It’s seldom remembered, but an event in Paris in 1790 introduced a concept that made possible nearly every manufactured object sold in the world today. And, oddly, it led indirectly to unhelpful practices in teaching storytelling.

An Astonishing Feat

In Paris's historic Hotel des Invalides in 1790, Honore Blanc, an inventor and gunsmith, staged a daring demonstration in front of a crowd of prestigious politicians, academics, and military men. Until that time, firearms were built individually. Each part of each gun was separately shaped by hand; no two were identical, so replacement parts had to be laboriously crafted to match each unique broken one. This made repairing a gun almost as difficult as making one in the first place.

But Blanc had a bold, new plan: he had manufactured 1000 gunlocks (the critical part of the gun, which causes the gunpowder to explode, firing the bullet) that were made of identical parts. In front of the startled crowd, he chose one of each gunlock-part randomly from bins, then assembled them into a working gunlock. Then he repeated his feat again and again for the astonished crowd. Blanc had just demonstrated the potential of interchangeable parts...

Storytelling Enters Society’s Bloodstream

When I began calling myself a professional storyteller in 1976, I found myself riding a wave that others had created, a wave that was later called the “storytelling revival.” That very year, eminent child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim had just published The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Three years before, the first National Storytelling Festival had been held in Jonesborough, TN.

...as I began this endeavor, I saw storytelling as a possible antibody to the commercialism, competition, and materialism that had infected the bloodstream of our society. We were few, but we believed our effect on society would be good.

Fast forward to 2016...