The Ball-Sellers House is an example of an ordinary 1700s home, built and inhabited by mid-18th-century yeoman farmer and miller, John Ball. The original logs with daubing, wide plank floors, and rare clapboard roof remain to this day.
The house offers an interpretive docent.
The Andover Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Andover, Massachusetts, founded 1646. To this end, the society operates the 1819 Amos Blanchard House and Barn Museum which illustrates the life of an early 19th-century (1820-1850), middle-class family. The barn contains a variety of vernacular tools. According to the society site, tour topics include "politics, religion, women's roles, economics, banking, youth, education, household management, and agriculture." Extensive archival materials are available for research at the Caroline M. Underhill Research Center.
The society offers exhibits, period rooms, guided tours, educational programs, hands-on activities, and archival access.
Currently this website presents full-text, searchable facsimiles of 1,850 monographs and 288 journal volumes related to agriculture in the U.S. All were published between 1806 and 1989. Evaluations and 4,500 core titles are detailed in the seven volume series The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences. Fields of study covered include agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, forestry, nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science.
Types of materials include memoirs and transactions of early agricultural societies, newspapers, almanacs, agricultural periodicals, governmental publications, and archives of families, communities, and corporations. Users can search by author, title, subject, or keyword, then access the title page, table of contents, index, or pages of the text. These resources are valuable for studying the profound social, cultural, and economic effects of shifts in the history of American farming.
According to the Kansas State Historical Society website:
"Every group has its origin story. In Kansas, the legend is that Russian immigrants brought seeds from the home country and created the 'Breadbasket of the World.'"
This presentation, narrated partially from the perspectives of Uriah and Mattie Oblinger, 1872 homesteaders, describes the efforts of pioneers to settle the Great Plains and their belief in Manifest Destiny and personal ownership.
This lecture, created by the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, follows Abraham Lincoln's early life, including his family's arrival in Illinois, his first political campaign, his participation in the Black Hawk War, his time as a postmaster and surveyor, his election to the state legislature, and his beginning to study law. This lecture continues from the lecture "Lincoln's Biography, Part One: Boyhood and Migration, 18091830."
To view this documentary, select "Indian Fighting and Politics in New Salem, 1831-1836" under "Multimedia Slideshows."
This lecture, created by the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, follows Abraham Lincoln's life from his childhood years in Indiana to his family's move to Illinois. This lecture continues from the lecture "Lincoln's Biography: Introduction, Part Two."
To view this documentary, select "Boyhood and Migration, 1809-1830" under "Multimedia Slideshows."
This lecture, created by the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, outlines Abraham Lincoln's early years, including his childhood in Indiana, move to Illinois, participation in the Black Hawk War, election to the state legislature, work as a lawyer, political campaigning, marriage to Mary Todd, and reaction to the Mormon War.
This lecture, created by the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, traces the economic development of Illinois from the beginning of the 19th century to the mid-1800s. It focuses particularly on the development of infrastructure, from steamboat lines to canals to railroads.
Scholar James Lewis contrasts antebellum Midwestern settlers' concepts of orderly land division and ownership with Native American borderless and communal concepts of land use.
To view this clip, select "Settlement of the Northwest Territory" under "Native American Relations Video."