Home Life in Colonial Days: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Home Life in Colonial Days, credited to Alice Morse Earle, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle. Read in English by Susan Morin CHAPTER I HOMES OF THE COLONISTS When the first settlers landed on American shores, the difficulties in finding or making shelter must have seemed ironical as well as almost unbearable. The colonists found a land magnificent with forest trees of every size and variety, but they had no sawmills, and few saws to cut boards; there was plenty of clay and ample limestone on every side, yet they could have no brick and no mortar; grand boulders of granite and rock were everywhere, yet there was not a single facility for cutting, drawing, or using stone. These homeless men, so sorely in need of immediate shelter, were baffled by pioneer conditions, and had to turn to many poor expedients, and be satisfied with rude covering. In Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and, possibly, other states, some reverted to an ancient form of shelter: they became cave-dwellers; caves were dug ... (taken from first chapter of the book). Talk about starting from scratch!! Susan Morin

Recording facts

• Recording title: Home Life in Colonial Days
• Author credits: Alice Morse Earle
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 18
• Listed recording duration: 13:02:49

Catalogue topics

• culture
• American history
• heritage

Track guide

1. 00 - Dedication and Forword — 5:06
2. 01 - Homes of the Colonists — 46:45
3. 02 - The Light of Other Days — 29:27
4. 03 - The Kitchen Fireside — 36:59
5. 04 - The Serving of Meals — 47:35
6. 05 - Food from Forest and Sea — 39:25
7. 06 - Indian Corn — 32:39
8. 07 - Meat and Drink — 41:04
9. 08 - Flax Culture and Spinning — 40:13
10. 09 - Wool Culture and Spinning, with a Postscript on Cotton — 45:07
11. 10 - Hand-Weaving — 1:04:43
12. 11 - Girls' Occupations — 51:24
13. 12 - Dress of the Colonists — 36:04
14. 13 - Jack-knife Industries — 45:55
15. 14 - Travel, Transportation, and Taverns — 1:05:28
16. 15 - Sunday in the Colonies — 38:18
17. 16 - Colonial Neighborliness — 1:03:22
18. 17 - Old-time Flower Gardens — 53:14

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.