I am reading Stephen Ambrose's Nothing Like it in the World for the second or third time.
Ambrose states that the number of ties for one portion of the construction was 2,250 per mile. In another sentence he says it was 2,500 ties per mile. I believe modern mainline track has 3,000 ties per mile.
Is Ambrose correct regarding the number of ties that were laid for at least portions of the first transcontinental railroad?
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
JPS1I am reading Stephen Ambrose's Nothing Like it in the World for the second or third time. Ambrose states that the number of ties for one portion of the construction was 2,250 per mile. In another sentence he says it was 2,500 ties per mile. I believe modern mainline track has 3,000 ties per mile. Is Ambrose correct regarding the number of ties that were laid for at least portions of the first transcontinental railroad?
24 inch center spacing would give 2640 ties per mile. 20 inch spacing would give 3168 ties per mile. 30 inch spacing would give 2112 ties per mile.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The number of ties/mile varied as to the degree of curvature; the spacing varied according to the curvature: 2' center to center is 2,641; 2 1/2' center to center is 2,113; 2 3/4 center to center is 1,931; and, 3' center to center is 1,761. Galloway in his book The First transcontinental Railroad (1950) on pg. 142 states the tie number/mile varied from 2,260/mile to 2,640/ mile implying a 2 1/2' spacing down to a (2,260 divided by 2,640 times 2 1/2) is about 2' spacing. The 1878 Guide recommends 16 ties/30' rail' (pg 9) not less than 2' spacing with 10" spacing tie edge to tie edge at the rail joints. —Charles N. Sweet
(As an aside: original construction in the 1860s appears to have put a tie directly under each rail joint, as opposed to the 1878 construction. This changes the count somewhat.)
you may want to consider Factual errors and disputed characterizations
I assume many historians may unintentionally color what they write which shouldn't diminish an enjoyable read.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Does it really, really, matter how many ties per mile were laid on the Transcontinental Railroad? Look at the accomplishment, not the inconsequentials.
We could wind up like medieval monks arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Firelock76Does it really, really, matter how many ties per mile were laid on the Transcontinental Railroad?
All things considered, no. Certainly not something that needs an in depth discussion running to several pages.
As a waypoint along the way to modern railroading, it's an interesting footnote. The loading was a lot lighter then, too.
I've noticed before when looking at images of rail construction during that period that the ties were spread out a lot more than we're used to today. Economically, it probably made sense to do so. Saving even 100-200 ties per mile would be a significant cost reduction, and even if the standard of the day were closer to 3000 ties per mile, they could always go back later (if the line were profitable) and upgrade.
Consider, too, that those ties had to be hauled to where they were needed - in some cases a good number of miles. Think, too, of the logistics involved in putting 10 miles of track on the ground in one day...
And if you're getting paid by the mile by the government...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
In many places it was lightly built (enough to get by), with the track section getting beefed-up later when it was easier to get the track material, especially untreated ties which had a very short life, to the site.
Firelock76 Does it really, really, matter how many ties per mile were laid on the Transcontinental Railroad? Look at the accomplishment, not the inconsequentials. We could wind up like medieval monks arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
It was a simple fact seeking question. There was no hidden agenda. I appreciate the factual answers posted by several participants.
Keep in mind that Ambrose is a good writer, but is NOT an academic (professional) historian. Real historians are specialists, even those who write broader intro. texts. Ambrose writes about almost everything.
Some rail lines were initially built as cheaply as possible, making their money on wholly-owned construction companies who got paid by the mile as land grants.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
As noted by Wikipedia, Ambrose was a long standing professor of history at the University of New Orleans. He had a PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which has an excellent history program.
I have read many of Dr. Ambrose's works. He writes in a clear, concise style that is easy to read. Maybe that is why many of his books continue to sell so well among general readers.
Dr. Ambrose was accused of using other writer's work for his publications. Apparently there is considerable controversy as to the extent that he did so. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed his writings and will continue to do so.
