The thing I love most about history is its quirky little pieces.
Don’t get me wrong- names, dates, and places on a map are all
important, and provide a necessary context for understanding.
But it’s the strange bits of information that can really capture
a person’s curiosity and help us relate to the people that lived
long ago. They’re also the most fun things to share with our
guests and get the best reactions from students. Some of my
favorites include: • During the Civil War, a woman named Emma
Edmonds disguised herself as a man and joined the Union army.
Then, still thinking she was a man, her commanding officers
asked her to disguise herself as an Irish peddler woman and spy
on the Confederates. She was a woman pretending to be a man
pretending to be a woman. • Lye for soap comes from running
water through wood ashes. You need dirt in order to get clean. •
Beaver fur from the frontier was used to make high-quality felt
for fashionable hats in Europe. Unfortunately, the chemical
process used to transform t