#House made of sugar story how to
#House made of sugar story free

In the first spread shown here, the text suggests names for the unnamed workers. Even the earliest sketches about famous buildings in children’s books touched upon whether the pyramids were built by slaves, or celebrated a famous female general who once defended her castle, or explained religious wars that destroyed a family-historical events that resonated with present-day controversies.īrick by Brick centers more on the people who built the White House than on the building itself. And like other production stories, they have always been deeply political, requiring the author to decide whether to reveal to children the possibly violent history of how a building was made and for what purpose. Production stories about major buildings thus have to contend with questions of national identity. Federal monuments celebrate the achievements of early Americans, which include slave owners such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

For instance, plantation houses attract visitors who want to learn accurate information about the lives of enslaved persons, but also visitors who expect a nostalgic reenactment of Antebellum America. Emotional investment in old buildings leads to debates over what stories they should reveal for visitors. Yet production stories about buildings remain political because they are symbolically significant embodiments of the narratives people tell about their nation. The construction industry is not responsible for the expansion of chattel slavery in the same way as cotton or sugar.

By the twentieth century, improvements in book illustration and affordable printing supported a resurgence of production stories about buildings, marked by David Macaulay’s Caldecott honor book, Cathedral (1973). By the mid-eighteenth century, educational travel literature included sketches about the major historical landmarks that children might tour with their families, alongside other sites like factories, shipyards, and natural wonders. Production stories about historically significant structures-such as estate houses, castles, bridges, engineering wonders, government buildings, and churches-have their roots in early travel literature for children.

#House made of sugar story free

Like other middle-class families, they drink tea with sugar, which prompts the lesson on sugar production, including the images shown here.īrick by Brick tells the story of the people who built the White House (1792-1800), showing cooperation between enslaved and free persons, and between black and white artisans. Aunt Martha teaches the girls about manufacturing by exploring items in her corner cupboard, which connects their domestic environment to global trade. Aunt Martha’s Cupboard shows the typical formula for a girls’ textbook. Over the course of the nineteenth-century, books like this one began targeting girls or boys, indicated by the genders of the sibling characters. The mode of education modeled by the book emphasizes active learning, experimentation, and conversation, over traditional book learning. Children and parents who read Aunt Martha’s Corner Cupboard are expected to form their own educational experiences after the actions of these characters. As a result, the books contain long passages of material excerpted from adult nonfiction and adapted for child readers, in the voice of the characters.Īt the time these were written, many wealthy families educated their children at home, through parents, tutors, and governesses.

#House made of sugar story how to

The child characters model how to consult adult science books to learn more about what interests them, and they report their findings to the family with oral reports, science demonstrations, essays, letters, and other creative activities.

The goal of such books was to model for children how to learn while they play, in the regular course of their lives.

Accompanying the children on their exclusions, the beloved parent or family friend (or aunt, in this case) answers the children’s questions and encourages their curiosity and powers of observation. The story follows the day-to-day activities of the children, while they eat breakfast, explore the outdoors with walks, and visit artisan shops or factories. Aunt Martha’s Corner Cupboard is a kind of production story textbook once popular during the nineteenth century, featuring an exemplary adult teacher, who has lively conversations with a young family.