Turn-of-the Century Child
Historical Fiction (and some memoirs)

General Resources

• Cutler, Jane.  The Song of the Molimo. New York: Farrar, 1998.
  Useful for a discussion of how World's Fairs reflected their times, a 12-year-old boy tours the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair with a pygmy who is part of the African "display."

• Tunnell, Michael O. and Richard Ammon, eds. The Story of Ourselves; Teaching History Through Children's Literature.  Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1993.

• Doctorow, E. L.  Ragtime. New York: Random House, 1974.
  Three families from different backgrounds interact with each other and with famous figures of the period like Harry Houdini, Emma Goldman, Evelyn Nesbit, and J. Pierpont Morgan.  Historical events merge with creative imagination for a larger-than-life story.

African-Americans

• Levine, Gair Carson.  Dave at Night.  New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
  An orphan in New York's Hebrew Home for Boys experiences the Harlem Renaissance in 1926.

• McKay, Kathleen Canavan.  Hearts of Rosewood.   Tudor Publishers, 1997.
  Two elderly black women recall the Rosewood, Florida massacre in 1923.
  

• McKissack, Patricia C.  Ma Dear's Aprons. Ilus. by Floyd Cooper.  New York: Atheneum, 1997. 
  Picture book about a rural Alabama housekeeper and her son.
  

• Sebestyen, Ouida.  Words by Heart by Ouida.  New York: Yearling, 1997.
  An African-American girl in the Southwest in 1910.

• Taylor, Mildred D.  The Well: David's Story.  New York: Dial, 1995.
  Prejudice and drought impact African-American family in  rural Mississippi in early 1900's.
  

Memoir

• Wright, Richard.  Black Boy.   Part "Part One: Southern Night." New York: Harper Perennial Library, 1998.
  Fictionalized autobiography of a young African-American boy growing up in the South.
  

California

• Beatty, Patricia Eight Mules from Monterey. New York: Morrow, 1982.
  Based on true story of a Monterey (CA) librarian who established libraries in saloons and stores.
  
  
• Gregory, Kristiana.  Earthquake at Dawn by
  Girl during the  San Francisco earthquake and fire.
  
  
• Lindquist, Susan Hart.  Summer Soldiers.  New York: Delacorte, 1999.
  California sheepherding community during World War I.
  
• Lowell, Susan.  I am Lavina Cummings. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 1997.
  Girl from Arizona travels by railroad to live with wealthy relative in Santa Cruz, sees the arrival of the automobile and experiences San Francisco earthquake.
  
  
• Snyder, Zilpha Keatley.  And Condors Danced.   New York: Delacorte, 1987.
  Southern California ranch around 1907.
  
  
• Yep, Lawrence.  Dragonwings.  New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
  Chinese boy joins his father in San Francisco's Chinatown during the period 1903-1910.
  

Labor

• Jones, J. Sydney.  Frankie. New York: Lodestar, 1997.
  An orphaned girl, and the son in the family with whom she lives, become involved in a coal miners strike in southern Colorado in 1913-1914.  Richly detailed historical accuracy about Mother Jones, the strike and ensuing massacre, and the miners' tent city.
  
  
• Lehrman, Robert.  The Store that Mama Built.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
  Jewish immigrants open grocery in Pennsylvania mill town and experience prejudice because they sell to African-Americans.
  
  
• Perez, N. A. Breaker. Boston: Houghton, 1988. 
  Boy in Pennsylvania coal mines 1902.
  
  
• Sachs.  Marilyn.  Call Me Ruth.  New York: Beech Tree Books, 1995.
  Newly arrived in Manhattan in 1908, daughter of Russian immigrant family whose mother is involved in unions.
  
  
• Sebestyen, Ouida.  On Fire.  New York: Bantam, 1987.
  Struggle between unions and management seeking to break a strike.
  
  
• Skurzynski , Gloria.  Good-bye, Billy Radish. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 1996.
  Boys work in steel mills in Pennsylvania while sisters work as cleaning maids in houses of steel mill owners.
  
  
• Skurzynski, Gloria.  The Tempering.  New York: Clarion, 1983. 
  Catholic families of various ethnic groups in Pittsburgh (PA) mill town.
  
  
• Yep, Laurence.  Dragon's Gate.  HarperCollins, 1993.
  Vivid descriptions of working conditions in building the transcontinental railroad.
  

