Download or read book Hinterland Dreams and Midwestern Rails written by Eric J. Morser and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hinterland Dreams written by Eric J. Morser and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-11-29 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1840s, La Crosse, Wisconsin, was barely more than a trading post nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River. But by 1900 the sleepy frontier town had become a thriving city. Hinterland Dreams tracks the growth of this community and shows that government institutions and policies were as important as landscapes and urban boosters in determining the small Midwestern city's success. The businessmen and -women of La Crosse worked hard to attract government support during the nineteenth century. Federal, state, and municipal officials passed laws, issued rulings, provided resources, vested aldermen with financial and regulatory power, and created a lasting legal foundation that transformed the city and its economy. As historian Eric J. Morser demonstrates, the development of La Crosse and other small cities linked rural people to the wider world and provided large cities like Chicago with the lumber and other raw materials needed to grow even larger. He emphasizes the role of these municipalities, as well as their relationship to all levels of government, in the life of an industrializing nation. Punctuated with intriguing portraits of La Crosse's early citizens, Hinterland Dreams suggests a new way to understand the Midwest's urban past, one that has its roots in the small but vibrant cities that dotted the landscape. By mapping the richly textured political economy of La Crosse before 1900, the book highlights how the American state provided hinterland Midwesterners with potent tools to build cities and help define their region's history in profound and lasting ways.
Download or read book A Most Magnificent Machine written by Craig Miner and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2010-10-14 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just as the railroad transformed America's economic landscape, it profoundly transfigured its citizens as well. But while there have been many histories of railroads, few have examined the subject as a social and cultural phenomenon. Informed especially by rich research in the nation's newspaper archives, Craig Miner now traces the growth of railroads from their origins in the 1820s to the onset of the Civil War. In this first social history of the early railroads, Miner reveals how ordinary Americans experienced this innovation at the grass roots, from boosters' dreams of get-rich schemes to naysayers' fears of soulless corporations. Drawing on an amazing 400,000 articles from 185 newspapers-plus more than 3,000 books and pamphlets from the era-he documents the initial burst of enthusiasm accompanying early railroading as it took shape in various settings across the country. Miner examines the cultural, economic, and political aspects of this broad and complicated topic while remaining rooted in the local interests of communities. He takes readers back to the days of the Mauch Chunk Railway, a tourist sensation of the mid-1820s, navigates the mixed reactions to trains as Baltimore's city fathers envisioned tracks to the Ohio River, shows how Pennsylvanians wrestled with the efficacy of railroads versus canals, and describes the intense rivalry of cities competing for trade as old transportation patterns were replaced by the new rail technology. Miner samples individual railroads to compare progress across the industry, showing how it became a quintessentially American business-and how the Panic of 1837 significantly slowed the railways as a major engine of growth for many years. He also explores the impact of railroads on different regions, even disproving the backwardness of the South by citing the Central of Georgia as one of the best-managed and most profitable lines in the country. Through this panoramic work, readers will discover just how the benefits of what became the country's first big business triumphed over cultural concerns, though not without considerable controversy along the way. By identifying citizens' hopes and fears sparked by the railroads, A Most Magnificent Machine takes readers down the tracks of progress as it opens a new window on antebellum America.
Download or read book Land and Liberty written by Christopher William England and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This work is a comprehensive treatment of the single-tax movement. The author studied a network of well-connected political entrepreneurs committed to Henry George's plan to effectively nationalize land through a confiscatory tax in the early twentieth century in the United States"--
Download or read book Steam City written by David Schley and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anyone interested in the rise of American corporate capitalism should look to the streets of Baltimore. There, in 1827, citizens launched a bold new venture: a “rail-road” that would link their city with the fertile Ohio River Valley. They dubbed this company the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O), and they conceived of it as a public undertaking—an urban improvement, albeit one that would stretch hundreds of miles beyond the city limits. Steam City tells the story of corporate capitalism starting from the street and moving outward, looking at how the rise of the railroad altered the fabric of everyday life in the United States. The B&O’s founders believed that their new line would remap American economic geography, but no one imagined that the railroad would also dramatically reshape the spaces of its terminal city. As railroad executives wrangled with city officials over their use of urban space, they formulated new ideas about the boundaries between public good and private profit. Ultimately, they reinvented the B&O as a private enterprise, unmoored to its home city. This bold reconception had implications not only for the people of Baltimore, but for the railroad industry as a whole. As David Schley shows here, privatizing the B&O helped set the stage for the rise of the corporation as a major force in the post-Civil War economy. ?Steam City examines how the birth and spread of the American railroad—which brought rapid communications, fossil fuels, and new modes of corporate organization to the city—changed how people worked, where they lived, even how they crossed the street. As Schley makes clear, we still live with the consequences of this spatial and economic order today.
