A Dusty Tomes Audio Book
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Frederick Jackson Turner by Carl Becker. John Stambaugh Professor of History at Cornell University. Extracted from American Masters of Social Science edited by Howard W. Odum. Henry Holt and Company 1927.

Narrated by Joseph Tabler
Note – This book is ‘read as written’. It was published in 1927. It is in the public domain.

Frederick Jackson Turner, American historian during the early twentieth century, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison until 1910, and then at Harvard University. He was known primarily for his frontier thesis. He trained many PhDs who went on to become well-known historians. He promoted interdisciplinary and quantitative methods, often with an emphasis on the Midwestern United States.

Turner’s essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” included ideas that formed the frontier thesis. Turner’s sectionalism essays are collected in The Significance of Sections in American History, which won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1933.

Author Carl Becker (A pupil of Turner) was an American historian who studied the American Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment in America and Europe. Cornell has recognized his work as an educator by naming one of its five new residential colleges the Carl Becker House.
Becker is best known for The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (1932), four lectures on The Enlightenment delivered at Yale University.

Dusty Tomes Audio Books are public domain books retrieved from the ravages of time; Available as never before, as audio books, for your edification, pleasure, and consideration.

Originally published in 1927.

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In Cooperation with Spoken Realms

The Winning of the West, Volume 2: From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 by Theodore Roosevelt. A Major US History Series in 6 Volumes. G.P. Putnam’s Sons 1889.

Narrated by Joseph Tabler

Note: This book is “read as written.” It was published in 1889. It is in the public domain.

We all know of Theodore Roosevelt being the US president from 1901 to 1909, an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, and naturalist. BUT few know of him being an acclaimed historian. Roosevelt’s The Winning of the West quickly became a bestseller. The first edition of his book sold out in little more than a month and helped establish Roosevelt as a literary man and scholar, placing him on a path toward future greatness. (Gordon T. Belt’s The Posterity Project).

CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER I. The War in the Northwest, 1777-1778

CHAPTER II. Clark’s Conquest of the Illinois, 1778

CHAPTER III. Clark’s Campaign against Vincennes, 1779

CHAPTER IV. Continuance of the Struggle in Kentucky and the Northwest, 1779-1781

CHAPTER V. The Moravian Massacre, 1779-1783

CHAPTER VI. The Administration of the Conquered French Settlements, 1779-1783

CHAPTER VII. Kentucky until the End of the Revolution, 1782-1783

CHAPTER VIII. The Holston Settlements, 1777-1779

CHAPTER IX. King’s Mountain, 1780

CHAPTER X. The Holston Settlements to the End of the Revolution, 1781-1783

CHAPTER XI. Robertson Founds the Cumberland Settlement, I779-1780

CHAPTER XII. The Cumberland Settlements to the Close of the Revolution, 1781-1783

CHAPTER XIII. What the Westerners had Done During the Revolution

Audio cover picture: Theodore Roosevelt

Dusty Tomes Audio Books are public domain books retrieved from the ravages of time. Available as never before, as audio books, for your edification, pleasure, and consideration. Please excuse the dust.

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Lincoln in the Black Hawk War by Alfred Augustus Jackson. Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Volume XIV edited and annotated by Reuben Gold Thwaites.

Narrated by Joseph Tabler
Note – This book is ‘read as written’. It was published in 1898. It is in the public domain.

Dusty Tomes Audio Books are public domain writings retrieved from the ravages of time; Available as never before, as audio books, for your edification, pleasure, and consideration.

Originally published in 1898.

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The Rise of American Nationality, 1811–1819 by Kendric Charles Babcock, PhD, President of the University of Arizona

Narrated by Joseph Tabler

Volume 13 of 27 in The American Nation: A History published by Harper Brothers (1904–1918). Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University

From the Editor’s Introduction to the Series: That a new history of the United States is needed, extending from the discovery down to the present time hardly needs a statement. No such comprehensive work by a competent writer is now in existence. Individual writers have treated only limited chronological fields. Meantime there, is a rapid increase of published sources and of serviceable monographs based on material hitherto unused. On the one side, there is a necessity for an intelligent summarizing of the present knowledge of American history by trained specialists; on the other hand, there is a need for a complete work, written in an untechnical style, which shall serve for the instruction and the entertainment of the general reader.

