also brought in firewood, gathered kindling, carried water inside, swept the floor, and ran errands.
Daughters were encouraged to learn from their mothers for the purpose of someday becoming homemakers themselves. Susannah Brooks later recalled her life on the frontier in the 1790s:
Most of my education was obtained at home. Here I learned to card, spin, and weave. I know all about milking, making butter, and cheese, washing, ironing, and bleaching. In short…all the labors that pertained to early life in the west.
Sons were not exempt from domestic work. A young son might have to help with milking or clothes washing. Daniel Drake, who grew up during the frontier time, later wrote he would help with milking, but his mother didn’t want the neighbors to see since milking was “a girlish job.” By the time he was eight, Daniel was riding on the plow horse to guide it while his father plowed behind him. Drake, who grew up on the frontier in the 1790s, also chopped wood and hauled it to the house. By the time he was 11, he had his own gun with which to hunt and scare away pests from the fields. At 13, he split rails and built fences and was given the sickle to swing at harvest.
Other children were also given great responsibility at a young age. Ten-year-old Susan Blount went to keep house for a week when their neighbors traveled from home. She looked after twin girls and an elderly man. She cooked meals, cleaned, and got the girls ready for school each day.
Children’s Play:
Life wasn’t all work during this time. Children, much like those today, liked to play. They played tag, or blind man’s bluff. Boys pitched horseshoes, shot marbles, or whipped spinning tops. Girls had dolls. Stores sold dolls with cloth bodies and ceramic heads, feet, and hands. Others made do with cornhusk or rag dolls.
If desired, print out copies of the pictures and the Picture Credits in the Everyday Life and How They Worked sections of the Frontier Era on the Tn4Me website. Attach the Picture Credits to the backs of the pictures and laminate them for durability.
Specifically, introduce Susannah Brooks quote recalling her life on the frontier as a basis for the students’ mock journal entries:
discuss of how pioneer life differed from life today and identify reasons for the differences. (Electricity, labor-saving devices, manufactured goods.)
