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Author: Howard Benjamin Powell Publisher: Penn State University Press ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 192
Book Description
The entrepreneur's role is stressed in this opening scene in the drama of Pennsylvania anthracite. Jacob Cist holds center stage, although other actors are featured, because of his attention to four essentials in developing an industry: scientific knowledge of the product's sources and uses; managerial acumen in assessing capital needs; political realism in recognizing transportation requirements; and, above all, marketing skill in winning product acceptance. Jacob Cist learned his role as a hard coal pioneer almost from his birth in 1782--under the tutelage of his father, Charles, and his uncle, Jacob Weiss. Charles Cist, a German-born journalist, published articles on the importance of coal in the British industrial revolution. He also invested in the Lehigh Coal Mine Company on the advice of Weiss, one of the first American coal prospectors. The Weiss family, abetted by Charles Cist and John Nicholson, used their entrepreneurial skills from 1972 onward to develop sources and uses of anthracite, and also to persuade the Pennsylvania legislature to fund dredging of the Lehigh River. Jacob Cist's opportunity to become the key figure in the development of Pennsylvania anthracite came in 1807 with his marriage to the daughter of Matthias Hollenbeck of Wilkes-Barre, the richest merchant and largest landlord in his state's northeastern corner. Becoming a business partner of Hollenbeck and other Wyoming Valley magnates, Cist invested in coal mines both for the local iron trade and for shipment to Connecticut, New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia--via road, river, and canal. The War of 1812 caused a fuel crisis in Philadelphia, then America's chief metropolis, since English coal shipments stopped and a British coastal blockade inflated the price of Virginia coal. Cist and his associates met the crisis, serving both their country and their industry. Cist led the group because of his mercantile and political know-how, combined with his technical, drafting, and writing skills. Professor Powell shows that Pennsylvania businessmen and their political allies before 1825 were more forward-looking than some economic historians have held, both in developing resources and in providing transportation for them, especially canals. One leading economic historian, Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., cites Pennsylvania anthracite as the single most important element in initiating the industrial revolution in the United States.
Author: Howard Benjamin Powell Publisher: Penn State University Press ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 192
Book Description
The entrepreneur's role is stressed in this opening scene in the drama of Pennsylvania anthracite. Jacob Cist holds center stage, although other actors are featured, because of his attention to four essentials in developing an industry: scientific knowledge of the product's sources and uses; managerial acumen in assessing capital needs; political realism in recognizing transportation requirements; and, above all, marketing skill in winning product acceptance. Jacob Cist learned his role as a hard coal pioneer almost from his birth in 1782--under the tutelage of his father, Charles, and his uncle, Jacob Weiss. Charles Cist, a German-born journalist, published articles on the importance of coal in the British industrial revolution. He also invested in the Lehigh Coal Mine Company on the advice of Weiss, one of the first American coal prospectors. The Weiss family, abetted by Charles Cist and John Nicholson, used their entrepreneurial skills from 1972 onward to develop sources and uses of anthracite, and also to persuade the Pennsylvania legislature to fund dredging of the Lehigh River. Jacob Cist's opportunity to become the key figure in the development of Pennsylvania anthracite came in 1807 with his marriage to the daughter of Matthias Hollenbeck of Wilkes-Barre, the richest merchant and largest landlord in his state's northeastern corner. Becoming a business partner of Hollenbeck and other Wyoming Valley magnates, Cist invested in coal mines both for the local iron trade and for shipment to Connecticut, New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia--via road, river, and canal. The War of 1812 caused a fuel crisis in Philadelphia, then America's chief metropolis, since English coal shipments stopped and a British coastal blockade inflated the price of Virginia coal. Cist and his associates met the crisis, serving both their country and their industry. Cist led the group because of his mercantile and political know-how, combined with his technical, drafting, and writing skills. Professor Powell shows that Pennsylvania businessmen and their political allies before 1825 were more forward-looking than some economic historians have held, both in developing resources and in providing transportation for them, especially canals. One leading economic historian, Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., cites Pennsylvania anthracite as the single most important element in initiating the industrial revolution in the United States.
