Share Your Story
There are several different ways people talk about the past; these can take the forms of art/crafts, music, literature/stories, drama, and museum exhibits. People also find ways to preserve the past by creating an archive collection. This section will introduce you to these presentational styles and will offer an opportunity to create your own Fruit Belt history using what you’ve learned.
Art and Crafts
In the past, people have used art and craftwork to describe events, people, and places of the past. While these works may depict a single event, sometimes they represent a series of events or timeline. Many artists used different media to depict narrative stories with art. Artists in France and Belgium embroidered a long piece of cloth to show the Norman conquest of England in 1066. This cloth is called the Bayeux Tapestry. It’s over 230 feet long and shows many battles of William the Conqueror. Ancient Egyptians depicted their own histories in linear drawings on the walls of the pyramids. In Greece, artists painted scenes on their pottery to illustrate mythical stories. In Japan, artists used scrolls to show long histories over time. These scrolls would contain hundreds of different scenes and pictures, each representing a different event in time. Readers would unroll part of the scroll at a time, winding into another spool as the story progressed.
Literature and Drama
Writing about the past is one of the most common ways that people express their feelings about history. This writing can take a number of fictional or non-fictional forms, like poetry, short stories, plays or essays about certain people / conditions of the Fruit Belt. In 1979, Thomas J. Millar wrote a poem about the Blossomtime festival in Benton Harbor:
The snows have gone
And Spring is here.
It’s the very best time
Of all the year.
Spring means blossoms
And leafing trees.
Greening hills
And buzzing bees.
There’ll be a Blossom Parade
In the Old Home Town
With beautiful queens
In formal gowns.
There’ll be bands galore
And horses too.
Dancing clowns
Doing the old soft shoe.
There’ll be floats of every shape and kin
Depicting scenes of Blossomtime.
If ‘ere I have to move away
I’ll be coming back for Blossom Day.
You can write your own literature about the Southwest Michigan Fruit Belt. Think about an aspect of the fruit industry that you have learned through this guide (Labor, Growers, Technology, Commemoration, Buildings, etc.). Perhaps you would like to write about a building you investigated in your community, or a person you interviewed in your oral history. Choose something new you’ve learned about the fruit industry, and write a poem or short story including what you’ve learned. Think about people’s feelings about the fruit industry, what it meant to communities, and how communities changed as the industry changed. Include the answers to questions like these in your story or poem.
Music
People often write songs to commemorate special events or express their personal feelings about the past. In 1928, Val Hamilton and Marian Resch wrote a song called “Blossom Time in Michigan” to commemorate this important season in Michigan Agriculture. Think about an important time or person in your life. If you were to write a song, what would you say about this event / person?
Museum Exhibits
Historians often use museum exhibits to display history to the public. These exhibits are displays of artifacts, documents, photographs, literature, art, and other sources in a unique way that tells the story to the public. In creating exhibits, historians first think about the questions they want to answer. How was the fruit industry important to Southwest Michigan? What sorts of people and industries were involved? Then, the historians collect sources, artifacts, and documents that to offer facts about the topic, answering their questions. They analyze and interpret the sources, as discussed in this guide. When the interpretation is complete, the historians choose which sources can best help them tell the story. They write small paragraphs and phrases that explain the different artifacts, documents, and other sources. Then, the historians arrange the sources and text to make an interesting display for the public that teaches them about the past.
Preserving Materials in an Archive
The word archive refers to both the official records created by organizations, and the building/facility where these records are preserved and used. These facilities usually employ an archivist, who preserves and maintains the collection—which may contain documents, photographs, newspaper clippings, personal papers and diaries, maps, charts, and other useful information about the past. Materials such as these may be organized according to previous ownership (“John Smith papers”), theme/topic (i.e. American Revolution), or source (i.e. MSU extension service reports). Historians and researchers use archived materials to help find clues and evidence about the past.
Archivists take many steps to preserve records and other materials. This includes removing potentially damaging items from the records (such as paperclips or rubber bands). It is best to store archive materials in a controlled environment, that is, one that is not subject to changes in temperature and humidity. To protect the documents, archivists store records in special protective sleeves made of Mylar. The archivist then organizes the records and archived materials in protective boxes on shelves and in drawers for easy retrieval. Where funding permits, archivists make a digital copy of the record/item by scanning or photographing it. This ensures that, if all other protective measures fail, a digital copy of the record remains preserved in electronic form.
Tips on How to Preserve Photographs and Documents
Projects to help you Share your Story
Choose one of the projects below to illustrate what you have learned about the Fruit Belt. Use information you have gathered and analyzed from documents, artifacts, oral histories, buildings, the landscape, maps and charts, photographs and literature to share your story about the Fruit Belt.
