Special Features - Slideshow

A Window on the World: Views of 19th Century Life in American Schoolbooks, 1823-1852

Smith's Geography on the Productive System, 1835. Image courtesy of Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Library.

About this Image

Children learned their place in the world culturally as well as physically. This position in the world order ranged in levels, as explained in the illustration, from “Barbarous to Enlightened.” Although most of America at that time, with its country churches and school houses, would be deemed “Civilized,” her glory to come would be the fruit of her cities, the printing press, banks, factories, and commerce.