I am mindful that history is an interpretation of events drawn from limited sources and subject to various interpretations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_E._Ambrose
Crawfordsville Weekly Review, Nov. 10, 1866
https://newspapers.library.in.gov/cgi-bin/indiana?a=d&d=CWJ18661110.1.2
The Pacific Railroad (page 2)
...When Dr. Durant announced, one year ago, that he wanted one million of cross ties for immediate use, and three millions in two years, everybody laughed at the idea. “They must be had,” he replied, “I will have them.” Every source was applied to. Soon one party agreed to furnish a large lot, and another a lot, but they were bringing in cotton-wood, a species of timber like unto a pumpkin or a cucumber, which looked well enough, but had a reputation for not being reliable over night; but the resources of man are as endless as his desires are boundless. “Bring on your cotton-wood,” said Durant, and up the Missouri, out of a thousand ravines and gulches, rang the sound of the invader’s ax, and soon came a perfect torrent of ties, ties of oak, of cedar and of cotton-wood.
To make the latter available, an iron boiler a hundred feet long and five feet in diameter was brought into requisition. It was filled with ties, and the apertures being closed, a steam engine exhausted the air, which emptied the pores of the wood, when a solution of zinc was ejected, which, permeating the fibers, hardens the wood, and in drying gives it well nigh a metallic appearance and weight, which guarantee its durability for about twelve years.
Eight hundred and fifty thousand ties and telegraph poles already have been laid by the company; 150,000 more must go down ere the work ceases for the winter— 2,500 to the mile and extra for sidings...
https://archive.org/stream/railroadcommuni00compgoog#page/n20/mode/2up
JPS1 Firelock76 Does it really, really, matter how many ties per mile were laid on the Transcontinental Railroad? Look at the accomplishment, not the inconsequentials. We could wind up like medieval monks arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It was a simple fact seeking question. There was no hidden agenda. I appreciate the factual answers posted by several participants.
Not taking a shot at you JPS1, not in the least, and my sincere apologies if you took it that way.
The thing is while I enjoy the "fun stuff" of history as much as anyone, i.e how many ties per mile, how many rivets in the tender of "Jupiter," what was General Jack Casement's favorite dish, I always try to keep in mind the greatness of the accomplishment and not the minutia.
Anyway, here's a little more minutia. Jack Casement wasn't really a general, he held the rank by brevet, which in the Civil War period was an honorary promotion given for outstanding service. A man so honored could be addressed as "General," and could wear a generals uniform for special occasions, but for day-to-day service operated at and wore the uniform of his regular rank, whatever that was.
Firelock76 JPS1 Firelock76 Does it really, really, matter how many ties per mile were laid on the Transcontinental Railroad? Look at the accomplishment, not the inconsequentials. We could wind up like medieval monks arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It was a simple fact seeking question. There was no hidden agenda. I appreciate the factual answers posted by several participants. Not taking a shot at you JPS1, not in the least, and my sincere apologies if you took it that way. The thing is while I enjoy the "fun stuff" of history as much as anyone, i.e how many ties per mile, how many rivets in the tender of "Jupiter," what was General Jack Casement's favorite dish, I always try to keep in mind the greatness of the accomplishment and not the minutia. Anyway, here's a little more minutia. Jack Casement wasn't really a general, he held the rank by brevet, which in the Civil War period was an honorary promotion given for outstanding service. A man so honored could be addressed as "General," and could wear a generals uniform for special occasions, but for day-to-day service operated at and wore the uniform of his regular rank, whatever that was.
I was not offended. And I did not think that you were taking a shot at me.
schlimm Keep in mind that Ambrose is a good writer, but is NOT an academic (professional) historian. Real historians are specialists, even those who write broader intro. texts. Ambrose writes about almost everything. . . . [snipped - PDN]
*Former curator of Land Transportation (and later some other posts) at the Smithsonian Institution.
