Download or read book A Great and Shining Road written by John Hoyt Williams and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads were officially joined on May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, with the driving of a golden spike. This historic ceremony marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. Spanning the Sierras and the “Great American Desert,” the tracks connected San Francisco to Council Bluffs, Iowa. A Great and Shining Road is the exciting story of a mammoth feat that called forth entrepreneurial daring, financial wizardry, technological innovation, political courage and chicanery, and the heroism of thousands of laborers.

Download or read book A Historical Dictionary of the U S Merchant Marine and Shipping Industry written by Rene De La Pedraja and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1994-08-23 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A foremost authority has written the first comprehensive reference about the U.S. Merchant Marine and American shipping from the introduction of steamships to today's diesel containerships--showing the impact of politics, economics, and technology on maritime history during the last two centuries. Over 500 entries describe people, private companies, business and labor groups, engineering and technological developments, government agencies, terms, key laws, landmark cases, issues, events, and ships of note. Short lists of references for further reading accompany these entries. Appendices include a chronology, diagrams of government organizations, and lists of business and labor groups by founding dates. An unusually extensive index lends itself to the varying research interests of students, teachers, and professionals in maritime and economic history, business-labor-government relations, and military studies.

Download or read book The World Rushed In written by J. S. Holliday and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-03-16 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When The World Rushed In was first published in 1981, the Washington Post predicted, “It seems unlikely that anyone will write a more comprehensive book about the Gold Rush.” Twenty years later, no one has emerged to contradict that judgment, and the book has gained recognition as a classic. As the San Francisco Examiner noted, “It is not often that a work of history can be said to supplant every book on the same subject that has gone before it.” Through the diary and letters of William Swain--augmented by interpolations from more than five hundred other gold seekers and by letters sent to Swain from his wife and brother back home--the complete cycle of the gold rush is recreated: the overland migration of over thirty thousand men, the struggle to “strike it rich” in the mining camps of the Sierra Nevadas, and the return home through the jungles of the Isthmus of Panama. In a new preface, the author reappraises our continuing fascination with the “gold rush experience” as a defining epoch in western--indeed, American--history.

Download or read book A Golden State written by Marlene Smith-Baranzini and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays on mining and economic development in California from the Gold Rush through the end of the 19th century. This is the second in a series of four volumes comemmorating the state's sesquicentennial.

Download or read book The Most Perfect Cruiser written by Stephen Chapin Kinnaman and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Most Perfect Cruiser is the story of how the Confederacy got to sea the most deadly of its raiders, the C.S.S. Alabama. It is both a complex and a human tale, one that occurred entirely outside of North America. We encounter the ambitions of the brilliant James Dunwoody Bulloch, the Confederate secret naval agent who brought Alabama into being thinking he would command her; and her resourceful captain, Raphael Semmes, whose previous success had already alarmed the North. As for the Alabama, she began her maiden voyage in the teeth of a rising gale, barely escaping the clutches of a Union warship and the belated efforts of British authorities to seize her. All of these threads culminated in a three-way rendezvous in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where through a remarkable combination of luck, skill, and hard work, the South commissioned the most successful commerce raider the world has ever known. STEPHEN CHAPIN KINNAMAN is an offshore and marine technology professional with over thirty years of experience. He was born in 1950 and grew up in upstate New York and New Jersey. He and his wife, Maureen, currently reside in Chappell Hill, Texas. In preparation for writing The Most Perfect Cruiser, Stephen Chapin Kinnaman visited all the principal locations touched by Bulloch, Semmes, and Alabama, gaining a first-hand feel for the terrain which shaped Alabama's birth. Mr. Kinnaman was a director of the Mobile, Alabamabased C.S.S. Alabama Association, and as such was involved with aspects of the ongoing wreck recovery efforts in France. He participated in the Association's first field trip to Cherbourg during the summer of 1999. His nautical background and love of the sea has allowed him to craft a spirited account of the operational side of Alabama's creation which is so central to this book. Background Lines Plan (Courtesy Per Nordberg) Center Samuel Walters Painting of Alabama (Courtesy Vallejo Maritime Gallery, Newport Beach, California) James Dunwoody Bulloch Picture (Author's Collection)

