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Author: Jack Kelly Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1137280093 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
A page-turning narrative, Heaven's Ditch offers an excitingly fresh look at a heady, foundational moment in American history. The technological marvel of its age, the Erie Canal grew out of a sudden fit of inspiration. Proponents didn't just dream; they built a 360-mile waterway entirely by hand and largely through wilderness. As excitement crackled down its length, the canal became the scene of the most striking outburst of imagination in American history. Zealots invented new religions and new modes of living. The Erie Canal made New York the financial capital of America and brought the modern world crashing into the frontier. Men and women saw God face to face, gained and lost fortunes, and reveled in a period of intense spiritual creativity. Heaven's Ditch by Jack Kelly illuminates the spiritual and political upheavals along this "psychic highway" from its opening in 1825 through 1844. "Wage slave" Sam Patch became America's first celebrity daredevil. William Miller envisioned the apocalypse. Farm boy Joseph Smith gave birth to Mormonism, a new and distinctly American religion. Along the way, the reader encounters America's very first "crime of the century," a treasure hunt, searing acts of violence, a visionary cross-dresser, and a panoply of fanatics, mystics, and hoaxers.
Author: Jack Kelly Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1137280093 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
A page-turning narrative, Heaven's Ditch offers an excitingly fresh look at a heady, foundational moment in American history. The technological marvel of its age, the Erie Canal grew out of a sudden fit of inspiration. Proponents didn't just dream; they built a 360-mile waterway entirely by hand and largely through wilderness. As excitement crackled down its length, the canal became the scene of the most striking outburst of imagination in American history. Zealots invented new religions and new modes of living. The Erie Canal made New York the financial capital of America and brought the modern world crashing into the frontier. Men and women saw God face to face, gained and lost fortunes, and reveled in a period of intense spiritual creativity. Heaven's Ditch by Jack Kelly illuminates the spiritual and political upheavals along this "psychic highway" from its opening in 1825 through 1844. "Wage slave" Sam Patch became America's first celebrity daredevil. William Miller envisioned the apocalypse. Farm boy Joseph Smith gave birth to Mormonism, a new and distinctly American religion. Along the way, the reader encounters America's very first "crime of the century," a treasure hunt, searing acts of violence, a visionary cross-dresser, and a panoply of fanatics, mystics, and hoaxers.
Author: Peter L. Bernstein Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393340201 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 448
Book Description
New York Times Bestseller The epic account of how one narrow ribbon of water forever changed the course of American history. The history of the Erie Canal is a riveting story of American ingenuity. A great project that Thomas Jefferson judged to be “little short of madness,” and that others compared with going to the moon, soon turned into one of the most successful and influential public investments in American history. In Wedding of the Waters, best-selling author Peter L. Bernstein recounts the canal’s creation within the larger tableau of a youthful America in the first quarter-century of the 1800s. Leaders of the fledgling nation had quickly recognized that the Appalachian mountain range was a formidable obstacle to uniting the Atlantic states with the vast lands of the west. A pathway for commerce as well as travel was critical to the security and expansion of the Revolution’s unprecedented achievement. Gripped by the same fever that had driven explorers such as Hudson and Champlain, a motley assortment of politicians, surveyors, and would-be engineers set out to build a complex structure of a type few of them had ever actually seen, let alone built or operated: a manmade waterway cut through the mountains to traverse the 363 miles between Lake Erie and the Hudson River. By linking the seas to the interior and the interior to the seas, these pioneers ultimately connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. Bernstein examines the social ramifications, political squabbles, and economic risks and returns of this mammoth project. He goes on to demonstrate how the canal’s creation helped bind the western settlers in the new lands to their fellow Americans in the original colonies, knitted the sinews of the American industrial revolution, and even influenced profound economic change in Europe. Featuring a rich cast of characters that includes political visionaries like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin van Buren; the canal’s most powerful champions, Governor DeWitt Clinton and Gouverneur Morris; and a huge platoon of Irish and American diggers, Wedding of the Waters reveals that the twenty-first-century themes of urbanization, economic growth, and globalization can all be traced to the first great macroengineering venture of American history.
