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“A well-written social history of the shortest-lived major US transportation mode” from the railway historian and author of A Mighty Fine Road (Choice). One of the most intriguing yet neglected pieces of American transportation history, electric interurban railroads were designed to assist shoppers, salesmen, farmers, commuters, and pleasure-seekers alike with short distance travel. At a time when most roads were unpaved and horse and buggy travel were costly and difficult, these streetcar-like electric cars were essential to economic growth. But why did interurban fever strike so suddenly and extensively in the Midwest and other areas? Why did thousands of people withdraw their savings to get onto what they believed to be a “gravy train?” How did officials of competing steam railroads respond to these challenges to their operations? H. Roger Grant explores the rise and fall of this fleeting form of transportation that started in the early 1900s and was defunct just 30 years later. Perfect for railfans, Electric Interurbans and the American People is a comprehensive contribution for those who love the flanged wheel. “With this book, the subject no longer has footnote status. In fact, Grant’s work deserves a place alongside some of the other landmark surveys of the subject . . . Here, Grant moves beyond the receiverships, the rickety track, and all that fascinating rolling stock. He shows us why the whole darned thing mattered.” —Railroad History “H. Roger Grant has produced a fine social history of America’s electric interurbans, exploring the relationship between people and those railway enterprises. The book fills a void, is eminently readable, and richly illustrated.” —Don L. Hofsommer, author of Off the Main Lines
This “outstanding contribution to transportation history” chronicles the evolution of American mobility from stagecoaches to buses and airplanes (Choice). Transportation is the unsung hero of American history. Stagecoaches, waterways, canals, railways, busses, and airplanes revolutionized much more than just the way people got around; they transformed the economic, political, and social aspects of everyday life. In Transportation and the American People, renowned historian H. Roger Grant tells the story of American transportation from its slow, uncomfortable, and often dangerous beginnings to the speed and comfort of travel today. Early advances like stagecoaches and canals allowed traders, businesses, and industries to expand across the nation, setting the stage for modern developments like transcontinental railways and busses that would forever reshape the continent. Grant provides a compelling and thoroughly researched narrative of the social history of travel, shining a light on the role transportation played in shaping the country as well as the people who helped build it.
In the early twentieth century, an epic battle was waged across America between the interurban railway and the automobile, two technologies that arose at roughly the same time in the late 1890s. Nowhere was this conflict more evident than in the Midwest, and specifically Indiana, where cities of industry such as Indianapolis, Gary, and Terre Haute were growing faster every day. By 1904, Indianapolis had opened the Traction Terminal, which was widely acclaimed to be the largest and most impressive interurban station in the world. Yet, today there is only 90-mile remnant of this one great system still operating within Indiana. Featuring over 90 illustrations and featuring contemporary accounts and newspaper articles from the period, Electric Indiana is a biographical study of the rise and fall of a onetime important transportation technology that achieved its most impressive development within the Hoosier state.
Bound by Steel and Stone analyzes the Colorado-Kansas Railway through the economic enterprise in the American West in the decades after the supposed 1890 closing of the frontier. In it, J. Bradford Bowers weaves a tale of reinvention against the backdrop of the newly settled West, showing how the railway survived in one form or another for nearly fifty years, overcoming competition from other railroads, a limited revenue base, and even more limited capital financing. Offering the Colorado-Kansas Railway as an example of how shortline railroads helped to integrate the rural landscape with the larger urban and economic world, Bowers reveals the constant adaptations driven by changing economic forces and conditions. He puts the railway in context of the wider environmental and political landscapes, the growing quarrying and mining business, the expansion of agriculture and irrigation, Progressive-era political reforms, and land development. In the new frontier of enterprise in the early twentieth-century American West, the railroad highlights the successes and failures of the men inspired to pursue these new opportunities as well as the story of one woman who held these fragile industries together well into the second half of the twentieth century. Bound by Steel and Stone is an insightful addition to the history of industrialization and economic development in Colorado and the American West.
Contextualizes and analyzes the key energy transitions in U.S. history and the central importance of energy production and consumption on the American environment and in American culture and politics. Focusing on the major energy transitions in U.S. history, from the pre-industrial era to the present day, this two-volume encyclopedia captures the major advancements, events, technologies, and people synonymous with the production and consumption of energy in the United States. Expert contributors show how, for example, the introduction of electricity and petroleum into ordinary American life facilitated periods of rapid social and political change, as well as profound and ongoing impacts on the environment. These developments have in many ways defined and accelerated the pace of modern life and led to vast improvements in living conditions for millions of people, just as they have also brought new fears of resource exhaustion and fossil-fuel induced climate change. Today, as America begins to move beyond the use of fossil fuels toward a greater reliance on renewables, including wind and solar energy, there is a pressing need to understand energy in America's past in order to better understand its energy future.