Download or read book The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War written by Leonard L. Richards and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-02-12 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning historian Leonard L. Richards gives us an authoritative and revealing portrait of an overlooked harbinger of the terrible battle that was to come. When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848, Americans of all stripes saw the potential for both wealth and power. Among the more calculating were Southern slave owners. By making California a slave state, they could increase the value of their slaves—by 50 percent at least, and maybe much more. They could also gain additional influence in Congress and expand Southern economic clout, abetted by a new transcontinental railroad that would run through the South. Yet, despite their machinations, California entered the union as a free state. Disillusioned Southerners would agitate for even more slave territory, leading to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and, ultimately, to the Civil War itself.

Download or read book Panama Canal Treaties written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 1492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The United States in Latin America written by David Shavit and published by Greenwood Pub Group. This book was released on 1992 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering the period from the seventeenth century, when trade between the United States and Latin America began, to the present, this historical dictionary provides information on the people, organizations, institutions, and events associated with the United States' presence in Latin America. Entries on people include those who visited and lived in Latin America, including sea captains and merchants, explorers, filibusters and adventurers, military officers, missionaries, government officials, businessmen, anthropologists and scientists, diplomats, and writers. Entries on organizations include business firms, missions, colleges, and naval and military bases. The volume includes some 1,200 entries, arranged alphabetically. Additional features include a short chronology and an appendix listing of chiefs of United States diplomatic missions. Access to the material is provided by an appendix listing of subjects by occupation and a full subject index. Sources of additional information are given both at the end of entries and in a bibliographical essay.

Download or read book Historic Resource Study written by Anthony Godfrey and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The intent of this Historic Resource Study (HRS) of the Pony Express National Historic Trail is threefold: 1) to provide basic information to assist in the preparation of the trail comprehensive management plan (CMP) and to manage and interpret the trail, 2) to furnish National Park Service (NPS) managers and planners, state and local authorities, private landowners, and cooperating groups with an extensive trail database for action plans and implementation activities for the Pony Express National Historic Trail, and 3) to give to the public a general history of the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company (C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co.) otherwise known as the Pony Express"--Preface excerpt, page [i].

Download or read book Pony Express National Historic Trail written by Anthony Godfrey and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Publishers Weekly written by and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 1662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sierra Crossing written by Thomas Frederick Howard and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1998-06-30 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical era in California's history and development—the building of the first roads over the Sierra Nevada—is thoroughly and colorfully documented in Thomas Howard's fascinating book. During California's first two decades of statehood (1850-1870), the state was separated from the east coast by a sea journey of at least six weeks. Although Californians expected to be connected with the other states by railroad soon after the 1849 Gold Rush, almost twenty years elapsed before this occurred. Meanwhile, various overland road ventures were launched by "emigrants," former gold miners, state government officials, the War Department, the Interior Department, local politicians, town businessmen, stagecoach operators, and other entrepreneurs whose alliances with one another were constantly shifting. The broad landscape of international affairs is also a part of Howard's story. Constructing roads and accumulating geographic information in the Sierra Nevada reflected Washington's interest in securing the vast western territories formerly held by others. In a remarkably short time the Sierra was transformed by vigorous exploration, road-promotion, and road-building. Ox-drawn wagons gave way to stagecoaches able to provide service as fine as any in the country. Howard effectively uses diaries, letters, newspaper stories, and official reports to recreate the human struggle and excitement involved in building the first trans-Sierra roads. Some of those roads have become modern highways used by thousands every day, while others are now only dim traces in the lonely backcountry.