Perhaps from one of these:
"Turntable: A little information can be a . . . not having the whole story" by White, John H., Jr., from Trains April 1983, pg. 66
"Turntable: The why in history - the reasons for technical advance or regression" by White, John H. from Trains September 1977 pg. 66
- Paul North.
Dad (who flew three support missions that day) is listed as a contributor or correspondent in Ambrose's "D-Day". He was rather put out by the short shrift that was given to the AAF and RAF (they are barely mentioned) for their support of the invasion.
Samuel Eliot Morison was a much better historian and a better writer.
CSSHEGEWISCHSamuel Eliot Morison was a much better historian and a better writer.
He is more respected. Morison earned his Ph.D. in history from Harvard and was a professor there 40 years. He served in the Navy in WWII, as a lt. commander. He did front-line research for his multi-volume The Rising Sun in the Pacfic, eventually becoming a rear admiral.
Stephen Ambrose also had a distinguished career as a biographer and popular historian. He earned his Ph.D. from UW-Madison, and was a professor at several universities. Although he wrote many fine works, he also had a pattern of inaccuracies, boastful claims about his relationship with Ike that were fabrications and many instances of plagiarism.
As an aside, over the course of several years, one volume at a time, I received a complete set of "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II" as a gift from my girlfriend/fiance/wife for birthday, anniversary, Christmas, etc.
Excerpt from NY Times, May 16, 1976
http://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/16/archives/adm-morison-88-historian-is-dead-samuel-eliot-morison-historian-is.html
Samuel Eliot Morison, the undisputed Grand Old Man of American historians, died yesterday in the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, from the effects of a stroke. He was 88 years old and lived in Boston during the winter and in Maine in the summer.
A prodigiously productive writer, Admiral Morison published “The European Discovery of America” when he was 80 years old, and a book on Samuel de Champlain when he was 82. A master narrative historian, he was a pleasure to read for his figure of phrase and for his enthusiasm. These were characteristics of his prose that suffused virtually every page of his books.
Last year, Professor Morison was described by Archibald MacLeish in a Bicentennial poem as “our Yankee Admiral of the Ocean Sea. . . . You know better, none better how the Bay wind blows fierce in the soul.” It was an apt description, for Professor Morison was the author of a biography of Christopher Columbus under the title “Admiral of the Ocean Sea,” and he himself was often addressed as Admiral because he was a retired rear admiral in the Naval Reserve…
Like Francis Parkman, the great 19th‐century American historian, and Thucydides of ancient Greece, Professor Morison combined impeccable scholarship with adventure in chronicling voyages that he himself re‐enacted. This gave his books a special vividness and depth, which won for them not only academic laurels but also such popular accolades as the Pulitzer Prize.
“My constant aim has been to write history and historical biography in a manner that would be authentic and interesting,” the tall, spare, saltwater‐beaten professor said in an interview several years ago.
“I have always endeavored to live and feel the history I write,” he went on in his Boston voice. “For example, ‘The Maritime History of Massachusetts' was a product both of research and of my hobby of sailing along the New England coast.
“In preparation for ‘Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus,’ I made voyages to the West Indies and across the Atlantic in sailing vessels, checking Columbus's routes, methods and landfalls.
“And for 'The History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II,' [it came to 15 volumes] I obtained a commission in the United States Navy, took part in many operations [he won seven combat stars and a Legion of Merit with a combat clasp] and learned at first hand how the Navy fights.”
The naval narrative with its crackling prose was unofficial — some called it “Sam Morison's history” — and won the Swiss‐Italian Balzan Foundation Prize of $51,000 in 1963. His Columbus biography had taken the Pulitzer Prize in 1943; and a second such prize was awarded him in 1960 for “John Paul Jones,” a life of the Revolutionary War figure who is often considered the father of the American Navy.
