American Sunday School Books of the 19th Century from the Special Collections Division of the MSU Libraries The nineteenth century was a time of intense religious fervor in America, a period historians now call "The Second Great Awakening." Publishers such as the American Tract Society and the American Sunday-School Union responded to this interest with hundreds of titles intended to teach children such moral values as honesty, diligence, kindness, and piety. Some of the books were presented as catechisms, but most took other forms: novels and stories with moral themes, religious poetry, advice on parenting, accounts of missionary travels, biographies of exemplary Christians, primers for young readers, and books on animals and nature. Social injustices were a primary concern: slavery, poverty, cruelty to animals, the plight of orphans, and the dangers of alcohol and tobacco were all frequently addressed in the pages of Sunday School books. The facsimile editions presented here are based on copies held in the Michigan State University Libraries. The copies at MSU are both rare and very fragile, so great care had to be taken in handling them. As a result, some of the images display slight imperfections, for which we ask the reader's indulgence. Our primary concern in digitization is always to avoid damaging the original artifact. Digitization was funded by a National Digital Library award from the Library of Congress and Ameritech, and performed by the Digital & Multimedia Center at the MSU Libraries. The Sunday School books may be downloaded from our website in .pdf form by clicking on each book title (below), or may viewed online at http://digital.lib.msu.edu/ssb / They are also included in the American Memory website produced by the Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/. Broken Bat American Baptist Publication Society, author Customs and Anecdotes of the Greenlanders American Sunday-School Union, author Deadly Cigarette, The Tract Association of Friends, author Frank Harper, or, The Country-Boy in Town American Sunday-School Union, author Kindness to Animals American Sunday-School Union, author Talks with Amy Dudley Carlton & Lanahan, Hitchcock & Walden, author Winnie and Walter's Christmas Stories J.E. Tilton and Company, author Home | Contact | Shopping Cart | Authors | Titles | Subjects | Search