Americana and social history

When you run a business republishing local history and genealogy, frequently historical artifacts -- Americana -- come in the door.

We would like to share with you some of our Americana collection. While there are images of some Americana on our CD-ROMs, there is a point where Americana grades over into what is known today as social history, and this page includes both. Enjoy the free items, and consider purchasing our downloads.

Some photos of an extraordinary steam iron -- non-electric -- manufactured in Falls Village, CT -- (free)

Speakeasy cards -- an artifact of Prohibition -- (free)

What was really in Grandma's "tonic"? -- (free)

The First 20 years of the WCTU in New York State (1894)

The full title of this publication is Two Decades: A History of the First Twenty Years Work by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the State of New York 1874 – 1894. Your publisher, when we began the project of digitizing this volume, viewed it as a document that would fit nicely in our Americana section along with the articles on speakeasy cards and “tonics” but came away from the project rather impressed with what these women (who did not yet have the right to vote) accomplished in their first 20 years. Let it be clear that this is a history of a state WCTU organization, not a polemic, and while the authors assume a friendly audience, their discussion of tactics and their implementation are potentially useful to any disenfranchised group. We were also impressed to learn of an aspect of the work of the WCTU in a seemingly unrelated area: until they got legislative action in 1887 raising the age of consent to 16 years, it was a mind-boggling 10 years old. One pauses in wonder at what the sexual proclivities of a legislature that considered ten year old girls to be fair game must have been. See our New York State Miscellany page for more information.

The 469 Ultra-Fashionables of America -- A Social Guide Book and Register to Date

by C. W. de Lyon Nicholls (1912) This volume of what is now social history coincided with the beginning of the end of a hereditary upper class in the United States. The Gilded Age was coming to an end, World War I was about to change everything, the automobile was already on the scene and prohibition was lurking, both about to become great social levelers, and the income tax was only one year in the future. At this point in time, the 469 most socially important people in the nation could be – and herein are -- enumerated. Yes, you will even today find some of the family names listed in this book are names to conjure with, but the lifestyle this book depicts was not much longer to be one to which American’s nouveau riche needed to aspire. This nation’s attempt to create its own nobility was virtually at an end. In PDF format, 118+ pages, download now for $4.75.

The North Shore

by Robert Grant (1896). This volume, originally one of a set of four discussing American summer resorts (the other resort communities in the set covered Newport, Bar Harbor, and Lenox), had as its subject matter the one of the four that was already something of a suburb at the same time it was a summer resort. There is no intent here to suggest that the North Shore was somehow today’s exurbia ahead of its time. In fact, this thin volume makes clear that it was not – the Myopia Hunt, with all its social ramifications, could not exist in an exurban setting, for instance – and even anticipates a time when people would “live cheek by jowl with one another in houses built and painted after a stereotyped model, with exactly the same number of square feet of land in our front yards, and under limitations as to the number of flowers we may grow in our pitiful little gardens….” Please see our Massachusetts page for more information.

We have numerous other articles of Americana that we are considering offering. A few are listed below. Let us know if you would like to see us offer one or more of these here on our website for download:

Mr. Cleveland, A Personal Impression, by Jesse Lynch Williams. Published by Dodd, Mead & Company in 1909. 75 pages.

We also have several articles of Americana that we are considering offering on CD-ROM. These will not be free, but will be comparably priced with our other CDs. Let us know if any of these are of interest to you. We consider your preferences when determining our publication schedule.

The Communistic Societies of the United States, by Charles Nordhoff. This volume, first published in 1875, is a study of the various 19th century communes. Included are the Economists, Zoarites, Shakers, Amana, Oneida, Bethel, Aurora, Icarian and other utopian communities of the United States. 439 pages, including index. We've issued chapters on the Perfectionists, and on the Harmony Society, as downloads.

When you run a business republishing local history and genealogy, frequently historical artifacts -- Americana -- come in the door.

The First 20 years of the WCTU in New York State (1894)

The 469 Ultra-Fashionables of America -- A Social Guide Book and Register to Date

The North Shore

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