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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 Grows Up
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Across America on an Emigrant Train
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Adventures of Lewis and Clark
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Amazing Impossible Erie Canal
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Behind the Blue and Gray
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Big Annie of Calumet
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Biography of James A. Garfield
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Bite of the Gold Bug
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Bold Journey
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Bold Journey
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Boston Jane
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Buffalo Bill
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Seeds of America #1
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Child's Day
Historic Communities
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Children of the Wild West
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Civil War
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Civil War
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$3.00 (2 in stock)
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Step Into History
by Steven Otfinoski
from Children's Press
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Civil War Days
American Kids in History
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Civil War for Kids
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Civil War Heroines
by Jill Canon
from Bellerophon Books
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Coolies
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Daughters of the Faith
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Tales of the Wild West Volume 4
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Curious World of Calpurnia Tate
by Jacqueline Kelly
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2010 Newbery Honor
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$10.99
Danger in the Desert
by Roger Cohen
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Daniel Boone
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Davy Crockett
Heroes of History
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$11.99
Diary of an Early American Boy
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American History Reference for 4th-8th grade
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Did You Invent The Phone All Alone, Alexander Graham Bell?
by Gilda Berger, Melvin Berger
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DK Eyewitness: Civil War
by John Stanchack
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Down the Big River
Purple House Living History Library
by Stephen W. Meader, illustrated by Edward Shenton
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$10.99
Draw 50 Boats, Ships, Trucks, and Trains
by Lee Ames
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$9.99
Escape from Slavery
by Frederick Douglass, edited and illustrated by Michael McCurdy, foreword by Coretta Scott King
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Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
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2010 Newbery Honor
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Farmer Boy
Little House Series #3
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Farmer Boy
Little House Series #3
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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Fear in the Forest
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First Four Years
Little House Series #9
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Flight into Spring
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Fort Clatsop
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Forty-Acre Swindle
TrailBlazer Books
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$9.99
Francis Scott Key
Sowers Series
by David Collins
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Frederick Douglass: The Right to Dignity
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$11.99
Freedom's Pen
Daughters of the Faith
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New Edition from Moody Press
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$7.99
George Washington Carver
Heroes of History
by Geoff & Janet Benge
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Gettysburg Address in Translation
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Go Free or Die
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Biography for 4th-6th grade
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Gold Rush Fever
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Grandfather's Dance
by Patricia MacLachlan
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Tales of the Wild West Volume 10
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$2.50 (1 in stock)
Great Fire
by Jim Murphy
Later Printing from Scholastic Inc.
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$4.00 (2 in stock)
Growing Up in Coal Country
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Harriet Tubman
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Hattie Ever After
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$13.00
Heading West
by William E. Hill
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$1.50 (1 in stock)
History of US Book 4
History of US Book 4
by Joy Hakim
3rd Revised Edition from Oxford University
American History Reference for 5th-9th grade
in Joy Hakim's A History of US (Location: HISA-HAKIM)
$18.98 $11.00 (2 in stock)
History of US Book 5
History of US Book 5
by Joy Hakim
3rd Revised Edition from Oxford University
American History Reference for 5th-9th grade
in Joy Hakim's A History of US (Location: HISA-HAKIM)
$15.95 $11.00 (2 in stock)
History of US Book 5
History of US Book 5
by Joy Hakim
3rd edition from Oxford University
American History Reference for 5th-9th grade
in Joy Hakim's A History of US (Location: HISA-HAKIM)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
History of US Book 6
History of US Book 6
by Joy Hakim
3rd Revised Edition from Oxford University
American History Reference for 5th-9th grade
in Joy Hakim's A History of US (Location: HISA-HAKIM)
$15.95 $11.00 (2 in stock)
History of US Book 6
History of US Book 6
by Joy Hakim
3rd edition from Oxford University
American History Reference for 5th-9th grade
in Joy Hakim's A History of US (Location: HISA-HAKIM)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
History of US Book 7
History of US Book 7
by Joy Hakim
3rd Revised Edition from Oxford University
American History Reference for 5th-9th grade
in Joy Hakim's A History of US (Location: HISA-HAKIM)
$15.95 $11.00 (2 in stock)
History of US Book 7
History of US Book 7
by Joy Hakim
3rd edition from Oxford University
American History Reference for 5th-9th grade
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$6.50 (1 in stock)
How We Crossed the West
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Reprint from National Geographic
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Incredible Journey of Lewis and Clark
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Historical Reference for 4th-7th grade
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Incredible Journey of Lewis and Clark
by Rhoda Blumberg
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Historical Reference for 4th-6th grade
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Indians
Tales of the Wild West Volume 3
by Rick Steber
from Bonanza Publishing
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$2.50 (1 in stock)
Industrial Revolution
by Carla Mooney
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$15.95 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Iron Scouts of the Confederacy
by Lee McGiffin
2nd edition from Christian Liberty Press
Historical Fiction for 5th-8th grade
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$10.50
J. Pierpont Morgan
by Michael Burgan
1st edition from Compass Point Books
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$2.00 (1 in stock)
Jed Smith
by Frank Latham
from Christian Liberty Press
Biography for 4th-8th grade
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$10.50
Jericho's Journey
by G. Clifton Wisler
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$3.50 (1 in stock)
Jessie Benton Fremont
by Marguerite Higgins
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$13.95
John Flynn
by Geoff & Janet Benge
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Biography for 4th-8th grade
in Christian Heroes: Then and Now (Location: BIO-BENGE)
$11.99
John Lincoln Clem: Civil War Drummer Boy
Based on a True Story
by E. F. Abbott
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in American Civil War Era (1850-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$9.99
John Paul Jones
Sterling Point Books
by Armstrong Sperry
from Sterling Publishing Co.
Biography for 5th-9th grade
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$4.50 (2 in stock)
Kids at Work
by Russell Freedman, photographs by Lewis Hine
from Clarion Books
for 6th-9th grade
1995 NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor Book
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$11.99
Kids on Strike!
by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
from Houghton Mifflin
for 4th-6th grade
in Industrialization & Organized Labor (Location: HISA-19IND)
$12.99
Kit Carson and the Wild Frontier
Landmark #53
by Ralph Moody
2005 printing from University of Nebraska
for 5th-8th grade
in Pioneer & Frontier Life (Location: HISA-19PIO)
$7.50 (2 in stock)
Klondike Fever
by Michael Cooper
from Clarion Books
for 4th-6th rgade
in Gilded Age & Progressive Era (1877-1918) (Location: HISA-19GI)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Ladies Were Not Expected
by Dorothy Nafus Morrison
2nd edition from Oregon Historical Society Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Gilded Age & Progressive Era (1877-1918) (Location: HISA-19GI)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Last Safe House
by Barbara Greenwood
from Kids Can Press
for 4th-6th grade
in American Civil War Era (1850-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
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