Did you ever put a piece of paper over a coin and rub over it with a pencil or crayon? What happened?

Try it! Use thin paper such as newsprint, typing paper or tracing paper. Put the paper over the coin and hold it in place with one hand. With your other hand, hold your pencil or crayon so that you are using the side of the lead or crayon. Rub across the coin. The texture of the coin makes a pattern that appears on your paper.

Now you're ready to try to make some architectural rubbings. Look around your house, apartment or condominium. What materials were used when it was built? You can make rubbings of the materials. Then put the rubbings in a scrapbook or make a display.

What does your home have on the outside? The Hackley House facade in the Michigan Historical Museum's Lumbering Gallery has painted clapboard siding (long, narrow boards with one thin edge and one thick edge, overlapped to cover the outside of a building) made from the wood of white pine trees. Other houses might have brick or stone or other materials on the outside. Today some houses have metal or fiber-glass siding that looks like wood.

The museum's Hackley House has a small theater inside, but the real Hackley House in Muskegon has rooms decorated with elaborately carved black cherry and other woods. Ceramic tiles and fine fabrics decorate the walls. What materials does your home have inside? Is there paint or wallpaper on the walls? Do you have a fireplace of brick or stone? What covers the floors--wood, tile, carpet or other materials? If some floors have vinyl on them, are they smooth or textured? Are they individual tiles or all one piece?

We looked around the Michigan Historical Center to see what materials were used to construct this building. We found copper and limestone on the exterior walls. There is smooth black granite on some interior walls and rough black granite on some floors. Doors and woodwork are made of oak.

These rubbings made with a black crayon show some of the Michigan Historical Center's materials. Match each of these materials with its rubbing below:

• copper
• limestone
• oak wood
• rough black granite

Do you see the smoothness of the copper, the grain of the oak wood, the fine texture of the limestone and the bumpy roughness of the granite in the rubbings? Answers

Now try some rubbings of your own. Have fun, but be careful to keep your crayon or pencil on the paper. Enjoy learning more about the materials with which you live!

Michigan Historical Center, Department of History, Arts and Libraries
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