At the time of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the United States was fast becoming the world's leading economy. Chicago, the host city, had grown in less than half a century from a village t
"Until the close of the 19th century, many children in America were employed in farming, mills and mines or sold newspapers and fruits and vegetables on the streets. It took the Great Depression and N
Although ancient farmers used draft animals for plowing, the heavy work of harvesting fell to human hands, using sickle and scythe. Change came in the mid-19th century when Cyrus Hall McCormick built
Freedom of speech was restricted during the Revolutionary War. In the struggle for independence, those who remained loyal to the British crown were persecuted with loss of employment, eviction from th
On October 19, 1781, British general Charles Lord Cornwallis surrendered his army at Yorktown, effectively ending the Revolutionary War and conceding the independence of the United States of America.
After the Revolutionary War, despite political independence, the United States still relied on other countries for manufactured goods. Francis Cabot Lowell, born in Massachusetts in 1775, was one of t
This book describes how after a century and a half in New England, the Yankees—direct descendants of the Puritans who arrived between 1620 and 1640—established colonies across the western frontier and
Before the automobile age, when Americans lived close to their families and walked to work, the communities that eventually became metropolitan Boston were busy forging the nation’s industrial future
From its earliest days, Boston decreed that its children be taught to read and write English and understand the laws. In 1826, free and compulsory education was introduced. The wish to educate the you
When Nathan Appleton and his colleagues built their first textile mill on the banks of the Merrimack River in 1822, they were pursuing the vision of their departed mentor, Francis Cabot Lowell. The co