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And at 10:34 A.M., Henry Morrison Flagler, his back bent with age and his dim eyes brimming with tears, stepped out onto Car 91’s observation platform to an ovation the likes of which he had never encountered. He had “ridden his own iron” to Key West at last. The mayor of Key West welcomed him with a fulsome speech and, on behalf of the citizenry,
... See moreLes Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
Jim Hill now focused nearly his entire attention on organizing the Pacific Extension.
Michael P. Malone • James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest (The Oklahoma Western Biographies Book 12)
in June 1894 that a remarkable 192 U.S. railroads, owning fully one-fourth of the rail mileage in the country, had fallen into receivership. Among these were the wobbly NP, which went down in August 1893, the equally shaky UP, and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, now under the tutelage of Hill protégé Alan Manvel.
Michael P. Malone • James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest (The Oklahoma Western Biographies Book 12)
The Civil War came. Ironically, it was in the Senate, scene of the great—and for decades successful—efforts to preserve the Union, that the fuse was lit that did so much to blow it apart. In 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, to get a railroad built that would benefit his Illinois constituents, persuaded his Senate Committee on Territories to report
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
“cliometrics” or economic history.
Charles R. Morris • The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy
Princeton is very polite. And it elicits rage. Until 2020 the policy school was named after avowed racist, and former president of both the university and the United States, Woodrow Wilson. The students who protested the name of the school in the late 2010s called themselves the Black Justice League. The “BJL” posted Wilson’s racist words around
... See moreImani Perry • South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
Andy Jackson and Abe Lincoln!”
Jon Meacham • The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
He now became one of the first men in the business to see the looming shadows of coming events and to act accordingly. Assessing the status of his prosperous regional railroad, he came to see it as one component in an evolving national transportation system. The day of prosperous, independent, regional roads must soon end; the future lay in
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