glassblowers, livery men, and wig makers from a new perspective

Not sure what age these kids are, but they wrote and illustrated some colonial jobs. My favorite is the livery man because of the bit about what they produced, you know it was a question on their list (What did they produce?), but glassblowing is good, too.

"Colonial Jobs: In our class study on the colonies, students partnered up to research one of the jobs that colonists might be likely to have had. They wrote short essays describing those jobs, the products made, and the materials used. They also created sign posts very much like the early colonists used to advertise their shops. Here are the results of their study:

Glassblower by John Alan and Tyler:

Glassblowers were usually middle or high class depending on which products they sold. An expensive product they sold was flint glass. They were normally men because they had to be strong to be able to make the glass.
They usually used a separate building like an industry to work in. Here are some of the tools and their uses:

• Battledore: a square wooden pattle that is used to smooth the vessels and other objects
• Blowpipe: a metal tube used to gather a blob of molten glass through which air is blown by the glass maker to make the glass its shape
• Caliper: used to measure the out sided diameter, inside diameter, and wall thickness
• Crucible: it resembles a large clay bow land holds clear glass in its liquid state
• Lehr: used to control the rate of cooling
• Pincers: they are used to develop the glass, to form any handles
• Pontil: used to bring the gathers of molten glass from the furnace
• Pucellas: used to make the glass its wanted shape
• Shears: used for tweezers for digging into or pulling on the glass.

Those were some tools in their industry. There was also melting pots, oven, benches, and leer cooling tunnels in a glassblowing industry.
A famous type of glass that they blew was called crown glass. The glassblowers made it by blowing a bubble of glass, then, span it until it was flat. It was used for windows. Plate glass was also famous and was made by casting a large quantity of molten glass onto a round or square plate. Once cooled, they polished the sides. It was used for mirrors and other products requiring a high quality of flat glass.

Livery Man by Dalton and Cole:

A liveryman is a lower class person who either gets little pay or no pay. A liveryman keeps horses and cattle. Sometimes a liveryman will keep dogs. Some liverymen are in the middle class or lower middle class. Also a liveryman is normally a male.

A liveryman works in a livery stable. Sometimes the dogs might stay in a fenced in area. For the job they used saddles and ropes. The dogs might be tied up to a post too.

A liveryman doesn't produce much. Sometimes a dog or horse might have a baby horse or dog. That sums up what a liveryman does.

Wigmakers by Sara Beth and Meredith:

People started to make wigs in the eighteenth century. They were invented in London, England. Wigs were very important in the days of the colonial days because men wore them. Wigmakers were very successful.

You would probably find wigmakers in barbershops and sometimes in their own homes. Wigs were made from horse, goat, yak, and human hair. Some of the tools they used were a hackle, comb, and wig point. The hackle was a comb like tool for the raw hair to pass through. The comb was passed through the hair. It looked like a comb we use today. A wig point was a nail to secure the wig net on to the wig block.

The wigs cost more than clothes did. Most wigs were long, curly, and in a pony tail. If you were poor you wouldn’t go wigless. Not all wigs were expensive. When the people who wore wigs got older they changed the color of the wig."

spell check doesn't think wigless is a word! website accessed May 3, 2009: https://abs-5.wikispaces.com/