Part of a review:
“A rigid classification would demand these volumes be assigned to the class of historical writings designed for the general reader rather than for the special student. The books are not and do not pretend to be distinct contributions to the historical scholar’s knowledge of the period traversed; yet the sane and impartial judgement displayed and the admirable sense of proportion evinced, together with the clear grasp and scholarly exposition of the subjects treated, make each a work that the special student cannot afford to neglect.”—Marshall S. Brown in the American Historical Review, Oct. 1906.

From the Editor’s Introduction to Volume Thirteen: The author does not shrink from laying bare the mistakes of our fathers in the War of 1812: the ineptitude of the military administration; the violence of party opposition; the disgraceful defeats in most of the conflicts on land; but the helplessness of the war period is strongly contrasted, first, with the brilliance of the naval operations; second, with the growth of national pride and national consciousness when the war was over; and, third, with the new point of view of European nations towards the great American republic.

From the Author’s Preface: [In] the pages of this volume I have striven to show how the United States achieved its real emancipation from European domination and became a nation…The injunction to rely chiefly upon original materials has been cordially observed, even when it has necessitated reference to rare and obscure books. On the other hand, certain secondary works, such as Henry Adams’s United States and Mahan’s War of 1812 have such peculiar elements of strength that it would be folly for a writer of more general work to neglect them.

Editor’s Introduction
Author’s Preface
I. The Reign of Faction (1809–1811)
II. Problems of the Southwest and Northwest (1810–1812)
III. French Duplicity and English Stubbornness (1810–1812)
IV. New Elements in Control (1811–1812)
V. The Declaration of War (1812)
VI. On to Canada (1812–1814)
VII. The Naval War (1812–1814)
VIII. The Southwest and the Centre (1813–1815)
IX. New England and the War (1811–1815)
X. Peace Negotiations (1813–1815)
XI. The Results of the War (1815)
XII. Party Divisions and Personalities (1815–1819)
XIII. War Finance and the Second Bank (1816)
XIV. The Tariff (1815–1818)
XV. Westward Migration and Internal Improvements (1815–1819)
XVI. Negotiations with England (1815–1818)
XVII. Relations with Spain (1815–1821)
XVIII. The Great Decisions of the Supreme Court (1816–1824)

Audio cover picture – Daniel Webster.

Dusty Tomes Audio Books are public domain books retrieved from the ravages of time. Available for the first time in this format for your pleasure and consideration.

Originally Published between 1904–1918.

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THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA With Some Account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest. by JOHN FISKE. Houghton Mifflin 1902.

Volume One of 3 Volumes on The Discovery of America – from The Historical Writings of John Fiske in Twelve Volumes. this volume originally published in 1892.

Narrated by Joseph Tabler

Volume One is the story of the trials and tribulations over many years of how the Old World—involving Norse men, Marco Polo, Portuguese, Aztecs, Mound Builders, etc—finally made the decision to seek out…the Indies….. in detail.

“The Discovery of America is a fitting introduction to American history. Its thorough and conscientious scholarship and its engaging style make it appeal alike to scholars and to the general reader, while the broad scientific thought pervading it marks it as a characteristic and significant product of the influence of Darwinism upon historical research.”

(Edward G. Bourne, Ph. D. Professor at Yale – Review in Political Science Quarterly 1893, JSTOR)

Contents

I – ANCIENT AMERICA

II – PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES

III – EUROPE AND CATHAY

IV – THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES

Audio cover picture—Christopher Columbus, from the book’s frontispiece.

Available Audiobooks—The books I am proposing to read for you may have a few extraneous sounds and will be imperfectly read and produced. Hopefully, you will excuse any defects, as these Old books are quite unlikely to become audiobooks otherwise and still have great value. Joseph Tabler. Aloha.

Audio copyright 2024 by Joseph Tabler.

Note—This book is ‘read as written’. It was originally published in 1892. It is in the public domain.

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‘The Last American Frontier’ by Frederic Logan Paxson. The MacMillan Company, 1910.

From the Author’s Preface: I have told here the story of the last frontier within the United States, trying at once to preserve the picturesque atmosphere that has given to the “Far West” a definite and well-understood meaning and to indicate those forces which have shaped the history of the country beyond the Mississippi. In doing it I have had to rely largely upon my own investigations among sources little used and relatively inaccessible. The exact citations of authority, with which I might have crowded my pages, would have been out of place in a book not primarily intended for the use of scholars. But I hope, before many years, to exploit in a larger and more elaborate form the mass of detailed information upon which this sketch is based.

