Building America
Colonial VirginiaISBN 9781584155485List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockIn 1606, 105 men left England for Virginia. They were adventurers hoping to get rich. Most died, but the English kept coming. Land and opportunity were worth the risks of death from disease, starvation, or hostile natives. By 1621, Jamestown had 1,200 settlers. Women and slaves turned the tide, providing stability and free labor. By the middle of the century, small farmers were pushing west and everyone was growing tobacco. Large plantations dotted the riverbanks and a new aristocracy of landowners ran the colony. One hundred and seventy years after the English founded Jamestown, Virginians led the charge for independence. Patrick Henry’s words fanned the flame of freedom, Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, and George Washington commanded the patriot army that defeated England. |
Georgia: The Debtor's ColonyISBN 1-58415-465-9 • 9781584154655List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockThe English colony of Georgia was the product of specific goals. First, England hoped to provide its most impoverished citizens opportunities for land and a new life. Second, the frontier needed a military buffer between Charles Town, the southernmost settlement, and the Spanish in Florida. Third, it certainly wouldn't hurt if the Georgia settlers produced raw materials and goods to export to England. It was one of the most auspicious and ambitious colonial plans. Unfortunately, the well-meaning and charitable Trustees didn't really know what they were doing. They chose crops that wouldn't grow in the Georgia climate and soil. They prohibited slaves, and while that decision was progressive for those times, it put the settlers at an economic disadvantage. They simply couldn't compete with the other colonies for new settlers and continued financing. Georgia wasn't a failure, but its settlers worked harder than any others to survive. |
Holidays and Celebrations in Colonial AmericaISBN 1-58415-467-5 • 9781584154679List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockFor people living in the American colonies, a holiday was a rare thing indeed. Life in colonial times was difficult, and there was little time available for leisure activities like holidays and celebrations. Some of the holidays that the colonists did celebrate, such as Pinkster and Simnel Sunday, have disappeared from the nation's calendar. Others, however, such as New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day, have evolved into widely celebrated events. The colonists would also gather for weddings, funerals, and bees, at which they would help one another build a house, peel apples, or haul away stones. The Building America series tells the story of the early years in which Europeans colonized America and then struggled to make the land an independent nation. Holidays and Celebrations in Colonial America highlights the lighter side of life not only for the colonists, but also for some of the Native American peoples of that era. |
Jamestown: The First English ColonyISBN 1-58415-458-6 • 9781584154587List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockIn 1606, one hundred and five men left England for the western shores of the Chesapeake Bay. They were looking for adventure, land, and treasure. Instead of gold and silver, the men found a dark and mysterious wilderness. A few, like John Smith, found friendship with the local natives. Others found new lives, hacked out of the Virginia wilderness. Most, however, found disease, starvation, and eventually death. Two-thirds of the original Jamestown settlers died within the first year. Still, the English kept coming. Land and opportunity were worth the risks. By 1621, Jamestown had grown to 1,200 settlers, and people from the first successful English colony began to branch out and settle other towns. The Building America series tells the story of the early years in which America struggled to become an independent nation. Jamestown: The First English Colony details the extraordinary circumstances and often harrowing experiences overcome by the persistent Englishmen who wanted to settle in Virginia. |
Life in Colonial AmericaISBN 9781584155492List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockFrom the moment Europeans stumbled across North America at the end of the fifteenth century, monarchs and investors sought to exploit the land’s riches. With high expectations, colonists sailed across the Atlantic, seeking a better life and perhaps even fortune. But life in America was harder than they thought. Several colonies failed, and without the help of friendly Native Americans, others may not have made it, either. Even after the colonists learned how to build houses, hunt, and farm, life remained hard for all concerned. Men had to plant and tend crops, hunt wild game, and fix anything that broke. Women had to take care of the children, sew, cook, and perform dozens of other duties. Children also had a list of chores that they had to perform every day. There was so much work, in fact, that colonists began using indentured servants and then slaves from Africa to plant and harvest their crops. Learn what daily life was like for the colonists, and how their successes affected the Native Americans and governments in other countries. |
The Maryland Colony: Lord BaltimoreISBN 9781584155478List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockEnglish nobleman George Calvert wanted to establish a colony in the New World—not one like his first colony, Newfoundland, which he found to be too cold. Instead he wanted land in the temperate Chesapeake Bay area, where his colonists could grow tobacco. King Charles I granted his wish. Named for Henrietta Mary, Charles’s wife, the new colony of Maryland was established in 1634. Also known as Lord Baltimore, Calvert was a Catholic at a time when Protestants controlled the English government. He wanted Maryland to be a place where Catholics—and anyone else—could worship in freedom. As the British crown was passed through its heirs, favoring Protestants, then Catholics, then Protestants again, Maryland felt the ripples of unrest on its side of the Atlantic. Follow the story of how Maryland came to be a colony and how it fought for its borders with Virginia and Pennsylvania. Find out how in the end, it pulled together with those and the other colonies first to repel the encroaching French, and then to shrug off the tyranny of England. |
