Kategoria BISAC: Transportation >> Railroads - History

In 1832, 57 Irish Catholic workers were brought to the United States to lay one of the most difficult miles of American railway, Duffy's Cut of the Pennsylvania Railroad. These men were chosen because, in the eyes of the railroad company that hired them, they were expendable. Deaths were common during the building of the railway but this stretch was worse than most. When cholera swept the camp basic medical attention and community support was denied to them. In the end all 57 men--the entire work crew--died and were buried in a mass unmarked grave. Their families in Ireland were never...

This book explores the nexus between railways and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) - the first modern war, and one in which the railways played a key part.

Felix Patrikeeff and Harry Shukman examine some of the key dimensions of the Russo-Japanese War, most notably how uncomfortably technological and human dimensions of Russia's war effort interleaved in the course of the conflict. They demonstrate how advantages that might have been built upon were squandered, blunt traditional forms and habits were applied in politically tortuous contexts, and technological edge negated by the...

Treating the German railway as both an iconic symbol of modernity and a crucial social, technological, and political force, Presner advances a groundbreaking interpretation of the ways in which mobility is inextricably linked to German and Jewish visions of modernity. Moving beyond the tired...

Desperate for laborers to keep the trains moving during World War II, the U.S. and Mexican governments created a now mostly forgotten bracero railroad program that sent a hundred thousand Mexican workers across the border to build and maintain railroad lines throughout the United States, particularly the West. Although both governments promised the workers adequate living arrangements and fair working conditions, most bracero railroaders lived in squalor, worked dangerous jobs, and were subject to harsh racial discrimination.

Making matters worse, the governments held a percentage...