Old Books, Part One - School Books

Hi, y'all! This is going to be an intensely image-heavy post, so I've had to put it into a jump-break format! As always, please feel free to click through the break and look at all the pictures that I took of the gorgeous books I found! :)

What's the story behind these books, you ask? I'll tell you.

This past weekend was my grandmother's seventieth birthday party. We spent her birthday cleaning up her house...And I spent it looking through this box of ancient books that had belonged to her Aunt Mae (May?). That would make her my Great-Great Aunt May (Mae?). 

It was an awesome experience, let me tell you. I was able to find all sorts of books, ranging in publication date from 1897 through 1948. 

About half of these were schoolbooks, which is what this post is about. These books are absolutely amazing. It's really neat to look through them all and see exactly what your ancestors had to do in school. (GGAM's school days were in the 1910s, I think, maybe through the 1920s. I know I saw 1922 written in a book next to her name.) And they're in such good condition, too. The books, that is.

They're all pretty much over a hundred years old!! How awesome is that?!

Check them out after the jump!!

"The Century Spelling Book," by Aswell, Cook, & Gilbreath. It's "Part One," published in 1909 by Rand McNally & Co. This book's over a hundred years old, and it's still pretty much brand-new. There are no holes in the pages, and there's nothing faded or anything, aside from the cover. How awesome?!

The "Universal Self-Pronouncing Dictionary, Clear Type, Latest Modern Arrangement." The only date I could find in here was 1928, and it didn't have a publisher, really. Not that I could find. You see, Auntie Mae had pasted some pronunciation rules from Emily Post on the first few pages...Covering up essential information. But the rules were cool. I may have to go back and get this book for myself.

"New Education Readers, Book Two: A Synthetic and Phonetic Method." Published in 1900 by the American Book Company. Written (compiled?) by A.J. Demarest. I couldn't find Book One, much to my disappointment. 

"Food Processing: A Guide to Selecting, Producing, Preserving, & Storing the Family Food Supply," by A. O. Duncan, published in 1949 by Turner E. Smith & Co. This is one of the newer "textbooks," I guess it'd be called, that I found. Probably something she bought when she was a housewife? Times sure have changed...

"Southern Crops," by Paul W. Chapman & Roy H. Thomas. Also published by Turner E. Smith & Co., but in 1947. These were the two newest schoolbooks.

"Farm Management in the South," by Robert L. Hunt, published in 1942 by the Interstate Printers & Publishers.

"The Expressive Readers - Third Reader." Published in 1911 by the American Book Company. Written by Baldwin & Bender. It's also over 100 years old, and still holds up very, very well.

"Smith's Applied Arithmetic," by Oliver S. Smith, L.L.B. Published (?) by Lyons & Carnahan, 1917, 1918. 

Pardon the sideways-ness. I didn't realize until after I'd added it -.- This is "The Holton-Curry Second Reader, State Edition," by Holton, Page, & Curry. Published in 1914 by Rand McNally & Co. I wish I'd had the "first reader" to go along with this. 

This is "The First Year of Latin: Based on Caesar's War with the Helvetti," written by Gunninson & Harley. Published in 1902 by Silver, Burdett, & Co. I'm still debating on whether or not I should bring this home with me one day. I'd never, ever look at it, but it's something cool to have sitting on the shelf, eh?

"A Textbook in General Zoology," by Glenn W. Herrick, B.S.A. Published by the American Book Co. in 1907, 1922. (There were two dates in there.) There's nothing really on the cover, but there is some kind of faint imprint. I wish I could read it better.

"Graded Lessons in Physiology & Hygiene," by Krohn & Crumbine. Published by D. Appleton & Co. in 1900, 1903, 1906, 1907, 1912, 1919. (There were a lot of dates.)

"The Expressive Readers - Fourth Reader.," by Baldin & Bender. Published by the American Book Co. in 1911. 

"The Holton-Curry Sixth Reader - State Edition." Published by Rand McNally & Co., 1914. 

"Agriculture for Beginners," by Burkett, Stevens, & Hill. Published in 1903, 1904 by Ginn & Company.

"Our Language - Grammar - Third Book," written by C. Alphonso Smith, Ph.D., L.L.D. Published by the B. F. Johnson Publishing Company in 1903.

"Wheeler's Graded Readers - A Second Reader," by Gail Calmerton & William H. Wheeler. Published by Chicago W. H. Wheeler & Company in 1903. 

"New World Science Series - Human Physiology: An elementary textbook with special emphasis on hygiene and sanitation," by John W. Ritchie. World Book Company, 1908, 1914.

"The Holton-Curry Fourth Reader, State Edition." Rand McNally & Co., 1914.

"The Holton-Curry Fifth Reader, State Edition." Rand McNally & Co., 1914. I wish we'd had the first reader and the...third reader? Is that the other one I'm missing? It's such a shame that we don't have the full set of readers... I bet they'd fetch a high price as a complete set!

"The Beginner's History of our Country," by Harry F. Estill. The Southern Publishing Company, 1917. This is one of the books that I first picked up, actually. I set it aside in my "to-take" pile. It's written like a novel, not like anything you'd see in a textbook today. AND GET THIS: It ends with the Election of 1912. Isn't that awesome?! This thing is seriously something else; I really can't wait to read it!!

"Stepping Stones to Literature: A Fourth Reader," by Sarah Louise Arnold & Charles B. Gilbert. Published in 1897 by Silver, Burdett, & Co. This book is nearly 120 years old, and it's still in pretty good condition. GGAM wrote all over it; it's got stuff scribbled in pretty much every margin and a lot of the pictures have her own "captions" on them, too. It's pretty much the neatest thing I've ever seen, and I certainly kept it for myself!!

"An American History," by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson. Published by Ginn & Co., 1913, 1917, 1919.

"The Grosset-Webster Dictionary," Ed. William Morris, Charles P. Chadsey, Harold Wentworth. Published by Grosset & Dunlap Publishers. 1953 edition.

"The New Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, Vol. 1: A-AMES." By Unicorn Publishers, Inc. 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952. The publisher's symbol is a UNICORN, which makes it triple times the awesomeness.

Aren't all these books just AMAZING and full of AWESOMESAUCE?! Come back tomorrow to check out the FICTION BOOKS/NOVELS that I was able to find in the same case! I promise you, you're going to love them!!

Just think; stuff like this could be waiting in your grandmother's (or grandfather's) attic!! Go and talk to your elderly relatives; not only will they have awesome stories, but they also probably have some pretty neat reading material!