GETTING STARTED IN HEIRLOOM TECHNOLOGY

Where to start? Since it’s all about passing on things of value, how about getting your kids into it? The following were my favorites when I was growing up. I learned a lot about how to build things from these books. I'm listing them in approximate order of difficulty. A child who can handle a pocketknife or sew is old enough. Some of the books are out of print. To find out-of-print books, search on abe.com, Amazon, eBay, and at libraries. To find other sources, look up abe.com on alexa.com, a web information service.

BOOK LIST:

Wilder, James Austin. Jack-Knife Cookery. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1929. 186 pages illus., 20 cm. Intended for children. The cutest little book ever made. How to cook without utensils and camp without carrying much. Maybe the first book on ultralight camping. The author traveled all over the world studying traditional techniques. Then he tested them with his scout troop in Hawaii for years before writing this book. So the instructions are clear, easy to follow, and everything works. Full of cute, easy-to-understand line drawings. A lighthearted tome that will help you find the deserted island in your backyard.

Jaeger, Ellsworth. Wildwood Wisdom. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1945. 491 pages illus. 21 cm. Intended for children. Similar to the above but much thicker. Traditional regional, Eskimo, and Indian technology for young campers. Especially good for making your own winter clothing. Judging from what modern Eskimos wear, the mittens and boots are still better than anything you can buy. Profusely illustrated.

Beard, Daniel C. The American Boy’s Handy Book: What to Do and How to Do It. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, †1882. 391 pages illus., 2 fold. pl., 20 cm. Reissued by David R. Goodine publisher, 1998, 441 pages. Intended for children. A bestseller from 1882, beautifully illustrated and very appealing. From age 10 on, I spent years building projects from this book. My “Man Friday Raft” log raft sank immediately. My “Tom Thumb Iceboat” failed to move at all. I concluded that boys a hundred years ago were far more skilled than I. Now that I’m almost 40, it’s obvious that my raft logs were too heavy and the iceboat blades were the wrong shape. Those masterful boys from the book must have had a lot of help from parents and grandparents. This book is good for that. Just be aware that some of the drawings are wrong and some important information is omitted. If you’d grown up in the 1840s around rafts and iceboats, you’d probably find it easier to fill in the blanks than I did. That said, you must have this book, and most public libraries already do.

Wigginton, Eliot, ed. The Foxfire Book: Hog dressing, log-cabin building, snake lore, mountain crafts and food, and other affairs of plain living. New York: Anchor Press/

Doubleday, 1972. 384 pages illus., 24 cm. Produced by high-school students in Appalachian Georgia. They interview their relatives and neighbors to document traditional crafts, stories, and lore. My parents gave me this book for Christmas. I immediately saw what project I wanted to do. So my mom drove me out to a friend’s farm to get a load of manure to make gunpowder. After leaching out the nitrates, I was in too much of a hurry to evaporate the water. I overheated the crystals, and whoosh! — a big mushroom cloud, as the mess all went off at once. Foxfire project is a giant success story: the kids learn academic skills and to value their heritage; the old people get to pass on their wealth of wisdom; and the rest of us get access to low-impact technology that’s stood the test of time. Everything is good about the Foxfire project. Start one in your village.

Foxfire 2: Ghost stories, spinning and weaving, wagon making, midwifing, corn shuckin’, and more.

Foxfire 3: Animal care, banjos and dulcimers, wild plant foods, butter churns, ginseng, and more.

Foxfire 4: Fiddle making, spring houses, horse trading, sassafras tea, berry buckets, gardening, and other affairs of plain living.

Foxfire 5: Ironmaking, blacksmithing, flintlock rifles, bear hunting, and other affairs of plain living

Foxfire 6: Shoemaking, 100 toys and games, gourd banjos and song bows, wooden locks, a water-powered sawmill, and more.

Foxfire 7: Traditions of mountain religious heritage, covering ministers, revivals, baptisms, gospel singing, faith healing, camp meetings, snake handling, and more.

Foxfire 8: Southern folk pottery, from pug mills, ash glazes, and groundhog kilns, to face jugs, churns, and roosters, mule swapping, chicken fighting, and more.

Foxfire 9: Twentieth anniversary of the high school program. General stores, the Jud Nelson wagon, a praying rock, a Catawban Indian potter, haint tales, quilting, home cures, and the log cabin revisited.

Tim Anderson, founder of Z Corp., has a home at stuff. mit. edu/people/robot/ home.html . When not ice-kite-butt-board-ing in a rooster-crested motorcycle helmet, he can be found all over the world using and documenting heirloom technologies.

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