Major sections

• Nineteenth-Century American Children and What They Read
• Some of the children
• Some of their magazines
• Some of their books

• Voices from 19th-Century America: works for adults

Some features of the site

• Works by title
• Subject index
• Works by date
• Contact
• Things We Know that Ain’t Quite So About Early 19th-Century America
• wallpaper for your desktop
• Some odds and ends about 19th-century life
• “The Velocipede or Swift Walker”
• Recipe for curds and whey
• Recipes from The Kentucky Housewife, Lettice Bryan
• Recipes from The Virginia Housewife, Mary Randolph
• “A Literary Man in Distress,” by “Literatus”
• How much is your book worth?
• The Puzzle Drawer
• History in Your Pocket: ebooks

online exhibits & collections

• “A Former State of This Earth”: Fossils in Early American Works for Children
• An Uncommon Serpent; or, The Great Sea Serpent Hunt of 1817 & 1818
• Gender & Identity in 19th-century America

annotated bibliographies

• American Children’s Periodicals, 1789-1872
• A newstand of American children’s periodicals, 1789-1872
• works on American children’s periodicals, 1789-1872
• works on American childhood, 1800-1872
• works on American children’s books, 1800-1872
• works on American society, 1800-1872
• works on Samuel G. Goodrich
• literary activities of Samuel G. Goodrich
• works by Jacob Abbott

scholarly works

• Choosing the Right Path: Didacticism in the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Books
• Clement Clarke Moore and “A Visit from St. Nicholas”
• transcriptions of early printings of “A Visit from St. Nicholas”
• “Dear Friend Robert Merry”: Letters from 19th-century Children
• Death and the Readers of Robert Merry’s Museum
• An ‘Online Community’ of the Nineteenth Century
• Robert Merry’s Museum and the Lure of the Sensational
• Samuel Goodrich and the Branding of American Children’s Books
• Too Good to Be True: 150 Years of Mary Sue
• A Visit to ‘Merry’s Museum’; or, Social Values in a 19th-Century American Magazine for Children

Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read: children

• adoption notices
• rewards of merit
• photos of children

19th-century works about children

• “Baby Education”
• “Birth, Nursing, and Education of Infants; Education and Amusements of Youth”
• “Case of Conviction”
• “Children, from One to Three Years of Age”
• “Children and Children’s Parties”
• “Children’s Rights”
• “Clothing for Girls”
• “Confinement of Children in School”
• “Crooked Spines in Girls”
• “A Crooked Tree”
• “Dangers of Childhood, and Means of Obviating Them”
• “Degeneracy of Stature”
• “Early Culture of Children”
• “Early Training of Children”
• “Female Education”
• “Family Education”
• “Happiest Days”
• “Join in the Recreation of Your Children”
• “Love of Nature”
• “Parental Duties”
• “Physical Education of Children”
• “Precocious Children”
• “School Learning”
• “Three Little Boys in Prison”
• “Conversation. To Young Women”
• “Treatment of Children at School”

Memoirs

• A Mid-Century Child and Her Books
• Horatio Lovejoy’s New Year’s Eve. 1863-1864

Works by children

• “Dear Friend Robert Merry”: Letters from 19th-century Children
• Diary of a Little Girl in Old New York, Catherine Eliza Havens
• Eli Harrison Lee’s Exercise Book
• Mary Newell’s letter
• Eliza Caroline Piatt’s Exercise Book
• Sarah Tuttle’s Scrapbook

Amateur periodicals

• The Ladies Wreath
• The Literary Gazette

Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read: magazines

• bibliography of American Children’s Periodicals, 1789-1872
• magazine covers
• Double Vision: Recycling Illustrations in 19th-Century American Magazines

Children’s Magazine (1789)

• Some works in the February issue
• “The Female Adviser”
• “Preface”
• “The Schoolboy”

The Juvenile Magazine (England; 1788)

• “Editor’s Address to Her Young Readers”
• February serials
• “The Female Adviser”
• “The Schoolboy”

Juvenile Rambler

• “Petrified Forests”

Juvenile Gazette (1819-1820)

• “Teeth”

Juvenile Gazette (1827-1828)

• address to the readers
• Marriage and death notices
• “Remarks on Children’s Play”

