About the Book
The American's Own Book, published in 1855, was the patriotic shelf of an American household compressed into a single volume: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the lives of all fifty-six signers, and every President's principal addresses — inaugurals, annual messages and farewells — from Washington's first inaugural of 1789 to Franklin Pierce's of 1853.
Books like this one sat beside the family Bible in thousands of parlors, and were often an immigrant family's first systematic introduction to the republic's history and machinery. The biographies are written in the reverent schoolroom style of the day; the documents are printed in full.
This digital edition presents the complete keyed text of the 1855 edition, with the original spellings and typography preserved.