Through interactive discussions and hands-on activities, our trained museum educators help students make connections to the past and to learn how history relates to life today. We look forward to welcoming you at Historic Hudson Valley. This program focuses on the interconnected roles of the tenant farmers, Anglo-Dutch landowners and enslaved Africans who lived and worked within the colonial economic system. The program also considers their relevance to the world of international trade. A costumed interpreter provides an interactive orientation to the site.
Students then visit the mill, manor house, tenant farmhouse and farm.
At each station students experience hands-on opportunities and observe demonstrations of activities such as spinning wool, driving oxen or milling wheat. 60 Forging an African American Culture By investigating the mill, farm, dairy, the ruin of the bake house, and the believed site of the slave quarters, students reconstruct the lives of the enslaved Africans who lived and worked at Philipsburg Manor in the 1740s. Students discern that the African American population played a vital, integral role in the economic development and cultural diversity of New York. For grades 7 - 12. Each group of six students spends an hour learning these skills and their significance to the community.