This printers, publishers and booksellers index is modeled after Bristol's Index of Printers, Publishers and Booksellers Indicated by Charles Evans in his American Bibliography. Each entry contains a name and place, with item numbers listed underneath by date. Personal names are listed in the most complete form that could be determined. Corporate names are listed in the form used by the Library of Congress. Newspapers and magazines are entered by their full titles as recorded in Brigham's American Newspapers, 1821-1936 and Union List of Serials. Also included is a geographical index by city and a list of omissions with explanations.
In 1833, the Wilmington & Raleigh Rail Road Company set out to connect the port city of Wilmington to North Carolina's capital. When it was done in 1840, after changing its route, the company had completed 161 miles of track--the longest railroad in the world at the time--and provided continuous transportation from the town of Weldon on the Roanoke River to Wilmington and on to Charleston, South Carolina, by steamboat. A marvel of civil engineering by the standards of the day, the railroad constituted a tour de force of organization, finance and political will that risked the fortunes of individuals and the credit of the state. This study chronicles the project from its inception, exploring its impact on subsequent railroad development in North Carolina and its significance within the context of American railroad history as a whole.
"This is a pathbreaking book, well grounded in the appropriate documentary record. Downey makes especially good use of the reports of the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company and of other corporations, which are so tedious to read, to offer an exciting and fresh perspective on an old problem of vital importance, the relationship between businessmen and planters in the Old South" -- American Historical Review "Downey's book has many merits. First of all, it successfully presents a comprehensive and harmonious picture of the development of the region. Second, it helps to better define the contours of the long misunderstood southern political economy and its transformations during the latter part of the antebellum era. It is indeed a well-written and well-thought piece of historiography showing in microcosm how a new synthesis of antebellum southern history should be conceived." -- Enterprise and SocietyIn Planting a Capitalist South, Tom Downey effectively challenges the idea that commercial and industrial interests did little to alter the planter-dominated political economy of the Old South. By analyzing the interplay of planters, merchants, and manufacturers, Downey characterizes the South as a sphere of contending types of capitalists: agrarians with land and slaves versus commercial and industrial owners of banks, railroads, stores, and factories. His book focuses on the central Savannah River Valley of western South Carolina, an influential political and economic region and the home of some of the South's leading states' rights and proslavery ideologues; which also spawned a number of inland commercial towns, one of the nation's first railroads, and a robust wage-labor community. As such, western South Carolina provides a unique opportunity for looking at contrasting economic forces but solely within the boundaries of the South -- slavery vs. free labor, industrial vs. agricultural, urban vs. rural. A revisionary study, Planting a Capitalist South offers clear evidence of a burgeoning transition to capitalist society in the Old South. "Downey's book is a welcome new addition to the growing corpus of studies seeking to understand the lives of white merchants and manufacturers. Well written and researched, Downey's excellent work will add greater nuance to our picture of the social and economic life of the Old South, particularly our picture of the emerging southern middle class." -- Georgia Historical Quarterly"Planting a Capitalist South makes several important contributions. The idea that commerce and industry challenged tenets of republican ideology may be a familiar one, but Downey pursues it in directions seldom explored by previous historians of the Old South, examining conflicts over issue like railroad routes, water rights, and the power of town governments. Moreover, he links those subjects to historians' debates about the capitalist character of the region, and he stakes out an innovative position with his argument that the late antebellum South was in the midst of a transition to capitalism." -- Business History Review
This masterful, richly illustrated account of the planning and building of the most important and influential early American railroad contributes not only to the railway history but to the history of the development of the United States in the 19th century. 80 illustrations.