Chapter I. The Westward Movement

Chapter II. The Indian Frontier

Chapter III. Iowa and the New Northwest

Chapter IV. The Santa Fe Trail

Chapter V. The Oregon Trail

Chapter VI. Overland with the Mormons

Chapter VII. California and the Forty-niners

Chapter VIII. Kansas and the Indian Frontier

Chapter IX. “Pike’s Peak or Bust!”

Chapter X. From Arizona to Montana

Chapter XI. The Overland Mail

Chapter XII. The Engineers’ Frontier

Chapter XIII. The Union Pacific Railroad

Chapter XIV. The Plains in the Civil War

Chapter XV. The Cheyenne War

Chapter XVI. The Sioux War

Chapter XVII. The Peace Commission and the Open Way

Chapter XVIII. Black Kettle’s Last Raid

Chapter XIX. The First of the Railways

Chapter XX. The New Indian Policy

Chapter XXI. The Last Stand: Chief Joseph and Sitting Bull

Chapter XXII. Letting in the Population

Chapter XXIII. Bibliographical Note

Dusty Tomes Audio Books are public domain books retrieved from history. If today’s technology had been available when first printed, they would be audio books already. I am grateful for the opportunity to record them now. Read online at archive.org

Narrator’s Note: I read only as written. These old books were once solid sellers for bookmen of their time. I believe they can shed light on their times and ours. Loving obscure and remote literature, they are a distinct pleasure for me to read to you. These turn out to be distant and unknown only so long as they remain unread or unheard. Aloha.

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An available audiobook in cooperation with Spoken Realms.

‘The Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction’ (1924) by Alrutheus Ambush Taylor Narrated by Joseph Tabler.

CONTENTS

Introduction

I. The Negro Population

II. The Confusion of the Transition

III. Revitalized Slavery Curbed

IV. Economic Adjustment

V. Economic Progress

VI. Educational Forces at Work

VII. Religious Influences

VIII. The Constitutional Convention of 1868

IX. Reconstructionists and Their Measures

X.. The Opposition to Reconstruction

XI. Reform within the Ranks

XII. The Overthrow of the Reconstructionists

XIII. Corruption exposed to justify Intimidation

XIV. The Aftermath of Reconstruction

**All historians have some bias or slant. And of course, their works were written in a different time than our own. More can be learned about this author on his Wikipedia entry.

Audio cover picture – Alrutheus Ambush, Taylor Fisk University Library Special Collections. (Wikipedia)

Available Audiobooks: The books I read for you may have a few extraneous sounds and will be imperfectly read and produced. Hopefully, you will excuse any defects, as these old books are quite unlikely to become audiobooks otherwise and still have great value. Joseph Tabler. Aloha.

Audio copyright 2025 by Joseph Tabler.

Note: This book is “read as written”. It was originally published in 1924. It is in the public domain.

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ECONOMIC BEGINNINGS OF THE FAR WEST. VOLUME I

EXPLORERS AND COLONIZERS by KATHARINE COMAN. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1912.

A Dusty Tomes Audio Book

In Cooperation with Spoken Realms

KATHARINE COMAN Professor of History at Wellesley College

The two-volume book is today hailed as a classic and was reprinted twice; Macmillan in 1925, and Kelly in 1969. The University of Michigan’s “Naming Project” notes that she was one of the first historians to use local newspaper articles and government documents as primary sources in her teaching and writing.

Coman developed and taught several new economics, history, and rhetoric courses, including Statistical Study of Economic Problems, Industrial History of the United States, and Conservation of Our Natural Resources.

To teach students about the practicality of applying economic theory to real-world economic and social problems, Coman escorted her students on field trips to Boston’s tenement houses, labor union meetings, factories, and sweatshops.

(Wikipedia)

