More than you ever wanted to know – and then some!

The People

Brodsky, Alyn, Benjamin Rush, Patriot and Physician

Alberts, Robert C., The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham

Bendini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson, Statesman of Science

Carlyle, Edward Irving, William Cobbett: A Study of His Life as Shown by His Writings

Clarfield, Gerard H., Timothy Pickering & American Diplomacy

Clark, Mary Elizabeth, Peter Porcupine in America: the career of William Cobbett, 1792-1800

Conkin, Paul, “The Religious Pilgrimage of Thomas Jefferson,” in Jeffersonian Legacies, Peter S. Onuf, ed.

Corner, George W., ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush

Binger, Carl, Revolutionary Doctor, Benjamin Rush (1746-1813)

Holton, Woody, Abigail Adams, A Life

McCullough, David, John Adams

Malone, Dumas, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty

Maxey, David W., A Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powell

Mitchell, Stewart, New Letters of Abigail Adams 1788-1801

Rush, Benjamin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush

Smith, Edgar, James Woodhouse, a Pioneer in Chemistry

Smith, Page, John Adams

Tagg, James, Benjamin Franklin Bache and the Philadelphia Aurora

Wiencik, Henry, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America

The Politics

Baker, Richard Allen, The Senate of the United States: A Bicentennial History

Dauer, Manning J., The Adams Federalists

De Conde, Alexander, The Quasi War, The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797-1801

Swandstrom, Roy, The United States Senate 1787-1801

White, Leonard, The Federalists, A Study in Administrative History 1789-1801

The Pirates

Baepler, Paul, White Slaves, African Masters, an Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives

Fremont-Barnes, Gregory, The Wars of the Barbary Pirates

Kitzen, Michael, “Money Bags or Cannon Balls: The Origins of the Tripolitan War, 1795-1801,” in Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 601-624

Lambert, Frank, The Barbary Wars – American Independence in the Atlantic World

Wilson, Gary E., “American Hostages in Moslem Nations, 1784-1796: The Public Response,” Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 2, No.2 (Summer, 1982), pp. 123-141

Philadelphia

Dillon, Clarissa, So Serve it Up: Eighteenth-Century English Foodways in Philadelphia

Hines, Mary Anne, Marshall, Gordon & Weaver, William Woys, The Larder Invaded: Reflections on Three Centuries of Philadelphia Food and Drink

Nash, Gary B, Forging Freedom, The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720-1840

Obertholtzer, Ellis Paxon, Philadelphia: a History of the City and Its People

Perkins, Bradford, “A Diplomat’s Wife in Philadelphia: Letters of Henrietta Liston, 1796-1800,” 11 William and Mary Quarterly 592 (1959)

Pollock, TC, Philadelphia Theater in the 18^th Century

Roberts, Kenneth and Anna, trans. and eds., Moreau de St. Méry’s American Journey [1793-1798]

Scharf, J Thomas and Thomson Westcott, History of Philadelphia 1609-1884

Sherrill, Charles H., French Memories of Eighteenth Century America

Smith, Billy G., Life in Early Philadelphia – Documents from the Revolutionary and Early National Periods

Smith, Billy, The Lower Sort, Philadelphia’s Laboring People

Thompson, A Social History of Philadelphia’s Taverns

US Department of Interior, History of the City Tavern

Watson, John Fanning, Annals of Philadelphia

      The following books and websites, listed in no particular order, offer a wide range of useful information for 18th century reenacting and are well worth exploring.  And don’t forget Pinterest if you’re looking for period examples of things, both extant objects and period paintings.

Useful Websites

Colonial Williamsburg’s Educational Site — now separate from the more commercial “see Colonial Williamsburg” website, www.history.org is full of information.

Eighteenth Century Notebook — linked elsewhere on specific pages, this site has extensive links to extant items.

Eighteenth Century Material Culture Resource Center on Scribd — has an extensive collection of articles which can be printed or downloaded, covering a wide range of subjects and interests – shoes; shaving, wigs, and hygiene; money; romance and sex; British camp life; etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!

Metropolitan Museum Online Publications — The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put a number of their publications online – e.g., fencing books, musical instruments, paintings, and many different books on fashion.  These also can be downloaded for future reference.

The Andromeda Project by Jack Lynch at Rutgers — described by the author as all the “significant and reliable Internet resources I’ve been able to discover that focus on the (very long) eighteenth century . . . .information on literature, history, art, music, religion, economics, philosophy, and so on, from around the world, as well as the home pages of societies and people who work on eighteenth-century topics.”

The Bodleian Digital Collection – explore the digital archives of this famous library through its new online portal.

Blogs

 There is a wealth of really interesting blogs out there, many dealing with fashion but other subjects as well.  We can’t hope to do them all justice, but here (in no particular order) are a few we’ve enjoyed. Some of them are multi-period but they’re all historical.

American Dutchess

 Two Nerdy History Girls

 Passion for the Past

 The Historical Sewing Blog

 Reconstructing History (by a clothing pattern-maker)

 Sifting the Past  — Another useful creation of Jas Townsend, this blog offers period artwork helpfully tagged for items of material culture

Books

Albion’s Seed, David Hackett Fischer — a cultural history of four different sets of British immigrants to Colonial America. 

Journal and Letters, Philip Vickers Fithian, edited by John Rogers Williams — the journal of a divinity student from Princeton who worked as a tutor for Robert Carter III from 1773-1774 at Nomini Hall in Virginia.  (L:ink is to digital version at Library of Congress, also available from booksellers.)

Eighteenth Century English as a Second Language, by Cathy Heller – derived from Colonial Williamsburg training materials, it includes detailed information on grammar and usage and even CDs!

Google Books — Google has digitized myriad books on all sorts of subjects.  For us, this is often a first stop in online research for textual material.  Many 18th and 19th century books are available in full, since they’re out of copyright.  For the contemporary ones, you’re likely to get only a sample, but it’s text-searchable so you can get an idea of whether the book is worth finding.More to come – check back often!

If you have a tested and tasty authentic receipt (adapted to modern measurements and instructions) that you think would be useful for others, please feel free to submit it via the “Contact Us” form.   Please authenticate it by reference to a period source where the original receipt (or something equivalent) can be found.  We can’t promise to post every single submission, but we’ll try, with some editorial discretion to avoid duplication, to add as many as we can.  (All posted receipts will be credited to those submitting them, unless you request otherwise.)