“The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages A.D. 1492‐1616” was an extension of Professor Morison's earlier interest in Columbus, but, more, it was a synoptic account of the voyages of discovery and exploration undertaken by Columbus, Magellan and Sir Francis Drake. Two of the crowning achievements, those of Columbus and Magellan—were made in the service of the King of Spain, while the third was under British patronage.
The greatest voyage of all, Professor Morison concluded, was the one led by Ferdinand Magellan through its most difficult stages and completed by Sebastian de Elcano.
Magellan sailed from the River Plate with nearly half the earth's circumference stretching unknown before him, Professor Morison pointed out. He brought his fleet (less one ship that deserted) through the 300mile strait that modern sailing manuals describe as impossible for sailing ships and dangerous for steam, and took off westward with nothing to guide him him but an idea of the latitude of some of the places on the farther side of the Pacific and his own erroneous notions about its width and shape. His first touch with civilized life after leaving the Canary Islands was in the Philippines, in March 1521.
Professor Morison's biography of Champlain, if a less‐majestic work than “The European Discovery of America” was nonetheless an attractive, lively portrait of a person that the author clearly considered to be one of the eminent men of the 17th‐century Age of Exploration.
Like its forerunners, this book was full of sea lore, and it bore traces of the fact that Mr. Morison had followed Champlain's footsteps through Canada and along the New England coast.
Professor Morison's magisterial volume on the Southern voyages had been preceded, in 1971, by his book on the Northern explorations. His chronicle covered the period from A.D. 500 to. 1600, and as was his wont he undertook many of the trips himself, before describing them. The book contained the customary Morison bursts of gusto. His final paragraphs conveyed the flavor. They read:
“In closing let us not forget the gallant ships and the brave mariners who lost their lives pursuing these voyages for a century after Cabot, or men like Raleigh who financed them: Cabot himself and both Corte Reels lost with all hands no one knows where: Gilbert, lost with all hands off the Azoren Frobisher, mortally wounded in the war with Spain; John Davis slain by Japanese pirates: Verazzano, killed and eaten by cannibals; Raleigh, beastly executed by James I as part of his cringing policy toward Spain.
“These men, and the thousands of mariners whose remains lie under the seamless shroud of the sea, deserve to be perpetually remembered as precursors of two great empires in North America.”
Professor Morison's favorite book, however, and the one of which he was the proudest, was “The Oxford History of the American People,” published in 1965. “It's my legacy to my country,” he told this reporter in a conversation in 1969 at his Boston home. “It represents my cumulative knowledge over almost 50 years and my mature thinking about American history.”
The 1,176‐page volume (its title derived in part from its publication by the Oxford University Press) traced the major strands in the nation's history from prehistoric man to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Intended for the general reader, the book, without neglecting political history, treated popular sports and pastimes, eating and drinking customs, developments in fine arts, music and medicine, sexual mores and the Indian. And, of course, there were paragraphs in praise of great ships and their builders, such as David McKay and his Flying Cloud.
ContinuTypical of Professor Morison's feeling for these ships, and typical also of his general prose style, was this description of 19th‐century American sailing vessels:
“These clipper ships of the early 1850's were built of wood in shipyards from Rockland in Maine to Baltimore. Their architects, like poets who transmute nature's message into song, obeyed what wind and wave had taught them, to create the noblest of all sailing vessels, and the most beautiful creations of man in America.
“With no extraneous ornaments except a figurehead, a bit of carving and a few lines of gold leaf, their one purpose of speed over the great ocean routes was achieved by perfect balance of spars and sails to the curving lines of the smooth black hull; and this harmony of mass, form and color was practiced to the music of dancing waves and of brave winds whistling in the rigging.
“These were our Gothic cathedrals, our Parthenon; but monuments carved from snow. For a few brief years they flashed their splendor around the world, then disappeared with the finality of the wild pigeon.”