CONTENTS

VOLUME I

PART I. THE SPANISH OCCUPATION

CHAPTER I

The Explorers

Section I. The Route to the Orient

Section II. The Seven Cities of Cibola

CHAPTER II

The Colonizers

Section I. New Mexico

Great Undertakings

Misgovernment

The Pike Expedition

A Neglected Province

Section II. Louisiana

La Salle’s Ill-fated Enterprise

Louisiana under France and Spain

Section III. Texas

Possession contested by France and Spain

The Coming of the Americans

Section IV. California

Colonization Attempted

Causes for Failure

Success of the Missions

Commercial Restrictions

Secularization of the Missions

The Cattle Kings

PART II. EXPLORATION AND THE FUR

TRADE

CHAPTER I

The Northwest Coast

Section I. Russian Explorers

Section II. Spanish Explorers

Section III. English Explorers Section

IV. The Americans

CHAPTER II

The Overland Search for the Western Sea

Section I. French Explorers

Section II. English Explorers

Section III. American Explorers

John Ledyard

Lewis and Clark

Pike’s Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi

CHAPTER III

The Fur Trade

Section I. Government Control vs. Laissez-faire

Spanish Policy

British Fur Traders

The American Policy

Section II. The Fur Traders of St. Louis

Missouri Fur Company

Section III. Astoria

Section IY. Fort Vancouver

Section V. Rivalry of the American Companies

The American Fur Company

The Rocky Mountain Fur Company

Section VI. Decline of the’ Fur Trade

Narrated by Joseph Tabler

Audio copyright 2024

This book is in the public domain.

From the Author’s Preface: Unquestionably, Spain and Great Britain would have been engaged in an unequal controversy for possession of the richest portion of North America, but for the intervention of a new claimant. The young Republic….

As to the political and diplomatic merits and demerits of this struggle for possession, a mere economist will not attempt to decide. Our province is rather to suggest the underlying economic conditions that determined the outcome of war and treaty and race competition, and to reveal the bread and butter struggle that must ever result in the survival of the fittest—the ablest to utilize the resources of virgin territory.

I have endeavored to tell the story…without bias or elaboration.

Audio cover picture—from the book—Yellow Clover, A Book of Remembrance by Katharine Lee Bates on Internet Archive.

Dusty Tomes Audio Books are public domain books retrieved from history. If today’s technology had been available when first printed, they would be audio books already. I am grateful for the opportunity to record them now. Read online at archive.org

Narrator’s Note: I read only as written. These old books were once solid sellers for bookmen of their time. I believe they can shed light on their times and ours. Loving obscure and remote literature, they are a distinct pleasure for me to read to you. These turn out to be distant and unknown only so long as they remain unread or unheard. Aloha.

Audible/Amazon

An Available Audio Book

In Cooperation with Spoken Realms

WHITE SERVITUDE IN MARYLAND 1634-1820. Johns Hopkins Press 1904.

by EUGENE IRVING McCORMAC

Narrated by Joseph Tabler.

CONTENTS

Introduction

I. The Negro Population

II. The Early Land System in Maryland

III. Number and Economic Importance

IV. Indenture and “Custom of the Country”

V. Fugitive Servants

VI. Status of Servants and Freedmen

VII. Servant Militia

VIII. Convicts

Conclusion

Eugene Irving McCormac, Professor of American History, Emeritus (1872-1943) (University of California: In Memoriam)

Professor McCormac’s first publication was White Servitude in Maryland, 1634-1820 (1904), an important investigation which has not been superseded. He followed this with an original and illuminating demonstration of Colonial Opposition to Imperial Authority during the French and Indian War (1911). By a curious coincidence, this investigation appeared at a moment when the State Senate was involved in discussion of “unpatriotic” teaching in the schools, and was heedlessly taken as an example of “false and disloyal history.” McCormac’s view was simply that “the Revolution began [not with the Stamp Act], but as soon as the Pilgrims landed in America,” and later investigators have confirmed his position. (University of California, CDL California Digital Library)

**All historians have some bias or slant. And of course, their works were written in a different time than our own. More can be learned about this author at cdlib.org.

Audio cover picture – Detail showing convicts consisting of lords, esquires, and attorneys, in chains, boarding a ship, for transport from England to Georgia, under the reign of King George III. 1770 Library of Congress, Public Domain.

Available Audio Books – The books I read for you may have a few extraneous sounds and will be imperfectly read and produced. Hopefully, you will excuse any defects, as these Old books are quite unlikely to become audio books otherwise and still have great value. Joseph Tabler. Aloha. Read online at Archive.org and/or HathiTrust.org

Audio copyright 2025 by Joseph Tabler.

Note – This book is ‘read as written’. It was originally published in 1904. It is in the public domain.

Audible/Amazon

An Available Audio Book

In Cooperation with Spoken Realms

WHITE SERVITUDE IN MARYLAND 1634-1820. Johns Hopkins Press 1904.

by EUGENE IRVING McCORMAC

Narrated by Joseph Tabler.

