History as a Guide

Reading an article about historical tours in the Inquirer, 'Press passes' to earlier times, I recognized one of the guides as a friend of ours (no online picture). The article described "History Hunters Youth Reporter Program, which brings area schoolchildren on tours of four historic Germantown houses: Stenton, Cliveden, Wyck and the Johnson House. Stenton, the first stop on this tour, was once the home of James Logan, William Penn's secretary and agent. Built in the 1720s, it was home to three generations of Logans." The article continued:

"Armed with "press passes" and notebooks, the history hunters follow guides throughout the houses, take notes, then write articles about life back in the day, from the colonial era to the Civil War."

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"You never know what they're going to ask," said another guide, Loree Schuster, who was wearing a bonnet and layered servant's costume similar to LaBletta's. "Some of them have asked me if I live here."

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[O]ut in the yard, Schuster was trying to give a second group of students a sense of slave and servant labor. They dressed up in servant garb and scampered about the yard, raking leaves and dipping cloths in cold water to simulate washing clothes.

"Did that seem like a lot of work?" asked Schuster.

"No," the five students responded in unison. They were having fun.

"What if you had to do it on a hot day? For 12 hours?" Schuster asked, hoping the tasks had imparted some understanding of the lives of slaves in colonial America. The students made notes in their reporter's notebooks.