Author: Sean Patrick Adams Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1040251080 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 314
Book Description
The emergence of coal-based fuel economy over the course of the nineteenth century was one of the most significant features of America’s Industrial Revolution, but the transition from wood to mineral energy sources was a gradual one that transpired over a number of decades. The documents in these volumes recreate the institutional history of the American coal industry in the nineteenth century — providing a first-hand perspective on the developments in regard to political economy, business structure and competition, the rise of formal trade unions, and the creation of a national coal trade. Although the collection strives to be wide-ranging in region and theme, the Pennsylvania anthracite coal trade forms the thematic backbone as it became the most important American mineral resource to see successful development throughout the nineteenth century. Consequently it saw unprecedented levels of intervention by the federal government. The texts for this collection were selected for their accessibility to modern readers as well as their relationship to a series of common themes across the nineteenth century American coal industry — with headnotes and annotations provided to explain their context and the reasons for their inclusion.In this first volume, covering the period 1790-1835, the selected documents seek to reconcile the optimism surrounding the early American coal industry with the difficulties in actually realising its growth. It presents voices that capture the optimism and frustration of the Rhode Island and Virginia colliers, before focusing on the rise of Pennsylvania’s anthracite region — tracing the false-starts and ideological hostility that accompanied the early coal trade.
Author: Anthony Wallace Publisher: Knopf ISBN: 0307826104 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 780
Book Description
Located near the southern edge of the Pennsylvania anthracite, the town of St. Clair in the early half of the 19th century seemed to be perfectly situated to provide fuel to the iron and steel industry that was the heart of the Industrial Revolution in America. It was a time of unprecedented promise and possibility for the region, and yet, in the years between 1830 and 1880, only grandiose illusions flourished there. St. Clair itself succumbed early on to a devastating economic blight, one that would in time affect anthracite mining everywhere. In this dramatic work of social history, Anthony F. C. Wallace re-creates St. Clair in those years when expectations collided with reality, when the coal trade was in chronic distress, exacerbated by the epic battles between the forces of labor and capital. As he did in his Bancroft Prize-winning Rockdale, Wallace uses public records and private papers to reconstruct the operation of an anthracite colliery and the life of a working-man’s town totally dependent upon it. He describes the labor hierarchy of the collieries, the communal spirit that sprang up in the outlying mine patches, the polyglot immigrant life in the taverns and churchs, and the workingmen’s societies that provided identity to the miners and gave relief to families in distress. He examines the birth of the first effective miners’ union and documents the escalating antagonism between Irish immigrant workers—mostly Catholic—and the Protestant middle classes who owned the collieries. Wallace reveals the blindness, greed, and self-congratulation of the mine owners and operators. These “heroes” of the entrepreneurial wars disregarded geologists’ warnings that the coal seams south of St. Clair were virtually inaccessible and, at best, extremely costly to mine, and then blamed their economic woes on the lack of a high tariff on imported British iron. To cut costs, they ignored the most basic and safety engineering practices and then blamed “the careless miner” and “Irish hooligans” for the catastrophic accidents that resulted. In thrall to a great dream of wealth and power, they plunged ahead to bankruptcy while the miners paid with their lives. St. Clair is a rich and illuminating work of scholarship—an engrossing portrait of a disaster-prone industry (a portrait that stands as a sober warning to the nuclear-power industry) and of the tragic hubris of a ruling class that brough ruin upon a Pennsylvania coal town at a crucial moment in its history.
