George H. Douglas

All Aboard, The Railroad in American Life, is one of three books in my collection that focus on the impact of the railroads on American society. Of the three (the other two are Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow - Dee Brown and Passage to Union-Sarah Gordon) All Aboard is perhaps the most upbeat with respect to this impact (Brown would rank as the most pessimistic and Gordon's work is middle of the road).

In his introduction Douglas states the premise upon which the rest of the book is built, " The railroad was the agency that brought the United States of American into being. Before the 1830s, when the railroad began making its appearance, the country was a "united" nation in name only - bad roads and slow -moving canals defied all attempts to establish a working infrastructure. Travel between Boston and any interior city - Albany, New York, let us say - less than two hundred miles away would be an arduous, physically punishing journey of several days and one that would never be undertaken lightly. In a few short decades, after the coming of the railroad, such a journey could be made in a few hours of routine passage."

The book is chronological in its construction. It starts with descriptions of state-of-the-art modes of travel in the pre-railroad era. Douglas makes the reader feel the pain of these journeys through his general descriptions and quotes from contemporary sources. He then segues into a discussion of the first efforts of railroad building and the opposition to them which was followed by the explosion in interest in rail travel termed, even in that time, railroad fever.

While railroad fever never completely disappeared in the 19th Century in the 1850's it was dampened by the sudden rise in fatal railroad accidents. This aspect of railroading is given its own chapter. Following the discussion of railroad safety is a presentation on the impact/use of the railroads in the Civil War.

Douglas next turns his attention to the post-Civil War period with chapters on the building of the first transcontinental railroad, the colonization of the west, the rise of railroad monopolies, the rise of the railroad suburb, and the "standardization" of American life (timetables, standard time, etc.).

His discussion of the railroads in the 20th century focuses on the rise and fall of the importance, to the ordinary individual, of the local and the big city depot and rail travel in general. He provides a concise description of the impact of the railroads on art and literature and popular culture both past and present (when was the last time you heard a country and western song with lyrics pining about/reminiscing about/glorifying the sound of a jet engine?).

All three of the books mentioned at the beginning of this review are an excellent read and I would recommend all three to anyone interested in the subject. However, if I had to choose just one then it would be Douglas's book. (Text Length - 399 pages, Total Length - 462 pages, includes chapter notes and index.)… (más)