Transportation

This long-awaited study, the magnum opus of a leading railroad historian, describes the conception, construction, and early operation of the first narrow gauge railroads in northern California. It is lavishly illustrated by some 600 photographs and drawings, almost three-quarters of which have never before been published.

The topic is approached through an unusual lens: the history of the relatively small but extraordinarily inventive contracting and engineering firm of the brothers Thomas and Martin Carter. The Carters were able to reduce the cost and complexity of light railroad construction to the point where local narrow gauge lines could initially compete with the state’s notorious railroad monopolies.

Pioneering a mobile manufacturing operation that could supply locally funded short lines with rolling stock (which traditionally came from East Coast manufacturers), the Carter Brothers began with a line to serve Salinas Valley wheat farmers, desperate to achieve an independent means for conveying their crops to the wharf in Monterey. The narrow gauge railroad that resulted was an act of political and economic defiance, but ultimately a hopeless assault on the "Octopus"—the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads.

Rallying around the example set in Monterey, a narrow gauge movement in California flourished in the mid-1870s, with the rapid launching of five more companies—the North Pacific Coast, the Santa Cruz Railroad, the Santa Cruz & Felton, the Nevada County Narrow Gauge, and the South Pacific Coast—all of which drew on the Carter Brothers for manufacturing and engineering. Soon, Thomas and Martin Carter were not only selling railroad supplies and engineering to all six short lines, but had won management positions with the strongest, the South Pacific Coast. Until personal and financial disaster overtook them in 1880, the Carters were at the forefront of not just a new business, but a new technology.

This is the first English translation of a monumental account of American railroads (and canals) in the years 1838-1839. Its author, Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner, was Europe's leading authority on railroad construction, and he conducted his study at the behest of the Russian government, which rightly felt that the United States would provide a more suitable model for the construction of a Russian railroad system than England. For a century and a half, Gerstner's Die innern Communicationen has been recognized as by far the most comprehensive and detailed work on the development, construction, finance, and operation of early American railroads and canals, enriched by accounts of the pioneering men who were involved in the enterprise that was to transform the century.

Most of the technological data presented is to be found nowhere else; for example, virtually every technique for constructing the various kinds of track is explained and illustrated by line drawings. Gerstner supplemented his first-hand observations of every railroad in the United States with data from transportation companies and government documents, including the amounts, dimensions, and kinds of rolling stock, personnel, funds dispersed, revenues collected, ton-miles of freight, and seat-miles of passengers. Throughout, Gerstner's insights and commentary reflect his vast experience and knowledge of railroads (he built what is often called the first railroad on the European continent and the first Russian railroad).

Gerstner went beyond technology to examine the management and organization of railroads and canals and to review the structures and responsibilities of state boards for the oversight of transportation firms. In addition, he included vivid accounts of many aspects of American culture, such as early "Jim Crowism," with blacks traveling in baggage cars rather than coaches, and the horrific working conditions of both free laborers and slaves (the highly profitable Tallahassee Railroad owned its own slaves for working on the line). All in all, the publication in English of Gerstner's encyclopedic work is a major event in the economic and transportation history of the United States.

This masterful, richly illustrated account of the planning and building of the most important and influential early American railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, is an essential contribution not only to railyway history but also to the broader history of the development of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century.

There was no precedent for the building of the B&O. The construction of the 380-mile line from Baltimore to the Ohio River over a period of 25 years is an epic story of astute planning and innovative engineering that overcame many formidable obstacles, notably the arduous traversing of 200 miles of mountain wilderness. Its successful inauguration provided a spur to internal improvements throughout the United States. Railroads, and certainly the B&O, epitomized progress, not only in the development and extension of the Western frontier but in the revelation that personal travel and the delivery of freight could be dramatically faster, better, and cheaper.

The railroad deeply affected the development of Baltimore's port, industry, and urban geography, as well as its financial, educational, and cultural institutions. George Peabody, Enoch Pratt, William Walters, and Johns Hopkins—the city's most prominent philanthropists—were involved with the B&O, some intimately; the Johns Hopkins University was founded on B&O Railroad stock. The B&O also contributed by aiding in the growth of the state's iron and coal industries.

The B&O came to be called "the Railroad University of the United States." Its civil engineers formed the core of the railroad engineering profession in America. The company's annual reports during the building of the line were, according to the American Railroad Journal in 1835, "a textbook and their road and workshops have been as a lecture room to thousands."

Throughout, the author highlights the many types of men who were involved in that history: promoters, financiers, politicians, lawyers, newspaper editors, fixers and bagmen, civil engineers, inventors and mechanics, foremen, contractors, and feuding Irish laborers, who together built the first long-distance, general-purpose railroad in the United States.

The book is illustrated with 80 photographs and drawings and 5 maps.

This masterful, richly illustrated account of the planning and building of the most important and influential early American railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, is an essential contribution not only to railyway history but also to the broader history of the development of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century.

