Doomsday DefenseThe library
Complete texts of public-domain manuals and books, split into chapters and fully searchable. Every book carries a note on its age and anything that is now outdated or unsafe.
Military manuals
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Camp Fires and Camp Cooking
An 1862 Army of the Potomac pamphlet teaching Union soldiers to cook rations over camp fires: soups, stews, bread and field ovens.
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Pistol Marksmanship (MCRP 3-01B)
The Marine Corps pistol manual: weapons handling and safety, marksmanship fundamentals, grip and positions, cover, and low-light shooting.
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Visual Signaling (Signal Corps Manual No. 6)
The 1910 Army manual on signaling by flag, heliograph, lantern and semaphore, with codes and procedures for sending messages by sight.
Government guides
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Building with Logs
The Forest Service's 1945 guide to log construction: choosing and peeling logs, foundations, corner notches, roofs, fireplaces and finishing.
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Canning, Freezing, Storing Garden Produce
USDA's guide to preserving a harvest: canning, freezing, drying, pickling, jams, root-cellar storage and community canneries (1977).
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Home Canning of Fruits and Vegetables
USDA bulletin on choosing the right canner for each food and canning fruits, tomatoes, pickles and vegetables at home (1965).
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Home Canning of Meat and Poultry
USDA bulletin on pressure-canning meat, poultry, sausage, stew and soup stock at home, with spoilage checks (1966, revised 1972).
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Wild Medicinal Plants of the United States
A 1906 USDA catalog of wild plants then collected for the drug trade: names, range, habitat, the parts used and their market prices.
Handbooks
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Forge Work
A 1912 manual-training course in blacksmithing: forge tools, drawing, upsetting and welding, tempering tool steel, and making tools.
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Knots, Splices and Rope Work
A. Hyatt Verrill's illustrated guide to every useful knot, bend, hitch, lashing and splice, with the strength of rope (second revised edition).
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Soap-Making Manual
A 1922 chemist's handbook on soap: fats and oils, lye, the boiling process, and testing and controlling the product.
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War Gardens
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden's head gardener on growing food in back yards and vacant lots during the First World War (1918).
Books
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Backwoods Surgery & Medicine
A 1910 physician's guide for campers far from help: fractures, burns, cuts, drowning, camp diseases, snakebite and the medicine chest.
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Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making
W. Hamilton Gibson's illustrated 1881 guide to camp shelters, log huts, canoes, and building and setting traps, snares and deadfalls.
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Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee
The 1853 book that introduced the movable-frame hive still used today, with the natural history and management of honeybees.
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Shelters, Shacks and Shanties
Dan Beard's illustrated 1914 guide to building shelters with just a hatchet or an axe, from lean-tos and bark huts to log cabins.
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The Book of Camp-Lore and Woodcraft
Dan Beard's 1920 handbook on fire by friction and flint, cooking fires, camp kitchens, packing horses and dogs, and axe and saw work.
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The Fireless Cook Book
How to build and use a retained-heat (haybox) cooker, with 250 recipes that cook with a fraction of the fuel (1909).
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Woodcraft
Nessmuk's classic 1884 pocket guide to traveling light in the woods: camps, campfires, cooking, and getting lost and found again.
Why these books? Everything here is in the public domain in the United States: works of the U.S. federal government, or books published before 1930. Old books are reprinted as written, so we flag what is outdated. Read how the library is built.