Books with author Edwin Tunis

The vanished ways of colonial America's skilled craftsmen are vividly reconstructed in this superb book by Edwin Tunis. With incomparable wit and learning, and in over 450 meticulous drawings, the author describes the working methods and products, houses and shops, town and country trades, and individual and group enterprises by which the early Americans forged the economy of the New World.In the tiny coastal settlements, which usually sprang up around a mill or near a tanyard, the first craftsmen set up their trades. The blacksmith, cooper, joiner, weaver, cordwainer, and housewright, working alone or with several assistants, invented their own tools and devised their own methods. Soon they were making products that far surpassed their early models: the American ax was so popular that English ironmongers often labeled their own axes "American" to sell them more readily. In the town squares a colonist could have his bread baked to order, bring in his wig to be curled, have his eyeglasses ground, his medicine prescription filled, or buy snuff for his many pocket boxes. With the thriving trade in "bespoke" or made-to-order work, fine American styles evolved; many of these are priceless heirlooms now―the silverware of Paul Revere and John Coney, redware and Queensware pottery, Poyntell hand-blocked wallpaper, the Kentucky rifle, Conestoga wagon, and the iron grillework still seen in some parts of the South. The author discusses in detail many of the trades which have since developed into important industries, like papermaking, glassmaking, shipbuilding, printing, and metalworking, often reconstructing from his own careful research the complex equipment used in these enterprises.The ingenious, liberty-loving artisans left few written records of their work, and only Mr. Tunis, with his painstaking attention to authentic detail and his vast knowledge, could present such a complete treasury of the way things were done before machines obliterated this phase of early American life.

Colonial Living is EdwinTunis's a vigorous re-creation of 17th- and 18th-century America?of the everyday living of those sturdy men and women who carved a way of life out of the wilderness. In lively text and accurate drawings we see the dugouts and wigwams of New England's first settlers and the houses they learned to build against the cruel winters; the snug Dutch and Flemish farmhouses of Nieuw Amsterdam; the homes of the early planters in the South which would one day be kitchens for the houses they dreamed of building when tobacco had made them rich.Long research and love for his subject gave Tunis an intimate knowledge of the details of daily living in colonial times, from the period of tiny coastal settlements to the flourishing, interdependent colonies which fought a major war for independence. He shares all with his reader?the building of houses, with their trunnels, girts, and hand-hewn beams, the spinning of yarn and its weaving and dyeing, the making of candles and soap, and the intricate business of cooking on the open hearth with lug poles, cranes, bake kettles, and spits. He describes the early crops, and pictures the implements and animals used to produce them; in detailed pictures we see again the tools and products of the craftsmen?the blacksmith, the cooper, the miller, the joiner, and the silversmith. Edwin Tunis has brought the significant past to life with consummate skill. Rich in enjoyment, rich in information, with more than 200 drawings, his book is a warm, lively, and authentic panorama of a lost way of life.

Colonial Living, Edwin Tunis's vigorous re-creation of 17th- and 18th-century America, examines the everyday lives of those sturdy men and women who transplanted European culture to the New World.Long research and love for his subject gave Tunis an intimate knowledge of the details of colonial experience, from earliest coastal settlement to the revolutionary era. He shares all with his reader - the building of houses, with their trunnels, girts, and hand-hewn beams; the spinning of yarn and its weaving and dyeing; the making of candles and soap; and the intricate business of cooking on the open hearth with lug poles, cranes, bake kettles, and spits. He describes the early crops and illustrates the implements and animals used to produce them. In detailed pictures, Tunis shows us the tools and products of the craftsmen - the blacksmith, the cooper, the miller, the joiner, and the silversmith.

Through Henry Baker and his family, Tunis tells the story of America's growth in the colonial period and the growing dissatisfaction of its citizens with British rule. The Tavern at the Ferry does more than set the scene; it chronicles the dramatic story of the events leading up to Washington's crossing of the Delaware and the ensuing Battle of Trenton, a turning point in the War of Independence. The weeks and days before the crossing were full of intrigue, and Tunis follows the stories of such men as John Honeywell, the patriot double-agent, and Moses Doan, the would-be betrayer, as well as those of the tired but determined troops who turned the tide of war under Washington's leadership.

"Shaw's Fortune" chronicles daily life on a Virginia tobacco plantation during two periods of time. The first part is set in the 1650's as Alan Shaw and his wife Margaret consolidate a series of smaller landholdings into a commercial plantation. The story jumps a hundred years to 1752 when "Shaw's Fortune" has become one of Virginia's largest plantations. Edwin Tunis was one the finest illustrators to ever work on children's books. Tunis was fascinated by American material culture. In his many books, Tunis showed his readers how things were made in the years before the industrial revolution. "Shaw's Fortune" is filled with ingenious illustrations showing such ordinary things as how tobacco was pressed into wooden barrels and how corn was ground in water mills. Edwin Tunis books are a pleasure for both parent and child. After you have read one, you will easily find yourself trying to collect all of his work. Highly recommended. (amazon customer)

The vanished ways of colonial America's skilled craftsmen are vividly reconstructed in this superb new book by Edwin Tunis. With incomparable wit and learning, and in over 450 meticulous drawings, the author describes the working methods and products, houses and shops, town and country trades, individual and group enterprises by which the early Americans forged the economy of the New World.

The evolution of shipbuilding reflects the growth of civilization, and in Oars, Sails and Steam, Edwin Tunis has produced a beautifully illustrated and skillfully written history of water transport from the dugout to the aircraft carrier. He presents the most interesting and important types of boats and ships in chronological order, revealing each advance that made navigation easier, faster, and more efficient. Every page in this delightful book becomes a new adventure in the story of humanity's progress on traveling across the seas. The Egyptian sailboats that plied the waters of the Nile in 4700 b.c. give way to Phoenician warboats, Greek war galleys and Roman triremes, which in turn are surpassed by Norse long ships, Mediterranean carracks, Elizabethan galleons, and British East Indiaman. The Steam Age is represented by John Fitch's 1787 Delaware River steamboat; the 1807 Clermont, which made five miles per hour against the current of the Hudson; and the Curaçao, which in 1827 became the first ship to cross the Atlantic almost entirely under steam power. Graceful clipper ships, profitable whaling barks, reliable tramp steamers, opulent steam liners, and deadly warships, from destroyers to submarines, round out Tunis's illustrated history.In addition to his fine drawings of the vessels, Tunis includes a glossary of seagoing terms and detailed diagrams that take readers below decks, up in the rigging, and alongside the gunners of the U.S.S. Raleigh. Remarkable for its clarity and accuracy, Oars, Sails and Steam, first published in 1952, is a treasury for all those who are sailors at heart.