Period Books For The Frontier Traveller's Pocket

[Tsalagidave]

Part of my historic anthropology project has included a lot of archival research to gain a better understanding of the 18th to mid 19th century mindset.  From time to time, I encounter period booklets that are perfect for the frontier traveler's  pocket.  Here is a set of books I have developed over the last few years using paper materials that are the closest match to the original products I replicated.

In this photo are road maps, travel guides, almanacs, exchange rates, and prospecting guides from the 1840s-50s.

Travel Guide - Provides Routes, travel advice, list of equipment and supplies (weight and cost)
Almanacs - Allow travelers to know the correct dates/times to monitor their progress.  It also provides statistics on Federal, State, and local government as well as useful Life Hacks.
The Coin Exchange Book - Allows the reader to identify the various Gold and Silver coins from around the world and know their worth in US coinage when accepting them in payment.
The Assay Book - Was commonly carried by prospectors during the California Gold Rush. It covers the full process of recovering, assaying and Grading gold.

[Tsalagidave]

The 1853 Coin Guide came from the heart of American business, the banks of Wall Street New York. In it are the physical descriptions, weights and values of the various coins around the world. This would have served businessmen, bankers, freighters and merchants alike so that they would know the value, and authenticity of the various coins they would encounter in business.

[Tsalagidave]

The Almanac was a quick reference guide to important facts like the names of individuals in public office, economic statistics, travel information, useful life hacks, short stories and recipes. Most importantly however, it's how people kept time before the internet, television, or railroad time zones. People were less distracted then and more observant of things like weather, lunar and solar cycles. Even someone coming out of the hills after months without a time piece or calendar could quickly determine what the date it. People would set their watches and clocks by the set time that the almanac stated when the sun or moon would rise and set

[Tsalagidave]

Here is a replica of the best selling Assay guide for the 49ers coming to california in the 1840-50s. It was used to determine the quality of gold and provide the means for extracting it.

[Tsalagidave]

This is the completed Disturnell Travel Guide and Map. this provides enough information for a Weatern traveller and laid to show how it would have appeared in an Easterner's study preparing for the long trip.

[Books OToole]

My two favorites are:

The Prairie Traveler by Randolph Marcy
&
Redpath's Guide to the Rocky Mountain Goldfields

Both were published in 1859.

Books

[Tsalagidave]

Both of those are excellent 1859 publications.  I have a dog-eared copy of the Prairie Traveller that I have had for years.  The other is for that 1860s era Colorado impression that I know a lot of people do.

Thanks for sharing.

-Dave

[Professor Marvel]

Dave is BACK!

Good to see you again sir!

And I am salivating to see what will come of the possibility of limited reproductions of your books!

yhs
prof marvel

[Tsalagidave]

Thanks Professor, it does me good whenever you reply and I really appreciate the kind words.  There is so much for us to talk about.

-Dave

[Professor Marvel]

My Dear Dave -
I appologise for being remiss in posting no more than jocularities in other threads. Various household and "recovery ward"  duties
for Mrs Marvel (back surgery, getting better) and two sick cats have overwhelmed my time. But things are improving, and as they say in Monty Python "I'm Not Dead yet".

I do hope your plan to make these items for sale comes to fruitiion :-)

yhs
prof marvel