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| To respond to this month's Editorial, send comments to: Editorial@modelrailroadnews.com |
History and Model Railroading |
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| Lewis Polk, owner of Aristo-Craft Trains, said to me recently that if you look closely, most model railroaders have an interest in railroad history. I was still coming to terms with this revelation when Peter Maurath weighed in with his TAMR column for this month. On one hand, we have a man whose entire life has been in the hobby industry and is noticing the history connection. On the other, a young man in his early twenties is building his own connection with the past. I belong to the National Railway Historical Society for several reasons. First, I represent Lewis’ remark. I wallow in trains and history every chance I get. Second, I feel that belonging to NRHS is like giving back to the railroad world for all of the years of entertainment it has provided me. Preserving the past helps to ensure the future while providing an opportunity to learn more. Learning feels good, and learning about history not less so. Sometimes I just learn little stuff, and other times I make major breakthroughs of understanding. I wish I could say I recall every historical thing I’ve learned, but I can’t. I can say, however, that I’m influenced by all of it. It’s a giant puzzle, the one with a bazillion pieces, and I only have a very small corner put together. As a fourth grade teacher, I discovered that the fourth grade social studies books being peddled around the US have very little about railroads in them. After perusing adopted textbooks into the high school ranks, I found little more. If you’re counting on kids learning about railroads in history from textbooks, don’t hold your breath. Yet, as Lewis and I discussed, transportation is the mortar which holds together the wall of history. Once upon a time, all transportation was based on natural power: wind, water, gravity, and muscle. Dynamic power — initially from steam — changed the way man lived. Steamboats and steam locomotives built the world we have inherited. All that we are makes sense when viewed from this perspective; it seems like an incomprehensible mish-mash without it. I rejoice for Peter, for by discovering his past, he is finding his future. I feel sorrow for all the young people who see history as a mind-numbing array of names, dates, and wars. They may miss out on the delight of history. For example, they may never know that Peter Cooper had to resort to some clever problem solving when he needed steam pipes to carry the steam from Tom Thumb’s boiler to its pistons. America of that period produced no iron pipes, so he used a pair of musket barrels! One of the main activities of humankind is trade. While trade can exist without money, it goes nowhere without transportation. Children naturally trade things among themselves without ever realizing they are engaged in a fundamental of social studies. When we view human history from the perspective of trade and transportation, the curious absence of railroads as a central, unifying theme in social studies textbooks becomes inexcusable. Children once had an interest in trains and wanted models of them. The children and their parents wanted them to experience the building of an active economy, though they didn’t put it in those terms. Children today are just as interested in trains as their ancestors; it is today’s adults who are failing to present them with the opportunity to study and learn about trains and their true history. |
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John Sipple, Editor |
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| To respond to this month's Editorial, send comments to: Editorial@modelrailroadnews.com | |
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