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d) Yes
Wealthy children often were tutored at home or sent to private academies for their education. Whether they were a boy or girl would determine what their studies would be. For instance, boys learned Latin and sometime Greek, history, reading and writing, in order to prepare for college. It was rare for young girls to go to college until the end of the nineteenth century. Instead, they were taught skills necessary for being good wives and mothers. But for every child, there were always the special occasions to look forward to. What might you remember as a special event? Depending on how old you were at the time, you may have gone with your father to view the aftermath of the great Chicago Fire in 1871. From October 8-10, a great fire raged throughout the city. By the time the fire had been put out, more than four square miles of Chicago had been destroyed almost one-third of the entire city! Two-hundred-fifty persons were killed and more than 90,000 were left homeless. According to popular legend, Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern in a shed and set off the blaze. By 1875, however, Chicago had been almost entirely rebuilt, and was a dazzling, new, and modern city. What kinds of games and toys do you play with now? How are they different from those that children long ago played with. How are they similar? |
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| Select another nineteenth-century boy or girl and see how you would survive a day in their life. | |||||
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African- American boy
(ca.1865) |
Frontier girl
(ca.1860) |
Irish immigrant boy
(ca.1850) |
Native American boy
(ca.1855) |
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