The American Boy's Handy Book by Daniel Carter Beard

I'm divided as to how to review this book. Part of me wants to address the adult buyers who are considering purchasing this book for children, and part of me wants to treat this book as a historical reference.

To take a path that might aid all parties, let me first talk about how the American Boys' Handy Book came to be. The book was written by Daniel Carter Beard. Beard was an artist, naturalist, engineer and surveyor -- and one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America!

His love of the outdoors and empathy with youth is evident right from the beginning of the first chapter. He writes, "[I]t is a pleasant sensation to sit in the first spring sunshine and feel the steady pull of a good kite upon the string, and watch it's graceful movements as it sways from side to side, ever mounting higher and higher, as if impatient to free itself and soar away amid the clouds."

He grew up in antebellum Ohio. And to hear Beard write about his childhood, it must have been nearly idyllic, for whatever schoolwork and chores he and his brothers must have had, there was obviously plenty of time for play and investigation: to fish, to skate, to hunt, and camp.

However wonderful though, nothing came of those childhood experiences until the adult Beard found himself in New York City. There the plight of the urban children --the news boys sleeping on wet streets, waiting for day to break so they could get up and work; the jobless children who wandered unsupervised while their parents worked -- motivated him to begin writing articles for children's magazines in the hopes that he could teach them about wildlife, self sufficiency, and how they might make their own amusements.

It is these articles that were eventually collected into this single volume.

Below are the Chapter Headings, under the major seasonal divisions.
They should give you a good idea of the range of topics covered by the book.

Spring
1. Kite Time
2. War Kites
3. Novel Modes of Fishing
4. Hand-Made Fishing Tackle
5. How to Stock, Make, and Keep a Fresh-Water Aquarium
6. How to Keep Aquatic Plants in the House or Flower-Garden
7. How to Stock and Keep a Marine Aquarium
8. How to Collect for Marine Aquarium

Summer
9. Knots, Bends, and Hitches
10. The Water-Telescope
11. Dredge, Tangle and Trawl Fishing
12. Home-Made Boats
13. How to Rig and Sail Small Boats
14. Novelties in Soap-Bubbles
15. Fourth of July Balloons, with New and Novel Attachments
16. How to Camp Out Without a Tent
17. Bird Singers, etc.
18. Bird Nesting
19. How to Rear Wild Birds
20. How to Rear Wild Birds – continued
21. Home-Made Hunting Apparatus
22. How to Make Blow-Guns, Elder Guns, etc.

Autumn
23. Traps and Trapping
24. Dogs
25. Practical Taxidermy for Boys
26. Every Boy a Decorative Artist

Winter
27. Snowball Warfare
28. Snow-Houses and Statuary
29. Sleds, Chair-Sleighs, and Snow-Shoes
30. How to Make the Tom Thumb Ice-Boat and Larger Craft
31. The Winged Skaters, and How to Make the Wings
32. Winter Fishing – Spearing and Snaring – Fisherman's Movable Shanties, Etc.
33. In-Door Amusements
34.The Boy's Own Phunnygraph
35. How to Make Puppets and a Puppet-Show
36. Push-In-Boots. Dramatized and Adapted for a Puppet-Show
37. How to Make a Magic Lantern – A Kaleidoscope – A Fortune Teller's Box, etc.
38. How to Make the Dancing Fairies, The Bather, and The Orator
39. How to Make Various and Divers Whirligigs
40. The Universe in a Card-Box
41. Life Instilled into Paper Puppets, and Matches Made of Human Fingers
42. Home-Made masquerade and Theatrical Costumes


The Value of This Book

For History readers this book provides a unique look into both the indoor and outdoor activities of children in the 1800s. To put it into one particular historical context, the knowledge that Beard records in this book would have been known to a great many of the participants of the Civil War. Skills picked up as boys --like how to make an earthen oven or a comfortable bed in your makeshift camp -- would have certainly been employed by the men to make field conditions more tenable. [[And, if I am not mistaken, there is indeed just such a reference these ovens being used in Robert Roper's excellent book: Now the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and his Brothers in the Civil War. (Walt describes it in visiting his brother in camp. I will add a footnote if I can re-locate the reference.)]

My Brief Aside for Parents and other Adults

Now, for you parents and adults that are considering this book for children. Let me say that this book is NOT an 1880's version of "The Dangerous Book for Boys". It contains activities that need adult supervision --like building boats and dissecting birds; and it contains activities that ought not to be engaged in by anyone; like blowing up balloons using natural gas.

There are many, many other activities, to be sure, that are harmless. The book shows how to make a variety of simple costumes and whirligig's, snowforts and kites. But, in general, I would suggest this book be given only to children who have got a enough common sense to know that if they make a blowgun that they ought not to use others as targets.



I highly recommend this book for it's unique view of the past. It would make a great gift for someone like myself who is interested in the sociological side of history. Or the older child, like an Eagle Scout, who might want to experiment with making his own oven, boat, blow gun, camp bed, etc.


You can look at a few pages at Amazon. Click Here.
To Read the 2nd Edition at Archive.Org Click Here.