Exploration Never Ends

“Peoples places, and things—and our ideas and questions about them—are always changing and always ready to be explored again.”

 

This quote from the wall of the Museum of the American Philosophical Society could easily be incorporated into the teaching of European exploration.  The museum focused on five explorers from the early 1700’s to the present.  The idea that the period of exploration did not start with Columbus and end with Lewis and Clark is a great one to teach 5^th graders or history learners of any age.  Exploration is a state of mind as this exhibit reminded us.  Exploration is also the incorporation of new ideas, technology, and insight into existing fields of study, and it involves looking at the micro, as in the case of Ruth Patrick when she discovered diatoms in freshwater ecology, and also at the macro in the case of David Rittenhouse who explored the external world, surveying new territories.  To give students this idea about exploration instead of the limited version taught in most Social Studies textbooks is expansive and opens imaginative possibilities for the future.  In history classes, a point often missed by our students is that we are making history today by the choices we make and the decisions we act on.  Expanding the content and focus of a study on exploration is a good way to help students reflect on this major historical theme.

 

Our visit to the APS had some other interesting aspects to it.  Across the street from the museum was Benjamin Franklin’s library.  It was in a room upstairs which is now the APS library.  This room held about ½ of the books owned by Franklin during his life and the other half held books that were printed by Franklin.  The APS library holds about 75 percent of the surviving papers of Franklin and we were able to see  a letter written by Franklin to his grandson and carried by balloon over the English Channel which is said to be the first air mail delivery.  There was also a letter from Washington to Lee asking for money for Thomas Paine and a later letter written to Washington from Paine.  We learned a little bit about Charles Vincent Peale and his contributions to the APS including the bones of a mastodon which have since been destroyed in a fire.  Some current members of the APS are Sandra Day O’Connor, Neil Armstrong, and Jimmy Carter.  Today it continues as an institute to support research and the expansion of human knowledge.

 

The afternoon we spent a couple of hours at the Atwater-Kent Museum where we had a lecture on Philadelphia and abolitionist movement.  From this I learned about Philadelphia as a hub for the anti-slavery movement.  Again we were able to access documents and material resources that told the story of Philadelphia in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. One document we viewed was the “Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention” written in 1833.  For students it would be interesting to compare the idea of equality in this document with the ideas stated in the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address.  Since the Anti-Slavery document bridged the years from the Constitution to the Gettysburg Address, it would be a unique perspective to explore.  I would NEVER do this with fifth graders, but if I were working with older students, I would divide them in groups for the readings of the documents and ask them to research the parts of the document that contained the phrases relating to equality and then layer that on top of some research about the geography and political climate of the time and place where the document was written. 

 

Other related ideas discussed in the afternoon session had to do with people’s views towards amalgamation versus equal but separate and also the fact that the Revolution forced the issue of equality itself.  The 1700’s were years that questioned the idea of status and social standing.  Philadelphia was the city where much of this took place.  On a continuum, they were at the forefront of much of much of this thinking with the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society, and the Free Produce Movement.  Well before any other colony took a stand, Philadelphia became known as a safe-haven for slaves not only by the white community but by the slaves themselves as evidenced in the story of the liberation of Jane Johnston (Johnson??).

 

There were many other interesting things about the two places we visited, but I will show you a few of them here at the end with photos.

 

 Journals of Lewis and Clark APSJefferson draft of the Declaration with edits by Arthur Lee

 Dunlap copy of the Declaration on capskin (only copy in existence)

 

 Fundraising document for the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  Pledges were made by four presidents and it is the only document that exists with all four signatures on it.  Washington pledged $100 unsure of the others.