Free History Books to Download in February 2025

The revealing memoir of a woman who bought her freedom from slavery and became a White House dressmaker and confidant to Mary Todd Lincoln.

Born into slavery in Virginia, Elizabeth Keckley was whipped, sexually abused, and separated from her mother for long stretches of time. When her master eventually settled in St. Louis, Missouri, Keckley resolved to buy her freedom. She put to use her talents as a seamstress and found patrons among the wives of the city’s elite, eventually earning enough money to move with her young son to Washington, DC.

In the nation’s capital, Keckley started her own business and soon had commissions from the wives of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stephen A. Douglas, and Edwin Stanton. Hired by Mary Todd Lincoln to be her personal modiste, Keckley formed a close friendship with the first lady, a relationship strengthened by the tragedies they endured together, including the deaths of their sons and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Published to great controversy in 1868, Behind the Scenes offers an intimate and revealing portrait of life inside the White House as well as the stirring story of one woman’s fight to rise above the horrors of slavery. Frequently cited in studies of the Civil War and biographies of the Lincolns, it is a must read for students of American history.

Theodore Roosevelt’s landmark work of military history: The definitive account of the War of 1812.

First published in 1882, The Naval War of 1812 established Theodore Roosevelt’s reputation as a noteworthy historian and scholar at just twenty-three years old. Four years later, the US Navy ordered copies of the book to be kept on every ship.

With exhaustive research into all levels of the conflict, Roosevelt presented an illuminating account of the political grievances between the United States and Britain, as well as the virtues and weaknesses of ship commanders on both sides. He demonstrated an impressive understanding of naval technology, detailing weaponry and ship designs and their effects on the outcome of each battle.

Refuting previous accounts of the war, Roosevelt bluntly criticized America’s military weaknesses in the face of the British fleet. Though The Naval War of 1812 initially stirred controversy in political circles, Roosevelt’s persuasive analysis inspired a movement to strengthen our national defense.

These forty-eight biographies by the ancient Greek scholar demonstrate the parallel lives of famous rulers such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar.

A Greek priest of Delphi who acquired Roman citizenship later in life, Plutarch undertook his Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans to demonstrate the influence of character on the fates of famous men. He also wished to show that the legacy and achievements of his native Greece were no less impressive than those of Rome.

Today, the surviving text represents a treasure trove of information and insights into some of the ancient world’s most significant personalities. A major source of material for William Shakespeare’s history plays, Plutarch’s Lives draws parallels between Pericles and Fabius Maximus, Alcibiades and Coriolanus, Lysander and Sulla, Demetrius and Mark Antony; among many others.

This nineteenth-century novel by the author of Rip Van Winkle offers a satirical history of New York, from the creation of the world to the fall of New Amsterdam.

Washington Irving’s debut novel, Knickerbocker’s History of New York was an immediate sensation when it was first published in 1809. Posing as the work of a fictional Dutch historian named Dietrich Knickerbocker, it both catapulted Irving’s literary reputation and established the “Father Knickerbocker” character as a popular icon of New York.

Knickerbocker discusses the development of New Netherland, the seventeenth-century Dutch colony, with a special focus on New Amsterdam, the settlement located on present-day Manhattan. The thoroughly tongue-in-cheek chronicle contains “among many surprising and curious matters, the unutterable ponderings of Walter the Doubter, the disastrous projects of William the Testy, and the chivalric achievements of Peter [Stuyvesant] the Headstrong.”