As Various as Their Land, by Winifred Gallagher

The subtitle of this book is “The Everyday Lives of Eighteenth-Century Americans”. This book is part of a series – “The Everyday Life in America Series”, which consists of six books, by as many authors, which start in “Early America” and go through 1945. Many of the other books discuss changes during and between different Read More

The Expansion of Everyday Life, 1860-1876, by Daniel Sutherland

The author describes what life would have been like for our ancestors between 1860 and 1876. This book is part of a series – “The Everyday Life in America Series”, which consists of six books, by as many authors, which start in “Early America” and go through 1945. This book is the third in the Read More

The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790-1840, by Jack Larkin

The author describes what life would have been like for our ancestors between 1790 and 1840. That sounds somewhat mundane, but the amount of detail he is able to describe is amazing. Also, in that time span, there were quite a few changes to the way people lived. This book is part of a series Read More

Everyday Life in Early America, by David Freeman Hawke

This is the first book in “The Everyday Life in America Series”, which consists of six books, by as many authors, and which goes through 1945. This book takes us from initial European settlement on the East Coast, up to the beginning of the seventeenth century. It covers pretty much every aspect of what life Read More

The Pioneers, by David McCullough

Just from the title, I expected this book to be a more general study of early settlers into the Midwest. The subtitle is “The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West”. However, this book is laser focused on Ohio, and mostly on Marietta. Had I read the dust cover, I would Read More

Life on the Ohio Frontier, by Mary Lott

This is a collection of letters that were written by Mary Lott to her brother, Deacon John Phillips. Mary and her husband Henry had moved from Pennsylvania to Delaware County, Ohio, in the mid 1820’s. The letters start in 1826, and end shortly before John’s death in 1846. Mary died not long after her brother; Read More

The Birth of America, by William R Polk

The subtitle of this book is, “From Before Columbus to the Revolution”, which is about 300 years of history. These are 300 years of history we don’t usually think about. Polk starts with information about the Native Peoples, as well as their interactions with the newer arrivals to the continent. Sadly, most of the information Read More

Mayflower Lives, by Martyn Whittock

This is not your typical Mayflower history. Oh, it talks about all the basic things – how most of the Saints spent a few years in Leiden, how the Speedwell, didn’t. But this book takes twelve of the passengers, plus the Mayflower captain and a Native American, and goes into detail about their lives. And Read More

Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul, by John M Barry

Most of us, if we have studied early American history at all, have heard of Roger Williams. He is one of the people the Puritans booted out of Massachusetts, remember? He disagreed with the leaders of the Bay colony about what seems to us today to be minor points relating to their religious beliefs, and Read More