Digital Colonial and Revolutionary Times History-in-a-Box Kit

These lesson plans, consisting of background information for you and your students, as well as activities connected to that material, are based on primary sources and provide interactive learning experiences. Objects depicted in this digital kit connect to specific lessons. There are also additional lessons that exist independent to the objects in the kit. Each lesson plan delineates which objects from the kit are related to that particular activity, as well as what additional materials are to be supplied in the classroom. Some educators choose to use the lessons’ activities in centers, while others use them in whole-class scenarios. We encourage you to adapt the lessons to work for your subject and grade level. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction Essential Standards for Social Studies, as well as English Language Arts, Information and Technology, Science, and Arts, and Math Common Core Standards may apply to lessons in this kit.

Many Piedmont settlers used the red clay found in the region to make pottery to use themselves and to sell to others. These red stoneware pieces, are called redware. Redware would have been used by Moravians, Yeoman farmers, as well as by some wealthy landowners. This mug is one of four reproduction dinnerware pieces that are used in a lesson deigned to help students understand how colonists’ possessions reflected the backgrounds, wealth, knowledge, skills, and even where they lived.

African Americans often carved dinnerware and utensils from wood. Enslaved people sometimes used pewter and china dishes that their owners gave them. This wood bowl is one of four reproduction dinnerware pieces that are used in a lesson deigned to help students understand how colonists’ possessions reflected the backgrounds, wealth, knowledge, skills, and even where they lived.

North Carolina was a key piece in the British army’s southern strategy. The British believed that they could regain control of all the American colonies, by first regaining control of the Southern colonies, where they assumed most colonists were loyal to the British. While many southern colonists did remain loyal to England, loyalist support was never enough to regain control of North Carolina or any other southern colony. As this map illustrates, the British Army and its loyalist militias clashed with the Continental army and patriot militias all across North Carolina, throughout the entire war.

Landowners in colonial North Carolina commonly used pewter dishes, like this. Pewter, a metal alloy containing tin, was melted and poured into a mold. Other items made from pewter included buttons, spoons, inkstands, mugs, teapots, and candlesticks. This pewter plate is one of four reproduction dinnerware pieces that are used in a lesson deigned to help students understand how colonists’ possessions reflected the backgrounds, wealth, knowledge, skills, and even where they lived.

In 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act in an effort to raise taxes to pay for the French and Indian war. The new law required colonists to purchase a special half-penny stamp to be placed on printed materials such as newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, and paperwork printed for business transactions. The law infuriated colonists, including the publisher of the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, who created a skull and crossbones parody of the official half-penny stamp. Newspapers from across the colonies reprinted this parody stamp as a sign of protest against the Stamp Act. These replicas of the official British half-penny stamp and the skull and crossbones parody stamp are used in an activity designed to provide students with a better understanding of the viewpoints of England and the colonists during the buildup to the American Revolution.

Before Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, making cloth from cotton took a very long time. After colonists picked the cotton by hand, they had to remove the seeds one by one, often the work of enslaved workers. Colonists would then use cotton cards like these to smooth the cotton, before spinning the cotton into a thread using a drop spindle.

Most the clothing worn by North Carolinians during the Colonial period were made from either silk, linen, cotton, buckskin, or wool. A description of each can be found below. Wool Wool is the dense, soft hair forming the coat of a sheep. The fabric made from this hair is warm in winter and cool in summer because of its absorbency and ability to breathe. Wool is easily dyed before or after weaving. Silk Silk is a fine, lustrous fiber produced by silkworms. In the 18th-century, silk makers kept silkworms in controlled environments, one cocoon to a cubicle, to create a smooth, single thread when the cocoon was unwound. The silk thread was then reeled and woven into cloth. Silk is very easy to dye bright colors. Linen Linen is produced from the flax plant. The fiber is found in the core of the tall woody stalk that must be broken away to release the long, lustrous thread. Linen was grown, processed, and woven in many areas of Europe and shipped to the colonies. It absorbs moisture readily and becomes softer with multiple washings. Cotton utilitarian Cotton is manufactured from the fiber of the cotton plant. In the colonial period, processing cotton was laborious and time consuming. Farmers and slaves picked it, removed the seeds by hand, then smoothed it with cotton cards. They used a drop spindle to make cotton into thread, then placed the thread on a loom to weave it into cloth. Buckskin The Cherokee made much of their clothing from buckskin, or brain-tanned animal skin. The Cherokee first scraped the hair and flesh from an animal skin (the sample in this kit is from a deer) with a stone scraping tool. This produced smooth but hard skin. Next, they soaked the hard skin in a mixture of animal brains and water, then stretched it until it was dry. The brain solution made the skin pliable and very soft and turned it a creamy white color. The soft skin was then smoked to darken it and make it resistant to insects. These pieces of fabric and related information sheets are part of a larger lesson deigned to help your students better understand and identity different aspects of life and culture for Colonial North Carolinians.

