Monthly Archives: May 2020
Do you raise vegetables to feed yourself? If the answer is “Yes,” you are not alone. The National Gardening Survey reported that 77 percent of American households gardened in 2018, and the number of young gardeners (ages 18 to 34) increased exponentially from previous years. Why? Concern about food sources, an interest in healthy eating, and a DIY approach to problem solving motivate most to take up the trowel.
The process of raising vegetables to feed yourself carries with it a sense of urgency that many of us with kitchen cabinets full of canned goods cannot fathom. Farm families planted, cultivated, harvested, processed and consumed their own garden produce into the 20th century. This was hard but required work to satisfy their needs.
Two members of the Lancaster Unit of the Woman’s National Farm and Garden Association digging potatoes, 1918. THF 288960
Seed Sources
Gardeners need seeds. Before the mid-19th century, home gardeners saved their own seeds for the next year’s crop. If a disaster destroyed the next year’s seeds, home gardeners had to purchase seeds.
Commercial seed sales began as early as 1790 in the community of Shakers at Watervliet, New York. The Mt. Lebanon, New York, Shaker community established the Shaker Seed Company in 1794. The Watervliet Shakers first sold pre-packaged seeds in 1835, but the Mt. Lebanon community dominated the garden seed business until 1891. They marketed prepackaged seeds in boxes like this directly to store owners who sold to customers.
Shakers Genuine Garden Seeds Box, 1861-1895. THF 173513
Satisfying the demand for garden seeds became big business. Entrepreneurs established seed farms and warehouses in cities where laborers cultivated, cleaned, stored and packaged seeds. The D.M. Ferry & Co. provides a good example.
D.M. Ferry & Company Headquarters and Warehouse, Detroit, Michigan, circa 1880. THF76854
Entrepreneurs invested earnings into this lucrative industry.
Hiram Sibley, who made a fortune in telegraphy, and spent 16 years as president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, claimed to have the largest seed farm in the world, and an international production and distribution system based in Rochester, New York, and Chicago, Illinois. Though the company name changed, the techniques of prepackaging seeds developed by the Shakers at Watervliet and direct marketing of filled boxes to store owners remained an industry standard.
Hiram Sibley & Co. Seed Box, Used in the C.W. Barnes Store, 1882-1888. THF181542
Planting gardens requires prepackaged seeds (unless you save your own!). These little packets tell big stories about ingenuity and resourcefulness. We acquired this 1880s Sibley & Co. seed box from the Barnes Store in Rock Stream, NY in 1929.
The original Sibley seed papers and packets are on view in a replica Hiram Sibley & Co seed box in the J.R. Jones General Store in Greenfield Village, which our members and guests will be able to enjoy once again when we reopen. Until then, take a virtual trip to the store by way of Mo Rocca and Innovation Nation.
Looking for gardening inspiration? Historic seed and flower packets can provide plenty! Survey the hundreds of seed packets dated 1880s to the present in our digital collections and create your own virtual garden.
The variety might astound you, from the mangelwurzel (raised for livestock feed) to the Early Acme Tomato and the Giant Rocca Onion.
Hiram Sibley & Co. “Beet Long Red Mangelwurtzel” Seed Packet, Used in the C.W. Barnes Store, 1882-1888. THF181520
Hiram Sibley & Co. “Tomato Early Acme” Seed Packet, Used in the C.W. Barnes Store, 1882-1888. THF278980
Hiram Sibley & Co. “Onion Giant Rocca” Seed Packet, Used in the C.W. Barnes Store, 1882-1888. THF279020
Families in cities often did not have land to cultivate, so they relied on the public markets and green grocers as the source of their vegetables.
Canned goods changed the relationships between gardeners and their responsibility for meeting their own food needs. Affordable and available canned goods made it easy for most to hang up their garden trowels. As a result, raising vegetables became a lifestyle choice rather than a necessity for most Americans by the 1930s.
Can Label, “Butterfly Brand Stringless Beans,” circa 1880. THF293949
Times of crisis increase both personal interest and public investment in home-grown vegetables, as the national Victory Garden movements of the 20th century confirm.
