Download or read book Paper Trails written by Cameron Blevins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking history of how the US Post made the nineteenth-century American West. There were five times as many post offices in the United States in 1899 than there are McDonald's restaurants today. During an era of supposedly limited federal government, the United States operated the most expansive national postal system in the world. In this cutting-edge interpretation of the late nineteenth-century United States, Cameron Blevins argues that the US Post wove together two of the era's defining projects: western expansion and the growth of state power. Between the 1860s and the early 1900s, the western United States underwent a truly dramatic reorganization of people, land, capital, and resources. It had taken Anglo-Americans the better part of two hundred years to occupy the eastern half of the continent, yet they occupied the West within a single generation. As millions of settlers moved into the region, they relied on letters and newspapers, magazines and pamphlets, petitions and money orders to stay connected to the wider world. Paper Trails maps the spread of the US Post using a dataset of more than 100,000 post offices, revealing a new picture of the federal government in the West. The western postal network bore little resemblance to the civil service bureaucracies typically associated with government institutions. Instead, the US Post grafted public mail service onto private businesses, contracting with stagecoach companies to carry the mail and paying local merchants to distribute letters from their stores. These arrangements allowed the US Post to rapidly spin out a vast and ephemeral web of postal infrastructure to thousands of distant places. The postal network's sprawling geography and localized operations forces a reconsideration of the American state, its history, and the ways in which it exercised power.
Download or read book The Old Oregon Country written by Oscar Osburn Winther and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1950-01-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pacific Northwest, the old Oregon country, was one of the most remote and inaccessible frontier areas, but it was also known to be rich in natural resources. The opening up of this region is a story of courage, endurance, and pioneer enterprise. Transportation in this rugged country was a problem to the settlers who would promote commerce and travel, just as it was a problem to the earlier fur traders. The construction of roads and development of water routes progressed through the years until the railroad finally came to the Northwest, but at no time did the scarcity of roads prevent settlers from pushing back the frontier. Here the whole story of travel and travelers in this region is told for the first time. The book is based largely on primary sources and, as such, is a contribution to history. As an account of courage and ingenuity, transportation monopoly against transportation monopoly, and man versus nature, it is fascinating reading. University Professor of History at Indiana University, O. O. Winther is the author of Express and Stagecoach Days in California and Via Western Express and Stagecoach.
Download or read book The Californios written by Hunt Janin and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before the Gold Rush of 1848-1858, Alta (Upper) California was an isolated cattle frontier--and home to a colorful group of Spanish-speaking, non-indigenous people known as Californios. Profiting from the forced labor of large numbers of local Indians, they carved out an almost feudal way of life, raising cattle along the California coast and valleys. Visitors described them as a good-looking, vibrant, improvident people. Many traces of their culture remain in California. Yet their prosperity rested entirely on undisputed ownership of large ranches. As they lost control of these in the wake of the Mexican War, they lost their high status and many were reduced to subsistence-level jobs or fell into abject poverty. Drawing on firsthand contemporary accounts, the authors chronicle the rise and fall of Californio men and women.
Download or read book Rush for Riches written by J. S. Holliday and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of the California Gold Rush from 1849 through 1884 when a court decision forced the shut down of the hydraulic mining operations, bringing decades of careless freedom to an end.
Download or read book Collected Books written by Allen Ahearn and published by eBookIt.com. This book was released on 2013-02 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to and advice on book collecting with a glossary of terms and tips on how to identify first editions and estimated values for over 20,000 collectible books published in English (including translations) over the last three centuries-about half are literary titles in the broadest sense (novels, poetry, plays, mysteries, science fiction, and children's books); and the other half are non-fiction (Americana, travel and exploration, finance, cookbooks, color plate, medicine, science, photography, Mormonism, sports, et al).
