Books in Dover Books on Americana series

Read by presidents, scientists, and national heroes, the Boy Scouts Handbook has been used by generations of American youths. Filled with practical advice for everyone, the book contains everything from safety tips on swimming and instructions for putting up a tent to directions for making an aquarium and pointers on how to identify common North American trees.More than 200 figures and illustrations accompany valuable information on woodcrafting, camping, sailing, hiking, health and endurance, and providing first aid. But more than just a guide to outdoor life, the handbook also offers timeless observations on politeness, patriotism, and good citizenship.As useful and valid today as it was when first published nearly 100 years ago, the Boy Scouts Handbook will delight Americana enthusiasts as much as it will be treasured by collectors and nature lovers.

This easy-reading autobiography established Davy Crockett as a larger-than-life American hero and introduced tall tales of the frontier to a popular audience. Written in 1834, two years before the legendary Tennessean met his fate at the Alamo, it begins during Crockett's early childhood and concludes just before his entry to the U.S. Congress. Even in his youth, Crockett "always delighted to be in the very thickest of danger." In his own words, he paints a vivid portrait of wilderness life, recapturing its struggles and rewards. Crockett tells of his two marriages, his fights with Indians, and the start of his political career. Famous as a "bar" hunter, he was already a folk hero before this memoir's publication. Readers of all ages will thrill to his captivating tales from the vanished world of American frontier life.

"If I had not spent my year in North Dakota, I would never have become President of the United States," declared Theodore Roosevelt. The future statesman took his first steps toward the highest office in the land in the Dakota Badlands of the 1880s, where he began his transformation from aristocrat to democrat. Roosevelt left his home in the East as Theodore, but he returned as "Teddy," a rugged outdoorsman and soon-to-be hero of the Rough Riders.Recounted with infectious enthusiasm, Roosevelt's tales range from ranching on the open plains to hunting in the mountains. His reminiscences conjure up the vanished world of the frontier, with thrilling accounts of chasing bighorn sheep and horse thieves, encountering Indians, branding cattle, and bronco busting. Roosevelt's recollections helped elevate the cowboy's image from that of an ordinary farm laborer into a figure of nobility and courage. The works of Frederic Remington, another great mythmaker of the Old West, illustrate these memoirs. Sixty-five black-and-white images by this renowned American artist complement Roosevelt's stories of freedom and self-reliance.

In the summer of 1869, John Muir, a young Scottish immigrant, joined a crew of shepherds in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. The diary he kept while tending sheep formed the heart of this book and eventually lured thousands of Americans to visit Yosemite country.First published in 1911, My First Summer in the Sierra incorporates the lyrical accounts and sketches he produced during his four-month stay in the Yosemite River Valley and the High Sierra. His record tracks that memorable experience, describing in picturesque terms the majestic vistas, flora and fauna, and other breathtaking natural wonders of the area.Today Muir is recognized as one of the most important and influential naturalists and nature writers in America. This book, the most popular of the author’s works, will delight environmentalists and nature lovers with its exuberant observations.

From Almanack, Bathtub, and Conestoga Wagon to X-Brace, Yankee, and Zig-Zag Fence, this sketchbook of antiquities revisits delightful words and inventions of old-time America. Artist and historian Eric Sloane presents a wondrous collection of American innovations, including hex signs, ear trumpets, popcorn, and rocking chairs. Readers of all ages will delight in these illustrated and hand-lettered pages, which feature brief captions explaining the items' origins and uses. Gadgets, gizmos, and contraptions include foot stoves, used in churches and under the blankets of sleighs and stagecoaches, oil lamps fed by whale oil and kerosene, water-wheels, weathervanes, and windmills (first built in Virginia in 1621 — a century later, there were nearly 1,000). The craftsmanship of the nation's early builders and inventors is reflected in this finely wrought compilation of historical curiosities.

