DUMMY
A slate is a thin piece of hard, flat material such as mica that is used as a medium for writing. The stony substance, is “a metamorphic rock created by the recrystallization of the minerals in shale from clay to parallel-aligned, flat, flake-like minerals such as mica”.[1]
The writing slate consisted of a piece of slate, typically either 4x6 inches or 7x10 inches, encased in a wooden frame.[2]
A precise date range for writing slates of this type has not been established.
Usually, a piece of cloth or slate sponge was used to clean it and this was sometimes attached with a string to the bottom of the writing slate.
The writing slate was used by children in America in one-room schoolhouses to practice writing and arithmetic during classes or at home and in multi-room schools until the twentieth century.
The writing slate was sometimes used by industry workers to track goods and by sailors to calculate their geographical location at sea. Sometimes multiple pieces of slate were bound together into a “book” and horizontal lines were etched onto the slate surface as a guide for neat handwriting.[3]