Midwest

• Buchanan, Jane.  Gratefully Yours.  New York: Farrar, 1997.
  Girl travels an orphan train from New York to Nebraska in 1923 to live with a farmer and his wife.
  
  
• Conrad, Pam.  Prairie Songs.  New York: HarperCollins, 1987.
  Nebraska pioneer woman experiences isolation and hardship on the frontier.
  
  
• Cutler, Jane.  The Song of the Molimo.  New York: Farrar, 1998.
  Saint Louis World's Fair (1904) is the setting of a meeting between Ota Benga, an African Pygmy on display and a 12-year-old boy.
   
• Hoobler, Dorothy.  The 1920's: Luck.  Brookfield, CT: Millbrook, 2000.
  Pickettsville GA setting but moves main action to Chicago. (Century Kids series).
  
  
• Hoobler, Dorothy.  The 1930's: Directions.  Brookfield, CT: Millbrook, 2000.
  Chicago to Berlin games (Century Kids series).
  
  
• Lane., Rose Wilder. Let the Hurricane Roar by Rose Wilder   New York, Harper Trophy, 1985.
  Pioneer family similar to Little House for older readers.
  
  
• MacBride, Roger Lea.  New Dawn on Rockey Ridge.  New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
  Rose Wilder as a teenager in turn-of-the-century Missouri.
  
  
• Myers, Anna.  Fire in the Hills.  Puffin, 1996.
  Life in Oklahoma hills about 1918.Nixon, Joan Lowery: Land of Dreams. New York: Laurel Leaf, 1995.
  Swedish immigrants in Minnesota.
  
  
• Nixon, Joan Lowery.  David's Search.  New York: Delacorte, 1998.
  New York boy travels orphan train to Missouri and learns farm work from an African-American friend who is threatened by the Ku Klux Klan.
  
  
• Nixon, Joan Lowery.  Land of Promise.  New York: Laurel Leaf, 1994.
  Chicago 1902 Irish immigrants.
  
  
• Snyder, Zilpha Keatley.  Gib Rides Home by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
  Nebraska orphan is adopted and then farmed out to help with the horses on a wealthy banker’s ranch.
  

Memoir

• Hamilton, Carl.  In No Time at All.  Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1994.
  74 autobiographical vignettes describe the rural Midwest during the 1920s and 1930s.
  
  
• Shirer, William L.  Twentieth Century Journey; The Start: 1904 – 1930; A Memoir of a Life and The Times.  Boston: Little Brown, 1976.
  Book Two: Chicago, 1904 – 1913; Book Three: Growing up in Iowa, 1913 – 1925.
  
  
• Young, Carrie.  Nothing to Do but Stay; My Pioneer Mother.   New York: Dell, 1994.
  Norwegian woman (written by her daughter) on North Dakota homestead in 1904 showing holidays, tasks, Dust Bowl.
  

Mill Work

• Denenberg, Barry.  So Far From Home; The Diary of Mary Driscoll, an Irish Mill Girl, Lowell, Massachusetts, 1847.  New York: Scholastic, 1997.
  Irish girl in the Lowell, Massachusetts mills depicts what life was like for many young girls in the mid-nineteenth century.
  
  
• Burns, Olive Ann.  Cold Sassy Tree. New York: Delta, 1986.
  A fourteen-year-old boy living in a small, turn-of-the-century Georgia town.  Chapter 11 has a description of cotton mill.
  
  
• Paterson, Katherine.  Lyddie.  New York, Puffin, 1994.
  Girl in Lowell, Massachusetts textile mill.
  

Native Americans

• Fall, Thomas.  The Ordeal of Running Standing.  University of  Oklahoma Press, 1970.
  Kiowa Indian in Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania and in Oklahoma Territory.
  
  
• Hamm, Diane Joyhnston.  Daughter of Suqua.  Morton Grove, IL: Albert Whitman, 1997.
  Suquamish Indians near Puget Sound in the early 1900s wrestling with broken treaties and assimilation policies of the U.S. government.
  
  
• O'Dell, Scott.  Sing Down the Moon.  New York: Yearling, 1992.
  Navaho life in Canyon de Chelly in the 1880s destroyed by Spanish slavers.
  
  
• Thayer, Marjorie and Elizabeth Emanuel.  Climbing Sun: The Story of a Hopi Indian Boy.  NY: Dodd, Mead, 1980
  An 11-year-old Hopi boy is sent to the Sherman Indian Institute where he must learn white culture, based on reminiscences.
  