The Little Corporal

• “The Army of the American Eagle”
• “The Children’s Portrait of Abraham Lincoln”
• “How Engravings are Made”
• “How to Go to School”
• letters from subscribers about the Chicago Fire
• “More About the Fire”
• an illustration by Thomas Nast
• “A Picture Story of the Chicago Fire”
• “‘Relics of the Fire’
• Rogers groups
• “Routed But Not Conquered”
• “To All Who Are Interested”
• “The Veteran Eagle: A Correction”
• “The Veteran Eagle; and What the Children Did”
• “What Does Johnny Read?”
• “Willie Lincoln”
• “The Year After the Fire”

Our Young Folks

• title index
• “Among the Studios, no. 3: Winslow Homer”
• “At Grandma’s Bedside”
• “Bird-Catching”
• “The City Girl”
• “The Color-Bearer”
• “Green Apples”
• “Hunting Eggs”
• “Knitting-Work”
• “Sissy’s Ride in the Moon”
• “Spring Whistles”
• “Strawberries”
• “Swinging on a Birch-Tree”
• “The Veteran Eagle”
• “The Volunteer’s Thanksgiving”
• “Watching the Crows”
• Review of John Greenleaf Whittier’s Illustrated Ballads of New England

The Children’s Friend (West Chester, Pennsylvania; 1866-1887)

• “The Ancient World”
• “The Mammoth”

Parley’s Magazine

• “About Edwin Finley”
• “About the first cover
• “Art of Pen Making”
• “Caspar Hauser”
• “Confectioners”
• “The Dying Boy”
• “The Fireside”
• Two pieces about fireworks
• “For My Youngest Readers”
• “Fossil Shells”
• “Gleanings and Recollections: The New York Fire”
• “I’d be a Butterfly”
• a joke about New York City
• “Juvenile Celebration of Independence”
• “The Little Wood-Cutter”
• “Mr. Durant”
• “Narrow Escape from a Bear”
• New Year’s address for 1838
• “Prospectus”
• “Silent Companion”
• “Story of Peter Brown”
• “The Terrified Sailors”
• “To Our Young Female Readers”
• “A Visit from St. Nicholas”
• “Walks About Boston: The Indians”
• “Who Filled the Coal Hole?”

Robert Merry’s Museum

• The Business of Robert Merry’s Museum
• Index to the Museum: author
• Index to the Museum: title
• announcement of merger with Youth’s Companion
• “About Labor and Property”
• “Address to the Reader”
• “Adventures of a ‘Merry’ Boy”
• “Adventures of Billy Bump”
• “The Adventures of Gilbert Go-ahead”
• “Alfred Poole”
• “Allie’s Christmas Eve”
• “The Atlantic Telegraph”
• “Blessings of Work”
• “Brown’s Patent Baby-Tender”
• “Carrier’s Address” [1855]
• “Carrier’s Address” [1856]
• “Caspar Hauser”
• “The Change of the Seasons”
• editorial on the Chicago Fire
• “The Chinese in California”
• “The Cold Snap of January 10th”
• “The Comet” [Donati]
• “The Comet” [Donati]
• “Cousin Tribulation’s story
• “A Crooked Tree”
• “Curious Rhymes”
• “Death of the President”
• “Declamation—Relief for Chicago”
• “Deer Hunting”
• “Dirk Heldriver”
• “Distant Worlds”
• “Dr. Kane’s Boat—the Faith”
• “The Doctor’s Little Girl”
• “Dreaming and Doing”
• “Elva Seeking Her Fortune”
• “The Elves of the Forest Centre”
• “Fossil Tree in the Coal Rocks”
• “Gardening for Ladies”
• “Good Night”
• “The Grateful Indian”
• “The Horse and the Bells”
• “How the Boston Boys Talk”
• “Independence Day”
• “The Indian’s Story”
• “January” [1844]
• “January” [1851]
• “editorial on July 4, 1865
• “Jumping Rabbit’s Story”
• “The King of Ashantee”
• “Left-Handed Billy”
• “Letter to My Daughter Margaretta, with a Set of Merry’s Museum”
• “Liberty”
• “Living in an Omnibus”
• “The Lottery Ticket”
• “The Mammoth”
• “The Moon”
• “My First Whistle”
• “My Own Life and Adventures”
• “Names of Different Kinds of Type”
• Hand-colored natural history plates
• “The New Year”
• “A New Year’s Address”
• “A New-Year’s Bow”
• “New Year’s Morning”
• “A New-Year’s Welcome”
• “A New Year’s Salutation”
• “an advertisement for the New York Tribune
• “Nursery Rhymes: A Dialogue”
• “Of What is the Alphabet Composed?”
• “Old Times and New”
• “memorial page for Adelbert Older
• “Pictures of Various Nations”
• a handful of planets
• poem
• Two poems for July 4, 1865
• Three little poems for little readers
• “Prognostications of the Weather”
• “Prospectus of Robert Merry’s Museum”
• “Pukkwana”
• “Reminiscences of a Rag”
• “Renny’s Uniform”
• “Riddle”
• “The Sewing-Machine”
• “Signers of the Declaration of Independence”
• “Skating—Woman’s Rights”
• “The Snow-Bird”
• “The Song of the-Snow Bird”
• “The Spendthrift Doll”
• “The Squirrel”
• editorial about Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone
• “Story of Philip Brusque”
• “A Story of the Revolution”
• “The Telegraph Cable—A Dialogue”
• “To the Boy Who Will Be President of the United States A. D. 1900”
• “The Two Burials”
• “Two Ways of Being Manly”
• “Uncle Hiram’s Pilgrimage”
• “Unella”
• “The Unrepaired Shoe”
• “A Very Odd Grandfather”
• “The Veteran’s Farewell”
• “Victory at Last
• “A Visit from St. Nicholas”
• “The Voyage of the Salt Mackerel”
• “The War in Florida”
• “What Ben and the Twins Did for Chicago”
• “What is a Darling?”
• “Who Needs $4 a Day?”
• “Why Have the Indians Disappeared?”
• “Wonders of Geology”
• “Wonders of Geology”
• “Working Girls”
• “Yankee Energy”
• “Young Italy in Boston”
• “A Young Savage”

