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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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1812: The War and the World
from Rand McNally
for 3rd-8th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Abe Lincoln Grows Up
by Carl Sandburg, illustrated by James Daugherty
from Harcourt, Brace & Company
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Abraham Lincoln in Peace and War
by Earl Schenck Miers
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from Charles Scribner's Sons
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1945 Newbery Honor Book
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Adventures in the Wilderness
by Rutherford Hayes Platt
from Troll Associates
for 6th-10th grade
in American Heritage Junior Library (Location: VIN-HIS)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Mark Twain
from Reader's Digest
Realistic Fiction for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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by Mark Twain, illustrated by Scott McKowen
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by Mark Twain
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Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain, illustrated by Norman Rockwell
from Heritage Press
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Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain, illustrated by Worth Brehm
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Album of the Civil War
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from Franklin Watts
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America During Four Wars
by Earl Schenck Miers & Felix Sutton
from Grosset & Dunlap
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American Fairy Tales
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American Heritage History of the Indian Wars
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Andrew Carnegie
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Andrew Carnegie and the Age of Steel
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Andrew Jackson: Soldier and Statesman
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Battle of Gettysburg
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Battle of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813
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Land of the Free Series
by Joseph H. Gage, illustrated by Floyd Torbert
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Historical fiction for 6th-10th grade
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Black Man in America
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Land of the Free Series
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Boys' Book of the West
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Buffalo Bill's Great Wild West Show
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by Walter Havighurst, illustrated by John C. Wonsetler
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Buffalo Bill's Life Story
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1966 printing from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
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Building of the First Transcontinental Railroad
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by Adele Nathan, illustrated by Edward A. Wilson
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Building of the First Transcontinental Railroad
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California Gold Rush
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California Gold Rush
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California Gold Rush
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Captains of Industry
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from American Heritage Publishing Co.
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Cartier Sails the St. Lawrence
by Esther Averill, illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky
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Carver: A Life in Poems
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2002 Newbery Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Award
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Chariot in the Sky
Land of the Free Series
by Arna Bontemps, illustrated by Cyrus Le Roy Baldridge
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Historical fiction for 6th-10th grade
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Chief Joseph Country
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Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces
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Children of the Wild West
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Civil War Battles
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1st edition from Crescent Books
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Clara Barton
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by Helen Dore Boylston
from Random House
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Climb a Lofty Ladder
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Clipper Ships and Captains
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Coming of the Mormons
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Continent for Sale
Winston Adventure Books
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Copper Kings of Montana
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Cowboys and Cattle Country
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Custer's Last Stand
Landmark #20
by Quentin Reynolds
from Random House Books for Young Readers
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Custer's Last Stand
Landmark #20
by Quentin Reynolds
from Random House Books for Young Readers
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Daniel Boone: The Opening of the Wilderness
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David Farragut
The History of the Civil War
by Russell Shorto
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Davy Crockett
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Disaster at Johnstown: The Great Flood
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DK Eyewitness: Cowboy
DK Eyewitness Series
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DK Eyewitness: North American Indian
DK Eyewitness Series
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Do's and Don'ts of Yesteryear
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Dolly Madison
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Early Days of a Cowboy on the Pecos
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Eli Whitney: Great Inventor
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Emancipation Proclomation
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Erie Canal
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from Troll Associates
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Explorers, Missionaries, and Trappers
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from Oliver-Nelson Books
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Fear in the Forest
by Cateau de Leeuw
from T. Nelson & Sons
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First Four Years
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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First Four Years (Pictorial Cover)
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Footprints of the Dragon
Land of the Free Series
by Vanya Oakes, illustrated by Tyrus Wong
1st edition from John C. Winston
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Forever Free
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Fortune's Bones
by Marilyn Nelson, notes and annotations by Pamela Espeland
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2005 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book
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Freewater
by Amina Luqman Dawson
from Little, Brown & Company
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2023 Newbery Medal Winner
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$16.99
Frontier Living
by Edwin Tunis
1st Edition from HarperCollins
Historical Reference for 7th-10th grade
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General Brock and Niagra Falls
World Landmark #28
by Samuel Hopkins Adams
from Random House
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George Rogers Clark, Soldier in the West
by Walter Havinghurst
from McGraw-Hill
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Geronimo: Wolf of the Warpath
Landmark #81
by Ralph Moody, illustrated by Nicholas Eggenhofer
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Gettysburg
Landmark #23
by MacKinlay Kantor, illustrated by Donald McKay
from Random House
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Gold, Guns, and Ghost Towns
from Stanford University Press
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Golden Age of Railroads
Landmark #93
by Stewart H. Holbrook
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Golden Book History of the United States Volume 5
by Earl Schenck Miers
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Golden Book History of the United States Volume 6
by Earl Schenck Miers
from Golden Press
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Golden Book History of the United States Volume 7
by Earl Schenck Miers
from Golden Press
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Golden Book of California
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Golden Book of the Civil War
by Charles Flato (adapter), with an introduction by Bruce Catton
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Great Trains of All Time
by Freeman Hubbard; illustrated by Herb Mott
from Grosset & Dunlap
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
by Suzanne M. Coil
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Hattie Big Sky
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Heroines of the Early West
Landmark #91
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Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
by Rachel Field, illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop
1969 printing from Macmillan
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1930 Newbery Medal Winner
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Hudson's Bay Company
World Landmark #24
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Illustrious Americans - Volume 1
by Edward Everett Hale
from Mantle Ministries
Biography for 8th-10th grade
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Illustrious Americans - Volume 2
by Edward Everett Hale
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Biography for 8th-10th grade
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In the Hands of the Cave Dwellers
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In the Heart of the Rockies
by G. A. Henty
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Historical Fiction for 6th-10th grade
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Ironclads of the Civil War
by Frank R. Donovan
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James Fenimore Cooper
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James Fenimore Cooper
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