CONTENTS

Introduction

I. The Negro Population

II. The Early Land System in Maryland

III. Number and Economic Importance

IV. Indenture and “Custom of the Country”

V. Fugitive Servants

VI. Status of Servants and Freedmen

VII. Servant Militia

VIII. Convicts

Conclusion

Eugene Irving McCormac, Professor of American History, Emeritus (1872-1943) (University of California: In Memoriam)

Professor McCormac’s first publication was White Servitude in Maryland, 1634-1820 (1904), an important investigation which has not been superseded. He followed this with an original and illuminating demonstration of Colonial Opposition to Imperial Authority during the French and Indian War (1911). By a curious coincidence, this investigation appeared at a moment when the State Senate was involved in discussion of “unpatriotic” teaching in the schools, and was heedlessly taken as an example of “false and disloyal history.” McCormac’s view was simply that “the Revolution began [not with the Stamp Act], but as soon as the Pilgrims landed in America,” and later investigators have confirmed his position. (University of California, CDL California Digital Library)

**All historians have some bias or slant. And of course, their works were written in a different time than our own. More can be learned about this author at cdlib.org.

Audio cover picture – Detail showing convicts consisting of lords, esquires, and attorneys, in chains, boarding a ship, for transport from England to Georgia, under the reign of King George III. 1770 Library of Congress, Public Domain.

Available Audio Books – The books I read for you may have a few extraneous sounds and will be imperfectly read and produced. Hopefully, you will excuse any defects, as these Old books are quite unlikely to become audio books otherwise and still have great value. Joseph Tabler. Aloha. Read online at Archive.org and/or HathiTrust.org

Audio copyright 2025 by Joseph Tabler.

Note – This book is ‘read as written’. It was originally published in 1904. It is in the public domain.

Audible/Amazon

A Dusty Tomes Audio Book
In Cooperation with Spoken Realms

Meetings With Poe from Recollections, Personal and Literary by Richard Henry Stoddard

Narrated by Joseph Tabler

A. S. Barnes and Company 1903.

Editor’s Note: Living as he did through several distinct periods of American literary history, Mr. Stoddard’s recollections inevitably represented a range and a richness that made their preservation essential.

From the Introduction by Edmund Clarence Stedman: (Richard Henry Stoddard) began long enough ago to have had his early poetry refused by Poe because it was too good to be the work of an obscure stripling.

From 1870 to 1873, he was a confidential clerk to George B. McClellan in the New York dock department, and from 1874 to 1875 city librarian of New York. He was a literary reviewer for the New York World (1860–1870); one of the editors of Vanity Fair; editor of The Aldine (1869–1879), and literary editor of the Mail and the Mail and Express (1880–1903).

Dusty Tomes Audio Books are public domain books retrieved from the ravages of time. Available for the first time in this format for your pleasure and consideration.

Originally published in 1903.

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A Dusty Tomes Audio Book

In Cooperation with Spoken Realms
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin by Elizabeth Robins Pennell. Eminent Women Series (Famous Women Series in the US) Edited by John H. Ingram. W. H. Allen & Co. 1885.

Note: This book is ‘read as written’. It was published in 1884. It is in the public domain.

Mary Wollstonecraft is the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. She has been called Britain’s first feminist. Her daughter Mary Shelley is the author of the novel Frankenstein (1818).

This biography was written by Elizabeth Robin Pennell. It was her first book, written before she was thirty. She was married that year to illustrator and artist Joseph Pennell. She wrote many other books: including cycling travels in Europe, art and food criticism, biographies of painter and friend: James Whistler (painter of Whistler’s Mother), folklorist and uncle: Charles Godfrey Leland, and memoirs of her London salon.

CONTENTS
Introduction
CHAPTER I.— Childhood and Early Youth. 1759–1778
CHAPTER II.— First Years of Work. 1778–1785
CHAPTER III.— Life as Governess. 1786–1788
CHAPTER IV.— Literary Life. 1788–1791
CHAPTER V.— Literary Work. 1788–1791
CHAPTER VI. — “Vindication of the Rights of Women”
CHAPTER VII.— Visit to Paris. 1792–1793
CHAPTER VIII.— Life with Imlay. 1793–1794
CHAPTER IX.— Imlay’s Desertion. 1794–1795
CHAPTER X.— Literary Work. 1793–1796
CHAPTER XL— Retrospective. 1794–1796
CHAPTER XII.— William Godwin
CHAPTER XIII.— Life with Godwin: Marriage. 1796–1797
CHAPTER XIV.— Last Months: Death

Dusty Tomes Audio Books are public domain books retrieved from the ravages of time; Available as never before, as audio books, for your edification, pleasure, and consideration.

Originally published in 1884.

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