Free summaries
History - American — page 16
1,087 public-domain history - american books, summarised. Page 16 of 23.

The Overland Route to the Road of a Thousand Wonders: The Route of the Union Pacific & The Southern Pacific Railroads from Omaha to San Francisco, a Journey of Eighteen Hundred Miles Where Once the Bison & the Indian Reigned
Southern Pacific Company. Passenger Department
Where pioneers once crawled across two thousand miles of dust and hardship, a steel highway now spans the continent in fifty-six luxurious hours.

The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio
N. E. (Nelson Edward) Jones
A wilderness of forest yields to the ax, the plow, and the rifle as a generation of rugged settlers carves a proud, independent commonwealth from the wild American frontier.

Through the Mackenzie Basin: A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899
Charles Mair
An expedition pushes deep into Canada’s unceded northern forests, where treaty signers smoke briar pipes in store-bought suits and men track heavy wooden boats until their lines snap against the rocks.

A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro: The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1
Kelly Miller
A rigorous statistical dismantling challenges the biased socio-economic theories of the late nineteenth century, exposing how faulty data and flawed logic were used to argue that African Americans were inherently doomed to extinction.

A Traveller in War-Time
Winston Churchill
Cross the Atlantic alongside civilian volunteers, thread the darkened streets of air-raided London, and witness how the total mobilization of Great Britain and France fundamentally reshaped modern democratic society.

Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777: With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76
Samuel Adams Drake
A confident British campaign collides with wilderness logistics, tactical miscalculations, and American resistance along the Hudson River corridor.

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society for the Year 1867
A. J. (Alfred James) Hill
This volume preserves the formative historical records and ethnographic observations of a developing American territory, capturing the intersection of pioneer ambition and the intricate spiritual lives of the indigenous Dakota people.

The Catalpa Expedition
Zeph. W. (Zephaniah Walter) Pease
Bound by duty to a foreign crown, soldiers chose a higher allegiance to their native soil and paid for their rebellion with lifetime exile to the end of the earth.

The Night the Mountain Fell: The Story of the Montana-Yellowstone Earthquake
Edmund Christopherson
The night the earth buckled in Montana, a mountain collapsed and silenced a canyon. This account of the 1959 earthquake chronicles the struggle of campers trapped beneath the debris and the frantic relief effort that followed.

Faux's Memorable Days in America, 1819-20
W. (William) Faux
An English traveler traverses the young American republic, recording his skeptical observations of the landscape, the people, and the pervasive, restless spirit of financial speculation that defines the era.

Springfield in the Spanish American War
Walter W. Ward
The men of Springfield, Massachusetts, left behind their civilian lives in the spring of 1898 to confront a grueling campaign in the tropics and the harsh realities of a short, violent war.

The American Missionary
Various
Through reports of violent resistance, financial accounts, and institutional updates, a nineteenth-century missionary periodical details the complex, courageous effort to educate and empower marginalized communities across Reconstruction-era America.

The Flag Replaced on Sumter: A Personal Narrative
William A. Spicer
A Northern veteran journeys southward to a ruined cradle of secession, celebrating a fragile peace just as tragedy strikes the nation.

What America did
Florence Finch Kelly
A sweeping chronicle of mobilization, this account captures how a nation transformed its civilian life, industry, and social structures to meet the unprecedented demands of the First World War.

An Epoch in History
P. H. (Peter Harden) Eley
This record of a pioneering educational mission marks a distinctive moment at the turn of the twentieth century, capturing the collision between American ambition and Philippine reality. It offers an eyewitness account of a society in transition, viewed through the lens of a young traveler participating in an…

Greater Greece and Greater Britain
Edward A. (Edward Augustus) Freeman
Greater Greece and Greater Britain is a scholarly examination of colonial history and political terminology, drawing parallels between the expansion of ancient Greek city-states and the contemporary British Empire.

