A unique collection of letters from the pages of Robert Merry's Museum, the premiere American children's magazine from 1841-1872.

The "Merry Cousins" were the children of shopkeepers, of bank presidents, of ministers, of plantation owners. They went to school, traveled, & observed their society & their times.

Subjects touched on in Letters from Nineteenth-Century American Children include

African-Americans

agriculture in Iowa, Louisiana, & New York

the laying of the Atlantic cable

balloon ascensions

Baltimore, Maryland, during the Civil War

behavior of girls, behavior of boys, "appropriate" and "inappropriate"

Daniel Bixby's book shop, Lowell, Massachusetts

Black Rock, New York, in 1855

boarding schools, male and female, in East Cambridge, Massachusetts; Rome, Georgia; Bergen, New Jersey; and Cornwall, New York

steam boats: the Bois d'Arc; the Maid of Kentucky; the South-Western

"Border Ruffians" attack Parkville, Missouri

the California gold rush

dedicating the Ohio state capitol building in 1857

Cedar Point, Chase Co., Kansas, in 1861

Holidays: celebrating May Day; Independence Day celebrations; celebrating New Year's Day; Christmas celebrations of the 1850s, in New York, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennessee, & Texas

Chicago, Illinois, and its fair in 1864

activities of a Chickasaw boy in 1859

the Chinese in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1853

activities of a Choctaw boy in 1852

cholera in Selma, Alabama, in 1855

the American Civil War: soldiers & civilians; Northern & Southern attitudes toward secession; Civil War soldiers & their dependants; camp life, civilians' attitudes toward them; the Confederate advance into Pennsylvania in 1863; the Patent-Office Hospital in Washington, DC, in 1863; the Union draft; the Sanitary Fair in Brooklyn, New York, in 1864; Fort Sumter at the end of the Civil War; the South after the War

Civil War battles: Ball's Bluff, Virginia; Mobile Bay, Alabama; Stone's River, Tennessee; & Turner's Farm, Virginia

Civil War military vessels: the U. S. S. Courier; the U. S. S. Galena; the C. S. S. Merrimac #2; the North Carolina; the U. S. S. Patapsco; the U. S. Frigate Potomac; the U. S. S. Sonoma; the U. S. S. Tecumseh; the U. S. Gunboat Winona in 1862

Congress & sectionalism

members of the House of Representatives as they were in the House in 1844

the Connecticut Literary Institute in 1850

growing cotton in 1847

Daily concerns: bread making; chores; household expenses in the 1840s; letter writing

Daily life in Alabama; California; the Choctaw Nation; Connecticut; the Tallahasee Mission, Creek Nation; Washington, DC; Florida; Georgia; Illinois; Indiana; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Missouri; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New York; North Carolina; Ohio; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Tennessee; Texas; Vermont; Virginia; & Wisconsin

attitudes toward death

Washington, DC, in the 1840s & 1850s; concerts at the White House in 1856; the Patent-Office Hospital in Washington, DC, in 1863

the drought in Kansas in 1860

education: female education, male education; boarding-school life; education of Native Americans at mission schools in the Cherokee & Choctaw nations; schools & school exhibitions; teachers, north & south. Specific schools include Mt. Holyoke Academy, West Hartford, Connecticut; Dartmouth College; Harvard College; Marion Academy, Marion, Ohio; Ontario Female Seminary, New York; Canandaigua Academy, Canandaigua, New York; the Cornwall Collegiate School, Cornwall, New York; New York Free Academy, New York; Rome Free Academy, Rome, New York

emigration of the Cherokee nation; emigration of whites to California, Illinois, Minnesota, & Oregon

fairs, at Chicago, Illinois, in 1864; at Syracuse, New York, in 1849; at Belmont, Ohio, in 1858

families & family life

football in the 1860s

an American girl in Paris, France, in 1848 to 1851

the Governor Claflin (locomotive)

the great raft, Red River

Gurella's picture gallery, Vicksburg, Mississippi

the Hermitage plantation (Louisiana) in 1851

building the Hoosac Tunnel in the White Mountains in 1871

the ideal house in 1867

travel on the Hudson River in 1857

an ice-cream supper in Selma, Alabama, in 1858

ice-cutting in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, in 1852

life in the Indian Orphan Institute in 1866

how to act like a "lady" in 1849

a New Jersey ghost story

the Ohio legislature in 1857

manufacturing in Marietta, Ohio, in 1851

making maple sugar

attitudes about marriage

the muster of the First Brigade, Massachusetts, militia

the Mississippi River floods of 1867

music

Native Americans in Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas

Niagara Falls

the economic Panic of 1857

description of Paris, France, in the 1840s

Peter Parley

the children's party in Ogdensburg, New York, 11 June 1859

Peale's Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1845

the Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania

periodicals: subscribing & reading; periodicals for children & for adults

household pets

a Sunday school picnic in Chicago, Illinois, in 1856

plantation life in Louisiana, at "Asphodel," "Hermitage," & "Pasture" plantations