Download or read book A Nation in Search of Its Nationhood written by Juan Manuel Pérez and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2023-11-16 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Liberal Party reached power in Panama in 1912 it started a period that lasted until 1941. A period in which Panamanians, due to the special circumstances under which the country became independent, the presence of the United States, and of thousands of foreign workers in its territory, began to doubt and asked themselves if they were truly independent. The American presence impacted politics and a sense of inferiority developed because people believed that nothing could be accomplished without the blessings of the United States. In the middle of chaotic political scene and self-doubt, the country retreated to its Hispanic past and began an effort to Hispanize in the face of so much foreign presence and influence, and tried to show the world that Panama was an independent country with history and traditions, and not an appendage of the United States. Belisario Porras, who became president in 1912, emphasized the Hispanic past and built statues to Balboa and Cervantes. Acción Comunal, founded in 1923, promoted nationalism and criticized the corrupt nature of politics. It led a successful campaign against the 1926 Treaty and a coup in 1931. This new generation repudiated the generation that made the 1903 Treaty. “Panama for Panamanians” became one of the catch phrases for the Panamanian youth of the 1920’s and 1930’s, which found in the brothers Harmodio and Arnulfo Arias the leading exponents.

Download or read book Report of Panel on Proposed Changes in Rates of Tolls for the Panama Canal written by and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Golden Odyssey written by Judson Grenier and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Emperors in the Jungle written by John Lindsay-Poland and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2003-02-11 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emperors in the Jungle is an exposé of key episodes in the military involvement of the United States in Panama. Investigative journalism at its best, this book reveals how U.S. ideas about taming tropical jungles and people, combined with commercial and military objectives, shaped more than a century of intervention and environmental engineering in a small, strategically located nation. Whether uncovering the U.S. Army’s decades-long program of chemical weapons tests in Panama or recounting the invasion in December 1989 which was the U.S. military’s twentieth intervention in Panama since 1856, John Lindsay-Poland vividly portrays the extent and costs of U.S. involvement. Analyzing new evidence gathered through interviews, archival research, and Freedom of Information Act requests, Lindsay-Poland discloses the hidden history of U.S.–Panama relations, including the human and environmental toll of the massive canal building project from 1904 to 1914. In stunning detail he describes secret chemical weapons tests—of toxins including nerve agent and Agent Orange—as well as plans developed in the 1960s to use nuclear blasts to create a second canal in Panama. He chronicles sustained efforts by Panamanians and international environmental groups to hold the United States responsible for the disposal of the tens of thousands of explosives it left undetonated on the land it turned over to Panama in 1999. In the context of a relationship increasingly driven by the U.S. antidrug campaigns, Lindsay-Poland reports on the myriad issues that surrounded Panama’s takeover of the canal in accordance with the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty, and he assesses the future prospects for the Panamanian people, land, and canal area. Bringing to light historical legacies unknown to most U.S. citizens or even to many Panamanians, Emperors in the Jungle is a major contribution toward a new, more open relationship between Panama and the United States.

Download or read book The Elusive Eden written by Richard B. Rice and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2019-09-13 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: California is a region of rich geographic and human diversity. The Elusive Eden charts the historical development of California, beginning with landscape and climate and the development of Native cultures, and continues through the election of Governor Gavin Newsom. It portrays a land of remarkable richness and complexity, settled by waves of people with diverse cultures from around the world. Now in its fifth edition, this up-to-date text provides an authoritative, original, and balanced survey of California history incorporating the latest scholarship. Coverage includes new material on political upheavals, the global banking crisis, changes in education and the economy, and California's shifting demographic profile. This edition of The Elusive Eden features expanded coverage of gender, class, race, and ethnicity, giving voice to the diverse individuals and groups who have shaped California. With its continued emphasis on geography and environment, the text also gives attention to regional issues, moving from the metropolitan areas to the state's rural and desert areas. Lively and readable, The Elusive Eden is organized in ten parts. Each chronological section begins with an in-depth narrative chapter that spotlights an individual or group at a critical moment of historical change, bringing California history to life.