Download or read book Liberal Dreams and Nature s Limits written by James T. Lemon and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2008-05-14 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the agricultural frontier and through technological progress, Europeans and others and their descendants have sought to fulfill their dreams of improvement. Through businesses, governments, and other bodies, city dwellers expedited these desires by organizing settlements, communications, trade, finance, and manufacturing. In turn, cities grew mightily. To assess the present condition of cities, Liberal Dreams and Nature's Limits focuses on five large North American cities at various times in the past --Philadelphia (about 1760), New York (1860), Chicago (1910), Los Angeles (1950), and Toronto (1975). Life inside these cities--specifically the economy, society and politics, public services, land development, and the geographies of circulation, workplaces, and residential districts--is the central concern of this book. Another concern is drawing contrasts and similarities between the American and Canadian urban experiences. North Americans, most now living in cities, face the challenge of a social frontier--how to maintain civility in a near-stagnant economy. Despite recent advances in cyberspace, nature has imposed limits on technical progress defined by speed, convenience, and comfort; Promethean gains through creative destruction are no longer possible. Increased preoccupation with money, status, and safety suggests that the striving inspired by liberalism is still appealing. Yet without growth, liberal dreams cannot be fulfilled. To ensure work, income equity, and a degree of freedom in thought and action, citizens and leaders in both countries will have to commit themselves as never before to managing fairness through social democracy. Sustainable cities are not possible otherwise.
Download or read book The Iron Way written by William G. Thomas and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How railroads both united and divided us: “Integrates military and social history…a must-read for students, scholars and enthusiasts alike.”—Civil War Monitor Beginning with Frederick Douglass’s escape from slavery in 1838 on the railroad, and ending with the driving of the golden spike to link the transcontinental railroad in 1869, this book charts a critical period of American expansion and national formation, one largely dominated by the dynamic growth of railroads and telegraphs. William G. Thomas brings new evidence to bear on railroads, the Confederate South, slavery, and the Civil War era, based on groundbreaking research in digitized sources never available before. The Iron Way revises our ideas about the emergence of modern America and the role of the railroads in shaping the sectional conflict. Both the North and the South invested in railroads to serve their larger purposes, Thomas contends. Though railroads are often cited as a major factor in the Union’s victory, he shows that they were also essential to the formation of “the South” as a unified region. He discusses the many—and sometimes unexpected—effects of railroad expansion, and proposes that America’s great railroads became an important symbolic touchstone for the nation’s vision of itself. “In this provocative and deeply researched book, William G. Thomas follows the railroad into virtually every aspect of Civil War history, showing how it influenced everything from slavery’s antebellum expansion to emancipation and segregation—from guerrilla warfare to grand strategy. At every step, Thomas challenges old assumptions and finds new connections on this much-traveled historical landscape."—T.J. Stiles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
Download or read book Finding Rhythm written by Aliénor Salmon and published by Apollo Publishers. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One woman embarked on a dance journey around the world, finding out how each dance tells a story of its country and learning how beautiful life can be when you take the lead. If you could do anything you wanted, what would it be? Aliénor Salmon was working as a happiness researcher in Bangkok when a friend asked her the question that turned life as she knew it on its heels. A novice dancer but experienced social researcher, the Franco-British Aliénor headed west from Bangkok to dance her way through Latin America. As she learns eighteen dances, each native to the countries she visits, she engages with esoteric customs, traditions, and cultures. Through conversations and arduous studio hours, she learns that every step, pivot, and shake thrums with an undeniable spirit of place. And that in a world where we are over-connected but increasingly disconnected from one another, dance offers an authentically human experience. One that allows her to develop tolerance, kindness, truth, and love by holding the hands of a stranger and gazing into their eyes for the time of a song. With her fearless and candid approach, Aliénor will inspire you to take the reins of your own life—and have some fun along the way. In this dance-travelogue, you’ll learn the history and steps of dances like salsa, samba, and tango, enjoy a resplendent meditation on happiness and wanderlust, and receive a life-affirming answer to the question: How do I take the first step?
Download or read book Sowing the American Dream written by David Blanke and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1840 to 1900, midwestern Americans experienced firsthand the profound economic, cultural, and structural changes that transformed the nation from a premodern, agrarian state to one that was urban, industrial, and economically interdependent. Midwestern commercial farmers found themselves at the heart of these changes. Their actions and reactions led to the formation of a distinctive and particularly democratic consumer ethos, which is still being played out today. By focusing on the consumer behavior of midwestern farmers, Sowing the American Dream provides illustrative examples of how Americans came to terms with the economic and ideological changes that swirled around them. From the formation of the Grange to the advent of mail-order catalogs, the buying patterns of rural midwesterners set the stage for the coming century. Carefully documenting the rise and fall of the powerful purchasing cooperatives, David Blanke explains the shifting trends in collective consumerism, which ultimately resulted in a significant change in the way that midwestern consumers pursued their own regional identity, community, and independence.
