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19th Century America

The 19th was the United States' first full century as a nation. It was full of birth pangs, moments of triumph, and things that made everyone shake their head and wonder what was going on. One of the most interesting of the latter bits was when British ex-pat Joshua Norton crowned himself Emperor of the United States, "reigning" from San Francisco.

Most people remember the 19th century for the Civil War. While it certainly was a significant event, one of the most important events in American history even, there were a number of surrounding factors that were just as important, and without which the War Between the States would never have developed.

Arguably the most significant of these was Western Expansion. The idea that Americans were fulfilling some kind of national destiny by claiming the Western part of the continent was called Manifest Destiny, and its origins can be found in the writings of some of the most prominent Founding Fathers, like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Their dedication to the Enlightenment ideal of human progress (that mankind controlled its own destiny, and that that destiny was to move ever forward) translated into a need to expand their country as far as possible.

As with anything else, God used that humanist doctrine to advance His own truth. While politicians and opportunists went West to obtain land, gold, and freedom, Christian missionaries went to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. People like Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and Jason Lee braved the Oregon Trail simply to share their faith with the Native Americans in the Western Territories; the Whitmans even gave their lives, becoming the Pacific Northwest's most famous martyrs.

Meanwhile, back in the East the bigwigs were conspiring to breach the 3,000 mile gap between the East and West coasts with a recently improved invention: the steam engine train. The First Transcontinental Railroad wasn't completed till 1869 (four years after the Civil War had ended), but it's origins reach back to the 1840s when it was first envisioned by Asa Whitney.

In fact, the transcontinental railroad was a significant element of Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign and administration. This was the problem: the North wanted the Trans to go through their territory because they had so much industrial product to move, while the South wanted it to run through the bottom half of the States so they could transport cotton, sorghum, and other agricultural goods.

The reality was a bit of a compromise, but the violent debates that stirred Congress had no small part in fomenting the division that would ultimately erupt in full-blown war. Slavery was the main issue, but it affected so many other factors that to reduce the origins of the Civil War to slavery alone is a bit revisionist and narrow-sighted.

For a lot of the 19th century, it seemed that the United States led a charmed existence, that Progress was a sure thing and there was nothing really to fear, certainly no problem that couldn't be overcome. The last two decades were exceedingly prosperous, leading to a sense of smug optimism that only the terror of World War I, the moral chaos of the Jazz Age, and the sudden insecurity of the Great Depression could effectively end.

Not everyone was man-centered and materialistic, however. The 19th century saw a surge in evangelism unlike anything the fledgling nation had seen, so pervasive and productive that it was called the Second Great Awakening. Unfortunately, a lot of doctrinal dilution came with the new preaching, but there were plenty of genuine conversions, and much good came of them.

It's difficult to reduce a one hundred year span to a few paragraphs, and there are certainly things we could have mentioned. Comprehensive treatments aren't always the best way to study history, though; each era has its own spirit and attitudes (its own zeitgeist, if you want to get all technical and German) that best represent it. We hope you'll bear that in mind in your study of the 19th century in America, and indeed throughout your study of history here and around the globe.

Topics of Interest from the 19th Century:

