Lost Skills of the 19th Century · A Practical Guide to a Variety of Useful Arts No Longer Widely Known or Practiced

Yearn to live in the past, but don’t know how to get there?

Lost Skills of the 19th Century is a wide-ranging collection of (mostly) useful arts no longer widely known or practiced, discovered in the pages of long-forgotten classics of Americana like The Practical Distiller , American Artillerist’s Companion , The Farmer’s Cabinet , The Orphan’s Friend and Housekeeper’s Assistant , The Ball-room Bijou , A Manual for Attendants in Hospitals for the Insane , The Prairie Traveler , Wilson’s Book of Recitations , Practical Hints for Furniture Men , How to Make a Shoe , Skilful Suzy , The White House Cookbook , and dozens of others.

Using detailed original instructions, commentary by the author, and hyperlinks to the full texts, which are instantly accessible in facsimile versions in the online archives, at no cost and without login, you can learn how to:

• Drive a horse-drawn carriage

• Roast a massive bison hump

• Track your enemies across the plains

• Build a sod house

• Refresh yourself with an air bath

• Stop a cattle stampede

• Dance the latest steps from the 1850s

• Amuse friends with tableaux vivants

• Dynamite stumps

• Keep a cow in your backyard

• Vaccinate yourself

And much, much more.

Lost Skills of the 19th Century has valuable tips and information for homesteaders, craftspeople, history enthusiasts, carpenters, historical reenactors, and survivalists – but most of all it’s a book to help you travel back in time to a younger and very different America.

Eric Smith has been a carpenter and contractor for over 30 years, and specializes in 19th and early 20th century home renovations. He’s also a former home improvement editor at The Family Handyman Magazine , and the editor or author of numerous how-to books and magazine articles.