This absorbing and profusely illustrated book describes in detail scores of early American tools and the wooden and metal artifacts made with them. Informally and expressively written, the text covers bulding tools and methods; farm and kitchen implements; and the tools of curriers, wheelwrights, coopers, blacksmiths, coachmakers, loggers, tanners, and many other craftsmen of the pre-industrial age. Scores of pen-and-ink sketches by the author accurately depict "special tools for every job," among them a hollowing gouge, hay fork, cornering chisel, apple butter paddle, boring auger, mortising...

When this book was first published in the mid-1950s, the author was concerned that such functional structures as the American barn and the covered bridge would soon give way to progress and be replaced by "modern" elements. Today, a number of these sturdy, beautifully proportioned barns and bridges are still standing monuments to the skill and keen eye of their original builders. This lovingly written book, accompanied by more than 75 of the author's own sketches, provides a reliable record of those vanishing forms of architecture. Accurate line drawings depict a variety of barns, such as...

A delightful blend of serious meteorology and beautiful illustrations, this informative book displays the many talents of Eric Sloane. A writer, landscape painter, weather forecaster, and authority on early American history, Sloane takes readers with him on a voyage of discovery as he traces a single air mass from the Canadian Rockies to northern New England. A vivid narrative and the author's own pen-and-ink sketches describe the progress of the air mass over America, and tell about its encounters with other elements of weather systems and with Americans from a variety of backgrounds.

This refreshing and delightfully written book underscores the important role that wood has played in the development of American life and culture. Charmingly illustrated with author Eric Sloane's own sketches, the text illuminates with rare insight the enormously varied and useful qualities of wood.
Covering such topics as the aesthetics of wood, wooden implements, and carpentry, Sloane remarks expansively and with affection on the resourcefulness of early Americans in their use of this precious commodity. From cradle to coffin, the pioneer was surrounded by wood. It was used to make...

For his fifteenth birthday in 1805, young Noah Blake's parents gave him a little leatherbound diary in which he recorded the various activities on his father's farm. This reprint of an actual early nineteenth-century book provides today's readers with a delightful rarity -- a view of bygone days through the eyes of a young boy. Eric Sloane has taken the notebook with its brief comments and expanded the daily entries with explanatory narrative and 72 of his own remarkable drawings.
Verbal and graphic sketches detail the construction of an entire backwoods farm as well as such common tasks...

"This book is about once-upon-a-time in America." -- Eric Sloane. Writer and artist Eric Sloane had an abiding love for America and worked throughout a long and productive life to capture the American spirit in word and picture.
The America Sloane loved was rooted in the simple virtues of our native soil: love of freedom, respect for the individual, sensible frugality, and determined self-reliance -- all of which went to make up what Sloane perceived as our true American heritage.
Nowhere is this heritage more amply portrayed than in the work and ways of the early Americans in our...

Refreshingly written, delightfully illustrated book remarks expansively on the resourcefulness of early Americans in their use of this valuable commodity - from the crafting of furniture, tools, and buildings to the use of such by-products as charcoal and medicine. -One of Sloane's best books.- -Library Journal.