Pioneer Life (Little Wonder Book No. 612)

Charles E. Merrill Co., Inc. (affiliated with American Education Press), Published 1949. Wraps, 32 pp.; 21 cm; revised printing of the 1939 first; staple bound; illustrated throughout in black and white with a mix of reproductions of nineteenth-century engravings, original line drawings, and a handful of documentary photographs (the early blockhouse on Roanoke Island, the interior of Daniel Boone's home near Weldon Springs, Missouri). The text is set within alternating red and teal decorative chapter borders. In good condition. Yellow paper covers with a black-and-white reproduction of a period engraving on the front showing a bearded frontiersman in fringed buckskin standing beside a young boy on a stump in a clearing, a log cabin and chickens visible in the background. Mild shelf wear and light bumping to corners and edges, with light surface soiling overall. Staple binding tight and square. Interior pages lightly toned but otherwise unmarked, with scattered light foxing along the inner edge of the back cover.Number 612 in the Little Wonder Books series, originally a set of ninety thirty-two-page booklets co-published by Charles E. Merrill Co. and American Education Press in the late 1930s and 1940s. The series was designed for readers aged six to twelve, with each booklet treating one unit of social-studies or science material on the child's level and originally priced low for classroom and home use. "Pioneer Life" is one of the older titles in the series (first copyrighted 1939) and carries forward the structural pattern of the predecessor Unit Study Book line: the front matter sets out a teacher's outline of "General Theme and Aspects of the Theme" and "Learning Elements" before the narrative begins, and a closing "Things To Do" page proposes seventeen classroom and home activities (arrange a school display of pioneer relics, including candle molds, kettles, powder horns, flintlock rifles, warming pans, spinning wheels; play old American folk songs on the phonograph; write an imaginary letter from a pioneer boy or girl; demonstrate how flax fiber is prepared). The text moves from the Kentucky pioneers and Daniel Boone through the daily life of a frontier family, the founding of Marietta and the Ohio River and Ohio inland settlements, early Texas under Moses and Stephen Austin, and the Hudson's Bay Company posts and missionary trail to Oregon. The author, Blanche Woods Moorehead, taught and wrote in Columbus, Ohio.Contents: Kentucky Pioneers; Daily Life of the Pioneer Family; The Struggle for Tennessee; Ohio River Settlements; Ohio Inland Settlements; Early Days in Texas; The Columbia River Country; Summing Up; Things To Do. Title: Pioneer Life (Little Wonder Book No. 612) Author Name: Blanche Woods Moorehead Location Published: Columbus, Ohio, Charles E. Merrill Co., Inc.: 1949 Binding: Wraps Book Condition: Good Size: 21 cm Type: Wraps Categories: Children's Books Seller ID: 20260507025 Keywords: american education press, american pioneers, juvenile non-fiction, little wonder books, unit study