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All Aboard The Railroad In American Life By George Douglas Dust Jacket 1st ed
All Aboard The Railroad In American Life By George Douglas
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
Copyright 1992 FIRST EDITION
462 Pages Indexed
America has grown up with the railroads. As they grew, so did the country. From an agrarian land of isolated communities, the railroads linked the vast distances and ushered in the industrial transformation. The history of the railroad, the people it served, and the country itself are so intertwined as to be inseparable. All Aboard! Relates, for the first time, a social history of the railroad.
Author George Douglas examines how the railroad has shaped the lives of Americans and the communities they live in, how it created the rhythm of daily life, and made Americans a mobile, restless, and energetic people. From the pioneering efforts of the first steam engines to the magnificent iron horses of the gilded age, the railroad played a decisive role in the settlement and civilization of the West, the Civil War, suburbanization, the creation of a national economy, and even the standardization of time zones.
The railroad was also America's first big business and, accordingly, had its seamier side. There were the huge land grants given to the companies for land lived on by Native Americans and small farmers; loans underwritten by taxpayers; rate-fixing practices; notoriously poor treatment of workers that helped give birth to America's labor movement; and the robber barons and financial freebooters who dominated the business and orchestrated such practices during the boom years. Nevertheless, the railroads enjoyed the affection of the general public. In small towns the station with its ticking clock and the tap of the telegrapher's key was a center of community life, and in the big cities the grand terminal, teeming with the bustle of a burgeoning metropolis, stood out as the architectural jewel.
All Aboard! is an affectionate history filled with the legends and lore of the railroad and the inspiration it has given the American imagination. From the blues beat derived from the clacketyclack rhythm of wheels running over iron tracks to John Dos Passos's classic Manhattan Transfer and the first commercial film, The Great Train Robbery, writers, artists, song writers, and movie makers have drawn inspiration time and again from the romance of the rails.
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