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One Room Schoolhouse/Corpus Chrisi Museum
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One Room Schoolhouse
Furniture was very different in isolated one room schoolhouses than in modern elementary schools. Students sat on benches instead of having individual desks. The teacher did not have a desk either. He or she might be lucky enough to have a stool and a table, or perhaps only a lectern. With only one room and one teacher, students of all ages shared the same lessons. Often, boys sat on one side of the room and girls on the other, with the youngest children at the front. The older children sometimes helped by teaching lessons to the younger ones. The “recitation bench” was the opportunity for the students to recite lessons to the teacher and take instruction from the teacher. This was the opportunity for the students to receive help and solve problems. A class might only consist of one or two students, especially in the higher grades. Since most of the students were from farms or rural areas it wasn’t uncommon for them to “drop out” when they achieved a basic understanding of the three R’s (Reading, {w}’Riting, and {a}’Rithmatic) and return to the heavy labor of the farm. Most learning on the farm took place as “on the job” training from then on. |
Shellcrete House
The shellcrete exhibit represents a room in a Corpus Christi house from the 19th century. It is constructed of shellcrete bricks, which are made of shells, and quicklime. These bricks were commonly used in Corpus Christi for building construction, particularly for foundations, because there were few locally available resources (trees and rocks) for building construction.
The bricks in this exhibit were salvaged from the Wrather House, which stood on North Chaparral Street from the 1860’s until it was destroyed by Hurricane Celia in the 1970’s
In the “old days” much more time and effort went into household chores. Modern machines are missing from this room, and their was no electricity to run them. People or animals powered most machinery. Some energy was harnessed from moving water, or from burning fuels (such as wood or coal). Work meant long, hard days of physical effort to keep things clean and to feed everyone. |
Shellcrete House/Corpus Christi Museum
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Jones General Store/Corpus Christi Museum
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Mr. Jones General Store
General stores carried everything and anything. What they carried in stock depended on what was available, and that was limited. You could buy tools, coffee, nails, seeds, hats, kerosene, shoes, furniture, dishes, thread, candy, saddles, medicine, animal feed, sugar, dried or preserved food and more. Mail order catalogs were a favorite source of goods; if something wasn’t available in the store or couldn’t be ordered, you had to grow it, catch it, make it, or do with out. Often general stores had little showroom space, as is the case of Jones General Store. Mr. Jones has a larger amount of space in his warehouse than in the store, so that much of what he sells is only displayed in limited quantity. If a customer wished a larger selection than what is displayed, the storekeeper or his helper would fetch it from the upstairs storage area or the warehouse out back.
The store often served as a meeting place, news and gossip center, and information outlet. Note the hand-lettered signs that serve to keep the public in the know about special things happening, available commodities or services, Also note the potbelly stove and chairs used for people to “sit a spell” and exchange information and/or gossip and just about any other information necessary to survival in those times. |
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