Children of our Town (in 1902)
/The illustrations in Children of our Town were done by Ethel Mars and Maud Hunt Squire….showing children as they were in towns and cities in 1902. The verses were written by Carolyn Wells and link the book to New York (i.e. a city) where it was published. Still – it’s interesting to browse the pictures and think about how reflective these images are of children of that era.
There are several indications that these were children of people that were well off:
they are always wearing shoes even in warm weather,
they are often at places that would have cost money (a merry-go-round, a zoo, an excursion boat),
they have equipment like skates and toys,
sometimes the adult with them appears to be a nanny or maid.
1902 is an interesting year in my perception of the time since my grandfathers were born in 1901 and 1903. Their situation would have been very different since they were not living in a city or town; they were part of a rural population that had enough to eat because they grew food but were generally challenged for things they couldn’t produce themselves. One of my grandfathers talked about going barefoot all the time as a child and also an instance where he fashioned shoes for himself out of shoe boxes when it was very cold. They also were more involved in the work of the farm as soon as they were old enough to gather eggs or pull weeds or scare birds away from the garden. Whatever toys they had were ones they (or their parents) made from materials available to them (bark boats for the creek, clay from the creek bank, etc.). I wondered if they had marbles like the city children.
(Note - There is a version of Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses illustrated by the same artists available from Project Gutenberg published in 1928. It’s interesting to see how the work of these artists evolved over time.)
Unique Activities for Yesterday:
Mowing leaves. I made a first mulching of leaves on our yard. The oak and sycamore are beginning to drop their leaves and those leaves are big enough to form mats if they are not mowed to bits at the right time. From now on the mowing will be more about leaves than grass!
Winding down in the cutting garden. There are fewer flowers in the CSA’s cutting garden. I cut fewer this week.
At some point I’ll be making very different kinds of bouquets – may some amaranths and seed pods. The stevia and fennel had the tops cut off (appeared like it was done just a few hours before I got there) so I gathered the clippings that were on top of the remaining plants and have the stevia clipped and drying on a tray. The fennel seed heads are still in a bag. I haven’t quite figured out how to handle them.
The cooler temps mean that we have lettuces again. We got two single-salad size lettuces this week and they look almost like flowers (and are edible)!
