diary | A Hundred Years Ago

Relics of the Earth’s Past

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Sheryl

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Monday, April 21, 1913: I’m not doing very much studying now since final examinations are over.

Source: Wikipedia

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

The final countdown—only two more days until graduation!

Now, that final exams were finished, I’m surprised that Grandma was doing any studying .

Was she still making final revisions to her commencement speech titled Relics of the Earth’s Past?

Was the speech about fossils? . . . dinosaurs? . . . evolution? Was it controversial?

Grandma graduated well after the publication of the Origin of the Species (1859), but well before the Scopes Trial (1925). If the speech was about evolution, how did she frame it?

Filed under: Other | Tagged: diary, family history, hundred years ago | 19 Comments »

Are Movies Good or Bad?: 1913 Opinions

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Sheryl

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Sunday, April 20, 1913: Went to Sunday School this afternoon.

Raymond Swartz

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Three more days until graduation! Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to continue to dive deeper into the information provided by her commencement ceremony program.

Six students, including my grandparents—Helena Muffly and Raymond Swartz— graduated from McEwensville High School in 1913. Both spoke at the commencement.

The title of Grandpa’s speech was Motion Pictures as an Educational Factor.

This was the era of silent films and lots of melodrama. When I researched this topic, I was surprised to learn that in 1913 many people thought that movies were a bad influence on young people.

According to Laura Wittern-Keller in her dissertation:

Movies with themes that challenged traditional values, shown in the dark to a mixed audience with larger-than-life figures, spawned a “moral panic.”

Hmm–Grandpa spoke on a controversial topic. He apparently took the side that his high school class mates would have approved of—but that their parents might have objected to.

How did Grandpa build his argument that movies were educational? . . . Maybe he argued that they enabled people in rural Pennsylvania to see “see the world” . . . or that some of the movies were about historic events. . . or that they were works of art. . .or . . . .

In my imagination, I picture his classmates giving him a standing ovation, while their elders tried to frown but their lips turned up in slight smiles of approval.

Filed under: Other | Tagged: 100 years ago, diary, family history | 46 Comments »

Received a $2 Bill

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Sheryl

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Saturday, April 19, 1913: Did quite a lot today. Am a little tired. Ma gave me a two dollar bill.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

$2 bills from the late 1800s (I couldn't find any pictures for bills from the early 1900s.) (Source: Wikipedia)

$2 bills from the late 1800s (I couldn’t find any pictures of bills from the early 1900s.) (Source: Wikipedia)

The $2 bill was the third graduation gift Grandma received. The previous day she received a gold hat pin and a handkerchief.

This diary entry raises more questions than answers for me.

Today we seldom see $2 bills—and they often seem special when we get one. Were they also unusual a hundred years ago—or were they readily available?

Why did Grandma say the gift was from her mother instead of from her parents? Why is her father so seldom mentioned in the diary? He was a farmer—and it seems like he should have been mentioned more often than he was.

Filed under: Other | Tagged: 100 years ago, diary, family history | 39 Comments »

School Days Almost Over

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Sheryl

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Thursday, April 17, 1913: Our exams are now entirely over. I think I passed. No more examinations at school to bother me.

Pile of hundred-year-old textbooks waiting for me to return them to the library

Hundred-year-old textbooks ready to be returned to the library

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Yeah!—Grandma, it’s awesome that you’ve completed the final hurdle before graduation. You’re awesome!

But I’m feeling a little sad. I enjoyed reliving your high school years with you—the drama, the joys and the defeats. It was fun imagining you walking to school each morning; and I loved skimming hundred-year-old textbooks in search of perfect quotes to illustrate diary entries—but those days are now behind me.

I’m looking forward to learning more about your life after graduation, but I’ll miss your school days!

Filed under: Other | Tagged: diary, family history | 42 Comments »

Had 3 Final Exams

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Sheryl

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Wednesday, April 16, 1913: We had three today. Think I passed all three of them. Was trying to work some problems this evening, but got stuck on some of them.

Recent photo of the building that once housed the McEwenvsille School.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Grandma –It’s a good sign when you feel confident that you passed the final exams. I bet you did well on them.

In the evening, were you trying to work problems that had been on the exam to see if you got the right answer? . . . or were you doing problems to study for one of the upcoming tests?

Filed under: Other | Tagged: diary, family history, hundred years ago | 8 Comments »

The Problem with Tests and Exams a Hundred Years Ago

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Sheryl

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Tuesday, April 15, 1913: Tomorrow witnesses the beginnings of our final examinations. I do hope that I’ll pass.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Hang in there Grandma—you’re almost there. Your graduation invitations have been mailed. You’ll navigate your way through this final hurdle.

—

The way students are tested today is controversial. I was amazed to discover that people also had concerns about exams a hundred years ago.

Here is an excerpt from an article in the October 1912 issue of Ladies Home Journal called “The Black Beast in Every Child’s School Life”:

No evil in the present American public-school system is, to my mind so great and so manifestly unjust to the pupil as what may very aptly be called “the black beast of every child’s school life”: examinations, as they for the most part now are conducted. .

Examinations, as they are now almost universally conducted in our schools, are a memory extortion pure and simple. An examination is supposed to be a final twist which will forever fix in the memory as a whole the items that have been put into it one at a time.

Why should we longer put our children to these terrible strains as we do now? I have tried to think out a good reason and I am unable to do so.

The dictionary is always at hand when the pupil is studying his lesson, and so can be referred to at will. Besides this the grammar is always accessible, to explain new an unusual forms and phrases that appear in it.

But when examination day s comes every one of these rightful and useful helps in his work is taken away from him, and arm’s length of memory alone if he is asked to translate, give forms of words and account for constructions, without any assistance from the tools that he ordinarily has been permitted to use.

Memory-test examinations must be abolished. Time was when the word “scholar” meant a wailing dictionary. There are too many words now, and knowledge has too vast a reach, to be compressed into any one single head. Besides, what’s the use? Dictionaries are cheap. The missions can have cyclopedias now; and things are so much easier to get at, so much more reliable withal so much more liable to keep in any climate when preserved for ruse in this way.

Filed under: Education | Tagged: 100 years ago, diary, family history | 26 Comments »

1913 House Plans

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Sheryl

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Monday, April 14, 1913: Nothing very much a doing.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’ll share two charming house plans that I found in the April, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal.