Slave Labor on Virginia's Blue Ridge Railroad

2020
 |  History
Slave Labor on Virginia's Blue Ridge Railroad

Author: Mary E. Lyons

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

ISBN: 9781467144902

Category: History

Page: 160

View: 988

Get eBOOK →
Between 1849 and 1859, Virginia raced to pierce the Blue Ridge Mountains by rail and reach the Ohio River. At least 300 enslaved people labored involuntarily toward that goal, along with 1,500 Irish immigrants. The state leased the labor of enslaved Virginians from local slaveholders, including four connected with nearby University of Virginia. Blue Ridge Tunnel and Blue Ridge Railroad historian Mary E. Lyons explored hundreds of primary documents to write the first nonfiction book about slave labor on a specific antebellum railroad. She shares hundreds of enslaved people's names, traces where they toiled along the line and describes their backbreaking--and sometimes fatal--tasks.

Virginia Blue Ridge Railroad, The

2015
 |  History
Virginia Blue Ridge Railroad, The

Author: Mary E. Lyons

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

ISBN: 9781467118934

Category: History

Page: 176

View: 276

Get eBOOK →
In 1849, Virginia began a bold railroad expansion toward the Ohio River and its lucrative trade connections. The project's plan covered 423 miles and called for piercing two mountain chains with three railroads. The Blue Ridge Railroad was the shortest of these but crossed the most mountainous terrain. At times, hired slaves, who prepared the tracks, and Irish immigrants, who blasted the tunnels, faced challenges that seemed almost insurmountable. Many were killed by explosions and falling rock. Those deaths often resulted in labor strikes. The unrest slowed progress and haunted chief engineer Claudius Crozet for seven years. In this first full-length history of the Blue Ridge Railroad, award-winning author Mary E. Lyons uses a wealth of historical documents to describe construction on what Crozet called "dangerous ground."

Railroads in the Old South

2009-03-10
 |  History
Railroads in the Old South

Author: Aaron W. Marrs

Publisher: JHU Press

ISBN: 9780801891304

Category: History

Page: 289

View: 526

Get eBOOK →
Aaron W. Marrs challenges the accepted understanding of economic and industrial growth in antebellum America with this original study of the history of the railroad in the Old South. Drawing from both familiar and overlooked sources, such as the personal diaries of Southern travelers, papers and letters from civil engineers, corporate records, and contemporary newspaper accounts, Marrs skillfully expands on the conventional business histories that have characterized scholarship in this field. He situates railroads in the fullness of antebellum life, examining how slavery, technology, labor, social convention, and the environment shaped their evolution. Far from seeing the Old South as backward and premodern, Marrs finds evidence of urban life, industry, and entrepreneurship throughout the region. But these signs of progress existed alongside efforts to preserve traditional ways of life. Railroads exemplified Southerners' pursuit of progress on their own terms: developing modern transportation while retaining a conservative social order. Railroads in the Old South demonstrates that a simple approach to the Old South fails to do justice to its complexity and contradictions. -- Dr. Owen Brown and Dr. Gale E. Gibson

Virginia's Blue Ridge

2003
 |  Blue Ridge Mountains
Virginia's Blue Ridge

Author: Mary Alice Blackwell

Publisher: Insiders' Guide

ISBN: 0762725125

Category: Blue Ridge Mountains

Page: 586

View: 681

Get eBOOK →
The Shenandoah Valley conjures up a beautiful landscape and a resonant Civil War history. This guide delivers the best experiences in the area, peak to peak, from wonderful mountain flowers and streams, to rolling farmlands and white clapboard chapels to tales of invention, scholarship, and military encounters. Maps. Photos.

The Insiders' Guide to Virginia's Blue Ridge

1995-10
 |  Blue Ridge Mountains
The Insiders' Guide to Virginia's Blue Ridge

Author: Lin Chaff

Publisher: Falcon Guides

ISBN: 0912367849

Category: Blue Ridge Mountains

Page: 552

View: 660

Get eBOOK →
Virginia's Blue Ridge -- a land of majestic mountains, beauty and tranquility where people still wave to strangers on backcountry roads; where children and the family dog still swim with patched inner tubes in pristine creeks; where luscious parks, forests, fields, streams and slopes invite you to hike, canoe, camp, fish or swim to your heart's content. You will love discovering Virginia's Blue Ridge with the definitive guide-book to the region.