Witnessing America: The Library of Congress Book of First-hand Accounts of Life in America

What was it like to live in log cabin, face a stampede, pan for gold, or work in a sweatshop? Or to be a Civil War nurse or a prisoner of frontier Indians? Witnessing America weaves intimate eye-witness accounts into an extraordinary collective cultural memory, a patchwork quilt of American life--from the telling of an Native American creation story to a prairie wedding to the memories of a sod house builder in the 19th century. Handsomely illustrated with unusual and rare pieces of art from the Library of Congress.