The Schoolmate

• “Daguerreotypes of the Moon”
• “Wonders of Geology”

The Slave’s Friend

• Issue #1
• Issue #2
• Issue #3
• Issue #4
• Issue #5
• Issue #8
• Issue #10
• Issue #11
• Issue #16
• Issue #26
• Issue #38

The Student

• brief review of Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Portfolio
• four layouts and type sizes
• “Letters About Geology”
• “Placing a Daughter at School”
• Two pieces about books

The Student and Schoolmate

• charts for speakers and readers
• “The American Flag”
• “The Atlantic Telegraph”
• “The Best Girl in School”
• “Clara’s Medal”
• “Hail, Columbia!”
• “Industry and Idleness”
• “July 4, 1865
• “Katie’s Sacrifice,” by E. N. H.
• “Our Heroic Dead”
• “The Stars and Stripes”
• Editorial from the “Teacher’s Desk”
• “The Union”
• editorial from the “Teacher’s Desk,” July 1865

Young People’s Magazine (1846)

• “Petrified Forest on the Nile”

Young People’s Mirror

• “Fossil Foot-Prints”
• “Geology”

Youth’s Cabinet; Woodworth’s Youth’s Cabinet

• “Adventures with Ghosts”
• “Amy’s Holiday”
• “The Arabian Nights”
• “Bones of a Mastodon”
• “The Busy Knitter”
• “Clara Sinclair”
• “A Correction”
• “Cross Questions and Crooked Answers”
• “Curiosities of Sleep”
• “Diligent David”
• “The Four Wills”
• “Hieroglyphical Letter to the Editor”
• “A Happy New Year”
• “Laughing Bill”
• letters from subscribers
• “The Miser and His Dinner”
• “Organic Remains”
• “Professor Morse”
• “A Siberian Winter”
• “The Skater’s Song”
• “The Spelling Lesson”
• “Thanksgiving Memories”
• advertisement for Tuttle’s Emporium
• Uncle Frank in Kansas”
• “William, the Negro Boy”
• “Wood Engraving”

