Clemens' Silent Teacher, A Dissected Map of the U.S. and their Counties
date: label: date made
content: 1880 - 1895
notes: label: Description
content: The Clemens Silent Teacher is an example of a geography teaching tool from the late 19th Century. It is a “dissected map” or in modern language, a jigsaw puzzle. Dissected maps were one of the earliest types of educational tools for children. These puzzles were introduced from Europe in the late 18th Century. They were hand painted, hand cut, and expensive. Increased industrialization by the 1850’s resulted in tools for cutting thinner sheets of wood and plywood. Lithography and later chromolithography helped lower the cost of printing. Puzzles, became affordable as manipulatives, made a good tool for younger child. They were promoted for use in the growing number of kindergartens.
label: Description
content: The Silent Teacher was a popular puzzle map; we have a much earlier version in the collection that was produced by a different owner of the company. When Reverend Erastus J. Clemens (1848-1896) from Clayville, N.Y. bought the company (ca. 1880), he changed the marketing to feature an eye catching, though offensive, lithograph on the box. The inside seriously promotes these toys for their educational value and includes what amounts to a pyramid scheme involving incentives for children selling these puzzles. In addition to this series of state maps, and a US map, he expanded his line to include spelling and arithmetic products.
label: Description
content: These puzzles also include a pictorial advertisement on the reverse side. Sherman Williams Paints was the advertiser when Reverend Clemens was in charge of the company but after his death his wife took over and she appears to have made a deal with Singer Sewing Machines. Inside of the box lid, in addition to a list of other educational games the company sold, there is also a pitch for children to become part of a pyramid sales scheme with the incentive that they would receive more puzzles free if they had their friends sell so many.
label: Description
content: This puzzle is a lesson on the late 19th/early 20th Centuries perception of world cultures and a prelude to the ethnography exhibits at the 1892 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The cover image is blatantly offensive for its stereotypical caricatures of various ethnic groups. Figures personify their homelands through exaggerated dress -or undress as in the case of an African nation. A strange feminine child Uncle Sam, sans trousers, is in the center, handing out puzzle maps. From 1880-1920s, these unkind depictions of ethnicity and cultural were all too common and examples of Jim Crow. Demeaning imagery on so called educational tools and games resulted in daily insults and pain for many students, while providing inaccurate information about other cultures. It helped to fuel fear that immigrants would disrupt the status quo. Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, publishers didn’t begin to make diversely inclusive materials available until after the Civil Rights movement was well under way in the mid 1960’s and with replacement budgets often low, updated materials didn’t begin to arrive to some schools until the 1980’s- a full century after this puzzle was first made.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Clayville
topic: label: used
content: Education
label: Subject
content: Puzzles
label: used
content: educational toys
label: associated subject
content: Geography
label: associated subject
content: Education Tools- Geography
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Education
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Dr. Richard Lodish American School Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2014.0244.005
label: accession number
content: 2014.0244
label: catalog number
content: 2014.0244.005
objectType: label: Object Name
content: puzzle
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: cardboard (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5.4 cm x 23.3 cm x 18.3 cm; 2 1/8 in x 9 3/16 in x 7 7/32 in