The Fascinating History of the Rapid Expansion of Roads, Canals, and Railways in the First Decades of the United States
While the great overland migration routes to America’s far west are well known and documented—the California, Oregon, Mormon, and Santa Fe Trails, the Central Overland and Pony Express—less attention has been given to how Americans in the first decades of the republic traveled across the western frontiers of the original colonies. Following the revolution, Americans began to seek their fortunes to the west in greater numbers. Land grants to veterans inspired others to move, including tradesmen, merchants, and tavern owners. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the country doubled in size, and the rate of migration became extraordinary, with wider and more durable roads built, ferries installed at river crossings, canals cut to move goods, regular stage routes established, and ultimately the first railroad tracks laid down. Entire regions that supported few communities in the 1790s exploded in population, and as a result seven new states were admitted to the Union in the decade following the War of 1812. John Bradbury, who traveled through the United States between 1809 and 1811, wrote that “In passing through the upper parts of Virginia, I observed a great number of farms that had been abandoned, on many of which good houses had been erected, and fine apple and peach orchards had been planted. On enquiring the reason, I was always informed that the owners had gone to the western country.” In Maryland, a newspaper reporter wrote, “The time is close at hand when the region west of the Allegheny mountains will sway the destinies of the nation.” By 1839, the National Road extended more than 700 miles from Washington, DC, to central Illinois, New York’s Erie Canal operated from Albany to Buffalo, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad carried passengers briskly west, ultimately to the Ohio River.
Shipwreck stories from along Minnesota’s north shore of Lake Superior and Isle Royale
Against the backdrop of the extraordinary history of Great Lakes shipping, Too Much Sea for Their Decks chronicles shipwrecked schooners, wooden freighters, early steel-hulled steamers, whalebacks, and bulk carriers—some well-known, some unknown or forgotten—all lost in the frigid waters of Lake Superior.
Included are compelling accounts of vessels destined for infamy, such as that of the Stranger, a slender wooden schooner swallowed by the lake in 1875, the sailors’ bodies never recovered nor the wreckage ever found; an account of the whaleback Wilson, rammed by a large commercial freighter in broad daylight and in calm seas, sinking before many on board could escape; and the mysterious loss of the Kamloops, a package freighter that went down in a storm and whose sailors were found on the Isle Royale the following spring, having escaped the wreck only to die of exposure on the island. Then there is the ill-fated Steinbrenner, plagued by bad luck from the time of her construction, when she was nearly destroyed by fire, to her eventual (and tragic) sinking in 1953. These tales and more represent loss of life and property—and are haunting stories of brave and heroic crews.
Arranged chronologically and presented in three sections covering Minnesota's North Shore, Isle Royale, and the three biggest storms in Minnesota’s Great Lakes history (the 1905 Mataafa storm, the 1913 hurricane on the lakes, and the 1940 Armistice Day storm), each shipwreck documented within these pages provides a piece to the history of shipping on Lake Superior.
A standard track gauge—the distance between the two rails—enables connecting railway lines to exchange traffic. But despite the benefits of standardization, early North American railways used six different gauges extensively, and even today breaks of gauge at national borders and within such countries as India and Australia are expensive burdens on commerce. In Tracks across Continents, Paths through History, Douglas J. Puffert offers a global history of railway track gauge, examining early choices and the dynamic process of diversity and standardization that resulted.
Drawing on the economic theory of path dependence, and grounded in economic, technical, and institutional realities, this innovative volume traces how early historical events, and even idiosyncratic personalities, have affected choices of gauge ever since, despite changing technology and understandings of what gauge is optimal. Puffert also uses this history to develop new insights in the theory of path dependence. Tracks across Continents, Paths through History will be essential reading for anyone interested in how history and economics inform each other.
We are a world of travelers. Technologies have enabled us to connect with others around the world at incredible speed, and now both business and pleasure operate on a global scale. The process of getting from point A to point B is therefore of more interest than ever, and Gregory Votolato here charts the history of that journey in all its complexity and variety.
From limousines to canoes to the Apollo spacecraft, Votolato chronicles the ever-evolving design of vehicles, nautical crafts, and other objects of transportation. Transport Design explores the relationship between mass transportation and the travel experience, probing such issues as design styles, economics, entertainment, and, most importantly, customized comfort. Elements such as nineteenth-century railway sleeping couches or the heated car seats of today, Votolato demonstrates, were among the pioneering technologies that set the precedent for personal home and office furnishings. Ultimately, Transport Design contends that today’s pressures of global commerce and environmental threats demand a radical reappraisal of how and why we travel.
A compelling and readable study, Transport Design is a must-have for transport design scholars, transit buffs, and reluctant commuters alike.
Colleges and universities across North America are facing difficult questions about automobile use and transportation. Lack of land for new parking lots and the desire to preserve air quality are but a few of the factors leading institutions toward a new vision based upon expanded transit access, better bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and incentives that encourage less driving.
Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities presents a comprehensive examination of techniques available to manage transportation in campus communities. Authors Will Toor and Spenser W. Havlick give readers the understanding they need to develop alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles, and sets forth a series of case studies that show how transportation demand management programs have worked in a variety of campus communities, ranging from small towns to large cities. The case studies in Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities highlight what works and what doesn't, as well as describing the programmatic and financial aspects involved.
No other book has surveyed the topic and produced viable options for reducing the parking, pollution, land use, and traffic problems that are created by an over-reliance on automobiles by students, faculty, and staff. Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities is a unique source of information and ideas for anyone concerned with transportation planning and related issues.
Winner of the Bancroft Prize
Winner of the David J. Langum Prize
Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award
Winner of the Order of the Coif Book Award
Winner of the OAH Liberty Legacy Foundation Award
A New York Times Critics’ Top Book of the Year
“This extraordinary book is a powerful addition to the history of travel segregation…Mia Bay shows that Black mobility has always been a struggle.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist
“In Mia Bay’s superb history of mobility and resistance, the question of literal movement becomes a way to understand the civil rights movement writ large.”
—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
“Traveling Black is well worth the fare. Indeed, it is certain to become the new standard on this important, and too often forgotten, history.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of Stony the Road
From Plessy v. Ferguson to #DrivingWhileBlack, African Americans have fought to move freely around the United States. But why this focus on Black mobility? From stagecoaches and trains to buses, cars, and planes, Traveling Black explores when, how, and why racial restrictions took shape in America and brilliantly portrays what it was like to live with them.
Mia Bay rescues forgotten stories of passengers who made it home despite being insulted, stranded, re-routed, or ignored. She shows that Black travelers never stopped challenging these humiliations, documenting a sustained fight for redress that falls outside the traditional boundaries of the civil rights movement. A riveting, character-rich account of the rise and fall of racial segregation, it reveals just how central travel restrictions were to the creation of Jim Crow laws—and why free movement has been at the heart of the quest for racial justice ever since.
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