Prisons Over Seas: Deportation and Colonization
Arthur Griffiths
The history of penal exile reveals a stark progression from the chaotic brutality of early maritime transportation to the clinical, institutionalized systems of the modern era.

The Little Book of the Flag
Eva March Tappan
This historical account traces the evolution of American identity through the shifting designs and symbolic weight of its national flag. It provides a chronological record of how a collection of colonial banners transformed into a singular, unified emblem of the United States.

Canada under British Rule 1760-1900
John George Bourinot
The roots of the present lie deep in the past, and the significance of modern political conditions cannot be grasped without understanding the historical causes that shaped them.

Historical Guide to Old Charlottesville: With mention of its statues and of Albemarle's shrines
Mary Rawlings
Old Charlottesville is a portrait of a landscape defined by its political heritage, where the quiet brick of a courthouse and the sweeping views of mountaintop estates serve as anchors for the history of a nation. This guide moves through the streets and surrounding hills of Albemarle County, linking the everyday…

Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining
John S. (John Shertzer) Hittell
The mountains of California hold a hidden fortune, waiting to be unlocked by those with the ingenuity to master the forces of water, stone, and gravity. This is an essential technical guide to the methods that transformed the American West.

Investigation of Communist activities in Seattle, Wash., Area, Hearings, Part 2
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities
These transcripts document a specific chapter of the mid-century American political climate, capturing the tension and rhetoric of a federal investigation into Communist influence in the Pacific Northwest. The hearings reveal how a government committee interrogated private citizens about their past affiliations,…

The History of Battery H First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery in the War to Preserve the Union 1861-1865
Earl Fenner
The heavy artillery fire of the Civil War is captured here through the eyes of the men who stood behind the guns, offering a grounded, granular account of a single battery’s journey from Rhode Island to the final surrender of the Confederacy.

Investigation of Communist activities in Seattle, Wash., area. Hearings, Part 3
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities
A lawyer and former congressman undergoes a grueling legislative interrogation, forced to account for years of political associations, organizational memberships, and personal correspondence during the height of the anti-communist era.

Rise of the New West, 1819-1829
Frederick Jackson Turner
This chronicle maps the volatile decade when a young nation pushed toward the Pacific, trading old-world deference for a raw, self-confident, and fractured democratic identity.

The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 6: Quebec, 1633-1634
Unknown
A Jesuit missionary documents the stark, often harrowing realities of seventeenth-century New France, observing the clash of cultures between his order and the indigenous peoples of the St. Lawrence.

Twenty-five years of the Philadelphia Orchestra, 1900-1925
Frances Anne Wister
The establishment of the Philadelphia Orchestra was not a foregone conclusion, but a decades-long struggle of faith, fluctuating finances, and the persistent cultivation of a city’s musical taste.

Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture;: In which Certain Demagogues in Tennessee, and Elsewhere
William Gannaway Brownlow
A firebrand editor confronts the crises of 1856, arguing that foreign influence, Roman Catholic doctrine, and political corruption threaten to dismantle the American republic’s foundational liberties.

Cuming's tour to the western country (1807-1809)
Fortescue Cuming
In the early years of the nineteenth century, a refined Englishman traverses the vast, untamed landscape of the American interior, capturing the raw, burgeoning spirit of a nation still finding its footing.

The Anglo-Saxon Century and the Unification of the English-Speaking People
John R. (John Randolph) Dos Passos
Great power, common ancestry, and the shared ideals of the English-speaking world demand a formal, permanent political union to ensure the future of global civilization. This vision for a unified Anglo-Saxon future defines a critical moment at the turn of the twentieth century.

Braddock Road
John Kennedy Lacock
Hook A meticulous retracing of a doomed eighteenth-century military expedition, this work recovers the physical path of a general's march into the wilderness. It serves as both a historical reconstruction and a guide to the landscape.

Haw-Ho-Noo
Charles Lanman
A collection of sketches that wander through the wild American landscape, this work captures the spirit of a mid-nineteenth-century traveler seeking connection with nature and the traditional stories of the land.