There was no precedent for the building of the B&O. The construction of the 380-mile line from Baltimore to the Ohio River over a period of 25 years is an epic story of astute planning and innovative engineering that overcame many formidable obstacles, notably the arduous traversing of 200 miles of mountain wilderness. Its successful inauguration provided a spur to internal improvements throughout the United States. Railroads, and certainly the B&O, epitomized progress, not only in the development and extension of the Western frontier but in the revelation that personal travel and the delivery of freight could be dramatically faster, better, and cheaper.

The railroad deeply affected the development of Baltimore's port, industry, and urban geography, as well as its financial, educational, and cultural institutions. George Peabody, Enoch Pratt, William Walters, and Johns Hopkins—the city's most prominent philanthropists—were involved with the B&O, some intimately; the Johns Hopkins University was founded on B&O Railroad stock. The B&O also contributed by aiding in the growth of the state's iron and coal industries.

The B&O came to be called "the Railroad University of the United States." Its civil engineers formed the core of the railroad engineering profession in America. The company's annual reports during the building of the line were, according to the American Railroad Journal in 1835, "a textbook and their road and workshops have been as a lecture room to thousands."

Throughout, the author highlights the many types of men who were involved in that history: promoters, financiers, politicians, lawyers, newspaper editors, fixers and bagmen, civil engineers, inventors and mechanics, foremen, contractors, and feuding Irish laborers, who together built the first long-distance, general-purpose railroad in the United States.

The book is illustrated with 80 photographs and drawings and 5 maps.

This 50-year saga of the "Weary Erie" goes far beyond describing in brilliant detail the turbulent last decades of a colorful, spunky, and innovative railroad. As the author vividly shows, the Erie possessed an uncommonly interesting history. For a brief time, it was the longest rail artery in the United States, hailed as "the most stupendous engineering feat ever attempted in America." It pioneered many innovations even after its opening in 1851, notably with the use of the telegraph for traffic control.

The present volume also tells us much about what happened to American railroading, especially in the East, during this period: technological change, government over-regulation, corporate mergers, union "featherbedding," uneven executive leadership, and changing patterns of travel and business. Step by step, the author reveals how the problems faced by the Erie became so numerous and complex that financial collapse and liquidation were inevitable results.

Throughout, the author draws on the abundant records of the Erie and Erie Lackawanna and on dozens of interviews with employees, bankers, lawyers, and industry official who cooperated in telling the story of the Erie's last years "the way it was." The book is illustrated with 45 photographs and drawings and 4 maps.

One of the most colorful yet neglected eras in American transportation history is re-created in this definitive history of the electric interurbans. Built with the idea of attracting short-distance passenger traffic and light freight, the interurbans were largely constructed in the early 1900s. The rise of the automobile and motor transport caused the industry to decline after World War I, and the depression virtually annihilated the industry by the middle 1930s.

Part I describes interurban construction, technology, passenger and freight traffic, financial history, and final decline and abandonment. Part II presents individual histories (with route maps) of the more than 300 companies of the interurban industry.

Reviews

"A first-rate work of such detail and discernment that it might well serve as a model for all corporate biographies. . . . A wonderfully capable job of distillation."

—Trains

"Few economic, social, and business historians can afford to miss this definitive study."

—Mississippi Valley Historical Review

"All seekers after nostalgia will be interested in this encyclopedic volume on the days when the clang, clang of the trolley was the most exciting travel sound the suburbs knew."

—Harper's Magazine

"A fascinating and instructive chapter in the history of American transportation."

—Journal of Economic History

"The hint that behind the grand facade of scholarship lies an expanse of boyish enthusiasm is strengthened by a lovingly amassed and beautifully reproduced collection of 37 photographs."

—The Nation

This is the first comprehensive account of the capsizing in 1915 of the steamer Eastland, an accident that killed more than 800 men, women, and children—the worst disaster of any kind in the history of Chicago and the worst in the history of the Great Lakes.

Reviews

"Hilton has written a comprehensive and exhaustive study of the worst disaster in Chicago's history. . . . Alterations and the addition of more lifeboats and rafts after the Titanic sank made the Eastland so unstable that it rolled over in the Chicago River. . . . The vessel's entire career is examined, and . . . the disaster itself is meticulously described and analyzed. Hilton also critically evaluates the subsequent civil and criminal court proceedings, raising a number of issues relating to marine safety regulations and the compensation of the victims' families."

—Choice

"Irony and tragedy combine in this account of America's worst marine disaster. . . . Hilton constructs a careful account of the events leading up to the calamity. The disaster itself is recounted minute by minute. . . . The numerous illustrations and period photographs, as well as numerous appendixes, make this a definitive account."

—Library Journal

"This is the book on the Eastland."

—Inland Seas

"It contains vivid accounts of drownings and rescues, heroism and cowardice."

—Chicago Tribune

The Cadillac story is more than the story of a car company. It is, in many ways, the story of the American automobile industry itself— which, as much as any industry, drove America’s growth in the twentieth century and defined who we are as a people: mobile and prosperous. Cadillac, again and again, played a critical role in that story, for both good and ill.