Download or read book Nature s Metropolis Chicago and the Great West written by William Cronon and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2009-11-02 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Winner of the Bancroft Prize. "No one has written a better book about a city…Nature's Metropolis is elegant testimony to the proposition that economic, urban, environmental, and business history can be as graceful, powerful, and fascinating as a novel." —Kenneth T. Jackson, Boston Globe
Download or read book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor written by Rob Nixon and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The violence wrought by climate change, toxic drift, deforestation, oil spills, and the environmental aftermath of war takes place gradually and often invisibly. Using the innovative concept of "slow violence" to describe these threats, Rob Nixon focuses on the inattention we have paid to the attritional lethality of many environmental crises, in contrast with the sensational, spectacle-driven messaging that impels public activism today. Slow violence, because it is so readily ignored by a hard-charging capitalism, exacerbates the vulnerability of ecosystems and of people who are poor, disempowered, and often involuntarily displaced, while fueling social conflicts that arise from desperation as life-sustaining conditions erode. In a book of extraordinary scope, Nixon examines a cluster of writer-activists affiliated with the environmentalism of the poor in the global South. By approaching environmental justice literature from this transnational perspective, he exposes the limitations of the national and local frames that dominate environmental writing. And by skillfully illuminating the strategies these writer-activists deploy to give dramatic visibility to environmental emergencies, Nixon invites his readers to engage with some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
Download or read book Unravelled Dreams written by Ben Marsh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-23 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals how commodity failure, as much as success, can shed light on aspirations, environment, and economic life in colonial societies.
Download or read book The Bulletin Missouri Historical Society written by Missouri Historical Society and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book One Billion Americans written by Matthew Yglesias and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2024-05-14 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER What would actually make America great: more people. If the most challenging crisis in living memory has shown us anything, it’s that America has lost the will and the means to lead. We can’t compete with the huge population clusters of the global marketplace by keeping our population static or letting it diminish, or with our crumbling transit and unaffordable housing. The winner in the future world is going to have more—more ideas, more ambition, more utilization of resources, more people. Exactly how many Americans do we need to win? According to Matthew Yglesias, one billion. From one of our foremost policy writers, One Billion Americans is the provocative yet logical argument that if we aren’t moving forward, we’re losing. Vox founder Yglesias invites us to think bigger, while taking the problems of decline seriously. What really contributes to national prosperity should not be controversial: supporting parents and children, welcoming immigrants and their contributions, and exploring creative policies that support growth—like more housing, better transportation, improved education, revitalized welfare, and climate change mitigation. Drawing on examples and solutions from around the world, Yglesias shows not only that we can do this, but why we must. Making the case for massive population growth with analytic rigor and imagination, One Billion Americans issues a radical but undeniable challenge: Why not do it all, and stay on top forever?
Download or read book Justice of Shattered Dreams written by Michael Anthony Ross and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Lewis Hine as Social Critic written by Kate Sampsell-Willmann and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2009 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first full-length examination of Lewis H. Hine (1874-1940), the intellectual and aesthetic father of social documentary photography. Kate Sampsell-Willmann assesses Hine's output through the lens of his photographs, his political and philosophical ideologies, and his social and aesthetic commitments to the dignity of labor and workers. Using Hine's images, published articles, and private correspondence, Lewis Hine as Social Critic places the artist within the context of the Progressive Era and its associated movements and periodicals, such as the Works Progress Administration, Tennessee Valley Authority, the Chicago School of Social Work, and Rex Tugwell's American Economic Life and the Means of Its Improvement. This intellectual history, heavily illustrated with HIne's photography, compares his career and concerns with other prominent photographers of the day--Jacob Riis, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Margaret Bourke-White. Through detailed analysis of how Hine's images and texts intersected with concepts of urban history and social democracy, this volume reestablishes the artist's intellectual preeminence in the development of American photography as socially conscious art.
Download or read book Chicago Dreaming written by Timothy B. Spears and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-06-15 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part I examines the ethos of self-making and boosterism that has defined the city since its settlement in the 1830s, and argues that these energies formed the context for hinterland migration during the nineteenth century and beyond. Part 2 highlights the emotional and cultural foraces that continued to tie many migrants to the hinterland even after their arrival in Chicago. Part 3 looks at Chicago's ethnic communities through the eyes of hinterland migrants, underscoring the cultural authority of these native-born newcomers in mediating the assimilation of foreign immigrants. Chapter 6 focuses on the work of Jane Addams and Chapter 7 considers how Chicago's multiethnic community is portrayed in Edith Wyatt's and Elia Peattie's fiction and in Carl Sandburg's poetry.
