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Life in Tuscaloosa County (Pioneer Period, 1816-26) Goal: To familiarize students with the early settlement of Tuscaloosa County Objectives: To enable each student to identify differences between life in Tuscaloosa in the pioneer period 1816 - 26, with the present day. To understand the importance of community on life. Activities: This unit is divided into three parts. Part 1. Topics for discussion in the classroom Part 2. Things to look for outside the classroom, either on a special field trip or even as homework, or using maps and pictures downloaded from the site. Part 3. Follow-up in the classroom. PART 1. Students should be asked to consider the following: What kind of people came to this part of Alabama at the beginning of the 19th. century? Adventurers, farmers moving away from “played out” farms in more northerly or easterly states, outlaws, younger sons, people with no other opportunities, new immigrants, pioneers. Who was already here? Native Americans, trappers, early settlers without title to their land. What did they bring with them? Tools, weapons for hunting and Early defense. Later on slaves, seeds, plants, domestic animals, family members.
How did they choose the sites where they built? Available land, proximity to water, available food supply, security, fertility of land, easy clearance, accessibility. What did they build, and what materials did they use? Cabins. Log cabins varied in style. Single pen or one room cabins were often expanded later to two room or double pen. Additional rooms might have an open area between them. These were called dog-trot cabins. The dogtrot area provided ventilation and extra covered living and storage space. Logs could be used in their natural, round form or squared off to produce a tighter fit. Log cabins as built by early residents of Tuscaloosa were not elaborate or well built. What makes a town? People, trade, crossings (river, tracks, later trains). What brings new people to a town? Jobs, business opportunities, family connections, educational opportunities. What were civilizing factors? Women and children, churches, education. What was there in particular about Tuscaloosa which made it desirable as a place to live and build a town? Highest point navigable on the river. Because it was a place where barges were loaded and unloaded there was a natural tendency for trade to develop and the town to grow. Since there were no real roads, water was by far the easiest way to travel until the advent of the railway. Part 2. To be accomplished on a field trip or using maps and pictures. Look at the Black Warrior River. How does it differ from the way it was in the 19th. Century? Why? It is wider and has a broader area at the foot of the bluff. Locks and dams, landfill How has its function changed since early days? No more passenger boats. Recreational use. Traffic is tows and barges rather than stem wheelers. No freight is loaded downtown. Compare the old map of downtown Tuscaloosa with the city today. What is different? Street names. roads down to and beside the river. Location of bridges. Many large buildings are no longer there - Capitol. Girls School on Queen City Avenue. Part 3, Questions for classroom discussion. What do you think would be uncomfortable about living in Tuscaloosa in the pioneer period? No screens on the windows to keep insects out. No air conditioning. No electricity. No running water, baths or commodes. No washing machines. No heat in the winter except for fireplaces. No refrigeration, food would be hard to store. No telephones. How do you think people might have been different then from what they are now? Not as clean so probably smelly. Clothes not as good or as clean. Many could not read or write. People were smaller because they were not as well nourished as we are today. They did not live as long because medical care was rudimentary and there was no vaccination except against smallpox. No welfare system existed to help those who could not help themselves. Sanitary arrangements were crude. If you were lucky you had an outhouse. People obtained water from wells, creeks or the river. Water sources could be easily contaminated, encouraging the spread of disease. All sources would have been easily contaminated by lack of sanitary arrangements, thereby spreading disease. What else would have been harder about life then? Transportation would be by horse, stagecoach, buggy, boat or foot. No cars or bikes. No skates or planes. There was no such thing as fast food. The diet would have been much less varied with many things only available in season. In summer a lot of cooking was done outside. The clothes were uncomfortable and inconvenient. The pretty dresses women wore covered up heavy stays and multiple layers of underwear. Men wore high, starched collars. No shorts, tees, sandals, swimsuits as we know them, no short skirts, blue jeans or athletic shoes. No real waterproof clothing was available. No zippers, Velcro or snap fasteners. The streets were not paved. They would have been dusty in the summer and very muddy when it was wet. It would have been hard to keep the dust out of the houses and hard to clean it up. How would your use of spare time have been different? Unless you were wealthy and had servants, there would have been far less spare time because there were more chores to do and all would have had to be done during daylight hours. Games like basketball and baseball as we know them had yet to be invented. Clothes were mostly hand sewn, washing done by hand. There was firewood to cut, gardens to tend, animals to take care of, water to be drawn. If you were lucky enough to have a cow, milking had to be done twice a day, butter churned, cheese made. Reading by an oil lamp is not as easy as with electricity. There were no public libraries or book stores. What kind of houses and furniture would people have had? Some wealthy people had large houses and fine furniture imported to the town. Eventually there were cabinet makers working in Tuscaloosa producing furniture. Average people would have lived in small cabins or frame houses furnished with home made furnishings. Some large houses started off as simple cabins which were added to and embellished so that now it is hard to tell that there is a cabin buried under the fine exterior. Beds often had roped frames and mattresses stuffed with corn shucks. Tools and utensils were often home made. Nothing was wasted; quilts were made from leftover dressmaking scraps and parts of worn out clothing, pot scrubbers from corn shucks, rugs from strips of old woolen material.
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