In the Footprints of the Padres
Charles Warren Stoddard
The golden age of old California lives on in these pages, capturing a world of sand-dunes, mission bells, and bohemian dreams that time and catastrophe have since swept away.

The romantic story of the Mayflower pilgrims, and its place in the life of to-day
A. C. (Albert Christopher) Addison
The Mayflower Pilgrims’ epic journey from English persecution to the harsh, uncertain shores of a New World remains a cornerstone of American identity. This account traces the origins of that movement and the enduring values those settlers brought to their new home.

Charities and the Commons: The Pittsburgh Survey, Part II. The Place and Its Social Forces
Various
This survey documents the stark social and physical realities of early 20th-century Pittsburgh, detailing a city struggling to reconcile its massive industrial output with the basic health and safety of its working-class population.

Farmer George, Volume 2
Lewis Melville
The second volume of this historical portrait tracks the dissolution of the American colonies and the deepening mental instability of a monarch struggling to maintain his personal authority. It offers a measured, critical view of a king defined by his rigid convictions and the catastrophic loss of his overseas empire.

History of the Constitutions of Iowa
Benjamin Franklin Shambaugh
The political architecture of a frontier territory emerges through the intense, often contentious process of shaping statehood. This account traces the evolution of Iowa’s governing principles from unregulated pioneer settlements to the adoption of a formal state constitution.

History of the Washington National Monument and of the Washington National Monument Society
Frederick L. (Frederick Loviad) Harvey
This meticulous chronicle details the decades-long struggle to construct the Washington Monument, documenting the transition from private patriotic ambition to a completed, government-led engineering triumph. It serves as both a record of the Washington National Monument Society’s labors and a testament to the…

Nooks & Corners of Old New York
Charles Hemstreet
This guide traces the hidden history of New York City through its physical remnants, transforming ordinary street corners into doorways to the colonial and nineteenth-century past.

Fort Robinson: Outpost on the Plains
Roger T. Grange
** This historical account chronicles the volatile rise of a crucial military installation, detailing its role in the shifting balance of power on the American frontier.

Historic Events of Colonial Days
Rupert Sargent Holland
This collection of narratives offers an intimate, episodic journey through the formative struggles of the American colonies, focusing on the human moments behind the historical record. It invites readers to view the early settlement of the New World not as a dry sequence of dates, but as a series of confrontations,…

History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford
Daniel Oakey
The cavalry screen is drawn back, revealing a landscape of clashing sabers, shifting loyalties, and the raw, kinetic energy of a war-weary army finally finding its footing.

Lynch-law
James Elbert Cutler
The American history of mob violence reflects a deep, enduring struggle between the rule of law and the impulses of the crowd. This study traces that dark legacy from colonial origins to the turn of the twentieth century.

The Abolitionists: Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights, 1830-1864
John F. (John Ferguson) Hume
This account offers a firsthand witness to the moral conviction and political persistence of those who fought to end American slavery long before it was a popular or safe cause.

The Bulletin of the Loudoun County Historical Society, Volume IV, 1965
Various
This collection of historical essays offers a meticulous, localized lens into the past of a Virginia county, bridging the gap between grand military maneuvers and the quiet, agrarian traditions of its early settlers.

The Mentor: The War of 1812: Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103
Albert Bushnell Hart
This historical survey examines the War of 1812, a costly and often humiliating struggle that paradoxically forged a new sense of American national identity and secured global respect for the young republic.

The Westward Movement
Unknown
This collection of historical accounts chronicles the relentless expansion of the United States, charting the transformation of the American wilderness from a perceived obstacle into a settled frontier.

England and Canada: A Summer Tour Between Old and New Westminster, with Historical Notes
Sandford Fleming
A transcontinental journey through the rugged wilderness of the 1880s, this travelogue chronicles the ambitious expansion of Canada, bridging the vast distance from Nova Scotia to the shores of the Pacific.