Colonial Living (Paperback)

~ Edwin Tunis (Author) "BEACHHEADS, because they were the first toe holds seized by white men along the edge of North America..." (more)
Key Phrases: New England, New Netherland, New Amsterdam (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A book that anyone would pick up and pursue for enjoyment, this is also a volume that no American school should be without." -- Wisconsin Library Journal

Product Description

Colonial Living is EdwinTunis's a vigorous re-creation of 17th- and 18th-century America -- of the everyday living of those sturdy men and women who carved a way of life out of the wilderness. In lively text and accurate drawings we see the dugouts and wigwams of New England's first settlers and the houses they learned to build against the cruel winters; the snug Dutch and Flemish farmhouses of Nieuw Amsterdam; the homes of the early planters in the South which would one day be kitchens for the houses they dreamed of building when tobacco had made them rich.

Long research and love for his subject gave Tunis an intimate knowledge of the details of daily living in colonial times, from the period of tiny coastal settlements to the flourishing, interdependent colonies which fought a major war for independence. He shares all with his reader -- the building of houses, with their trunnels, girts, and hand-hewn beams, the spinning of yarn and its weaving and dyeing, the making of candles and soap, and the intricate business of cooking on the open hearth with lug poles, cranes, bake kettles, and spits. He describes the early crops, and pictures the implements and animals used to produce them; in detailed pictures we see again the tools and products of the craftsmen -- the blacksmith, the cooper, the miller, the joiner, and the silversmith.

Edwin Tunis has brought the significant past to life with consummate skill. Rich in enjoyment, rich in information, with more than 200 drawings, his book is a warm, lively, and authentic panorama of a lost way of life.

"A book that anyone would pick up and pursue for enjoyment, this is also a volume that no American school should be without." -- Wisconsin Library Journal

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Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (June 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801862272
• ISBN-13: 978-0801862274
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #244,258 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For those who can't get to Williamsburg, July 27, 1999

By	[e-mail] (San Diego, California, USA) - See all my reviews

I first read . . . and re-read . . . and re-re-read this book in the late 1960s after discovering it in my junior high school library. I always wished I had a copy for reference and the sheer joy of seeing Tunis's amazingly detailed drawings and reading his well-researched text. Now, after many years, the book is back in print. I highly recommend it (and its companions Colonial Craftsmen and Frontier Living) to anyone interested in how people lived -- and how different types of work was done -- in 17th and 18th century America.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even adults should read it., January 17, 2003

By	Chrijeff (Scranton, PA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)

Team this volume with Tunis's "Frontier Living" (though there's a bit of overlap in the time periods covered) and you'll have a good, sound, easily understood social history of the first 280 years of the USA. As always, his illustrations are clear and detailed and his text well written and easy to follow. If, for whatever reason, you can't visit an actual reconstructed Colonial community, having this book on your shelf is the next best thing. (Much of the information in it can probably be carried forward into the early and mid-19th Century, too.) A classic of its type and one we should all be overjoyed to see back in print.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Social History Book of Colonial America, March 20, 2008

By	K. Giorlando "amateur social historian" (Eastpointe, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)

Here in the 21st century, life in 18th century (and before) colonial America is quickly becoming forgotten. Programs on the History Channel (a highly questionable name for the station considering what it shows every night) tend to concentrate more on the latter half of the 20th century than on the previous centuries. It's books like this by Edwin Tunis that keep our colonial heritage alive.
"Colonial Living" covers virtually everything of the everyday lives of our ancestors. From the cities they lived in to furniture to what they ate to heating themselves to modes of travel to occupations to homes to clothing to...well, you get the picture. And speaking of pictures, this book is filled with accurate illustrations drawn by the author himself. Yarnwinders, a jack bed, carding paddles, signs, rooms, men's wigs, bricks, fire scoop, a hay fork - hundreds of excellent drawings.
The text is lively and comprehensive, giving details that compliments the sketches greatly.
It is my understanding that this book was originally written (back in 1957) for the youth market, but if the only thing that separates this book from an 'adult' history book are the illustrations, then I will gladly take this 'kids' book.
A museum in a book, that's what this is.