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“[A] wealth of vignettes and more than 100 black-and-white illustrations . . . Does a fine job of humanizing the iron horse” (The Wall Street Journal).
In this social history of the impact of railroads on American life, H. Roger Grant concentrates on the railroad’s “golden age,” from 1830 to 1930. He explores four fundamental topics—trains and travel, train stations,...
In this social history of the impact of railroads on American life, H. Roger Grant concentrates on the railroad’s “golden age,” from 1830 to 1930. He explores four fundamental topics—trains and travel, train stations,...
2) Caboose
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The image of a little red caboose trundling along behind a long freight train is a classic slice of Americana. With the help of nearly 300 marvelous modern and historical images depicting cabooses of all colors, this collection traces the development of this iconic, bygone rolling stock from the nineteenth century to their almost total demise by the mid-1990s. Bobber, cupola, bay window, and transfer cabooses are shown at work across the United States,...
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The account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad-the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and...
5) Locomotive
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OBD Books Make Good Friends (March - May 2024) - YOUTH
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OBD Caldecott Medal Winners - YOUTH
RLG Caldecott Medal List
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Learn what it was like to travel on the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s.
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America was made by the railroads. The opening of the Baltimore & Ohio line-the first American railroad-in the 1830s sparked a national revolution in the way that people lived thanks to the speed and convenience of train travel. Built through heroic effort, the American railroad network was bigger in every sense than Europe's, and facilitated everything from long-distance travel to commuting and transporting goods to waging war. It united far-flung...
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The driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, which marked the completion of the country's first transcontinental railroad, was only the beginning of the race for railroad dominance. In the aftermath of this building feat, dozens of railroads, each with aggressive empire builders at their helms, raced one another for the ultimate prize of a southern transcontinental route that was generally free of snow, shorter in distance, and gentler in...
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Time has been very good to Thomas Weber's Northern Railroads in the Civil War, 1861-1865. First published by Columbia University Press in 1952, it has been out of print since the 1970s, but never out of demand. It has emerged as the premier account of the impact of the railroads on the American Civil War and vice versa. Not only did the railroads materially help the north to victory through movement of troops and materiel, but also the war materially...
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From the first, U.S. railroads have carried coal from mines to docks, steel mills, and power plants across the country. In this authoritative book spanning the whole of that history, from the mid-nineteenth century to present, noted rail author Brian Solomon explores the railroads and hardware that have transported the fossil fuels that made America work. Brilliant period and contemporary photographs convey the drama of the enterprise: the very long-and...
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To Americans living in the early twentieth century, E. H. Harriman was as familiar a name as J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. Like his fellow businessmen, Harriman (1847-1909) had become the symbol for an entire industry: Morgan stood for banking, Rockefeller for oil, Carnegie for iron and steel, and Harriman for railroads. Here, Maury Klein offers the first in-depth biography in more than seventy-five years of this influential...
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Frank Julian Sprague invented a system for distributing electricity to streetcars from overhead wires. Within a year, electric streetcars had begun to replace horsecars, sparking a revolution in urban transportation. Sprague (1857—1934) was an American naval officer turned inventor who worked briefly for Thomas Edison before striking out on his own. Sprague contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators....
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"Few images speak as clearly of a time and a place as a dramatic black-and-white photograph of an American steam locomotive powering through that storied era of railroad history. All the new photographs in this beautiful book meticulously recreate that original style, capturing the bygone age of steam rail against the settings of its heyday, including period architecture and other details. The result is the crisp, stunning quality of contemporary...
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John Sedgwick recounts the decade-long fight between General William J. Palmer, the Civil War hero leading the "little family" of his Rio Grande, coming down from Denver, hoping to showcase the majesty of the Rockies, and William Barstow Strong, the hard-nosed manager of the corporate-minded Santa Fe, venturing west from Kansas. What begins as an accidental rivalry when the two lines cross in Colorado soon evolves into an all-out battle as each man...
15) Iron rails, iron men, and the race to link the nation: the story of the transcontinental railroad
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"Experience the race of rails to link the country--and meet the men behind this incredible feat--in a riveting story about the building of the transcontinental railroad, brought to life with archival photos."--Publisher's website.
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"This richly illustrated volume tells the story of a legendary railroad whose tracks spanned the Midwest, serving farms and small-town America for more than 140 years. One of the earliest railroads to build westward from Chicago, it was the first to span the Mississippi, advancing the frontier, bringing settlers into the West, and hauling their crops to market. Rock Island's celebrated Rocket passenger trains also set a standard for speed and service,...
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John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, Henry Clay Frick... their names carry a powerful historical ring, still echoing today in the countless institutions that are part of their legacy, from universities to museums to banks. But who were the people behind the legends, and how did they rise to their positions of vast wealth and influence in the latter half of the nineteenth century?
The...
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This work is a history of the transcontinental railroads and how they transformed America in the decades after the Civil War. The transcontinental railroads of the late nineteenth century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating panics in the U.S. economy. Their dependence on public largess drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations...
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"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...
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