Excerpt from The Oxford History of the American People
During the last third of the nineteenth century, American society began to reflect the economic transformations that began during the Civil War or earlier, but underwent no profound change such as that which followed a general adoption of the internal combustion engine. There was merely an expansion and extension of the first industrial revolution, marked by the application of machine power, in constantly enlarged units, to new processes and in new regions.
Transportation was the key. There were 35,000 miles of steam railroad in the United States in 1865; more than five times as much in 1900, more than in all Europe. Among inventions which diminished the discomfort of long-distance travel were the Pullman sleeping car, the safety coupler and the Westinghouse air brake. In the 1870's the refrigerator car, first used to carry freshly slaughtered beef from Chicago to the Eastern cities, was adapted for the carriage of fruit and vegetables, which eventually enabled the products of California to undersell those of Eastern truck gardeners. After the turn of the century the Pennsylvania Railroad built the first all-steel passenger coaches, and the American Locomotive Company brought out the magnificent Pacific type, which dominated railroading for a quarter-century.
Transcontinental railroads were the most spectacular postwar achievements. The Union Pacific thrust westerly through Nebraska and Wyoming Territory, near the line of the old Oregon and California trails and across the Wasatch Range of the Rockies into the basin of the Great Salt Lake. The Central Pacific, in the meantime, climbed eastward from Sacramento over the difficult grades of the Sierras, then through the arid valleys of Nevada. When the two joined rails with a golden spike near the Great Salt Lake on 10 May 1869, the Union Pacific was regarded as the winner; but the Central Pacific promoters had made enough to enable them to buy the state government of California.
Congress in the meantime had granted charters to three other lines: (1) the Northern Pacific — from Lake Superior across Minnesota, through the Bad Lands of Dakota, up the valley of the Yellowstone, across the continental divide at Bozeman to the headwaters of the Missouri, and by an intricate route through the Rockies to the Columbia river and Portland; (2) the Southern Pacific – from New Orleans across Texas to the Rio Grande across the llano estacado to El Paso, through the territory of the Gadsden Purchase to Los Angeles and up the San Joaquin valley to San Francisco; (3) the Santa Fe — from Atchison, Kansas, up the Arkansas river to Trinidad, Colorado, and across the Mohave desert to San Bernardino and San Diego. All three were aided by government land grants — twenty square miles to every mile of track — and by 1884, after numerous bankruptcies and reorganizations, all three had reached the coast. At the same time the Canadian Pacific, aided by even more generous subsidies from the Dominion, was pushing through to the Pacific and reached it on 7 November 1885.
These transcontinental lines were promoted largely with a view to profit, but the peopling of a vast region proved to be their most valuable function. In this respect they performed a work comparable with that of the Virginia Company of 1612 and the Ohio Company of 1785.
At the end of the Civil War the great plains west of eastern Kansas and Nebraska, the High Plains, and the Rocky Mountain region were practically unpeopled, save for mining towns in Colorado and Nevada and the Mormon settlements in Utah. Mail coaches of the Overland Stage Line required at least five days to carry passengers and mails from the Missouri river to Denver. Silver ore extracted in Nevada had to be freighted by wagon to San Francisco, thence transported around Cape Horn to the East Coast and Great Britain. Transcontinental railroads pushed out into the plains in advance of settlers, advertised for immigrants in the Eastern states and Europe, transported them at reduced rates to the prairie railhead, and sold them land on credit. Thousands of construction workers became farm hands, obtained free homesteads from the federal government, and bought tools, horses, and cattle with their savings. The termini and junction points of these lines — places like Omaha, Kansas City, Missouri, hard by Independence (old jumping-off place for the Oregon trail), Duluth the "Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas," Oakland on San Francisco Bay, Portland in Oregon, Seattle and Tacoma in Washington – places non-existent or mere villages before the Civil War, became metropolitan cities in thirty years' time.
