Day #12 – Seneca Falls, Stanton Home, McClintock Home, Seward Home, Tubman’s Home, and the Erie Canal.
16/06/2010Today was crazy, educational, and boring. What I mean by this is we went many different places, we learned about many different subjects, who all seemed to come together at one point, and the bus rides were long. I do wish we could have gotten to stay at a couple of the places longer, but it was a treat going on the boat on the Erie Canal. Too bad we couldn’t have gone an hour later.
Women’s Suffrage is the topic I have wanted to write my lesson plan on. I was hoping that I would get more information on some of the key women from the beginning of the movement. What I like was how they talked about the Declaration of Sentiments, and that Suffrage was not the only equality that women were looking for during their struggle. Suffrage was their priority because they thought that once they received their right to vote their other items on their list would fall into place. In class I do not cover the Seneca Falls era, but I do cover the couple of Decades leading up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, and I think that the students need to understand the people who were involved, how women were treated before, how the movement started, and what roads did different suffragists took to get the amendment passed.
I was exciting to learn that McClintock and the Seward homes were part of the Underground Rail Road. I really wish that we could have gone into the parts of the homes where they would have held the Runaway slaves. Seward’s home was impressive. I am actually glad that they were pack rats because it gave us a great sense of who they were, unlike many of the places and/or people who we have seen on our trips. He had a great collection of items from around the world that were given to him from different heads of states, as well as during his trip around the world before he died. The amount of work that the first lady and the Secretary of State’s wife have to do while their husbands were in the white house was more than they should have had to do. They were not allowed to ask certain questions and would have to figure out how they would start a conversation by putting a picture or artifact into the room that would draw everyone’s attention.
Tubman’s home was less spectacular than what I thought, but it could have also been because we had to leave within 30 minutes of getting there. Her home showed how much she was admired by not only runaway slaves, but also by white abolitionists. To give her 7 acres of land was a risky investment, and the fact that she was able to expand her land by 26 acres was curious because she couldn’t pay the mortgage. I really haven’t heard Tubman’s story, but now I am going to have to read more about her.
The Canal was relaxing after a long day of running around. To see how a lock really works was interesting, and now I can explain it to my students. I might not teach about the Erie Canal, but I do teach about the Panama Canal, and it is the same concept.
