Fine Way To Learn About Steinway

LaGuardia Community College has close ties with its neighbor in Astoria, the Steinway Company. The College's LaGuardia and Wagner Archives director, Richard Lieberman, has authored the book on the famed piano manufacturing family, and now the Archives has published a 4th-grade social studies curriculum on the firm.

According to the project's associate director, Susan Wade, this historical curriculum (one of several the Archives has produced for the city's public schools) teaches several lessons. "Students get a lesson in the immigrant experience, the growth of industry in the city, and the creation of thriving ethnic neighborhoods." Subtly insinuated into the 20-page booklet's 13 lessons are activities that focus on reading comprehension, math, language skills, maps, graphs, and puzzles. About 7,000 packets are distributed each year.

The booklet features vintage photos, letters, and government records, all taken from the Archive's fabulous Steinway collection. Adds the other co-director, Brian Gurian, "They also learn how these primary sources can be used to tell the history of a neighborhood or a person." Did you know the State requires knowledge of primary sources for 4th graders? These LaGuardia curricula, produced since 1989, have also increased the traffic of tiny feet at the Archives: in the past two years more than 1,300 4th-graders have toured the facility to view its documents and artifacts—such as the 1858 Steinway from Kentucky that survived the Civil War by being hidden in a haystack or the diary of a 16-year-old Steinway girl dating from 1868.