“Railroaded - The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America” by Richard White. Available on Amazon for $11.44. The Kindle edition is slightly less.
There is so much wrong in this book. Richard White might “Know what happened”, but he doesn’t understand what happened. (Big difference.) He seems unable, or unwilling, to put the facts he dug up into any context. White definitely has an ax to grind. Unfortunately, he seems to let the ax grinding displace an honest historical account.
His main conclusion, first presented near the end of the book, and supported by not much of anything in the book, is that the transcontinental railroads were constructed too early in time, “Ahead of Need” as he puts it. This “Ahead of Need” construction caused all kinds of problems according to White. Mainly, he’s concerned that it denied the Native Tribes time they could have used to develop an acceptance of the inevitable (his word) settlement of North America by Europeans. This denial of time lead to more violent conflict between the Indians an
That sort of thing is called `revisionist history,’ and is usually indulged in by technologically ignorant academics who, having little knowledge of either past or present reality, write about what they think SHOULD have happened as a far better alternative to what did happen.
One fact that White apparently either disregarded or discounted - California and the area along the Columbia River were already well developed. If there had been an ocean between the banks of the Missouri River and the west slopes of the Sierras, would he have objected to somebody taking a government subsidy to build , not a ship, but an entire shipping line. Of course, there wouldn’t have been any Native Americans afloat in that ocean…
Having driven the major interstates paralleling all of the transcons I will say, right now, that, by comparison with Europe or Japan, a lot of the territory they were built through is still very sparsely populated. Those long strings of double stacks aren’t serving Winslow, Arizona or Laramie, Wyoming. They are moving product from the ports on the left coast to the consumers east of the Missouri River. By White’s logic, if the railroads had been built only when or after a need was proven at the spot where construction was taking place there would be huge gaps in the transcons and most commodities would still travel by ship - around the Horn, since the Panama Canal wouldn’t have been built (To the considerable detriment of the natives of Panama whose lands were flooded when the Chagres River was dammed.)
After careful consideration, I believe the author could be called a retroactive NIMBY, who won’t let a good fact get in the way of his opinion. If, while preparing documents which would be used by planners to make decisions, I had been as fast and loose with my interpretations of facts, I would have been court-martialed.
Excellent review by Greyhounds. Go the Amazon.com, bring up this book and read the reviews posted. You’d think this guy White discovered a whole new accurate interpretation of history.
Railroads back then were symbolic of American intuition, there’s a challenge before us, and when, not if, we conquor it who knows what else may lie before us. They did what was said couldn’t be done and the eventual benefit is one this country would never regret. They didn’t do it too early, it was a tad late! It brough bold new adventure to people, technology in railroading that would be the envy of the world. And is to this day.
That said, I would ask Mr. White was NASA too early?
White literally parades his lack of understanding with the following statement:
“…similar technologies and similar economies should produce similar corporations. Great Britain, France, and Prussia, however, did not replicate the American form of railroad organization, although each was a capitalist nation and each employed similar technologies.”
The facts are: 1) North America and Europe did not have “Similar Economies”. Europe was settled and had existing population/commercial centers. The US was largely unsettled with few, if any, such centers beyond the Atlantic seaboard. 2) The rail technologies used on each continent had a rapid and profound divergence from the beginning of railroading. An example of this divergence would be that rail cars in North America had (and have) eight wheels. European rail cars had four wheels. It may seem minor, but unless one understands the reason for this difference it is impossible to understand why the North American railroads developed differently than the European railroads.
In his book “The North American Railroad”, James E Vance Jr. understands and explains the difference between railroads in Britain and the US. T
I wonder how many of us had a family history of grandparents or great-grandparents locating in an area opened for development by railroad construction in the 19th Century? The area where my grandparents (both sides) finally settled was the direct result of the Southern Pacific (which for quite some time owned a lot of the land in the particular county and thus had a double incentive for development at the turn of the 20th Century).
Well, one reason White’s book is so troubling to me is that I did grow up in a small midwestern town made possible by some private investors building a developmental railroad. Manito, IL simply did not exist until the Illinois River Railroad showed up. There was no significant population in the area until the railroad made farming and the mutually supporting town possible. And this was in central Illinois which has some of the best farm land in the world. Two factoids: 1) The US has 1/4 of all the arable land in the world. 2) My father lived the Biblically promised 70 years. He lived most of those 70 years without electric lighting. They didn’t get electric power to his farm until 1947. He died 30 years later. He left farming and moved to town (with my mother!) the year I was born, 1950.
For those of you waiting with baited breath, my next intented book is “Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific and the Development of the American West” by Richard J. Orsi.
Orsi has a PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin and is now at Cal State, Hayward. He edits the quarterly publication of the Calfornia Historical Society. I understand he actually has some good things to say about the railroad. I need an antidote to Richard White’s poison pen, and Orsi’s book may be it. (Just as soon as I repair the Master Card account. Drat ebay and that mikado I reall
Well, there should be a good description of how my birth county (Imperial) was settled, then.
EDIT: Thanks for the reminder. I saw the Orsi book when it came out five years ago and didn’t pick it up before it disappeared from my B&N stores down here. Just ordered it online to add to the stack of waiting-to-be-read books.
No, it was the mikado that seduced me. I couldn’t help it I tell ya! I had to do it! I couldn’t stop myself! It wasn’t really my fault! I’m a victim I tell ya! A victim!
Seriously, as an infant I was brought home from the Big City Hospital to a home across the small town street from the Chicago & Illinois Midland. (Long ago, the Illinois River Railroad) My parents placed my baby crib by a window with a view of the railroad. My mother swore that I would pull myself up in the crib to watch the steam powered trains go past. I guess once it gets in your blood…
Some years later I began hanging out at the depot. It goes from there.
So, I want to build a C&IM model. I wanted every type of steam engine the C&IM had operating after I was born. The Mike was the last one I needed. I’ll start work on the layout with the first frost. I’m going to embelish a little and indulge my other railroad passion; LCL and containerized LCL. I’ve had to do some research on how to model a cornfield. An ex girlfriend once described Manito, IL to her niece as “This Little Town Surrounded by Corn.”