This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
After the Civil War, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad took the lead among southern railroads in developing rail systems and organizing transcontinental travel. Through two world wars, federal government control, internal crises, external dissension, the Depression, and the great Ohio River flood of 1937, the L&N Railroad remained one of the country's most efficient lines. It is a southern institution and a railroad buff's dream. When eminent railroad historian Maury Klein's definitive History of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad was first published in 1972, it quickly became one of the most sought after books on railroad history. This new edition both restores a hard-to-find classic to print and provides a new introduction by Klein detailing the L&N's history in the thirty years since the book was first published.
Crossroads of a Continent: Missouri Railroads, 1851-1921 tells the story of the state's railroads and their vital role in American history. Missouri and St. Louis, its largest city, are strategically located within the American Heartland. On July 4, 1851, when the Pacific Railroad of Missouri began construction in St. Louis, the city took its first step to becoming a major hub for railroads. By the 1920s, the state was crisscrossed with railways reaching toward all points of the compass. Authors Peter A. Hansen, Don L. Hofsommer, and Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes explore the history of Missouri railroads through personal, absorbing tales of the cutthroat competition between cities and between railroads that meant the difference between prosperity and obscurity, the ambitions and dreams of visionaries Fred Harvey and Arthur Stilwell, and the country's excitement over the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color images of historical railway ephemera, Crossroads of a Continent is an engaging history of key American railroads and of Missouri's critical contribution to the American story.
Lawyering for the Railroad provides the first full account of railroad monopoly power, tracing its sources and effects in the southern political economy. Issues touching on railroad development were major components of politics in the days of both Populism and Progressivism, and railroad attorneys -- often in their role as lobbyists -- were always in the middle of the action. They distributed free passes to legislators, retained the best counsel for their clients, laid out the legal agreements to form monopolies, and instituted practices to ensure quick and favorable settlements for the railroads. In this intriguing work, William G. Thomas introduces the southern attorneys who represented railroads between 1880 and 1916, closely examining their role in the political economy of the South during the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, a period in which the region experienced sharp change, explosive growth, and heated political contests. Thomas tells his fascinating story with legal department records from some of the largest interstate railroad companies in the South. With the help of these records, he demonstrates how the railroads tried to use the law and the legal process to mold the southern political economy to their ends and what kind of opposition they faced. Standing at the crossroads of business, law, and politics, Lawyering for the Railroad gives context, depth, and specificity to what have been cursory glimpses into the shady world of corporate power in the Gilded Age. From small-town lawyers to big-city firms, the story of the railroad attorneys brings into focus the many ways the interstate railroad transformed the South.
A two-time National Book Award finalist’s “ambitious and provocative” look at Custer’s Last Stand, capitalism, and the rise of the cowboys-and-Indians legend (The New York Review of Books). In The Fatal Environment, historian Richard Slotkin demonstrates how the myth of frontier expansion and subjugation of Native Americans helped justify the course of America’s rise to wealth and power. Using Custer’s Last Stand as a metaphor for what Americans feared might happen if the frontier should be closed and the “savage” element be permitted to dominate the “civilized,” Slotkin shows the emergence by 1890 of a mythos redefined to help Americans respond to the confusion and strife of industrialization and imperial expansion. “A clearly written, challenging and provocative work that should prove enormously valuable to serious students of American history.” —The New York Times “[An] arresting hypothesis.” —Henry Nash Smith, American Historical Review
In this much needed comprehensive study of the Progressivemovement, its reformers, their ideology, and the social circumstancesthey tried to change, Shelton Stromquist contends that the persistenceof class conflict in America challenged the very defining feature ofProgressivism: its promise of social harmony through democraticrenewal. Profiling the movement's work in diverse arenas of socialreform, politics, labour regulation and race improvement, Stromquistargues that while progressive reformers may have emphasized differentprograms, they crafted a common language of social reconciliation inwhich an imagined civic community (the People) would transcendparochial class and political loyalties.
“A fascinating story” of the railways that linked America from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (The Washington Post). Hear that Lonesome Whistle Blow unspools the history of the beginnings of the American railroad system. By the mid-nineteenth century, settlers in Missouri and California were separated by a vast landscape that dwarfed and isolated them, conquerable only by “the demonic power of the Iron Horse and its bands of iron track.” Although the building of the great railroad is commonly known as a story of romance, adventure, and progress, it also has a dark side, as profiteers decimated American Indian tribes, exploited workers, and destroyed ecosystems. Despite this, by the turn of the twentieth century, five major railroads would span the continent. This account vividly illustrates the railroad builders’ breathtaking skill, ambition, and ingenuity. . Brown compellingly tells a high-stakes tale, an exhilarating history that still holds lessons for today. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dee Brown including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.