Download or read book Taming the Elephant written by John F. Burns and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-04-30 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taming the Elephant is the last of four volumes in the distinguished California History Sesquicentennial Series, an outstanding compilation of original essays by leading historians and writers. These topical, interrelated volumes reexamine the meaning of the founding of modern California during the state's pioneer period. General themes run through all four volumes: the interplay of traditional cultures and frontier innovation in the creation of a distinctive California society; the dynamic interaction of people and nature and the beginnings of massive environmental change; the impact of the California experience on the nation and the world; the influence of pioneer patterns on modern California; and the legacy of ethnic and cultural diversity as a major influence on the state's history. This fourth volume treats the role of post–Gold Rush California government, politics, and law in the building of a dynamic state, with influences that persist today. Provocative essays investigate the creation of constitutional foundations, law and jurisprudence, the formation of government agencies, and the development of public policy. Authors chart the roles played by diverse groups—criminals and peace officers, entrepreneurs and miners, farmers and public officials, defenders of discrimination and female and African American activists. The essays also explore subjects largely overlooked in the past, such as the significance of local and federal government in pioneer California and early struggles to secure civil rights for women and racial minorities.
Download or read book Six Guns and Saddle Leather written by Ramon Frederick Adams and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 1998-02-25 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authoritative guide to everything in print about lawmen and the lawless—from Billy the Kid to the painted ladies of frontier cow towns. Nearly 2,500 entries, taken from newspapers, court records, and more.
Download or read book Stagecoach West written by Ralph Moody and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1998-06-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stagecoach West is a comprehensive history of stagecoaching west of the Missouri. Starting with the evolution of overland passenger transportation, Moody moves on to paint a lively and informative picture of western stagecoaching, from its early short runs through its rise with the gold rush, its zenith of 1858–68, and beyond. Its story is one of grand rivalries, political chicanery, and gaudy publicity stunts, traders, fortune hunters, outlaws, courageous drivers, and indefatigable detectives. We meet colorful characters such as Charlie Parkhurst, a stagecoach driver who took an amazing secret to his death: “he” was actually a woman. Using contemporary accounts, illustrations, maps, and photographs to flesh out his narrative, Moody creates one of the most important accounts of transportation history to date.
Download or read book Chapter VII Pioneering 1856 1870 Chapter VIII Formative and expansion years Chapter IX California s watered lands 1769 1890 written by United States. Forest Service. California Region and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gunsmoke and Saddle Leather written by Charles G. Worman and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The many roles played by guns in the old West with personal accounts by many early settlers and hundreds of photos.
Download or read book California Conquered written by Neal Harlow and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1989-04-14 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book began as a venture to collect official and unofficial documents relating to the interval of American military rule. There proved to be thousands, the writings of Presidents, executive officers, and congressmen, naval and military personnel, governors, settlers, and citizens-routine, familiar, wheedling, seductive, blustering, commanding. As the quantity grew, they seemed eager to be heard. But the documents exhibit the traits of their makers. Containing neither the whole truth nor nothing but the truth, they offer many-sided versions of what people believed or wanted others to accept; they must be taken with a grain of salt. Long, sometimes garbled, and always incomplete, the record requires assessment, a referee to appraise the evidence and form his own imperfect conclusions. And any curious or dissenting reader may, by consulting the numerous cited sources, make his own interpretations. References, whenever possible, have been made to materials in some printed form, leading an inquirer to a vast array of historical evidence. Everything herein happened, or so the record tells, and if an assumption has been made, it is that men, issues, and events can be interesting in their own right, without exaggeration. "To exaggerate," a knowing urban child recently observed, "means you put in something to make it more exciting" (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 10, 1978).
Download or read book Report of the New York Public Library for written by New York Public Library and published by . This book was released on 1942 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book California Place Names written by Erwin G. Gudde and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anniversary edition concentrates on the origins of the names currently used for the cities, towns, settlements, mountains, and streams of California, with engrossing accounts of the history of their usage. The dictionary includes a glossary and a bibliography.
Download or read book California Rural Land Use and Management written by United States. Forest Service. California Region and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bulletin of the New York Public Library written by New York Public Library and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 960 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes its Report, 1896-19 .
Download or read book Bookman s Guide to Americana written by Joseph Norman Heard and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No descriptive material is available for this title.
Download or read book Bulletin written by New York Public Library and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