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur.Read more of his reviews here.
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Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance
by Frances Cavanah
from Rand McNally
Biography for 3rd-6th grade
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Africa Is My Home
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America in the Time of Abraham Lincoln
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American History for Young Students II
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Before the Gold Rush
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Behind the Blue and Gray
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Big Annie of Calumet
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Big Annie of Calumet
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Bull Run
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California Gold Days
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1961 Printing from California State Department of Education
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Seeds of America #1
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Historic Communities
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Children of the Wild West
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Tales of the Wild West Volume 6
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Christmas on the Prairie
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Civil War
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Civil War
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Civil War
CTP Theme Series
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Civil War Days
American Kids in History
by David C. King
1st edition from John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Civil War for Kids
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Civil War Heroines
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Civil War Paper Soldiers in Full Color
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Civil War: An Interactive History Adventure
You Choose Books
by Matt Doeden
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Clara Barton: Civil War Nurse
Historical American Biographies
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Cobblestone "The Panama Canal"
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$1.50 (1 in stock)
Coloring Book of the Civil War
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$2.50 (2 in stock)
Confederate Girl: The Diary of Carrie Berry, 1864
by Carrie Berry; edited by Christy Steele and Anne Todd
from Capstone Press
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Courage to Run
Daughters of the Faith
by Wendy G. Lawton
from Moody Press
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Cowboy Trade
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Cowboys
Tales of the Wild West Volume 4
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Cowboys and Cattle Ranching
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Cowboys of the Wild West
by Russell Freedman
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Cowboys of the Wild West
by Russell Freedman
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Cowboys on the Western Trail
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Cowgirls - Coloring Book
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Daniel Boone
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Biography for 4th-8th grade
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Davy Crockett
by David Crockett
from Applewood Books
Biography for 4th-8th grade
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Davy Crockett
by George Edward Stanley
from Sterling Publishing Co.
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Day It Rained Forever
Once Upon America
by Virginia T. Gross, illustrated by Ronald Himler
from Viking Press
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Dear Levi
by Elvira Woodruff
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Diary of an Early American Boy
by Eric Sloane
from Dover Publications
American History Reference for 4th-8th grade
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Diary of William Bircher: A Civil War Drummer
Fact Finders: First-Person Histories
by William Bircher
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
Drinking Gourd OSI
An I Can Read Book Level 3
by F. N. Monjo
from HarperCollins
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Early American Industrial Revolution
Let Freedom Ring
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Early Family Home
Early Settler Life Series
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
Early Settler Storybook
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Electrical Wizard
by Elizabeth Rusch, illustrated by Oliver Dominguez
from Candlewick Press
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$3.50 (1 in stock)
Facing West
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for 4th-7th grade
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Fandex Family Field Guides: Civil War
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$10.95 $7.00 (1 in stock)
Farmland Innovator
Creative Minds Biographies
by Catherine A. Welch, illustrated by Jan Naimo Jones
from Lerner Publishing Group
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
Fields of Fury
by James M. McPherson
from Atheneum
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Fire at the Triangle Factory
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First Families: The Jacksons
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First Families: The Lincolns
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First Families: The Madisons
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Flaming Arrows
by William O. Steele, Illustrated by Paul Galdone
1st edition from Harcourt
Historical Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Follow the Drinking Gourd
by Jeanette Winter
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Historical Fiction for 2nd-4th grade
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Food and Recipes of Westward Expansion
Cooking Throughout American History
by George Erdosh
1st edition from PowerKids Press
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
Fort Clatsop
by Daniel J. Dattilio
from KC Publishing
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in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$4.50 (2 in stock)
Fortune's Bones
by Marilyn Nelson, notes and annotations by Pamela Espeland
from Front Street
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2005 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Forward March to Freedom
by Barbara Kay Greenleaf
from Grosset & Dunlap
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$14.00 (1 in stock)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom
by Kathleen Kudlinski, illustrated by Meryl Henderson
from Aladdin Paperbacks
for 3rd-6th grade
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Freedom Train
by Dorothy Sterling
from Scholastic Inc.
Biography for 4th-8th grade
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$6.99 $4.00 (1 in stock)
From Log Cabin to White House with Abraham Lincoln - Set
from Multnomah Books
for 4th-7th grade
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
From Slave Ship to Freedom Road
by Julius Lester
from Dial Books for Young Readers
for 2nd-4th grade
in Slavery & the Underground Railroad (Location: HISA-19SL)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Frontier Fort
by Scott Steedman, illustrated by Mark Bergin
from Salariya Book Company
for 3rd-6th grade
in Western Expansion (1800-1898) (Location: HISA-19WES)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
George Washington Carver
Heroes of History
by Geoff & Janet Benge
from Emerald Books
Biography for 4th-7th grade
in Heroes of History (Location: BIO-BENGE)
$11.99 $6.00 (1 in stock)
Geronimo: Apache Freedom Fighter
Native American Biographies
by Spring Hermann
from Enslow
for 4th-8th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Gettysburg Address in Translation
by Kay M., Olson
from Capstone Press
for 3rd-6th grade
in American Civil War Era (1850-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$7.95 $4.00 (1 in stock)
Go Free or Die
by Jeri Ferris
from Carolrhoda Books, Inc.
Biography for 4th-6th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$9.99 $6.00 (1 in stock)
Going to School During the Civil War: The Union
by Kerry A. Graves, consultant Melodie Andrews
from Blue Earth Books
for 2nd-5th grade
in Everyday Life in History (Location: HISV-EVERY)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Going West
by Jean Van Leeuwen, illustrated by Thomas Allen
from Dial Books for Young Readers
Historical fiction for 2nd-4th grade
in Pioneer & Frontier Life (Location: HISA-19PIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Gold Rush Fever
by Barbara Greenwood
from Kids Can Press
for 4th-6th grade
in Gilded Age & Progressive Era (1877-1918) (Location: HISA-19GI)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Good Ol' Cowboy Stories
by Jack Terry
from Harvest House
for 4th-7th grade
in Cowboys & Cattlemen (Location: HISA-19CO)
$7.00 (3 in stock)
Grandma Moses
Women of Our Time
by Zibby Oneal, illustrated by Donna Ruff
from Puffin Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$2.50 (1 in stock)
Grandpa's Stories
Tales of the Wild West Volume 10
by Rick Steber
from Bonanza Publishing
for 4th-7th grade
in Western Expansion (1800-1898) (Location: HISA-19WES)
$2.50 (1 in stock)
Graphic History of Gettysburg
by Wayne Vansant (author and illustrator)
from Zenith Press
for 3rd-7th grade
in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
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