Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1993
Abstract
Albro Martin has authored a masterful account of the pivotal role of railroads in shaping American economic and social life. The foremost historian of American railroads, Martin examines the emergence of the railroad system in the antebellum era, the growth of the great transcontinental lines, and the numerous difficulties experienced by railroads in the twentieth century. He pictures the railroads as agents of change, noting that railroads were instrumental in opening the prairie states for settlement, facilitating industrialization, and forging a national market for goods. As America's first big business, the railroads also compelled the formulation of new legal rules for torts, labor relations, interstate commerce, eminent domain, and equity receiverships. Moreover, the author treats the strategic wartime significance of the railroads from the Civil War through World War II.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 13:3 (Summer 1993). Copyright © 1993 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.