Railroading was the biggest business of a big era, and the railway builders were of the mettle that in Europe made Napoleans and Von Moltkes. The Northwest was the domain of James J. Hill, greatest of our railroad builders. St. Paul was a small town on the edge of the frontier when he emigrated thither from eastern Canada just before the Civil War, and Minneapolis a mere village at the St. Anthony falls of the Mississippi. There, the "Twin Cities" were located at the end of a trail which connected Winnipeg with the outside world. In the winter of 1870 Donald A. Smith, the future Lord Strathcona, then resident governor of Hudson's Bay Company, started south from Winnipeg, and James J. Hill started north from St. Paul, both in dogsleds. They met on the prairie and made camp in a storm, and from that meeting sprang the Canadian Pacific and Great Northern railways. During the panic of 1873 the St. Paul and Pacific railroad went bankrupt. Hill watched it as a prairie wolf watches a weakening buffalo, and in 1878, in association with Donald Smith and George Stephen (the future Lord Mount Stephen), wrested it from Dutch bondholders by floating new securities. The day of land grants and federal subsidies was past, and Hill saw that the Great Northern Railway, as he renamed his purchase, could reach the Pacific only by developing the country as it progressed; and that took time. He struck due west across the Dakota plains, sending out branches to people the region and carry wheat to market. In the summer of 1887 his construction made a record stride, 643 miles of grading, bridging, and rail-laying from Minot, North Dakota, to the great falls of the Missouri. Two years later, the Rockies yielded their last secret, the Marias pass, to a young engineer, John F. Stevens. In 1893 the trains of the Great Northern reached tidewater at Tacoma. Within ten years Hill acquired partial control of the Northern Pacific Railway, purchased joint control of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, connecting his eastern termini with Chicago, and was running steamship lines from Duluth to Buffalo and from Seattle to Japan and China.
The Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and the Union Pacific (which sent a taproot northwesterly) were responsible for the opening of the great 'Inland Empire' between the Cascades and the Rockies, and for an astounding development of the entire Northwest. This once isolated Oregon country, with its rich and varied natural resources, magnificent scenery, and thriving seaports, has become as distinct and self-conscious a section of the Union as New England. The three states into which it was divided — Washington, Oregon, and Idaho — increased in population from 282,000 in 1880 to 2 million in 1910 and 5.3 million in 1960; whilst California, which contained only half a million people when the golden spike was driven in 1869, kept well in front, rising to 15.7 million in 1960. The population of Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, starting at the same level in 1870, increased sixfold in two decades; Utah and Colorado, where there was a great mining boom in the 'seventies, tripled their population in the same period. Oklahoma and the Indian Territory, where not one white man was enrolled in 1880, had over a million palefaces and 55,000 Indians in 1960; and Texas, with the aid of a network of railways, doubled its population of 1.5 million between 1880 and 1900, and by 1960 had almost 10 million people. By 1890 the last serious Indian outbreak had been suppressed, and the surviving redskins confined to reservations; the last great area of public lands had been thrown open to settlement.
Initially the route was not all on Russian territory: the Chinese Eastern Railway was constructed to provide a shorter route to Vladivostock via Harbin, where Russian staff were based. Now known as the Trans-Manchurian line, it is still the route of a train from Moscow to Beijing. An all-Russian Trans-Siberian route was finally completed in 1916.
The folly of building the railway on the cheap became apparent during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, when the railway could not cope with the demands made upon it, and it was not until well into the Twenties that all the deficiencies were rectified and civil war damage repaired. Electrification began in 1929 but was not completed until 2002.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/travel/great-rail-journeys/9617634/train-moscow-vladivostok-russia.html
Another transcontiental railroad done quickly to knit a nation together.
PNWRMNMA far better, more balanced history of the first transcontinental railroad is David Bain's Empire Express. Mac
Since I haven't read the Ambrose book, I can't comment on comparative balance.
But I will say that I was thoroughly impressed with Bain's book. I have read it twice, and I feel a third read coming on.
It's a "five star" book to me!
