A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.
Tell us what you love.1900 House Frontier House Colonial House
The premise of this first reality-TV program is brilliant. Take an ordinary middle class family of the year 2000 and make them live for 6 months like an ordinary middle class family of the year 1900. The London-based producers succeed in this transformation by getting every detail of Victorian domestic life exactly right and complete. The volunteer family is plunked down in a different era as if by time machine, and there is no escape. No shampoo, either. The edited 6-hour result is deep, instructive, and totally riveting, Kids who hate history are mesmerized by it. Because it is so visual and visceral, it changed the discussion of chores and gender roles in our household. Better than 100 essays, this video series reveals the notion of progress. It is now my favorite history “book.”
The success of 1900 House spawned Frontier House, a parallel experiment that transfers the conceit to the edge of Montana in 1893 during homesteading days. It ups the challenge by requiring the participants to build their homesteads and raise all their own food while sticking to period tools and the lifestyle of pioneers. The three families who settle in a beautiful valley need to stockpile enough food, shelter and firewood to last a Montanan winter. Instead of cooperating, they compete against each other, making this remarkable 6 hours series into what Survivor should have been – an authentic test of surviving. There is probably no greater persuader of women’s inequality than this pair of films. The guys loved being pioneers, while the women and girls were imprisoned by it.
In the last to be made, Colonial House, the premise is now familiar -- only with fewer tools. Make a modern family live with only the tools and resources available four centuries ago. The suburban families are sent to live in the summer of 1628, on a forested island off of Maine. Their task: build a New World colony (20 people strong) that can both survive and pay back its investors in England. Life is pretty grungy. Two families to a room; no outhouses.
Of the three programs Colonial House is the best, in part because of the reality show-like drama and bickering between the colonists. They fight over religion, status, and food. Cameras record every detail as the pudgy newcomers scrounge for scraps, learn how to farm Indian corn, all the while slowly starving, and assuming appropriate roles such as indentured servants with astounding ease. Who knew how easy devolution was? Like the hit TV series Survivor, it’s about how primeval people get when survival is at stake. But unlike Survivor, there’s genuine historical logic, authentic rituals, and significant meaning in their test. If I had to choose one of these three historical reenactments, I’d start with this one, the 8-hour Colonial House. But if I could, I would require every child in 21st century America to view all three series. These are the nearest things yet to a time machine. — KK
Most of what you read about what happened in the past is written by someone who read what someone else read about it. Here is a diverse collection of short first-hand, eyewitness accounts of what proved later to be important events. Vivid, uncensored, naked testimony from someone there at the time. Make up your own mind.
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