Author: Ulrich Keller
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486319253
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
This tale of an unprecedented technological advance unfolds in a compelling narrative of risks, hardships, disasters, and triumph. More than 160 historic photographs depict exotic settings, workers' housing, dredging operations, much more.
Author: Matthew Parker
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307472531
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 578
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Book Description
The Panama Canal was the costliest undertaking in history; its completion in 1914 marked the beginning of the “American Century.” Panama Fever draws on contemporary accounts, bringing the experience of those who built the canal vividly to life. Politicians engaged in high-stakes diplomacy in order to influence its construction. Meanwhile, engineers and workers from around the world rushed to take advantage of high wages and the chance to be a part of history. Filled with remarkable characters, Panama Fever is an epic history that shows how a small, fiercely contested strip of land made the world a smaller place and launched the era of American global dominance.
Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781505342482
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 44
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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the construction written by workers and their family members *Includes a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood..." - Theodore Roosevelt Most people have heard of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but while not as many have heard of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, those who have are aware that the Panama Canal is considered one of them. In a world where few natural rivers carved out over eons of time have reached a length of more than 50 miles, the idea that a group of men could carve a canal of that length seemed impossible. In fact, many thought it could not be done. On the other hand, there was a tremendous motivation to try, because if a canal could be successfully cut across Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, it would cut weeks off the time necessary to carry goods by sea from the well-established East Coast of the United States to the burgeoning West Coast. Moreover, traveling around the tip of South America was fraught with danger, and European explorers and settlers had proposed building a canal in Panama or Nicaragua several centuries before the Panama Canal was actually built. By the late 19th century, the French actually tried to build such a canal, only to fail after a great deal of resources were put into construction and after workers died of malaria and other illnesses. At the turn of the 20th century, not only was the need for a canal still there, but the right man was in the White House. Indeed, President Theodore Roosevelt, a celebrated outdoorsman, might have been the only president who could have foreseen and accomplished such an audacious feat, and even he considered it one of his crowning achievements. He wrote in his memoirs, "There are plenty of other things I started merely because the time had come that whoever was in power would have started them. But the Panama Canal would not have started if I had not taken hold of it, because if I had followed the traditional or conservative method I should have submitted an admirable state paper to Congress...the debate would be proceeding at this moment...and the beginning of work on the canal would be fifty years in the future. Fortunately [the opportunity] came at a period when I could act unhampered. Accordingly I took the Isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me." Building the Panama Canal was a herculean task in every sense. Taking about 10 years to build, workers had to excavate millions of cubic yards of earth and fight off hordes of insects to make Roosevelt's vision a reality. Roosevelt also had to tie up the U.S. Navy in a revolt in Colombia to ensure Panama could become independent and thus ensure America had control of the canal. By 1914, ships were finally traversing through the Panama Canal, just as World War I was about to start, and a century later, the Panama Canal remains one of the world's most vital waterways. The Panama Canal looks at the origins and history of the important trade link between the Atlantic and Pacific. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Panama Canal like never before, in no time at all.
Author: Neil Harris
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300070453
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
Drawing on sources including Masonic manuals, tourist guidebooks and religious texts, this illustrated study explores the rites of building passage over the past 150 years. The author suggests that architecture is a performing art as well as a fine art.
Author: Margarita Engle
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544109414
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 275
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Book Description
As the Panama Canal turns one hundred, Newbery Honor winner Margarita Engle tells the story of its creation in this powerful new YA historical novel in verse.
Author: Janet B. Pascal
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698171853
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 129
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Book Description
Before 1914, traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast meant going by land across the entire United States. To go by sea involved a long journey around South America and north along the Pacific Coast. But then, in a dangerous and amazing feat of engineering, a 48-mile-long channel was dug through Panama, creating the world’s most famous shortcut: the Panama Canal!
Author: Jaime Massot
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781981424832
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Revised Edition - April 2018: My great-grandfather, Pedro Hernández Díaz Leal, contract employee # 7604 was hired by the Isthmian Canal Commission (I. C. C.), and arrived at the Cristobal dock on October 21, 1907. As one of forty eight other workers, sailing from Vigo (Spain) and transported on the SS Taurus, Pedro was assigned to excavation work in the Culebra Cut. Because of the harsh living conditions for the Silver Payroll workers, Pedro elected to live in a jungle hut near the work area where he could hunt, fish, and plant his own food. A year and a half later, already settled and with enough savings, he purchased steamship tickets for his wife (Rosa) and their children (Julio and Genaro) who joined him in Panama in early 1909. Julio began working at the Culebra Cut, in 1910, as a water boy. Later, he was promoted to car repairman in Gorgona (1911) and machinist in Empire (1913). As the construction of the Canal advanced, the Hernández family moved to various labor camps in Gorgona, Empire, and Bas Obispo. After the opening of the Canal, they resided in La Boca and Balboa until 1950. This book takes us back to that historic period through postcards, tales, and facts. Some postcards from before 1904 (or after 1914) are also included. Because of space limitations, the longer titles on the postcards were shortened. The images presented in each chapter, more often than not, are in chronological order. This proved to be a very difficult task as they did not have dates present in them. Attached to each postcard is a text referring to the content or title of each photo. Some of the tales and facts written on the images sound inappropriate today, but that was the writing style back in 1900-1910s. A bibliography is included for those who wish to delve into the topics presented. This has been a fascinating experience. I hope that lovers of photography and history enjoy it, especially those whose ancestors worked in the Isthmian Canal Commission or lived in the Panama Canal Zone.
Author: Frederic Jennings Haskin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Canal de Panama
Languages : en
Pages : 450
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Book Description
Author: Marixa Lasso
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674984447
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
The Panama Canal's untold history—from the Panamanian point of view. Sleuth and scholar Marixa Lasso recounts how the canal’s American builders displaced 40,000 residents and erased entire towns in the guise of bringing modernity to the tropics. The Panama Canal set a new course for the modern development of Central America. Cutting a convenient path from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, it hastened the currents of trade and migration that were already reshaping the Western hemisphere. Yet the waterway was built at considerable cost to a way of life that had characterized the region for centuries. In Erased, Marixa Lasso recovers the history of the Panamanian cities and towns that once formed the backbone of the republic. Drawing on vast and previously untapped archival sources and personal recollections, Lasso describes the canal’s displacement of peasants, homeowners, and shop owners, and chronicles the destruction of a centuries-old commercial culture and environment. On completion of the canal, the United States engineered a tropical idyll to replace the lost cities and towns—a space miraculously cleansed of poverty, unemployment, and people—which served as a convenient backdrop to the manicured suburbs built exclusively for Americans. By restoring the sounds, sights, and stories of a world wiped clean by U.S. commerce and political ambition, Lasso compellingly pushes back against a triumphalist narrative that erases the contribution of Latin America to its own history.
Author: David McCullough
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 074320137X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 868
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Book Description
The National Book Award–winning epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal, a first-rate drama of the bold and brilliant engineering feat that was filled with both tragedy and triumph, told by master historian David McCullough. From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Truman, here is the national bestselling epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal. In The Path Between the Seas, acclaimed historian David McCullough delivers a first-rate drama of the sweeping human undertaking that led to the creation of this grand enterprise. The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. Applying his remarkable gift for writing lucid, lively exposition, McCullough weaves the many strands of the momentous event into a comprehensive and captivating tale. Winner of the National Book Award for history, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, and the Cornelius Ryan Award (for the best book of the year on international affairs), The Path Between the Seas is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, the history of technology, international intrigue, and human drama.