In the depths of the Great Depression, the brand redefined itself and the luxury market. After World War II, it epitomized expansive prosperity. Then, in the 1980s, it epitomized the industrial crisis that had suddenly overtaken America. Today, Cadillac’s struggle to survive in a furiously competitive—and suddenly international—automobile industry mirrors the challenges facing American industry as a whole. Its success in meeting those challenges will have much to say about the future of American industry and of General Motors.

Lincoln’s heritage is as rich as that of any car built anywhere in the world, and more impressive than all but a few. The Continental produced in the 1940s was one of the first cars to be universally recognized by classic car cognoscenti. The list of Lincoln-built cars in the postwar era certified with classic—or comparable “milestone”— status by various sanctioning bodies is likewise lengthy. The Mark II tops that list, but the slab-sided Continental sedans of the 1960s led the industry in design, and the forthcoming Mark 9 promises to continue the tradition.

In recent years, Lincoln has risen from an also-ran in the sales race to a leadership role opposite arch-rival Cadillac. Today, it is vying for preeminence in what has suddenly become an international market. Along the way, the cars have been unfailingly interesting, frequently magnificent and—in several instances—quite literally legends in their own time.

Few cars in history have grabbed the public’s fancy as much as the ill-fated Edsel—the Titanic of automobiles, a marketing disaster whose magnitude has made it a household word. Remarkably, there has never before been a book that tells the whole story—how the Edsel was planned, created, produced, and marketed.

This richly illustrated book is the result of years of research by an award-winning automotive historian with access to the dark reaches of the Ford Motor Company’s archives. The author also interviewed most of the original key Edsel design team stylists, who have supplied additional archival material. The result is a unique history of the Edsel program from the initial discussions in the late 1940s, through the first sketches in the mid-1950s, to the last, unlamented 1960 models.

The Edsel story, however, deals with much more than a new brand of car. It was a key component in a deadly serious corporate undertaking at Ford Motor Company following World War II. Ford wanted to remedy years of mismanagement and return the company to parity with General Motors by dramatically expanding Ford’s presence in the burgeoning medium-priced field. The Edsel was the most spectacular failure in that effort, but was only one pawn in a complex, high-stakes chess game that was a thoroughgoing disaster from start to finish.

In the case of the Edsel, the failure was the result of almost too many factors to count: poorly conceived marketing, contentious internal corporate politics, bad quality control, and, ultimately, lack of support at the higher reaches of the corporation. The greatest irony of all, though, is that the Edsel—as this book demonstrates in its surprising conclusion—was actually a modest success that deserved continued management support.

This lavishly illustrated book explores the vast publicity surrounding eight milestone transcontinental auto trips in the early twentieth century, and how this publicity produced a variety of changes in American life. Earlier coast-to-coast trips (described in the author's Coast-to-Coast by Automobile: The Pioneering Trips, 1899-1908 (Stanford, 2000) were also attention-grabbing events, but it was not until Pennsylvania lumberman Jacob Murdock became the first man to drive his family across the continent, that the average American began to see the automobile as a useful, practical means of traveling long distances. Murdock's trip ended the period when automakers (and others) would sponsor a cross-country trip merely to prove that it could be done. The later trips chronicled in this book reflected the remarkable developments in automobile technology and durability, and demonstrated the automobile's recreational, military, and commercial possibilities as well. The accounts of these exciting trips—carried in newspapers and magazines across the land—captivated Americans. Our familiarity with modern interstate highways only increases our wonder that in the early twentieth century adventurous motorists were resourceful and determined enough to establish cross-country driving records when the few roads connecting cities were snow-clogged in winter, mud-bogged in spring, and pockmarked with deep and dusty ruts the rest of the year. These trips, which vividly illustrated what one observer called the "crying need for good roads" in the United States, are illustrated by some 125 rare photographs.

In late 1910, three American adventurers set off on a remarkable around-the-world journey by automobile. Sponsored by the Hupp Motor Car Corporation, the trip was intended to publicize the durability of the Hupmobile and help stimulate export sales.

The car was first driven from Detroit to San Francisco—a very difficult journey in its own right in 1910. From San Francisco, the car and its drivers took a steamship to Hawaii, and from there to Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, unloading and touring at each port of call. The men and their machine spent the next five weeks attempting to drive through the Philippines, and then pushed on to Japan and China, where they managed to stay one step ahead of the Chinese revolution. They then drove across India, and from there, sailed to Egypt, brining the first automobile ever to be seen in that country. Next, the Hupmobilists sailed to Italy. In Rome, the adventurers met Pope Pius X, and then drove north to Germany and France. They crossed the English Channel to Folkstone, toured England, and then ferried from Liverpool to Ireland. They returned to New York in time for the 1912 auto show.

In the end, the Hupmobile was driven 41,000 miles and transported by steamship another 28,000. A new world was dawning, both for transportation and for American business enterprise.