Books in The Past in Pictures series

The Picture the Past series looks at the many kinds of communities in America's past. Each book describes what made each community different and what children and adults did each day. Life at the Alamo In this book, discover how Spanish people from Mexico set up the home of the Alamo in Texas in the early 1700s. Find out how life changed for the Native Americans of Texans. Learn how Americans moved into Texas and, after battles with the Mexicans, made Texas part of the United States. Then use a recipe to make a popular treat from the time–picadillo!

The Picture the Past series looks at the many kinds of communities in America's past. Each book describes what made each community different and what children and adults did each day. Life in a Whaling Town In this book, discover how people lived in whaling towns in the 1800s. Learn about the soldiers who hunted whales and about the everyday things made from these large animals. Visit the homes, shops, and schools in whaling towns. Understand why the whaling business ended. Then use a recipe to make a popular treat from the time–plum duff!

Throughout history people have fought each other. So people used to make their towns and villages safer by building fences or ditches around them. Starting in about 850, during the medieval period, people in Europe built castles, or defended homes just for a lord and his household. The lord, his family, and his servants and soldiers all lived there. All the land and castles belonged to the king, but the lord could live in the castle as long as he was loyal to the king.

This book tells about the daily life of people in New France from 1639 to 1760. New France was made up of three colonies in North America: Canada, Acadia, and Louisiana. The colonies were founded by the European country of France, starting in the early 1660s. This book deals mainly with the colony of Canada, which was the area of land around the St. Lawrence River Valley. Its three biggest towns were Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers. We have illustrated the book with paintings and drawings from colonial times and with artists’ ideas of how things looked then.

This book is about daily life in the ancient Egyptian village of Deir el-Medina, where the workers who built the tombs of the Valley of the Kings lived. The time period covered is about 3100 BC to 30BC. Contents include: Pyramids and Tombs; Deir el-Medina; The Workers; Families; Hard Work; Skilled Work; Houses; Transportation and Trade; Free Time; Food; Religion; Deir el-Medina Now.