You may want to check out this paper, particularly table 11.2. I do not think you are going to find studies of the historical tax burdens in the US as terms of GDP going back before 1929, but I could be wrong: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c5981.pdf
Historically, and during colonial times, Americans paid little taxes since huge share of Federal Revenue came from tariffs. This paper gives a short synopsis: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html