Massachusetts Bay Colony: The Puritans Arrive from EnglandISBN 1-58415-460-8 • 9781584154600List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockJohn Winthrop's plan for "the Citty upon a Hill" was grand and based on noble motives. He wanted a place where he and other Puritans could live and prosper without religious persecution. That place was the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Winthrop and his fellow Puritans landed in Massachusetts Bay in 1630. Soon they had organized a government, started towns, and were sending goods back to England. Decades later, Boston, Massachusetts, was a hotbed of radical activity during the years before the Revolutionary War. The war started with the battles of Lexington and Concord in the Massachusetts countryside not far from Boston. The freedom that came for America after that struggle went far toward achieving the dream of John Winthrop. The United States of America became a sort of "citty upon a hill," where all men and women had the right to live peacefully without persecution. |
New Netherland: The Dutch Settle the Hudson ValleyISBN 1-58415-461-6 • 9781584154617List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockOne of the first American colonies was New Netherland, established by the Dutch government of the Netherlands more than 160 years before the American Revolution. New Netherland encompassed all of New York, and parts of New Jersey, Connecticut, and Delaware. Early explorers charted land and waterways and claimed them for the Netherlands. They also discovered a profitable trade in furs with Native American tribes. Already successful in trade with Asia, the Dutch established the West India Company to invest in the trade opportunities in America. One of the first things they did was to encourage settlement in New Netherland. People from throughout Europe took advantage of settling in the new colony. According to one governor, Peter Stuyvesant, eighteen different languages were spoken in New Netherland. The Dutch and British had long disagreed about boundaries. These disagreements led to three Anglo-Dutch Wars. In the end, the British took control of New Netherland and renamed it New York. But the Dutch influence on the colony and its people continued. |
Pennsylvania: William Penn and the City of Brotherly LoveISBN 1-58415-463-2 • 9781584154631List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockKing Charles II of England gave Pennsylvania to Quaker William Penn in repayment for a loan that Penn’s father had made to the king. The king probably thought he was accomplishing more than just paying a debt when he made the land grant. It was a way to get rid of some Quakers, whom he considered troublesome. Quakers did flock to Pennsylvania to settle, but so did people from many other religious groups. All faiths were welcome in Penn’s colony. The new city of Philadelphia prospered. Settlers fanned out to the west to build farms and towns. They shipped their products to Philadelphia and England. By the time of the American Revolution, Pennsylvania was considered the heart of the colonies. Philadelphia hosted the First and Second Continental Congresses, where the Declaration of Independence was crafted. And from the Pennsylvania State House, the Liberty Bell rang out the news of independence declared. |
The Plymouth Colony: The Pilgrims Settle in New EnglandISBN 1-58415-459-4 • 9781584154594List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockIn 1620, one hundred two Puritans boarded the Mayflower on a dangerous adventure. For them, the promise of religious freedom was worth risking their lives. They never made it to their destination in Virginia but landed much farther north. After surviving unsanitary and cramped conditions on the Mayflower, the settlers founded Plymouth Colony, where they faced starvation, brutal winter weather, and the ever-present scourge of disease. During the first year, more than half the settlers died. These survivors, many of them teenagers who had lost their parents, refused to leave. With the help of Native Americans who showed the settlers how to farm and introduced them to maize, Plymouth Colony survived and flourished. The success of the Puritans encouraged other young Europeans to settle in the British colonies and paved the way for a new nation. Although Plymouth Colony was annexed to Massachusetts in 1691, the Puritan legacy has remained strong in the United States of America. |
Texas Joins the United StatesISBN 9781584155508List Price $29.95School/Library Price $20.95In StockFew states have gone the route that Texas did to become part of the Union. First a part of Spain, then Mexico, Texas faced a very uncertain future when it opted to revolt against the regime of Santa Anna. On the plains of San Jacinto, a ragtag Texas army won immortality by defeating Santa Anna and gaining independence for Texas. The path to Texas statehood shines brightly with some of the memorable names in American history, such as Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, Jim Bowie, Stephen Austin, William Barret Travis, and Andrew Jackson. That same path is also glorified by the legendary Battle of the Alamo, at which people died willingly in the defense of an idea they believed in. The route to Texas statehood is long, thrilling, sometimes desperate, and an overall triumph of the spirit of freedom. |
Building America: Complete Set (11 titles)ISBN 9781584155515List Price $329.45School/Library Price $230.45In Stock |