New England

• Hoobler, Dorothy.  The 1900's: Curtain Going Up.  Brookfield, CT: Millbrook, 2000.
  Peggy and her cousins belong to a family of famous actors opening a new theater with a family production of an original play in Maine. (Century Kids series)
  
  
• Hoobler, Dorothy.  The 1910's: Voyages.  Brookfield, CT: Millbrook, 2000.
  An Italian immigrant boy joins the large Aldrich family in Lowell, MA as they stage a women's suffrage play and listen to messages on the wireless radio about the ocean voyage of the Titanic.  (Century Kids series)
  
  
• Hurwitz, Johanna.  Faraway Summer.  New York: Morrow, 1998.
  Jewish immigrant girl from New York receives charity to go to Vermont farm.
  
  
• Paterson, Katherine.  Preacher's Boy.  New York: Clarion, 1999.
  At the turn of the century a 10-year-old boy struggles with accepting responsibility for his actions in a small Vermont town.
  
  
• Van Raven, Peter.  Harpoon Island.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
  Island off the Maine coast during World War I becomes scene of prejudice when father and son are identified as German-Americans.

New York

• Brett, Harvey.  Immigrant Girl.  New York: Holiday House, 1987.
  Jewish immigrant from Russia grows up in New York.
  
  
• Levine, Gail Carson.  Dave at Night. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
  Orphan boy at the Hebrew Home for Boys discovers his artistic talents.
  
  
  
• Hesse, Karen.  Letters from Rifka.  New York: Holt, 1992.
  Based on true story of an immigrant girl traveling from Russia to America, then detained on Ellis Island between 1919-1920
  
  
• Kirkpatrick, Katherine.  Keeping the Good Light. New York: Laurel-Leaf, 1997.
  Historically rich portrait of daily life of a lighthouse family on Long Island Sound in the early 1900's
  
  
• Lasky, Kathryn.  Dreams in the Golden Country; The Diary of Zipporah Feldman, a Jewish Immigrant Girl, New York City 1903.  New York: Scholastic, 1998.
  Jewish immigrant girl in the Lower East Side of New York 1903-1904.
  
  
• Mays, Lucinda.  The Other Shore.  New York: Atheneum, 1979.
  Life in New York's Little Italy with vivid description of a garment district factory fire.
  
  
• Nixon, Joan Lowery: Land of Hope. New York: Laurel Leaf, 1993.
  New York Jewish immigrants.
  
  
• Raphael, Marie.  Streets of Gold.  TreeHouse, 1998.
  Polish immigrants escaping the Russian czar's army settle in New York's Lower East Side.   Includes period photos.
  
  
• Rose, Deborah Lee.  The Rose Horse.  New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995. 
  Coney Island, New York, Jewish immigrant family in 1909.
  
  
• Sachs, Marilyn.  Call Me Ruth.  New York: Doubleday, 1982.
  Russian immigrant girl in New York assimilates while her mother joins the ILGWU to gain dignity.
  
  
• Smith, Betty.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  New York: Harper Perennial, 1998.
  Beautifully realized story of girl growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn from 1902 until 1919.
  

Memoir

• Warren, Andrea:  Orphan Train Rider; One Boy’s True Story. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
  From 1854 to 1930, the orphan trains took homeless children from cities in the East to new homes in the West, the Midwest, and the South.  Tells the story of Lee Nailling, who in 1926 rode an orphan train to Texas.

New Jersey

• Karr, Kathleen.  Man of the Family.  New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1999.
  Realistic portrait of life for Hungarian immigrants living in rural New Jersey during the early 1920's.

South

• Kline, Lisa Williams. Eleanor Hill.  New York: Front Street Books, 1999.
  Girl's life in an isolated fishing village on the North Carolina coast in 1912, including a trip to California.

Southwest

• Ingold, Jeanette.  Pictures, 1918.  New York: Harcourt, 1998.
  Coming-of-age story about a girl's developing interest in a Kodak Autographic Camera and a local youth in rural Texas.
  
  
• Meyer, Carolyn.  White Lilacs.  New York: Harcourt/Gulliver, 1993.
  African-American community of Dillon, Texas (1921) tries to prevent their town from being razed for a city park.
  

© Debbie Abilock August 22, 1999-2004