Pack-horsemen smashing the first wagons on the Alleghany trails, turnpike companies selling toll shares, canal boatmen racing steamboat promoters, and the Livingston–Fulton monopoly on the Hudson: Hulbert follows the routes by which goods and settlers crossed America before the railroad. His argument, set out in the preface, is that every problem in building the Republic was at bottom a problem of transportation.
A compact volume of Yale’s Chronicles of America series, ideal for readers curious about roads, rivers and the economics of westward growth. Download the free EPUB.