(no subject)

I have in my possession a work of humor and satire from 1894. It is Bill Nye's History of the United States, illustrated by F. Opper. I have found it so amusing myself (and such an education, as it takes for common mockable knowledge many facts of history with which I was not previously acquainted), and its publication date places it so firmly beyond any hint of current copyright, that I could not resist sharing it with all and sundry.

To this end I have created a livejournal - nyes_us_history - in which I will attempt to transcribe this volume chapter by chapter.

Since the illustrations are an important part of the piece - heck, they're mentioned in metallic silver ink on the red, white and blue cloth cover - I'll be providing those as well. Wouldn't want Mr. Opper's contribution to go to waste. Whenever I get this scanner hooked up properly, I will scan them in and add them where appropriate. For now the entries have [illustration] tags for me to remember where to put them when I go back and add them.

It's set up as a community so I can post to it without logging out of this account, but nobody else can join. Feel free to friend it, though.

(no subject)

I should note that Bill Nye's History makes some pretty racist jokes, and the cartoons have a pretty racist tone to them as well. Especially regarding the Native Americans (generally referred to as "children of the forest" and depicted as haggard, big-nosed drunkards), although anti-black material comes in after the Civil War section toward the end of the book. Please try to keep this in perspective, given when the book was written.