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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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Abraham Lincoln in Peace and War
by Earl Schenck Miers
from American Heritage Publishing Co.
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in American Heritage Junior Library (Location: VIN-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain
from Scholastic Inc.
Realistic Fiction for 6th-10th grade
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Alamo All Stars
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American Barns and Covered Bridges
by Eric Sloane
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American Heritage History of the Indian Wars
by Robert M. Utley, Wilcomb E. Washburn
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American Yesterday
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Big Annie of Calumet
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Black Man in America
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Bull Run
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Caddie Woodlawn
by Carol Ryrie Brink
from Simon and Schuster
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1936 Newbery Medal winner
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Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
by Jean Lee Latham, illustrated by John O'Hara Cosgrave II
from Houghton Mifflin
Biography for 5th-9th grade
1956 Newbery Medal winner
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$20.00 (1 in stock)
Carver: A Life in Poems
by Marilyn Nelson
from Boyds Mill Press
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2002 Newbery Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Award
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Children of the Wild West
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Civil War Battles
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Early Days of a Cowboy on the Pecos
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Explorers, Missionaries, and Trappers
by Kieran Doherty
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Facing West
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Fields of Fury
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First Four Years
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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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)
Freewater
by Amina Luqman Dawson
from Little, Brown & Company
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2023 Newbery Medal Winner, Coretta Scott King Award
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$16.99
From Log Cabin to White House with Abraham Lincoln - Set
from Multnomah Books
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Good Ol' Cowboy Stories
by Jack Terry
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$7.00 (3 in stock)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
by Suzanne M. Coil
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James Fenimore Cooper
by Donald A. Ringe
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
John James Audubon: Painting America's Wildlife
by Janet Stevenson, illustrated by Robert Boehmer
from Encyclopedia Britannica
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$12.00 (1 in stock)
Kathleen: A Yankee Girl at Gettysburg
by Alice Turner Curtis
from Gramercy Books
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Kit Carson: Folk Hero and Man
by Noel B. Gerson
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Laura Ingalls Wilder: Pioneer Girl
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill
from South Dakota State Historical Society Press
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$39.99
Leaders of the North and South
Civil War Chronicles
by Bill Sell
from MetroBooks
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Lincoln: A Photobiography
by Russell Freedman
from Houghton Mifflin
Biography for 5th-9th grade
1988 Newbery Medal winner
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$8.00 (2 in stock)
Little House - Hardcover Set
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
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$144.71
Little Town on the Prairie
Little House Series #7
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-8th grade
1942 Newbery Honor Book
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$19.99
Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrated by Dinah Dryhurst
Reprint from Breslich & Foss
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Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrated by M.E. Gray
Unabridged from Everyman's Library
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 5th-8th grade
$16.95
Little Women
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from Abbeville Press
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 5th-8th grade
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$35.00
Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrator unknown
Undated from M. A. Donohue & Company
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 5th-8th grade
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$12.00 (1 in stock)
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
by Gary D. Schmidt
from Scholastic Inc.
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2005 Newbery Honor Book
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Major Impossible
Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #9
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Mr. Lincoln's Army
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Nation Torn
by Delia Ray
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in American Civil War Era (1850-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
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Nation Torn
by Delia Ray
from Puffin Books
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in American Civil War Era (1850-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Naval Warfare
Civil War Chronicles
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O Captain, My Captain
by Robert Burleigh; illustrated by Sterling Hundley
from Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
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in American Civil War Era (1850-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$16.99
Old West: Miners
from Time-Life Books
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in Western Expansion (1800-1898) (Location: HISA-19WES)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
One Big Open Sky
by Lesa Cline-Ransome
from Holiday House
for 6th-Adult
2025 Newbery Honor Book
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$18.99
Orphan for Nebraska
A Guild Book
by Charlene Joy Talbot
from Atheneum
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Prairie Star
by Nina Hermanna Morgan
from Viking Press
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in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Robert E. Lee
Sowers Series
by Lee Roddy
from Mott Media
Biography for 6th-8th grade
in Sowers Biographies (Location: BIO-SOW)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Savage Thunder
by Jim Murphy
from Margaret K. McElderry Books
for 5th-10th grade
in American Civil War Era (1850-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$19.99 $10.00 (1 in stock)
Secrets of a Civil War Submarine
by Sally M. Walker
from Carolrhoda Books, Inc.
for 4th-8th grade
2006 Robert F. Sibert Medal winner
in American Civil War Era (1850-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Slave Dancer
by Paula Fox
from Simon and Schuster
Historical Fiction for 6th-10th grade
1974 Newbery Medal winner
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Slave Dancer
by Paula Fox
from Simon and Schuster
Historical Fiction for 6th-10th grade
1974 Newbery Medal winner
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Slave Dancer
by Paula Fox, illustrated by Eros Keith
from Bradbury Press
Historical Fiction for 6th-10th grade
1974 Newbery Medal winner
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Smoky the Cow Horse
by Will James
1930 printing from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 4th-7th grade
1927 Newbery Book
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
Soldier's Story
Civil War Chronicles
by David Phillips
from MetroBooks
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Story of Daniel Boone
Signature Books #15
by William O. Steele, illustrated by Warren Baumgartner
from Grosset & Dunlap
Biography for 4th-8th grade
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$12.00 (1 in stock)
Story of Fort Sumter
by Eugenia Burney
from Children's Press
for 4th-8th grade
in Cornerstones of Freedom (Location: VIN-CORN)
$4.00 (2 in stock)
Story of Yankee Whaling
by Irwin Shapiro
from Troll Associates
for 6th-10th grade
in American Heritage Junior Library (Location: VIN-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Streams to the River, River to the Sea
by Scott O'Dell
from Houghton Mifflin
Historical Fiction for 7th-9th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Theodore Roosevelt: Rallying a Free People
by Fred J. Cook, illustrated by Robert Boehmer
from Kingston House
for 5th-8th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
These Happy Golden Years
Little House Series #8
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-8th grade
1944 Newbery Honor Book
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$21.99
True Tales of the Wild West
by Paul Robert Walker
from National Geographic
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in Western Expansion (1800-1898) (Location: HISA-19WES)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Two Little Confederates
by Thomas Nelson Page
from Sprinkle Publications
Historical Fiction for 4th-7th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Underground Abductor
Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #5
by Nathan Hale
from Amulet Books
for 3rd-8th grade
in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$15.99
We Shall Overcome - Book with CD
by Stuart Stotts, foreword by Pete Seeger, illustrated by Terrance Cummings
from Clarion Books
for 6th-12th grade
in Music History (Location: ELE-MUSHIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
What's the Deal?
by Rhoda Blumberg
from National Geographic
for 5th-9th grade
in Lewis & Clark Expedition (1801-1803) (Location: HISA-19L&C)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Which Way Freedom?
by Joyce Hansen
from Walker and Company
for 5th-8th grade
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$4.00 (2 in stock)
Wide Open Spaces
by Jack Terry
from Harvest House
for 4th-7th grade
in Clearance: History & Geography (Location: ZCLE-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Will's Race for Home
by Jewell Parker Rhodes
from Little, Brown & Company
for 3rd-8th grade
2026 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$17.99
World of Little House
by Carolyn Strom Collins & Christina Wyss Eriksson
from HarperCollins
Literature Resource for 4th-8th grade
in Little House Materials (Location: LIR-LHM)
$29.99
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