The Youth’s Companion

• “advertisements
• “Another Story for Boys”
• assassination of Abraham Lincoln
• “The Great National Tragedy”
• “Booth and Bad Literature”
• “The Conspirators”
• “The Execution”
• “The Boy Who Loved Truth”
• “Boys of Sixteen”
• “Bread Upon the Water”
• “The Busy Bee”
• “The Capture of Savannah”
• “Child’s Grief”
• “pieces on children and changing times
• “The Choice of Companions”
• “Dress and Address”
• “Effie Somers”
• “Eye and Ear Notes”
• “The Farmer and Soldier”
• “Fifteen Young Men”
• “A Frightened Tiger”
• “Girl Stealing”
• “Give Your Child a Paper”
• “Going into Business for Himself”
• “A Good Girl at School”
• “Hay-Making”
• “Heroism”
• “Hints for Children”
• “Hints to Young Men”
• “How a Man Feels When He is Shot”
• “I Think I Will Not Change”
• “Imagination or Affectation”
• “The Inauguration of President Lincoln”
• Two celebrations of American Independence Day
• “Indian Youth’s Newspaper”
• “The Indians: Week Day School”
• “Jane Graham; or, ‘I Shant Marry That Man’ ”
• “Kate and Her Kitty”
• “The Knitters”
• “Letter to the Editor”
• “Life in the Woods”
• “Lines, on the Death of W.”
• “Little Edward”
• “A Little Girl Who was Burned to Death”
• “Little Susan, the Poor-House Girl”
• “Lucy Nelson, the Boy-Girl”
• “Miss Before Teens”
• “Miss Warner’s Prejudice”
• “My Fortune’s Made”
• “My Schoolmates: The Contrast”
• “My Schoolmates: The Inquirer”
• “My Schoolmates: Kate Kennedy”
• “My Schoolmates: The Sensitive Plant”
• “My Schoolmates: The Victim”
• “My Schoolmates: The Widow”
• “Neglected Children”
• “Not Complimentary to Utah”
• “The Old School House”
• “The Opera Cloak”
• “Our Exchanged Prisoners”
• “Patriotic Eagle”
• “Pleasant and Profitable”
• “Popular Similes”
• “Repining and Repentance”
• review of The Soldier’s Orphan; or, History of Maria West
• “ ‘Reviewer’, Reviewed”
• “Remarks On Reviews”
• “Rules for Winter”
• “Sabbath Scholar Drowned”
• “The School-Mistress”
• “science and technology notes
• “Self-Denial; or, The Two Cousins”
• “The Shoes”
• “Singular Adventure of a Lost Child”
• “Snake Fascination”
• “A Soldier To-night is Our Guest”
• “The Snow Storm”
• “A Step from the Altar to the Tomb”
• “The Stolen Girls”
• “The Strawberry Woman”
• “Sugar-Making by the Indians”
• “Tearing Open the Rosebud”
• “Thy Will Be Done”
• “Tomo and the Wild Lakes”
• “Touching Expression”
• “True Courage”
• “A True Story”
• “Turn About, Fair Play”
• “The Two Houses”
• “Unhappy Elopement”
• “pieces about Union soldiers and animals
• “Unnatural Children”
• “Vanity Punished”
• “The Wanderer’s Return”
• “The Water-melon Boats”
• “What a Bore!”
• “What the Steam Engine Does”
• “White Slaves”
• former slaves in Harper’s Weekly
• “Who Will Make a Good Wife”
• “The Would-Be Lady and the True One”
• “You Will Be Wanted”
• “Young Men”

Youth’s Magazine (Cincinnati, OH)

• “The Aurora Borealis”
• “The Beautiful Slave”
• “Do Your Duty to Your Brothers and Sisters”
• “Exemplary”
• “Interview of the Blind with the Deaf and Dumb”
• “The Noble Negro”
• “Reading for Young Ladies”
• “Reading is Not Thinking”
• “War and Glory”

Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read: books

Works on reading & children’s books

• “The Arabian Nights”
• “Beadle’s Dime Books”
• “Books”
• “Books for Children”
• “Booth and Bad Literature”
• “Children’s Books of the Year”
• “Devouring Books”
• “Family and Social Reading”
• “How to Make Boys Love Home”
• “Moral Poisons: The Antidote”
• “The Morality of Pictures”
• “Novels and Novel-Reading”
• “Novels and Romances”
• “On Novel Reading”
• “Pleasant and Profitable”
• “Reading for Young Ladies”
• “Reading is Not Thinking”
• “The Reading of Young Ladies”
• “Vicious Novels: The Cause of Their Increase”
• “What Books Shall I Read?”
• “What Does Johnny Read?”

