Fun Friday - Our Pics from the Museum

Like I promised, here are the rest of the pictures I took at my local museum.

This is a step by step wooden etching, just like the Japanese would use in their traditional art. You have to add every color one at a time. Very tedious but extremely beautiful result!

Here's some Native American Pottery... the big greyish piece in the first picture actually has some swirly designs on it, which is very pretty!

The above is a dugout canoe with the following plaque describing it: Prior to the Civil War, the majority of rice was grown on large plantations nearer to the tidal waters and ports. However, isolated, small-scale rice production continued further inland until the early 20th century. This canoe, made from the hollowed trunk of a cypress tree, was used for navigating the river. It was recovered in a former rice field in 1975 by a descendant of the landowner. 

This is a basket made of sweetgrass, I believe. Slaves and women of the family would make baskets. It reminds me of going to Charleston and seeing the basket makers there. 

This is a Regency-era dress (Caroline Abbot if you really need to know which AG girl this dress would have belonged to). I like the puffed sleeves and the simple fabric. 

Here's a circular quilt.

This is a desk and books belonging to a local author circa 1859. 

Civil War Era Calvary Uniform & Guns...

A Nurse's uniform. 

An old-timey grocery store (probably something that every AG girl went to until Rebecca in 1910ish). I love the Coca-Cola sign and the Goody Powder!

WWI or WWII uniform.

This is a French flag with some writing on it from the world wars. 

I'm really sure that this uniform is from WWII.

An unarmed atomic bomb actually landed in someone's yard near me. The antique tv was playing news casts about it while the metal things above are the shrapnel from it. 

This game is from the 1930s thanks to the popularity of  the capture of John Dillinger (an American gangster), the man who captured him, Melvin Purvis, gained popularity as well. "G-Man" radio programs, board games, comic strips and toys were popular. 

History isn't sparkly and shiny clean, as most people know. Our ancestors have all done bad things to each other - slavery, wars, famine... If slavery or talk of slavery triggers you, I suggest you leave now. Those of you who stay, remember I don't condone slavery or anything like that. I just want to show history as a whole, not just the good part. 

This is a book written on how keeping slaves were ethical. Yes. You read that right. Someone out there had such guilt about slavery while it was happening that they had to justify it with a book. It's titled 'Christian Masters', so I can only assume that the Bible has to have some passages saying slavery is a-okay. The book doesn't call slaves slaves though. They call them 'servants' and offer instructions on how to treat them right while defending the practice. 

This is a map of slavery. The darker the colors, the more slaves there were... And this was only the 1850s, 10 years before the Civil War began. 

The W-shaped object is actually a pair of shackles used on slaves. 

One method of rice farming, where you hang the rice stalks on a loose scaffold, got traced to Nigeria in West Africa. Apparently, slaves brought over their techniques of farming. 

Seeing these items made me feel uncomfortable, to say the least. To say the most, I was angry, ashamed and horrified by what my ancestors did. I turned to my mom and asked her "how do you deal with it?" with the 'it' being slavery. She said it took her a long time to get over the horror of the idea of owning other people in America of all places. She used to ask her father the same question. I guess you can never really come to terms with knowing what your ancestors did was (excuse my language) extremely shitty. She basically reaffirmed what I already knew - you can't change the past. I can be as angry about it as I want, but it won't change the fact that my ancestors felt like they could own other people. But she was quick to remind me that we could change the future of relations between the races. It was not the most uplifting talk I've ever had, but it was a question I felt I needed to ask and talk about with my mom (I don't really think I have ever asked my mom about slavery, to be honest). 

I know I will never be able to understand what it is/was like to have your ancestors enslaved. I'm not going to pretend that I can imagine that. I did African American History Month despite being white because... I wanted to. I felt like it was needed. To have an open discussion about the race crimes that have gone on in the past so hopefully, they won't go on in the future. I want this blog to be different from all the other American Girl blogs out there that just shove Valentine's Day hearts into your throat every single February because it's happier that way. In order to understand ourselves, we have to go to the past, no matter how much it hurts or how dark it is. If we forget history, it is bound to repeat itself.