This digital story recording was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student documentary initiative, called "Stories: Yes." The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
Filmed and created by Buffalo Island Central High School, EAST Students, in conjunction with the Buffalo Island Museum, Arkansas.
This simple black pot is much more than it seems as locals Rudy and Doodle share about the one on display in the Buffalo Island Museum in Arkansas. This story is connected to Buffalo Island Central EAST's online story map From Swamp to Farmland and interactive exhibits at the Buffalo Island Museum, which both trace the the history of agriculture in the area. Within the exhibition, the photo was connected to an augmented reality experience that brought the object to life. To see it, search for this story on www.museumonmainstreet.org.
Doodle: That's what you make lard in. You'd kill your hogs and you'd make lard in that. You'd render your lard, get it in a 50 gallon can, we'd have. And you'd make soap in it, lye soap. You'd make some cracklins, you know what-
Doodle: That's the skin off a hog. They fix it and make cracklins. And they was good.
Rudy: Also wash clothes in them.
Doodle: Yeah.
Doodle: You'd get a big pot boiling, put them in there, and you had a stick, just keep [inaudible 00:00:34].
Rudy: Stir them around and keep working them. Then when you take them out of there you put them in the cold water, and you had bottles of bluing that they put in, that bluing in there to keep your clothes-
Doodle: Blue.
Rudy: . . . like blue jeans and stuff.
Doodle: Then you'd put them in another tub and starch them, then you'd hang them on the line and everything, and it'd come a good wind, and blow them down, you had to do it all over again.
Asset ID: 8684
