Lost Skills of the 19th Century is a wide-ranging collection of (mostly) useful arts no longer widely known or practiced, discovered in the pages of long-forgotten classics of Americana like The Practical Distiller, American Artillerist’s Companion, The Farmer’s Cabinet, The Orphan’s Friend and Housekeeper’s Assistant, The Ball-room Bijou, A Manual for Attendants in Hospitals for the Insane, The Prairie Traveler, Wilson’s Book of Recitations, Practical Hints for Furniture Men, How to Make a Shoe, Skilful Suzy, The White House Cookbook, and dozens of others. Each selection includes explanatory notes about the skill, definitions of archaic terms, and hyperlinks to the original text and supplemental information.