Last updated: September 30, 2024
Lesson Plan
Cultural Dress
Ledger art titled "Morning Water" by George Curtis Levi
George Curtis Levi
- Grade Level:
- Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade
- Subject:
- Social Studies
- Lesson Duration:
- 60 Minutes
- Common Core Standards:
- 3.L.4, 3.L.4.a, 4.L.4, 4.L.4.a, 5.L.4, 5.L.4.a
- State Standards:
- 4th History 1.1 a. and c. Analyze primary and secondary sources from multiple points of view to develop an understanding of the history of Colorado. 4th History 1.2 c.Describe the historical eras, individuals, groups, ideas, and themes in Colorado history
- Thinking Skills:
- Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts.
Essential Question
1. Name articles of dress that indicate material availability and purpose for certain Anglo, Native American, and Mexican people groups in the 1840s living in the Borderlands?
2. Give reasons for these differences.
Objective
Identify and analyze period clothing from the 1840s as worn by various cultural groups in the southern Great Plains.
Background
At about fourteen years of age, Lewis H. Garrard, read John C. Fremont’s Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, an account published in U.S. newspapers in 1843. Fremont’s descriptive account enticed Lewis to venture West by himself only three years later. Garrard wrote his own book of experiences lasting from 1846-1847 titled Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail. “Wah-to-yah” is a Comanche word meaning “double peaks,” which described the mountainous Spanish Peaks found in southeastern Huerfano County, Colorado. As Lewis set off, Ceran St. Vrain, the founding partner of the Bent, St. Vrain, & Company, guided his wagon from Independence, Missouri to the trading operation along the Arkansas River, known as Bent’s Fort, in September of 1846.
The narrative text provided in this lesson offers quotes taken directly from Garrard's journal regarding the dress worn by select people he encountered. Prior to lesson, please read the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian "Native American is not a costume" article to better understand Native American perspectives concerning garments, styles, and use.
Preparation
Materials needed:
- Lewis Garrard narrative "Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress Narrative Text"
- Copies of narrative text for learners (one redacted and one complete)
- Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress Images document
- Exit ticket
Materials
Companion text for Cultural Dress lesson
Download Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress Narrative Text
Companion document containing photos or sketches of 1840s clothing styles from the 1840s
Download Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress Images
Lesson Hook/Preview
Activity: Divide learners into small groups. Have each learner find a tag on their clothing or shoes that indicates where it was manufactured. Gather whole group to share their clothing tag country. Optional extension: Plot the manufacturing countries students identified on a world map to aggregate the data.
Group Discussion: Ask groups to brainstorm, “What did a person living or working along the Santa Fe Trail wear?” List or repeat responses without commenting on their accuracy.
Topic Relevance Question: Ask groups if they wear the same thing on non-school days that they wear to school. Ask if their clothing choices would be the same for meeting their favorite famous person, performing in a concert, or working on a farm. Why or why not? Ask groups if they think that another person their age in a distant region wears the same thing they do? Why or why not?
Procedure
1. Show sketches and pictures of period dress for Anglo citizens in urban areas of the eastern U.S. in the 1840s. (See Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress Images document.) Note differences from today’s dress in style, material, comfort, etc. Ask group what professional dress looks like today. (Answers may include collared shirt, suit and tie, pant suit, high heels, etc.)
2. View other forms of clothing from Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress Images document. Prompt learners to hypothesize the duties, locations, or habits of the people by their dress. Call on a spokesperson from each small group to share their ideas.
3. Pass out Garrard’s redacted quotes so that the people groups are not identified. Ask groups to read the redacted passages and use context clues to determine who Garrard is describing. Circulate among groups asking learners to support their claim regarding group identity and answer what clues are given from the text. After all groups have engaged, re-read Garrard’s passages without redactions and notes. Clarify any misunderstandings.
4. Discuss the origins of buckskin, quills, beads, vermillion, and woolen sarape. Ask learners to consider why dress between Mexican and Native American cultures (who existed in this region long before Western expansion) varies significantly from that of the eastern U.S. Anglo citizen living in a city. Guide learners to understand how material availability impacts clothing production. Humans tend to use what they have on hand to supply their needs. Deer was plentiful on the Plains leading to buckskin articles. Sheep ranches were prevalent in New Mexico leading to woven clothing articles. However, articles like beads and coins were not manufactured on the Plains or even in America, but in countries such as Italy and China. How did the Cheyenne or other Plains tribes acquire these so they could incorporate them into their dress? (Trading posts like Bent’s Old Fort!)