Memoirs of reading

• A Mid-Century Child and Her Books

Transcribed books

• The American Spelling Book
• Beauties of Sentiment
• excerpt from Blair’s Outlines of Chronology
• Peale’s mastodon skeleton, in The Child’s First Book of History
• Peale’s mastodon skeleton, in The Child’s Own Book of American Geography
• Ditties for Children
• “Meteorites and the Leonids of 1833” from A Glance at the Physical Sciences
• The Good Scholar
• The Holiday Book
• The Harper Establishment; or, How the Story Books are Made
• The Ladder of Learning
• The Lost Child
• Love Triumphant; or, Constancy Rewarded
• Peter Parley’s Juvenile Tales
• Peter Parley’s Method of Telling About Geography to Children
• Peter Parley’s Story of the Little Gardener
• Peter Parley’s Story of the Trapper
• Peter Parley’s Short Stories for Long Nights
• Peale’s mastodon skeleton, in Peter Parley’s Tales About the State and City of New York
• Peter Parley’s Tales of the Elephant
• Peale’s mastodon skeleton, in Peter Parley’s Visit to the City of New-York
• Peter Parley’s Winter Evening Tales (2 editions)
• extract from Peter Parley’s Wonders of the Earth, Sea, and Sky
• The Pearl; or, Affection’s Gift
• A Picture Book, for Little Children
• The Riddle Book (1826)
• The Riddle Book (1828)
• Robert Merry’s Miscellany
• Rollo Learning to Read
• Rollo’s Travels
• “Big Bone Lick,” in A Short But Comprehensive System of the Geography of the World
• Stories by Jack Mason, the Old Sailor
• Stories for Children
• Stories of Rainbow and Lucky
• Handie
• Rainbow’s Journey
• The Three Pines
• Selling Lucky
• Up the River
• The Two Doves and the Owl
• The Vagabond
• What to Do, and How to Do It
• William and Eliza; or, The Visit
• excerpts from The Wonders of Geology
• “Mammoth,” in Youth’s Companion; or An Historical Dictionary

Voices from 19th-Century America: works for adults

• Novels, Novelists, & Readers; or, Text & Temptation in 19th-century America
• “Booth and Bad Literature”
• “Confessions of a Novel Reader,” "A.”
• “Devouring Books”
• “Female Resources for Writing,” "P. P.”
• “Gossip of the Month”
• “Moral Poisons: The Antidote,” by F. C. W.
• “Novel Writers and Publishers,” M. M. Backus
• “Novels, Their Meaning and Mission”
• “On Novel Reading”
• “The Reading of Young Ladies”
• “The Waverly Novels”

Transcriptions

• Account of the Terrific and Fatal Riot at the New-York Astor Place Opera House
• The Behaviour Book, Eliza Leslie
• poem about Sarah Bishop, Samuel Goodrich
• Buds, Blossoms, and Leaves, “Eulalie”
• Dictionary of Americanisms, John Bartlett
• An editor edits “Ode, Addressed to J. G. Percival, M. D.”
• Emily Dickinson reads Peter Parley
• Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Portfolio, “Fanny Fern”
• Gala Days, “Gail Hamilton”
• About the gale of September 22-23, 1815
• About the gale of September 3, 1821
• Gertrude of Wyoming, Thomas Campbell
• “The Great Gotham Fire Escape”
• The Legendary
• Memoirs of a Captivity Among the Indians of North America, John Dunn Hunter
• Samuel Griswold Goodrich on John Dunn Hunter
• “Negro Songs—American Music,” Ser. Longley
• Norwood, Henry Ward Beecher
• “On Cyder Making,” Henry Wynkoop
• Popular Amusements, J. T. Crane
• Recollections of a Lifetime, Samuel G. Goodrich
• “René,” Françoise-René Chateaubriand
• Ruth Hall, “Fanny Fern”
• Scenes in My Native Land, Lydia H. Sigourney
• “To the Departing Comet”
• The Token
• Truth, William J. Snelling
• “Who Are the Aggressors?,” by Samuel Griswold Goodrich (New York Evening Post; 15 Oct 1856)
• Wool-Gathering, “Gail Hamilton”
• Woman’s Rights, John Todd
• Woman’s Wrongs, “Gail Hamilton”

The 20th-Century Annex

• advertisement for Say-Yo Mint Jujubes

• A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband, Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron

Books by Samuel Scoville, jr.

• Boy Scouts in the Wilderness
• The Blue Pearl
• The Inca Emerald
• The Red Diamond

An analysis of “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” books

• Choosing the Right Path: Didacticism in the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Books