Walker Valley Living History Outline

Walker Valley Living History Outline Big Idea People’s lives and the environment changed with the creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Essential Questions • How has the park changed over time? • How did the creation of the national park change the lives of the people who lived here? • What purpose and role do national parks play? Vocabulary • Eminent domain—the government’s power to take private property for public use, after paying a fair price to the owner of that property • Great Depression—beginning in 1929 and lasting until World War II, a time of poverty and unemployment for many Americans • Industrial Revolution—In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a time of great change in the economy and society resulting from more manufacturing, better transportation, and less small-scale farming • John D. Rockefeller, Jr.—Son and heir of John D. Rockefeller, billionaire owner of Stan- dard Oil Company; He donated $5 million to buy private land for the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. • Lease—an agreement between the owner of a house, land, or other possession and someone who wants to use it, in which the user pays for the right to use the owner’s possession • Little River Lumber Company—the logging company that cut trees on much of the western side of what is now Great Smoky Mountains National Park • Living History—a way to explore the past by recreating societies from a certain time period, with costumed characters, props, and a lot of imagination • Mr. and Mrs. Davis—a Knoxville couple who visited national parks in the western states in the early 1920s and were inspired to establish one in the East; Ann Davis was elected to the Tennessee General Assembly in 1924 and sponsored the decision to buy over 78,000 acres of land from the Little River Lumber Company to add to the park. • Roaring 20’s—The 1920s was a decade of growth for art, music, and the economy. Many people were wealthy and cities were growing, and some of the wood to con- struct those new buildings came from the Smoky Mountains • Skidder—a piece of logging equipment used to bring logs down from a mountainside. In the Smokies, skidders used a cable pulley system. Great Smoky mountainS inStitute at tremont 1 Walker Valley Living History Outline • Sled—a livestock-drawn vehicle with runners instead of wheels, used to carry equipment, crops, and other miscellaneous loads • Splash dam—a way to transport logs down a small river by building a dam of logs, allowing water to pool and many more logs to accumulate behind it, then blowing up the dam so the resulting flood of water carries the lumber downstream to the saw mill • Walker Valley—The valley where Tremont is located, named for settler and patriarch Will Walker Lesson Outline • Walker Valley History Slide Show • Central Activity • The Hike and Survey • Group Sharing • Conclusion Great Smoky mountainS inStitute at tremont 2 Walker Valley Living History Activities THE TEACHER’S ROLE LEAD IN SLIDE SHOw AND TImE Travel 60 Minutes Procedures During the lead in to Walker Valley Living History, the lesson coordinator (a Tremont staff member) will present a 45-minute slide show and explain the living history activity to the students. The teacher’s role during the slide show is simply to watch the students’ behavior, provid- ing discipline when necessary. After the slide show, the students will split into their teaching groups to prepare for the hike and character interviews. At this time, teachers should make sure there is at least one adult with each group, helping the students write questions and get into character. CENTRAL ACTIVITY HIkE AND SuRVEY 90 Minutes Procedures Following the slide show, Mr. or Mrs. Davis will meet the entire group on the bridge for a final review of expectations for the interviews. He or she will hand the adult leader from each small group a map de- tailing the path and direction you will take to find the characters. When your small group encounters a character on the trail, allow the students to conduct the interview. Make sure each student gets a turn to ask questions. Timing is important. The time from when the group arrives at a sta- tion until it finishes talking to that character should be approximately 15 minutes. Please hold to this schedule in order to make the lesson run smoothly. Timing is up to each teacher, not the characters. The teacher’s role throughout the main activity is to provide continu- ity and keep the students thinking about the main question of whether or not to establish a national park here. After leaving a character, take a few minutes to review with your group. How did the character respond to their questions? Were the students on task and respectful? How did the character influence the students’ ideas? What questions might they ask the next character they meet? Great Smoky mountainS inStitute at tremont 3 Walker Valley Living History Activities wRAP uP GROuP SHARING AND DISCuSSION 30 Minutes Procedures After the interviews are completed, bring your group to the meeting location, which will probably be the Council House or Cove Room. The lesson coordinator will meet you there to conclude the lesson. Following a few minutes of discussion, each small group will be asked to present the results from their interviews. As needed, teachers can help their students prepare to share with the large group. LESSON ACTIVITIES wALkER VALLEY HISTORY SLIDE SHOw 45 Minutes Procedures The lesson coordinator (a Tremont staff member) will tell the students that today they will be participating in a living history program to learn about the story of Walker Valley and the creation of the national park. The slide show they are about to see will help them get a feel for what life was like here in the days before Great Smoky Mountains Na- tional Park was established. The lesson coordinator will show the slides to the entire group and explain how each one fits into Walker Valley’s history. The lesson coordinator will answer any questions the students may have. Would they have enjoyed living in Walker Valley in the past? BRIEFING: TImE TRAVEL 15 Minutes Procedures Teachers will divide students into groups of 10-12, with at least one adult leader per group. The lesson coordinator will conduct the following introduction. Coordinator’s Introduction: Today the students will be learning some of the cultural history of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They will be hiking in Walker Valley, which has its own unique history. They are going to get a taste of what life was like in the year 1924 for people living in these east Tennessee mountains before the land became Great Smoky mountainS inStitute at tremont 4 Walker Valley Living History Activities a national park. The way that they are going to learn about these things is called Liv- ing History. In today’s living history activity, the students are all going to become characters in a kind of play. This play is going to write itself with their help. Each student is a member of a small group, and will become a character in the play. The groups are coming to do some research which relates to their jobs and the proposed park. They will be walking a trail along which they will meet characters who may have lived in these mountains. The students’ job will be to find out about these characters and how they feel about the proposed park situation. These characters are not trying to fool anyone into believing they are really from 1924; they are trying to help the students imagine that they are living in 1924. Living history activities such as this require a person who can use his or her imagination very well. It takes a kind of actor: someone who can easily adapt to a different situation, in a different environment than he or she is familiar with; someone who can slip into a scene and appear as if he or she were always a part of it. The year is 1924. Calvin Coolidge is president. There was a large outbreak of influenza about six years ago (20 million people would die world-wide, including 548,000 in the U.S.), and the Great War has been over for six years. (Remember that it would not have been called WWI at that time.) There are 48 states (Alaska and Hawaii have not been added yet). The life expectancy of a person living in the U.S. is about 59 years. Committee members have met in the city of Knoxville from places all over the U.S. Knoxville is a large city with electricity, running water, and some automobiles. From Knoxville they travel by train to Maryville, which is a growing town. Maryville has some electricity and running water but few automobiles. Horses are still the main mode of transportation. From Maryville they travel to Townsend, where they board a train operated and owned by Colonel Townsend, who owns the Little River Lumber Company. Presently, Colonel Townsend owns much land in the area and is logging some large tracts. Colonel Townsend is very important to the effort to develop a park because he owns or has logging rights on much of the proposed park land. For years he tried to buy some land from Will Walker, who owned most of this valley until his death in 1919. Will plays an important role in the development of the park as well. Some of his land was the last to become part of the park.

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