Conner Prairie Traditional Crafts: Preservation and Reproduction

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The Voice of the Hammer: The Art and Mystery of Blacksmithing	86.36.02
cpm.1647	81.197
cpm.2597

The preservation and continuation of traditional crafts and their skills are important to American culture. The Conner Prairie craft collection is usually limited to museum guests, scholars, and other specialized researchers. By digitizing the collection and making it widely accessible o the internet these historic artifacts and the important story they tell will be available to a mass audience, including teachers and students. This collection consists of Conner Prairie traditional crafts featuring pottery, armsmaking, and blacksmithing.

Click here to read Voice of the Hammer, a Conner Prairie publication about 19^th-century blacksmithing.

Click to access a brief video featuring Conner Prairie craft specialists discussing the importance of preserving ancient craft skills.

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This project is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

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Conner Prairie

Located in Fishers, Indiana, Conner Prairie is one of the premier Interactive History Parks in the nation. Long an acknowledges leader in the living history field, Conner Prairie specializes in providing unique, engaging educational experiences that fuel the curiosity and imagination of its guests. Conner Prairie is the only Indiana institution to be named a Smithsonian Affiliate site. IUPUI University Library and Conner Prairie are collaborating on three projects highlighting the craft traditions preserved at Conner Prairie.

Online Collection: Conner Prairie Museum Textile Collection, Conner Prairie Historic Clothing Collection, Conner Prairie Traditional Crafts, Conner Prairie Historic Almanac Collection, Conner Prairie Traditional Crafts: Preservation and Reproduction, Conner Prairie Transferware

Social Studies Educational Resources for Use with Conner Prairie Historic Clothing Collection - Study of Culture and Cultural Diversity by Shannon White

As an alternate approach to creating full lesson plans to accompany this collection, I have created activities that you, as an educator, can fit into your curriculum and lesson plans no matter what state or school district you may live in. It would be nearly impossible for me to create complete lesson plans for teachers without knowing their students, classrooms, resources, curricula, etc. My hope is that by suggesting one way to use this collection as a class project or as an anticipatory set, that you will get creative ideas of your own, which will lead to innovative, multi-disciplinary ways to incorporate this collection into your classroom. This collection includes the following items: overview; learning activity; class project; anticipatory set; and bibliography.