Special Features - Slideshow

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

Olney's Modern Geography, 1828. Image courtesy of Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Library.

About this Image

Where there’s smoke, there’s progress and prosperity! Here the twin sisters of "Industry" and "Commerce", holding a shield bearing a rising sun, are carried through the heavens by an American eagle upon billowing smoke from factories, trains, and steamboats in a landscape filled with engineering marvels and impressive architecture.