A Brief History of the United States

"A Brief History of the United States" by Joel Dorman Steele is a historical account written in the late 19th century. The work is designed as a concise educational resource aimed at American youth, covering key events from early discoveries to significant wars and developments in the country's history. It seeks to engage readers with essential historical facts while making the subject accessible and enjoyable to school students. The opening of the book lays the foundation for its educational approach, emphasizing the need for engaging and manageable historical texts due to the common deficiencies in historical knowledge among students. It articulates the author's intention to present American history by highlighting crucial events and epochs, such as the early discoveries, colonial development, and the revolutionary war, using maps and topical questions to enhance learning. The text discusses prehistoric North America, touching on the Mound Builders and the various Native American tribes, while setting the stage for European exploration and colonization, ultimately leading to the establishment of the United States. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Joel Dorman Steele was an American educator. He and his wife Esther Baker Steele were important textbook writers of their period, on subjects including American history, chemistry, human physiology, physics, astronomy, and zoology. He was an influential figure in the movement to standardize science education in the mid-late 19th century. In the preface to his posthumous Popular Physics, the publisher writes that his books "attained an extraordinary degree of popularity, due to the author's attractive style, his great skill in the selection of material suited to the demands of the schools for which the books were intended, his sympathetic spirit toward both teachers and pupils, and his earnest Christian character, which was exhibited in all his writing."