Ed
Having read both and other histories of the UP, I agree that Bain's book far outshines Ambrose. Ambrose's book feels like he phoned it in and is simply repeating all of the popular cliches with no research. Bain brings a level of involvement of the middle and lower level people who did the real work involved.
wanswheel. ; (3) the Santa Fe — from Atchison, Kansas, up the Arkansas river to Trinidad, Colorado, and across the Mohave desert to San Bernardino and San Diego. All three were aided by government land grants — twenty square miles to every mile of track — and by 1884, after numerous bankruptcies and reorganizations, all three had reached the coast.
; (3) the Santa Fe — from Atchison, Kansas, up the Arkansas river to Trinidad, Colorado, and across the Mohave desert to San Bernardino and San Diego. All three were aided by government land grants — twenty square miles to every mile of track — and by 1884, after numerous bankruptcies and reorganizations, all three had reached the coast.
-- methinks Mr. Ambrose has some company in the flawed historian department (or somebody was taking some huge liberties with the Santa Fe between Coolidge, KS and Albuquerque, NM where the 20 mile limit checkerboard does not exist. West of AQ was the joint Frisco/Santa Fe's Atlantic & Pacific.)
Mudchicken is 'right again as usual' about the Santa Fe.
Paul_D_North_JrWhite's* Law of Scholarship: "The amount of publication on a subject is in inverse proportion to its importance."
I wonder, then, if White thus felt Abraham Lincoln to be the singularly least important person in American history?
ChuckCobleigh Paul_D_North_Jr White's* Law of Scholarship: "The amount of publication on a subject is in inverse proportion to its importance." I wonder, then, if White thus felt Abraham Lincoln to be the singularly least important person in American history?
Paul_D_North_Jr White's* Law of Scholarship: "The amount of publication on a subject is in inverse proportion to its importance."
If John H. White even said such a silly thing. Google the quote and you get PDN's post alone. How about WWII or the Civil War? Unimportant?White had a BA in history from Miami U (Ohio). No graduate work beyond. His career was strictly in positions at the Smithsonian and his publications are only about rails. Hardly a historian in any position to make such sweeping statements.
schlimmIf John H. White even said such a silly thing.
Tongue-in-cheek-ism?
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
I would like to echo the thoughts of JPS1. Ambrose earned his Ph.D. from the Unversity of Wisconsin in 1963. He started his collegiate teaching career at UW, although the longer part of his career was at the University of New Orleans. He died in 2002. Ambrose was a prolific author, and it is the number of books he put out that may have contributed to bits of carlessness and the criticism he received for plagiarism and some factual errors. And while those are trangressions for which he should be, and was, held accountable, he wrote in such a way that his works were understandable by all. He likely reached many folks who otherwise would not have had an interest in American History.
historydoc1He likely reached many folks who otherwise would not have had an interest in American History.
I happen to be one of them. Actually, I've always had an interest in history, but not so much about war. About 20 years ago, a local public TV station aired a series of his classroom lectures on WWII, the Vietnam war, and one on the cold war presidents. Probably the most moving book I've ever read was his "Citizen Soldiers."
As for the plagiarism charge, I remember an interview in which he said that the references were in the back of the book, but that he neglected to link to them with footnotes in the text.
I have nearly finished Nothing Like it in the World. I am reading the eBook version on my Nook.
It contains 20 pages of notes, all of which are linked to the text.
The bibliography references 50 books by various authors, including Dr. Klein’s history of the Union Pacific Railroad, which is considered by many to be the definitive history of the UP. Ambrose singles it out for praise.
Other sources include 29 period articles devoted to the building of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific; 18 memoirs or diaries, including those of Dodge, Crocker, etc.; and 25 period newspapers containing background articles.
The book is pitched to a general reader who wants the highlights of the story without being run over by excessive detail. I am sure it has its flaws, as has been noted, but it has been an enjoyable read.
I plan to take up the Bain book as soon as I finish this one.
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