poetry, bad poetry, not so great poetry: written by subscribers, written by their parents, written by professional poets; written on subjects ranging from Santa Claus to the Presidential election of 1848

the U. S. postal system, in the South after the Civil War; Native American mail carriers

life on the prairie

the presidential elections of 1848 & 1856

railroads in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts

railroad lines: the Central Ohio; the Lynchburg & Tennessee; the Rutland & Washington; the Wabash Valley

what children read & what they thought about it

Recreation, including chestnutting; evening activities; games; play with dolls; horseback riding; spring activities; swimming; winter activities; skating; sledding; sleighing

a description of the Red River

the Revolution of June 1848 in France, including Louis Blanc, General Louis-Eugene Cavaignac

salt making in Syracuse, New York

Santa Claus, Kriss Kringle, & St. Nicholas

growing & processing Sea Island cotton in 1847

sectionalism

the impact of sewing machines on American society; Grover & Baker sewing machine; Singer sewing machine

the Sioux nation in 1849

snow storms in New York City in 1856 & 1868

social activities in Selma, Alabama, in 1858

a health spa in Wisconsin in 1856

steamships on the Arkansas, Chatahoochee, East, Mississippi, & Red Rivers

a strawberry supper in Selma, Alabama, in 1858

making sugar in Louisiana & New Hampshire

Sunday school picnics & festivals

teenagers, male & female

temperance: the Cold Water Army in 1844; the Cadets of Temperance in 1849

a mock medieval tournament in Virginia in 1845

toys for boys & girls

tourism in the 19th century; traveling in the 19th century, by steamboat & rail; travelling in Europe; resort life at the mineral springs in Virginia in 1850

the Tuilerie Gardens, Paris, France

building the Hoosac tunnel in 1871

how the weather was

the ideal wife, Chickasaw & Southern, & the unideal wife

wine-making in Iowa in 1853

women: attitudes about, images of, & "proper" behavior of; women's rights; the Equal Rights Convention of 1867

the New York World's Fair in 1855

yellow fever in Woodville, Mississippi, in 1853

---

Historical figures mentioned or described

Francis Abbot (the "Hermit of Niagara")
showman James Capen Adams (the "Barnum of the Pacific")
politician John Quincy Adams on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1844
General Robert Anderson re-entering Fort Sumter in 1865
Nathaniel Banks in 1861
showman P. T. Barnum & his American Museum
Henry Ward Beecher & his bad novel, Norwood
Hammatt Billings' engraving for the Museum
Southern politician Preston Smith Brooks
abolitionist John Brown
General Benjamin Franklin Butler
politician John Caldwell Calhoun
explorer Kit Carson
General Lewis Cass
piano maker Jonas Chickering
Rev. Theodore Clapp (New Orleans, Louisiana)
politician Cassius Marcellus Clay
David Crockett
General James Adams Cunningham
writer William C. Cutter
Confederate president Jefferson Davis
writer Mary Abigail Dodge ("Gail Hamilton")
abolitionist Frederick Douglass
magazine publisher & Civil War soldier Eugene H. Fales
politician Millard Fillmore
Civil War soldier Gustav Fincke
Commander Andrew Hull Foote
writer Jessie Fremont
explorer & presidential candidate John Charles Fremont
writer & editor Samuel Griswold Goodrich
Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant in 1865
singer Kate Hayes
engineer William Howe
politician Andrew Jackson
pianist Alfred Jaell
politician John Winston Jones as Speaker of the House in 1844
Hungarian patriot Lajos Kossuth
the death of Abraham Lincoln
singer Jenny Lind
poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy
General George Brinton McClellan on the U. S. S. Galena
writer & editor Susanna Newbould
daguerreotypist E. H. Olds
king Frederick Louis Otho
politician Franklin Pierce in the 1850s
educator Alfred C. Roe
politician William Henry Russell
politician Wilson Shannon in 1856
General William Tecumseh Sherman
Captain Henry Miller Shreve
General Joshua Woodrow Sill from a Southern view
writer, editor, & temperance worker John Newton Stearns
hotel keeper Charles A. Stetson
politician John Henry Stringfellow
politican Zachary Taylor runs for president in 1849
politican Daniel Webster
writer N. P. Willis
educator Marcius Willson
writer Sara Payson Willis
writer & editor Francis Chandler Woodworth