19th century american history
19th century american immigrants
A01=Ryan Dearinger
american empire
american history
american west
Author_Ryan Dearinger
canals
capitalism
Category=KNG
Category=NHK
Category=NHTK
central pacific railroad
chinese
construction workers
continental empire
cultural studies
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
erie canal
history
immigrants
immigration
irish
labor
labor studies
mormons
narrative of progress
national infrastructure
rail travel
railroads
suffering
survival
technology
union pacific railroad
united states of america
westward expansion
workers
workers rights
Product details
- ISBN 9780520284609
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 30 Oct 2015
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The Filth of Progress explores the untold side of a well-known American story. For more than a century, accounts of progress in the West foregrounded the technological feats performed while canals and railroads were built and lionized the capitalists who financed the projects. This book salvages stories often omitted from the triumphant narrative of progress by focusing on the suffering and survival of the workers who were treated as outsiders. Ryan Dearinger examines the moving frontiers of canal and railroad construction workers in the tumultuous years of American expansion, from the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 to the joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads in 1869. He tells the story of the immigrants and Americans-the Irish, Chinese, Mormons, and native-born citizens-whose labor created the West's infrastructure and turned the nation's dreams of a continental empire into a reality. Dearinger reveals that canals and railroads were not static monuments to progress but moving spaces of conflict and contestation.
Ryan Dearinger is Associate Professor of History at Eastern Oregon University.
