Unusual Entries

The best reason to reopen an old book is the thing you can't believe is in it. These are the entries that made us stop and read them aloud to whoever was nearby.

Lossing's 1877 history was written for the parlor table, 'for all readers' — and illustrated within an inch of its life.

Our Country: A Household History of the United States was meant to be read aloud by lamplight, one installment at a time. Our Tonight's Reading feature restores exactly that rhythm.

Our Country, 1877

In 1902, The Great Republic sliced American history into half-hour readings — podcast pacing, 120 years early.

Edited by Charles Morris, The Great Republic by the Master Historians was sold as history in half-hour installments — the attention-span format is much older than the smartphone.

The Great Republic, 1902

In 1886, children learned coats of arms as a parlor amusement — heraldry was a board game before board games.

Dame Heraldry teaches blazons, tinctures and the whole medieval alphabet of rank as friendly instruction — because a well-raised child of 1886 might genuinely need to read a shield.

Dame Heraldry, 1886

A 1916 anthology of patriotic readings was assembled on the eve of America's entry into the Great War — history as a call to duty.

America First collects the speeches and stories a nervous 1916 America wanted its citizens to reread. Within a year, the country was at war.

America First, 1916

Pick any year of American history and see what 1877 thought about it — the view before another 150 years of hindsight.

What Happened In… looks up any year in Lossing's volumes. The Civil War is twelve years old; the Revolution is grandfather's story; nothing after 1877 has happened yet.

Our Country, 1877