Victory Gardens
Man Inspecting Tomato Plant in Victory Garden, June 1944. THF273191
Victory Gardens, a patriotic act during World War I and World War II, provide important examples of food resourcefulness and ingenuity.
You can find your own inspiration from Victory Garden items in our collections – from 1918 posters to Ford Motor Company gardens during the 1930s, and home-front mobilization during World War II here.
Woman's National Farm and Garden Association at Dedham Square Truck Market, 1918. THF288964
But the “fruits” of the garden didn’t just stay at home. Entrepreneurial-minded Americans took their goods to market, like these members of the Woman's National Farm & Garden Association and their "pop-up" curbside market in Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1918.
Clara Ford with a Model of the Roadside Market She Designed, circa 1930. THF117982
Clara Ford, at one time a president of the Women’s National Farm and Garden Association, also believed in the importance of eating local. Read more about her involvement with roadside markets here.
Debra A. Reid is Curator of Agriculture and the Environment at The Henry Ford.
food, agriculture, gardening, #THFCuratorChat, by Debra A. Reid
We hope you enjoyed this week’s experiences focused on Information & Communication Technology. Were you inspired to create or invent something? Please share your photos with us on social media using #WeAreInnovationNation!
If you missed anything from our series this past week, check out the recordings and resources below. We hope that you will join us this upcoming week to explore Power & Energy.
What We Covered This Week
Information & Communication Technology: How can a problem be inspiration for finding a better way of doing things?
STEAM Stories
Join us for a reading of What Do You Do with an Problem? by Kobi Yamada and then learn about plastic and metal using a lesson from our early childhood curriculum, Innovate for Tots.Watch the video here.
Innovation Journeys Live!
Join us for an Innovation Journey Live when Diana Nucera shares how her organization, the Detroit Community Technology Project, is helping kids connect to their virtual learning experiences. Watch the video here.
Kid Inventor Profile
Alex Knoll, 15-year-old student from Idaho developed Ability App, a global app that will help people with disabilities and caregivers search for specific disability-friendly features at locations around the world. Explore these Invention Convention Curriculum activities to keep your child innovating. Watch the interview here.
Resource Highlight: Innovate for Tots
In our continued efforts to help parents, students and educators during these times of uncertainty, The Henry Ford is providing helpful tips that assist parents in adapting its educational tools for implementation at home.
This week we are highlighting, Innovate for Tots. These interdisciplinary, hands-on activities are designed for curious preschoolers, and focus on themed materials that are experienced through storytelling, project-based learning, science, discovery, artifact viewing and home/neighborhood exploration.
Our goal is to provide standards-based learning opportunities introducing our littlest learners to the habits and actions of innovators and the language of innovation through our stories from history. Each lesson includes fine and gross motor skills, science, social studies, literacy and the arts to accomplish this goal. We explore materials used in artifacts from the vast collections of The Henry Ford, as well as our own homes. Our innovating tots will develop their understanding of materials and the ways we have used them, hopefully inspiring their desire to Stay Curious, Collaborate, Empathize, Uncover and Design the artifacts of the future.
The lessons are designed to provide tremendous flexibility. The various components can be completed indoors or out. We have designed them into series of five activities, divided into Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM), English, Language Arts and Literature (ELA/LIT), Social Studies and History (SS/HST), focused on one material or one combination of materials. Each includes the related artifacts from the collections at The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation which can be shown digitally as well as instructions, pictures, or links for projects. Additionally, A Family Connection provides the family an opportunity to participate in the learning and a coloring sheet are also attached to each material.
Each Innovate for Tots Lesson Plans for Toddler/Preschool teaches the following age-appropriate parts of our Model I – the Habits and Actions of Innovators:
Model I:
Help your tots practice the Habits of Innovators:
-Stay Curious: Ask questions like what, why, how
-Collaborate: Talk about helping, work together
-Learn from Failure: Talk about “trying again," what's another way to...
-Empathize: How did the characters in the stories feel? How might it make others feel
Help your tots practice the Actions of Innovators:
-Design: Make, build, and create
-Uncover: What do you see? (characteristic/properties); What problems does this material help us solve?
Parents and educators can learn more about Model I here.
communication, technology, Model i, innovation learning, educational resources