Explore the past, present, and future of rail travel through 30 years of one artist's work. Once a common part of the American landscape, trains are increasingly fading from public view. Though photographs can accurately convey the details of "what, where, and when," sometimes paintings can better convey the deeper truths of an era. Collecting more than thirty years of paintings and renderings, Railroads, Art, and American Life tells the story of rail transportation in America through the life and works of artist J. Craig Thorpe. Commissioned by companies such as Amtrak and General Electric, Thorpe's work can be found featured on items ranging from catalogs to calendars, postcards to posters. His artwork depicts not only the golden age of train travel but considers the present and looks forward to a potential future. Featuring more than 130 color illustrations and combining history, biography, ethics, and humor, Thorpe's personal story joins with his paintings to invite the reader to relive the heyday of American rail and better understand the role of railroads in our society today.
The untold story of the power industry's efforts to electrify growing numbers of farms in the years before the creation of Depression-era government programs. Even after decades of retelling, the story of rural electrification in the United States remains dramatic and affecting. As textbooks and popular histories inform us, farmers obtained electric service only because a compassionate federal government established the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The agencies' success in raising the standard of living for millions of Americans contrasted with the failure of the greedy big-city utility companies, which showed little interest in the apparently unprofitable nonurban market. Traditional accounts often describe the nation's population as split in two, separated by access to a magical form of energy: just past cities' limits, a bleak, preindustrial class of citizens endured, literally in near darkness at night and envious of their urban cousins, who enjoyed electrically operated lights, refrigerators, radios, and labor-saving appliances. In Powering American Farms, Richard F. Hirsh challenges the notion that electric utilities neglected rural customers in the years before government intervention. Drawing on previously unexamined resources, Hirsh demonstrates that power firms quadrupled the number of farms obtaining electricity in the years between 1923 and 1933, for example. Though not all corporate managers thought much of the farm business, a cadre of rural electrification advocates established the knowledge base and social infrastructure upon which New Deal organizations later capitalized. The book also suggests that the conventional storyline of rural electrification remains popular because it contains a colorful hero, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and villainous utility magnates, such as Samuel Insull, who make for an engaging—but distorted—narrative. Hirsh describes the evolution of power company managers' thinking in the 1920s and early 1930s—from believing that rural electrification made no economic sense to realizing that serving farmers could mitigate industry-wide problems. This transformation occurred as agricultural engineers in land-grant universities, supported by utilities, demonstrated productive electrical technologies that yielded healthy profits to farmers and companies alike. Gaining confidence in the value of rural electrification, private firms strung wires to more farms than did the REA until 1950, a fact conveniently omitted in conventional accounts. Powering American Farms will interest academic and lay readers of New Deal history, the history of technology, and revisionist historiography.
Railroads and the American People is a sparkling paean to American railroading by one of its finest historians.
Before the widespread popularity of automobiles, buses, and trucks, freight and passenger trains bound the nation together. The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience explores the role of local frontline workers that kept the country's vast rail network running. Virtually every community with a railroad connection had a depot and an agent. These men and occasionally women became the official representatives of their companies and were highly respected. They met the public when they sold tickets, planned travel itineraries, and reported freight and express shipments. Additionally, their first-hand knowledge of Morse code made them the most informed in town. But as times changed, so did the role of, and the need for, the station agent. Beautifully illustrated with dozens of vintage photographs, The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience, brings back to life the day-to-day experience of the station agent and captures the evolution of railroad operations as technology advanced.
In the late 19th century, railroads played a crucial role in the development of Montana's economy. Robert A. Schalla examines early efforts to bring rail transport to the New World Mining District near the northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park and Red Lodge-Bear Creek Coal Field in south-central Montana. The saga began with a chance discovery in 1866 and follows the exploits of individuals who worked to bring rail transport to the mines of southern Montana. Starting with Northern Pacific's unsuccessful efforts to build a railroad through Yellowstone, this story follows the struggles of various privately financed schemes to develop the vast mineral wealth of these two regions. A youthful entrepreneur from Milwaukee succeeded in financing a railroad to the coal fields, but his plan to extend the line to the national park runs afoul of Howard Elliott, president of the Northern Pacific, who was determined to drive him out of business. The story dives into the motivations and background of these individuals and their ultimate triumphs and failures. The completion of the Montana, Wyoming & Southern Railroad (MW&S) in 1906 resulted in the creation of three new towns and six separate mining operations. The MW&S was one of the few privately owned lines in Montana that, despite forces aligned against it, maintained its independence until it was abandoned. For nearly fifty years it formed an important part of the state's economy as the Bear Creek mines supplied private, commercial, and industrial consumers with some of the highest-quality coal in the state.