Nothing Like It In the World
Author: Stephen E. Ambrose
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2001-11-06
Total Pages: 468
ISBN-13: 9780743203173
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe story of the men who build the transcontinental railroad in the 1860's.
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Railroaded
Author: Richard White
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Published: 2012-03-27
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 0393342379
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize "A powerful book, crowded with telling details and shrewd observations." —Michael Kazin, New York Times Book Review The transcontinental railroads were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating economic panics. Their dependence on public largesse drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations rearranged space and time, remade the landscape of the West, and opened new ways of life and work. Their discriminatory rates sparked a new antimonopoly politics. The transcontinentals were pivotal actors in the making of modern America, but the triumphal myths of the golden spike, Robber Barons larger than life, and an innovative capitalism all die here. Instead we have a new vision of the Gilded Age, often darkly funny, that shows history to be rooted in failure as well as success.
Railroads and the American People
Author: H. Roger Grant
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2012-10-17
Total Pages: 329
ISBN-13: 0253006333
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRailroads and the American People is a sparkling paean to American railroading by one of its finest historians.
The Bohemians
Author: Ben Tarnoff
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2015-02-24
Total Pages: 338
ISBN-13: 0143126962
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn extraordinary portrait of a fast-changing America—and the Western writers who gave voice to its emerging identity At once an intimate portrait of an unforgettable group of writers and a history of a cultural revolution in America, The Bohemians reveals how a brief moment on the far western frontier changed our culture forever. Beginning with Mark Twain’s arrival in San Francisco in 1863, this group biography introduces readers to the other young eccentric writers seeking to create a new American voice at the country’s edge—literary golden boy Bret Harte; struggling gay poet Charles Warren Stoddard; and beautiful, haunted Ina Coolbrith, poet and protector of the group. Ben Tarnoff’s elegant, atmospheric history reveals how these four pioneering writers helped spread the Bohemian movement throughout the world, transforming American literature along the way. “Tarnoff’s book sings with the humor and expansiveness of his subjects’ prose, capturing the intoxicating atmosphere of possibility that defined, for a time, America’s frontier.” -- The New Yorker “Rich hauls of historical research, deeply excavated but lightly borne.... Mr. Tarnoff’s ultimate thesis is a strong one, strongly expressed: that together these writers ‘helped pry American literature away from its provincial origins in New England and push it into a broader current’.” -- Wall Street Journal
Ghosts of Gold Mountain
Author: Gordon H. Chang
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 325
ISBN-13: 1328618579
DOWNLOAD EBOOKGuangdong -- Gold Mountain -- Central Pacific -- Foothills -- The High Sierra -- The Summit -- The Strike -- Truckee -- The Golden Spike -- Beyond Promontory.
Train Time
Author: John R. Stilgoe
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2009-02-05
Total Pages: 230
ISBN-13: 0813930502
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUnlike many United States industries, railroads are intrinsically linked to American soil and particular regions. Yet few Americans pay attention to rail lines, even though millions of them live in an economy and culture "waiting for the train." In Train Time: Railroads and the Imminent Reshaping of the United States Landscape, John R. Stilgoe picks up where his acclaimed work Metropolitan Corridor left off, carrying his ideas about the spatial consequences of railways up to the present moment. Arguing that the train is returning, "an economic and cultural tsunami about to transform the United States," Stilgoe posits a future for railways as powerful shapers of American life. Divided into sections that focus on particular aspects of the impending impact of railroads on the landscape, Train Time moves seamlessly between historical and contemporary analysis. From his reading of what prompted investors to reorient their thinking about the railroad industry in the late 1970s, to his exploration of creative solutions to transportation problems and land use planning and development in the present, Stilgoe expands our perspective of an industry normally associated with bad news. Urging us that "the magic moment is now," he observes, "Now a train is often only a whistle heard far off on a sleepless night. But romantic or foreboding or empowering, the whistle announces return and change to those who listen." For scholars with an interest in American history in general and railroad and transit history in particular, as well as general readers concerned about the future of transportation in the United States, Train Time is an engaging look at the future of our railroads.
Empire Express
Author: David Haward Bain
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2000-09-01
Total Pages: 1432
ISBN-13: 1101658045
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAfter the Civil War, the building of the transcontinental railroad was the nineteenth century's most transformative event. Beginning in 1842 with a visionary's dream to span the continent with twin bands of iron, Empire Express captures three dramatic decades in which the United States effectively doubled in size, fought three wars, and began to discover a new national identity. From self--made entrepreneurs such as the Union Pacific's Thomas Durant and era--defining figures such as President Lincoln to the thousands of laborers whose backbreaking work made the railroad possible, this extraordinary narrative summons an astonishing array of voices to give new dimension not only to this epic endeavor but also to the culture, political struggles, and social conflicts of an unforgettable period in American history.
Empire's Tracks
Author: Manu Karuka
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2019-01-29
Total Pages: 318
ISBN-13: 0520296648
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEmpire’s Tracks boldly reframes the history of the transcontinental railroad from the perspectives of the Cheyenne, Lakota, and Pawnee Native American tribes, and the Chinese migrants who toiled on its path. In this meticulously researched book, Manu Karuka situates the railroad within the violent global histories of colonialism and capitalism. Through an examination of legislative, military, and business records, Karuka deftly explains the imperial foundations of U.S. political economy. Tracing the shared paths of Indigenous and Asian American histories, this multisited interdisciplinary study connects military occupation to exclusionary border policies, a linked chain spanning the heart of U.S. imperialism. This highly original and beautifully wrought book unveils how the transcontinental railroad laid the tracks of the U.S. Empire.
The Great Railroad Revolution
Author: Christian Wolmar
Publisher:
Published: 2012-09-25
Total Pages: 450
ISBN-13: 1610391799
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe epic tale of America's railroads--the largest rail network in the world--and how they built a modern nation
Living the California Dream
Author: Alison Rose Jefferson
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 366
ISBN-13: 1496229061
DOWNLOAD EBOOK2020 Miriam Matthews Ethnic History Award from the Los Angeles City Historical Society Alison Rose Jefferson examines how African Americans pioneered America’s “frontier of leisure” by creating communities and business projects in conjunction with their growing population in Southern California during the nation’s Jim Crow era.
