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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)
Abraham Lincoln's World (pictorial hardcover)
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1945 Newbery Honor Book
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Admiral David Glasgow Farragut
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Adventures of Buffalo Bill
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Adventures of Captain Bonneville
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Album of the Civil War
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America During Four Wars
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American Fairy Tales
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American Heritage History of the Indian Wars
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Andrew Carnegie and the Age of Steel
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Black Man in America
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Boy with a Pack
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Bret Harte: Stories of the Early West
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California Gold Rush
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Call of Duty
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Carry a Big Stick
Leaders in Action Series
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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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Land of the Free Series
by Arna Bontemps, illustrated by Cyrus Le Roy Baldridge
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Chief Joseph Country
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Civil War Battles
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1st edition from Crescent Books
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Civil War: 1861-1865
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Clipper Ships and Captains
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Custer's Last Stand
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Custer's Last Stand
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Daniel Boone: The Opening of the Wilderness
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Davy Crockett
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Do's and Don'ts of Yesteryear
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Early Days in Old Oregon
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Early Days of a Cowboy on the Pecos
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Emancipation Proclomation
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Erie Canal
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Explorers, Missionaries, and Trappers
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Footprints of the Dragon
Land of the Free Series
by Vanya Oakes, illustrated by Tyrus Wong
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Four Wagons West
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Frontier Living
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General Brock and Niagra Falls
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George Rogers Clark, Soldier in the West
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Germinal
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Geronimo: Wolf of the Warpath
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Gettysburg: Battle & Battlefield
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Gold, Guns, and Ghost Towns
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Golden Age of Railroads
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Golden Book of California
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Grant Moves South
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Great Trains of All Time
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Guns Off Cape Ann
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Heroines of the Early West
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Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
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1969 printing from Macmillan
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1930 Newbery Medal Winner
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Hudson's Bay Company
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Illustrious Americans - Volume 1
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by Edward Everett Hale
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In the Hands of the Cave Dwellers
by G. A. Henty
from Robinson Curriculum
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In the Heart of the Rockies
by G. A. Henty
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James Fenimore Cooper
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James Fenimore Cooper
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John Brown Russwurm
by Mary Sagarin, Introduction by Ernest Kaiser
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John Brown's Body: A Poem
by Stephen Vincent Benet
from Heritage Press
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Pulitzer Prize Winner
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John James Audubon: Painting America's Wildlife
by Janet Stevenson, illustrated by Robert Boehmer
from Encyclopedia Britannica
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Lady of Arlington
by Harnett T. Kane
from Doubleday & Company
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Last of the Old West
by George Mecklenburg
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Pioneer Girl
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill
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Lewis & Clark Voyage of Discovery
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First Edition from National Geographic
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Little Women
Illustrated Junior Library Series 4
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrated by Louis Jambor
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Little Women
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Little Women
by Lousia May Alcott, illustrated by Harve Stein
from Garden City Books
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 9th-Adult
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Little Women
Illustrated Junior Library Series 1
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrated by Louis Jambor
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Romantic Realistic Fiction for 4th-9th grade
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Little Women
Illustrated Junior Library Series 2
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrated by Louis Jambor
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Romantic Realistic Fiction for 4th-9th grade
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Little Women
Illustrated Junior Library Series 3
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrated by Louis Jambor
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Romantic Realistic Fiction for 4th-9th grade
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Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith
Centennial Edition from Little, Brown & Company
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Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrated by Hilda Van Stockum
Centennial Edition from World Publishing Company
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Little Women
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Louisa May Alcott, illustrated by Hodges Soileau and Louis Jambor
from Reader's Digest
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Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
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2005 Newbery Honor Book
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