History

Pleasures and Profits From the Past: The Best Time Machines Are Paper

Talented writers can make the past come alive, as three famous historians show through their powerful works. 
Pleasures and Profits From the Past: The Best Time Machines Are Paper
Louis Firetail, a member of the Crow Creek Sioux tribe, wears tribal clothing in an 1899 history class at the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. Public Domain
Jeff Minick
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Some 20 years ago, an American history class for homeschoolers was reading Booker T. Washington’s “Up From Slavery.” Rebecca, a bright 12-year-old of my acquaintance, told her parents that she couldn’t really identify with the slavery described by Washington in his autobiography’s first chapter.

On the following Friday evening, with her consent, her parents decided to help her out. They arranged a pallet for sleeping in the corner of the kitchen. Early the next morning, her mother flicked on the overhead lights and commanded her to get up, sweep the floor, and make breakfast. Her parents enjoyed eggs and bacon; Rebecca was given some unbuttered toast. She was assigned chores throughout the day and awarded a light lunch at noon.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.