The tricorn hat is, perhaps, the most recognizable piece of the colonial wardrobe. During the 1700s, the tall crowns and wide brims of the 1600s gave way to the “cocked” style of hat: three sides of the brim were pinned or buttoned in place, forming a triangle around the head. Tricorns could be plain as well as fancy, and, as many soldiers discovered, tricorns could be practical as well as fashionable. While tricorns were usually were worn with the point facing forward, soldiers placed the front corner above their left eye, allowing better sighting for their muskets and rifles.

While these four objects may be unfamiliar to many of us today, this sander, pot scrubber, soldier’s housewife, and drop spindle could have been found in most colonial households. These four reproduction artifacts are part of a hands-on activity designed to help students practice analyzing and identifying objects. Using the artifact analysis worksheet and companion History Mystery - Colonial Life video, students can still develop their observational skills and learn how historians use artifacts to study the past.

Children throughout history have always made toys and games using whatever they had around them. Colonial children invented games using everything from coins to beans. Children living in colonial North Carolina had very few toys, and most of those were homemade, using readily available materials such as wood and clay. This Ball and Cup, set of clay Marbles, Jacks and Ball, and Butter Bean game are just some examples of popular colonial era toys. Despite their relative simplicity, many of these games are still played today.

Musical instruments, especially drums, were essential pieces of military equipment during the eighteenth century. Drums were used to send commands to the troops, whether it was in the camp or on the battlefield. This replica drum and mallet is used in an activity which gives students a taste of life as a soldier. In this activity, students practice facing commands and following commands based on drum rhythms.

Today, it would be strange for many to use a piece of foreign currency to buy anything, but it was common practice in colonial America. During colonial times, coins were valued by their weight and metal content, not at face value as they are today. Colonists often used the Spanish silver dollar because it was worth roughly the same as the British Crown. Because silver and other precious metals were in short supply, colonists often cut coins into eight equal "bits”. These pieces of coin were known as “pieces of eight” and widely used throughout the colonies.

England forbade the American colonies to mint coins, but English coins were in short supply. So settlers often used foreign coins and local currency, such as wampum, and traded goods and services. These cards are is part of an activity designed to help students gain a better understanding of trading during colonial times.

“Join, or Die” was a political cartoon created by Benjamin Franklin that first appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. The purpose of the woodcut was to generate support for Franklin's Albany Plan of Union, a plan that would have created closer economic and defensive ties among the American colonies during the French and Indian War. This puzzle of Franklin’s infamous “Join or Die” political cartoon, and is part of an activity designed to encourage students to analyze the meaning behind Franklin’s cartoon, and the impact other colony’s actions had on the colony of North Carolina.

This film, Friends in Liberty: North Carolina in the American Revolution is based on the journal of Hugh McDonald, the son of Highland Scots Loyalists, who joined the Sixth North Carolina Regiment of the Continental Army in 1776. Through the eyes of this 14-year-old boy and his friend, a fictitious character named Anne Taylor, we learn about North Carolina during the American Revolution. Anne’s experiences, such as her struggles with increasing responsibilities and worries at home after her brother Samuel joins the militia, help us understand a young girl’s view of life during the Revolutionary War. To watch this film, click here. This film is part of an activity which will help students will gain an appreciation for the choices faced by people in wartime.

In the 1700s, women and girls were considered “undressed” without a cap. The mob cap, with its gathered crown and frill, was usually made of linen or cotton but could be made of lace for a more fashionable look. Caps both protected the wearer’s hair and covered it, as most people washed their hair infrequently. Mob caps were worn under bonnets and other hats. This reproduction waist coat is used in an activity which helps students will gain an appreciation for the choices faced by people in wartime.

Aprons are common sense in cloth—the need to keep clothing clean has existed as long as we’ve been wearing clothing! Pinafores—bib-style aprons covering the chest (that’s the bib) and dress—were “pinned” before (“afore”) the dress; these became known as pinners. This reproduction pinner is used in an activity which helps students will gain an appreciation for the choices faced by people in wartime.

King Charles II decreed in 1666 that the wearing of a “vest,” which stopped at the waist (in the time of long coats) would be the new fashion, and within days, it was adopted by many men in the court and beyond. Waistcoats became required articles of clothing for many years, and they could be plain or fancy. This reproduction waist coat is used in an activity which helps students will gain an appreciation for the choices faced by people in wartime.

Starting in the 1650s, waves of European settlers came to North Carolina looking for wealth, land, religious freedom, and a chance at a better life, often at the expense of the Native Americans who already called the land we now call North Carolina home. In our hands-on Revolutionary North Carolina History-in-a-Box kit, this 20-side dice and set of trivia questions are part of a lesson plan designed to help students better understand why various groups of European settled in North Carolina, and the impact their settlement had on the area’s American Indians.