Write a Play about the Fruit Industry
Materials:
2 sheets of construction paper
2 toilet paper rolls
1 clothespin or paperclip
tape, scissors, crayons or markers, pencil and paper
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Think about a general timeline for your town. On a sheet of paper, draw your timeline and jot down ideas for pictures to represent the town. What did it look like when the first settlers arrived? What sort of buildings did they build? What about later, when more people came? When did fruit farming start? What sort of tools, equipment, and buildings were needed for the fruit industry at first? When did the canneries, basket companies, and other buildings arrive? When did trains, cars, TVs, radios, and computers arrive? What about major world events like WWI, WWII, and Civil Rights? What happened when bigger companies and stores were built nearby? Map out 8-10 events on your timeline.
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Cut your construction paper in half vertically, and tape the ends together to make one long piece. Attach one end to a toilet paper roll with tape, so that the paper winds around the outside of the roll. Do the same with the other end of the construction paper strip.
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Illustrate the events from your timeline on the construction paper scroll from left to right. Concentrate on events that shaped your local community through the fruit industry.
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When you have finished, wind the paper scroll completely around the right-hand tube. You may need a clothespin or paperclip to secure the tubes together.
Materials:
2 sheets of large construction paper
scissors, a stapler
crayons or markers
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Fold the construction paper vertically in half, then in half again. When you open it up, you should have 4 long sections. Cut along the folds to make 4 long strips. Do the same with the second piece of construction paper.
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Arrange 6 strips in a star pattern and staple the center. Flip the star over so that the top strip is now on the bottom. Fold one end of a strip into the center, dividing it in half and make a crease. Do this with all 12 ends, so that they are folded evenly.
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Connect the remaining two strips at one end. With crayons or markers, illustrate one of the following narratives on the strip, leaving about 3 inches at each end.
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The life of an apple, from seed, to tree, to picking, to factory, to shelf as applesauce and pie filling
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The changing ways people have used baskets to harvest fruit from trees
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The different types of machines and labor used to harvest fruit over time
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Scenes from an oral history
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Five new things you learned about the fruit industry
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Attach one end of your narrative strip to a folded end on your basket with a staple. Wrap the narrative strip around the basket shape, connecting each folded strip end to the narrative with staples. You may need to have a friend help you hold the strips in place to staple them.
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When you have finished, you will have a narrative basket relating to Southwest Michigan’s Fruit Belt.
You can illustrate what you’ve learned about the Fruit Belt by creating your own Fruit Belt exhibit. There are 3 simple steps to creating an exhibit: (1) find, (2) interpret, (3) present.
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First, you’ll want to think about a theme for your exhibit, such as the Fruit Belt.
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Gather materials that could be included in the exhibit. A good way to distribute this task would be to have each classmate bring in a different object that could relate to fruit growing in Michigan. Remember, these might include any of the sources discussed earlier in this guide (artifacts, documents, oral histories, maps and charts, buildings, photographs, the natural landscape, literature, and art). Comparative items (such as canned goods or tools from today) also make good objects to display, as they show change over time.
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Analyze and interpret the source according to the guidelines presented in this guide. Write a short paragraph describing the significance of the source and what it tells us about fruit growing in Southwest Michigan.
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Think about how you could arrange these objects, according to what they tell us about the past. Creating thematic headings might help you organize your sources. For example, in creating “World’s Largest” The Benton Harbor Fruit Market and Southwest Michigan’s Fruit Belt, the Fort Miami Heritage Society used the following themes to organize the information they found: Growers, Labor, Research, Growing Conditions, Processing, the Market, Shipping, and Culture & Commemoration.
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Arrange your sources according to the themes you’ve created. Use the texts written about each source to label the objects. You may also want to write some broader statements about each theme using the information gathered from the sources, as well as an introduction to the exhibit (describing themes presented, and the overall topic).
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Place your arrangements on display in a space, such as your classroom or library. Use poster board to mount photographs and documents next to the texts that describe them. Write out your thematic statements and introduction on poster boards and display these accordingly.
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When you have completed your exhibit display, you can talk about the sources and what you’ve learned by conducting a tour of your exhibit. Walk other classmates, family, and friends through the display, talking about the objects and sources presented, how they are significant, and how they tell the story of the Fruit Belt.
Write a play about the fruit industry:
Think about people involved in the fruit industry in Southwest Michigan (growers, laborers, shopkeepers, factory workers, businessmen, etc.). How do these people interact with each other? You can write a play using the stories gathered from oral histories and other sources you investigated to learn about the Fruit Belt. Choose one aspect about the fruit industry to write about, such as baskets. Think about who would have used baskets, who made them, and how. Create characters to fill these roles, and write dialogue between characters to tell the story of the fruit industry and how baskets played a major role in fruit collection and transportation.
When your play is complete, choose classmates or friends to read each of the various roles. You can also incorporate costumes and settings to make your play more realistic. Perform the play for other students, family and friends.
Think about what the Fruit Belt has meant to the people of Southwest Michigan. The buildings, industry, farms, and communities of the Fruit Belt have involved many people in a number of different ways. Write a poem about life in the fruit industry, on fruit farms, or as a laborer in an allied industry. When you have finished your poem, you can use a simple melody you already know (such as “Happy birthday,” “Old McDonald,” etc.) or create your own melody to turn your poem into a song.
Click here to download two scenarios for role-playing in PDF form
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