Nineteenth Century Life Story Briefs

What made the 19th century an interesting but tumultuous time? What technological, cultural and social changes influenced life then? Explore those issues in this story collection.

During the summer of 1864, Union engineers from Pennsylvania dug a tunnel under Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia, planning to detonate a huge...

Robert Louis Stevenson lived at Skerrymore Cottage, in Bournemouth, when he wrote "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." It was here that he destr...

A pro-Southern political cartoon intended to show that American slaves were better-off than British workers.

Slave owners would pay rewards to anyone who helped recover fugitive slaves.

In 1843, before he began writing "A Christmas Carol," Charles Dickens visited the industrialized town of Manchester, England.

After the Battle of Waterloo was over, people were stunned at the number of casualties. It was Napoleon's final military effort.

Major George Armistead commissioned two flags, this one measures 30 by 42 feet and was intended to fly over the fort on a flagpole about ninety feet h...

Liberty is dedicated July 4, 1886. She is a gift from the people of France to the people of America.

In 1859, Samuel Clemens was a river pilot on the Mississippi River, a very busy place where steamboats sometimes raced each other.

The June 1st (1861) issue of Harper's Weekly describes a deadly encounter between a group of Union volunteers and a St.

The Surratt family owned two properties - one, in Surrattsville, and the other in Washington City.

On the 24th of January, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, where James Marshall (who was building a saw mill for himself and John Sutter) fou...

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