Author: Carol Sheriff Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 9780809016051 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
The story of the Eric Canal is the story of industrial and economic progress between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The Artificial River reveals the human dimension of the story of the Erie Canal. Carol Sheriff's extensive, innovative archival research shows the varied responses of ordinary people-farmers, businessmen, government officials, tourists, workers-to this major environmental, social, and cultural transformation in the early life of the Republic. Winner of Best Manuscript Award from the New York State Historical Association "The Artificial River is deeply researched, its arguments are both subtle and clear, and it is written with grace and an engagingly light touch. The book merits a wide readership." --Paul Johnson, The Journal of American History
Author: Andrew P. Kitzmann Publisher: Arcadia Publishing ISBN: 9780738562001 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 132
Book Description
The Erie Canal was completed in 1825 and became the backbone of an economic and cultural explosion that defined the image of New York. The canal's development spurred successful industry and a booming economy, sparking massive urban growth in an area that was previously virtually unexplored wilderness. People poured west into this new space, drawn by the ability to ship goods along the canal to the Hudson River, New York City, and the world beyond. Erie Canal is a compilation of 200 vintage images from the Erie Canal Museum's documentary collection of New York's canal system. Vintage postcards depict life and industry along the canal, including not only the Erie itself but also the lateral and feeder canals that completed the state-wide system.
Author: William Chazanof Publisher: Syracuse Unbound ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
In 1800, the Holland Land Company assigned surveyor Joseph Ellicott the task of selling at a profit 3.3 million acres of land west of the Genesee River in New York State. By 1821, when Ellicott’s career as Resident-Agent ended, the area’s population had grown from only a few settlers to over 100,000. This study traces the evolution of western New York from the time the Indians relinquished control to the solidification of institutional life. As a land promoter in the wilderness, Joseph Ellicott quickly discovered that business and politics went hand in hand, for the factors that affected land sales were frequently political. Although his contract with the Holland Land Company expressly forbade it, he became deeply involved in the political life of western New York, playing a decisive role in the creation of Genesee County and its further divisions into four counties. Ellicott used his influence to advance the Erie Canal project, particularly from Rochester westward, and persuaded the state legislature to grant a charter for the Bank of Niagara. Although the rest of the state fluctuated in its political preferences, from his base in Batavia he kept western New York loyal to the Republican Party, building up close relations with DeWitt Clinton. During his long career, Ellicott made many enemies. The postwar nationalists resented him as the agent of the Dutch-owned company. Taxpayers fought him because he blocked a road tax on land owned by nonresidents; his employers were irritated when he could not persuade the state to buy Holland Land Company property; his increasing melancholy angered customers; and his break with Clinton during the 1820 gubernatorial campaign set off a chain reaction of political pressures that led to his dismissal as Resident-Agent the next year. Ellicott direct in 1826. Based on extensive research in the Holland Land Company Papers in Amsterdam’s City Archives, Professor Chazanof’s study presents a previously unexplored part of the political history of New York State on regional, national, and international levels. Illustrations and maps are included.
Author: Gerard Koeppel Publisher: Da Capo Press ISBN: 0786745444 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 485
Book Description
In this elegantly written and far-reaching narrative, acclaimed author Gerard Koeppel tells the astonishing story of the creation of the Erie Canal and the memorable characters who turned a visionary plan into a successful venture. Koeppel's long years of research fill the pages with new findings about the construction of the canal and its enormous impact, providing a unique perspective on America's self perception as an empire destined to expand to the Pacific.
Author: Frederick Jackson Turner Publisher: ISBN: 9781614275725 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 32
Book Description
2014 Reprint of 1894 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. The "Frontier Thesis" or "Turner Thesis," is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1894 that American democracy was formed by the American Frontier. He stressed the process-the moving frontier line-and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. He also stressed consequences of a ostensibly limitless frontier and that American democracy and egalitarianism were the principle results. In Turner's thesis the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles, nor for landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents. Frontier land was free for the taking. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. He won very wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. Turner's emphasis on the importance of the frontier in shaping American character influenced the interpretation found in thousands of scholarly histories. By the time Turner died in 1932, 60% of the leading history departments in the U.S. were teaching courses in frontier history along Turnerian lines.
Author: Jack Kelly
Author: Jack Kelly
Author: Peter L. Bernstein
Author: Richard O. Reisem
Author: Carol Sheriff
Author: Walter Basil Langbein
Author: Andrew P. Kitzmann
Author: William Chazanof
Author: Henry O'Reilly
Author: Gerard Koeppel
Author: Frederick Jackson Turner