Author: Sean Patrick Adams Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1040251331 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 394
Book Description
The emergence of coal-based fuel economy over the course of the nineteenth century was one of the most significant contributions the America’s Industrial Revolution, but the transition from wood to mineral energy sources was a gradual one that transpired over a number of decades. The documents in these volumes recreate the institutional history of the American coal industry in the nineteenth century; in doing so they provide a first-hand perspective on the developments in regard to political economy, business structure and competition, the rise of formal trade unions, and the creation of a national coal trade. Although the collection strives to be wide-ranging in region and theme, the Pennsylvania anthracite coal trade forms the thematic backbone as it became the most important American mineral resource to see successful development throughout the nineteenth century and consequently saw unprecedented levels of intervention by the federal government. The texts for this collection were selected for their accessibility to modern readers as well as their relationship to a series of common themes across the nineteenth century American coal industry — with headnotes and annotations provided to explain their context and the reasons for their inclusion.The third volume in this set traces the three decades following the American Civil War, during which time the use of coal for manufacturing, locomotives and domestic heating helped build a dynamic industrial economy in the United States. Mineral fuel growth powered the growth of the nation and by 1885 coal became the single most important source of American energy. Coal mining spread to nearly every corner of the nation in the half-century following the civil war. By the time of the Great Anthracite Strike in 1902, the American coal industry was a truly national phenomenon. The rise of large and well-funded mining and railroad corporations, the national unions, and the inroads by state governments into mine safety
Author: Christopher F. Jones Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674728890 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
The fossil fuel revolution is usually a tale of advances in energy production. Christopher Jones tells a tale of advances in energy access—canals, pipelines, wires delivering cheap, abundant power to cities at a distance from production sites. Between 1820 and 1930 these new transportation networks set the U.S. on a path to fossil fuel dependence.
Author: Robert B. Gordon Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0195354826 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 457
Book Description
While historians have given ample attention to stories of entrepreneurship, invention, and labor conflict, they have told us little about actual work-places and how people worked. Workers seldom wrote about their daily employment. However, they did leave behind their tools, products, shops, and factories as well as the surrounding industrial landscapes and communities. In this book, Gordon and Malone look at the industrialization of North America from the perspective of the industrial archaeologist. Using material evidence from such varied sites as Indian steatite quarries, automobile plants, and coal mines, they examine manufacturing technology, transportation systems, and the effects of industrialization on the land. Their research greatly expands our understanding of industry and focuses attention on the contributions of anonymous artisans whose skills shaped our industrial heritage.
Author: Thomas L. Dublin Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501707299 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
The anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania once prospered. Today, very little mining or industry remains, although residents have made valiant efforts to restore the fabric of their communities. In The Face of Decline, the noted historians Thomas Dublin and Walter Licht offer a sweeping history of this area over the course of the twentieth century. Combining business, labor, social, political, and environmental history, Dublin and Licht delve into coal communities to explore grassroots ethnic life and labor activism, economic revitalization, and the varied impact of economic decline across generations of mining families. The Face of Decline also features the responses to economic crisis of organized capital and labor, local business elites, redevelopment agencies, and state and federal governments. Dublin and Licht draw on a remarkable range of sources: oral histories and survey questionnaires; documentary photographs; the records of coal companies, local governments, and industrial development corporations; federal censuses; and community newspapers. The authors examine the impact of enduring economic decline across a wide region but focus especially on a small group of mining communities in the region's Panther Valley, from Jim Thorpe through Lansford to Tamaqua. The authors also place the anthracite region within a broader conceptual framework, comparing anthracite's decline to parallel developments in European coal basins and Appalachia and to deindustrialization in the United States more generally.
Author: Gerald L. McKerns Publisher: GERALD MCKERNS ISBN: 9781425753009 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 142
Book Description
The Black Rock That Built America explains how, on the backs of thousands of European immigrants, America was transformed from a mostly rural nation into the world's greatest industrial power. As the nation expanded in the nineteenth century, anthracite coal fueled the making of steel, the building of railroads, the operation of factories, and the heating of homes. This book tells of the struggles these immigrant miners endured while performing the grueling and dangerous work of extracting anthracite coal from the earth in order to earn their place in America.
Author: Jeffrey B. Webb Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: Category : Energy consumption Languages : en Pages : 1015
Book Description
"Contextualizes and analyzes the key energy transitions in U.S. history and the central importance of energy production and consumption on the American environment and in American culture and politics"--
Author: Howard Benjamin Powell
Author: Howard Benjamin Powell
Author: Philip S. Klein
Author: Sean Patrick Adams
Author: Anthony Wallace
Author: Sean Patrick Adams
Author: Christopher F. Jones
Author: Robert B. Gordon
Author: Thomas L. Dublin
Author: Gerald L. McKerns
Author: Jeffrey B. Webb