Author: Grace Greylock Niles
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 638

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Author: Andrew R. Black
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807174092
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
The Hoosac railroad tunnel in the mountains of northwestern Massachusetts was a nineteenth-century engineering and construction marvel, on par with the Brooklyn Bridge, Transcontinental Railroad, and Erie Canal. The longest tunnel in the Western Hemisphere at the time (4.75 miles), it took nearly twenty-five years (1851‒1875), almost two hundred casualties, and tens of millions of dollars to build. Yet it failed to deliver on its grandiose promise of economic renewal for the commonwealth, and thus is little known today. Andrew R. Black’s Buried Dreams refreshes public memory of the project, explaining how a plan of such magnitude and cost came to be in the first place, what forces sustained its completion, and the factors that inhibited its success. Black digs into the special case of Massachusetts, a state disadvantaged by nature and forced repeatedly to reinvent itself to succeed economically. The Hoosac Tunnel was just one of the state’s efforts in this cycle of decline and rejuvenation, though certainly the strangest. Black also explores the intense rivalry among Eastern Seaboard states for the spoils of western expansion in the post‒Erie Canal period. His study interweaves the lure of the West, the competition between Massachusetts and archrival New York, the railroad boom and collapse, and the shifting ground of state and national politics. The psychic makeup of Americans before and after the Civil War heavily influenced public perceptions of the tunnel; by the time it was finished, Black contends, the indomitable triumphalism that had given birth to the Hoosac had faded to skepticism and cynicism. Anticipated economic benefits never arrived, and Massachusetts eventually sold the tunnel for only a fraction of its cost to a private railroad company. Buried Dreams tells a story of America’s reckoning with the perils of impractical idealism, the limits of technology to bend nature to its will, and grand endeavors untempered by humility.

Author: Grace Greylock Niles
Publisher: Wentworth Press
ISBN: 9781363292707
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bibliography
Languages : en
Pages : 956

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Author: Clark W. Bryan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Berkshire County (Mass.)
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Author: Grace Greylock Niles
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Author: Berkshire Historical and Scientific Society (Pittsfield, Mass.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Berkshire County (Mass.)
Languages : en
Pages : 916

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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Berkshire County (Mass.)
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Author: United States. Interstate Commerce Commission
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1240

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Author: John L. Brooke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521565646
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
This 1995 book presents an alternative and comprehensive understanding of the roots of Mormon religion.