5. Pass out Cultural Dress Exit Ticket.
Vocabulary
vermillion - a bright red mineral used in paint
quillwork - an artform used by Native American tribes to decorate clothing and articles by taking and dying porcupine quills and weaving them into designs
crownlock - a hairstyle worn by some members of Plains Indian nations placing portions of hair up on top of the head, often adorned with feathers
currency - a system of money
sarape - a man's woolen shawl or blanket, often with stripes and brightly colored
vagrant - wandering
exile - one who is cast out from their home country
bewailing - expressing disappointment
bereavement - grief
Assessment Materials
Cultural Dress Exit TicketExit Ticket containing the lesson's two essential questions
1. Name articles of dress that indicate material availability and purpose for certain Anglo, Native American, and Mexican people groups in the 1840s living in the Borderlands?
2. Name three reasons for these differences.
A two-question assessment containing the essential questions for the Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress lesson
Rubric/Answer Key
Cultural Dress Exit TicketPossible answers to Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress Exit Ticket assessment
Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress Exit Ticket Answer Key
1. What articles of dress indicate material availability and purpose for various people groups in the 1840s along the Borderlands? Answers may include: Anglo men and women in the eastern U.S. who traveled West wore various tailored garments of cotton, linen, silk, lace, felt, and wool with stylized buttons. Top hats were also worn. Native American nations on the Plains wore clothing made from deerskin decorated in complex quillwork. Some men wore a crown lock adorned with feathers. Mexican men and women wore woven fabrics often of wool with bright colors and patterns. When trading posts opened, all these cultures varied their style with articles previously unavailable to them. Adding new garments or adornments from other cultures accomplished either a functional or style purpose.
2. Name three reasons for these differences. Answers may include: The location where people lived often determined what clothing they could wear because of the resources available. The eastern U.S. had access to manufactured clothing sold in stores. Mexico because of its sheep farming had access to wool and produced wool garments. Native American tribes had neither wool nor manufactured clothing, but regularly hunted deer and porcupine making them able to covert deerskin into comfortable clothing decorated with quillwork that allowed for movement when following animal herds. The occupational lifestyle of an Anglo merchant, a Native American hunter, and a Mexican herder influenced what clothing was practical. Top hats would not have been sensible when herding sheep. Comfortable deerskin clothing would not have communicated Anglo-European professionalism for a merchant in the east. The Mexican sarape would likely have been too warm to wear inside on a regular basis.
Possible answers to Lewis Garrard Cultural Dress Exit Ticket Answer Key
Supports for Struggling Learners
Pre-reading vocabulary definitions will be helpful for the narrative text. Reading the redacted narrative with a focus on using context clues to determine the missing portions is essential. Some readers may benefit from being given extra time and multiple readings. All readers including struggling readers would benefit from reading the whole text after engaging with the redacted text.
Enrichment Activities
Social/Emotional Enrichment:
People often dress not only to suit their purpose (school, work, special event), but also according to mood. Consider the accessories used by the Cheyenne during their celebration in Garrard's narrative text. Do you believe tribal members always dressed this way? What can “dressing up” indicate about one’s attitude?
Lesson Extension: Consider how Anglo-European items influenced the cultural dress of native populations and vice versa. (Suggest that President George Washington’s iconic white pants were likely buckskin.) Why do you think indigenous tribes adopted certain trade items into their “traditional” dress? Why do you think Anglo-European men like hunters and fur trappers adopted Native American dress like buckskin?
Research Mexican Cultural Dress Enrichment: Research traditional cultural dress of Mexico. Consider how clothing is a cultural identifier in the past and now and how to avoid stereotype.
Research Native American Quillwork and Beadwork Enrichment: Research Plains Indian quillwork and beadwork during the 1800s. Determine the process for crafting and define the use of color, pattern, symbolism, and function for given articles.
Additional Resources
To encourage respect for Native American traditional dress with links to more lessons, visit the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.
Native American Cultures and Clothing: Native American Is Not a Costume | Helpful Handout Educator Resource (si.edu) accessed 9/25/24.
To encourage cultural sensitivity, consider this article and learning lab for your class from the Smithsonian. It presents Mexican culture and dress in ways that address how to avoid stereotype. Going Beyond Stereotypes: Mexican Indigenous Dress and Musical Instruments accessed 9/25/24.