School days, like our everydays, have changed. But the obsolete world of the one-room schoolhouse filled with rough-hewn desks still lingers. The echoes of yesteryear live on in the old-fashioned classrooms that still stand today.Harkening back to a time when the three Rs actually stood for reading, 'riting, and religion, Eric Sloane's sketchbook explores the history and spirit of early American schools. In this vivid slice of Americana, he tells of when paper was a precious commodity, explains the origins of words such as "blackboard" and "moonlighting," and offers evocative illustrations of New England's eighteenth- and nineteenth-century schoolhouses and their delightfully modest interiors. Filled with insight, warmth, and honest nostalgia, The Little Red Schoolhouse is an enchanting journey into a bygone past.

What did the little ones do back in the days when "children should be seen and not heard"? How were they schooled, what did they wear, and which games did they play? This eye-opening survey revisits the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for an illustrated look at the lives of Colonial America's youngest citizensThe first American historian to chronicle everyday life of the colonial era, Alice Morse Earle conducted years of research, based on letters, official records, diaries, and other accounts. A vivid portrait emerges, depicting a child's world of hornbooks and primers; lessons in manners and religion; methods of discipline; and toys, pastimes, and other amusements. The author offers a broader perspective by comparing conditions in America with those of England. More than 120 illustrations include reproductions of images by the era's finest artists, including Copley and Peale. "The book is one of historical interest and value," declared The New York Times, praising it as "beautifully illustrated [and] a charming book for old or young."

Could you identify a sausage gun if you had to? How about a plate warmer or a well-sweep? Any idea how the term log-rolling really originated? Alice Morse Earle (1851–1911), a prolific popular historian and the first American to chronicle everyday life and customs of the colonial era, describes what these and many other obscure utensils were and how they were used. She also conveys a vivid picture of home production of textiles, colonial dress, transportation, religious and social practices, the care of flower gardens, colonial neighborliness, and other aspects of early American life.Widely read when it was first published in 1898, this fascinating and wonderfully readable guide was instrumental in promoting a renewed interest in everyday life of bygone times. Today, it offers history buffs, collectors, and other interested readers a feast of delightful information.

"I sat up most of the night reading and pondering the enormous significance of Harriet Wilson's Our Nig." — Author Alice WalkerThis seminal autobiographical novel, originally published in 1859, is believed to have been the first by an African-American woman. Harriet Wilson's compelling story describes the life of a mulatto girl who, after the death of her mother, is exploited first by a terrifying Northern family for whom she worked and then by an opportunistic husband.A classic of African-American literature, Our Nig has made an enduring contribution to understanding the lives of free blacks in the nineteenth century. A fascinating combination of slave narrative and sentimental novel, the story traces the hardships and suffering of Frado, who grows up as an indentured servant to a white family in Massachusetts and spends much of her destitute life wandering through New England.A clear and accurate account of race relations and perceptions of race in the antebellum North, Our Nig is essential reading for students of African-American history and culture.

"The realism is almost too raw for literature." — Literary Digest Compiled a century ago, when the wildness of the American West was still a living memory, these tales chronicle the rugged lives and audacious crimes of bank and train robbers, cattle rustlers, horse thieves, and other desperadoes. Recounted mainly by the outlaws themselves along with eyewitnesses to their deeds, the stories profile Billy the Kid, Frank and Jesse James, the Dalton Gang, Wild Bill Hickok, and other legendary figures of the era. In addition to famous instances and epochs of outlawry, this book relates equally fascinating but lesser-known incidents, including the Lincoln County War of the Southwest and the Stevens County War of Kansas. Atmospheric illustrations accompany these dramatic fables of adventure and conflict in the Old West.

First published in 1839, this landmark study offers scholars and general readers alike an enchanting compilation of authentic myths and legends from the native peoples of northeastern and central North America. Tales include "Manabozho: or The Great Incarnation of the North" (Algic legend), "The Summer-Maker" (Ojibwa), "The Celestial Sisters" (Shawnee), many more.