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In: History - American·History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)·History - Modern (1750+)
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #22598.
The work is a nineteenth‑century historical account that traces the conception, promotion, and ultimate construction of America’s first trans‑continental railroad. It opens with a lament that school curricula neglect the West’s recent past, then launches into a sweeping comparison of the railroad’s significance with the feats of Columbus, Lewis and Clark, and early American battles. The author quickly moves from poetic celebration of the 1869 opening to a detailed inventory of early proposals, starting with Jefferson’s 1801 directive to Lewis and Clark, through visionary schemes by Mills, Carver, Plumbe, and Whitney, showing how a series of “projectors” and their ideas paved the way for the Union Pacific’s triumph.
Written in a formal, didactic style characteristic of late‑Victorian American historiography, the narrative blends patriotic rhetoric with exhaustive footnotes and contemporary newspaper excerpts. Its voice is earnest and expansive, aiming to instill pride in the nation’s engineering feats. Readers who enjoy thorough, source‑rich histories of American expansion, the politics of internal improvement, and the personalities behind monumental infrastructure projects will find this volume rewarding.
The school boy can glibly recount the story of Columbus, William Penn, or Washington, but asked about the events leading up to the settlement of the West will know nothing of them and will probably reply "they don't teach us that in our school"--and it is true. Outside of the names of our presidents, the Rebellion, and the Spanish-American War, there is practically nothing of the events of the last fifty years in our school histories, and this is certainly wrong. "Peace hath her victories as well as War," and it is to the end that one of the great achievements of the last century may become better known that this account of the first great Pacific Railroad was written. …
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