Clemens' Silent Teacher, A Dissected Map of the United States and Each State in Counties: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

The Clemens Silent Teacher is an example of a geography teaching tool from the late 19th Century. It is a “dissected map” or in modern language, a jigsaw puzzle. Dissected maps were one of the earliest types of educational tools for children. These puzzles were introduced from Europe in the late 18th Century. They were hand painted, hand cut, and expensive. Increased industrialization by the 1850’s resulted in tools for cutting thinner sheets of wood and plywood. Lithography and later chromolithography helped lower the cost of printing. Puzzles, became affordable as manipulatives, made a good tool for younger child. They were promoted for use in the growing number of kindergartens.

The Silent Teacher was a popular puzzle map; we have a much earlier version in the collection that was produced by a different owner of the company. When Reverend Erastus J. Clemens (1848-1896) from Clayville, N.Y. bought the company (ca. 1880), he changed the marketing to feature an eye catching, though offensive, lithograph on the box. The inside seriously promotes these toys for their educational value and includes what amounts to a pyramid scheme involving incentives for children selling these puzzles. In addition to this series of state maps, and a US map, he expanded his line to include spelling and arithmetic products.

These puzzles also include a pictorial advertisement on the reverse side. Sherman Williams Paints was the advertiser when Reverend Clemens was in charge of the company but after his death his wife took over and she appears to have made a deal with White's Sewing Machines. Inside of the box lid, in addition to a list of other educational games the company sold, there is also a pitch for children to become part of a pyramid sales scheme with the incentive that they would receive more puzzles free if they had their friends sell so many.

This puzzle is a lesson on the late 19th/early 20th Centuries perception of world cultures and a prelude to the ethnography exhibits at the 1892 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The cover image is blatantly offensive for its stereotypical caricatures of various ethnic groups. Figures personify their homelands through exaggerated dress -or undress as in the case of an African nation. A strange feminine child Uncle Sam, sans trousers, is in the center, handing out puzzle maps. From 1880-1920s, these unkind depictions of ethnicity and cultural were all too common and examples of Jim Crow. Demeaning imagery on so called educational tools and games resulted in daily insults and pain for many students, while providing inaccurate information about other cultures. It helped to fuel fear that immigrants would disrupt the status quo. Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, publishers didn’t begin to make diversely inclusive materials available until after the Civil Rights movement was well under way in the mid 1960’s and with replacement budgets often low, updated materials didn’t begin to arrive to some schools until the 1980’s- a full century after this puzzle was first made.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1880 - 1895
• Object Name: puzzle
• Object Name: puzzle - 67 pieces
• Physical Description: cardboard (container material)
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 5.4 cm x 23.3 cm x 18.3 cm; 2 1/8 in x 9 3/16 in x 7 7/32 in
• place made: United States: New York, Clayville
• used: Education
• Subject: Puzzles
• used: educational toys
• associated subject: Geography
• associated subject: Education Tools- Geography
• ID Number: 2017.0095.415
• accession number: 2017.0095
• catalog number: 2017.0095.415
• Credit Line: Gift of Dr. Richard Lodish American School Collection
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.