In this Book
- Railroads in the Old South: Pursuing Progress in a Slave Society
- Book
- 2009
- Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
summary
Aaron W. Marrs challenges the accepted understanding of economic and industrial growth in antebellum America with this original study of the history of the railroad in the Old South. Drawing from both familiar and overlooked sources, such as the personal diaries of Southern travelers, papers and letters from civil engineers, corporate records, and contemporary newspaper accounts, Marrs skillfully expands on the conventional business histories that have characterized scholarship in this field. He situates railroads in the fullness of antebellum life, examining how slavery, technology, labor, social convention, and the environment shaped their evolution. Far from seeing the Old South as backward and premodern, Marrs finds evidence of urban life, industry, and entrepreneurship throughout the region. But these signs of progress existed alongside efforts to preserve traditional ways of life. Railroads exemplified Southerners' pursuit of progress on their own terms: developing modern transportation while retaining a conservative social order.Railroads in the Old South demonstrates that a simple approach to the Old South fails to do justice to its complexity and contradictions.
Table of Contents
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- Title Page
- pp. i-iii
- Copyright Page
- p. iv
- Dedication
- pp. v-vi
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xii
- List of Abbreviations
- p. xiii
- Introduction
- pp. 1-10
- ONE: Dreams
- pp. 11-30
- TWO: Knowledge
- pp. 31-54
- THREE: Sweat
- pp. 55-83
- FOUR: Structure
- pp. 84-105
- FIVE: Motion
- pp. 106-134
- SIX: Passages
- pp. 135-161
- SEVEN: Communities
- pp. 162-191
- Epilogue: Memory
- pp. 192-198
- Essay on Sources
- pp. 255-260
Additional Information
ISBN
9781421427928
Related ISBN(s)
9780801891304, 9780801898457
MARC Record
OCLC
647891299
Pages
288
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC-ND