Chapter headings: The God in the Machine -- The Sea -- Women -- Science -- The City -- The Inner Life -- The West -- Polemics -- Varia -- Verities -- Envoy.

The construction of the transcontinental railroad (1865–1869) marked a milestone in United States history, symbolizing both the joining of the country’s two coasts and the taming of its frontier wilderness by modern technology. But it was through the power of images—and especially the photograph—that the railroad attained its iconic status. Iron Muse provides a unique look at the production, distribution, and publication of images of the transcontinental railroad: from their use as an official record by the railroad corporations, to their reproduction in the illustrated press and travel guides, and finally to their adaptation to direct sales and albums in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Tracing the complex relationships and occasional conflicts between photographer, publisher, and curator as they crafted the photographs’ different meanings over time, Willumson provides a comprehensive portrayal of the creation and evolution of an important slice of American visual culture.

At a time when cycling in the United States rivaled baseball as the nation's most popular professional sport, along came Reggie McNamara, a farmer's son from Australia. Within a month of his arrival in the United States in 1913, he had earned the moniker "Iron Man" for his high tolerance of pain and his remarkable ability to recover from seemingly catastrophic injury. The nickname proved justified. Not only was he tough, he was also one of the best and highest-paid athletes in the world. During his thirty-year career, McNamara won seventeen punishing six-day races along with an inestimable number of shorter distance races, including high-profile events on three different continents, peaking in 1926-27 at the age of thirty-nine. The fans, media, and his fellow professionals all idolized him as an example of the true grit needed to succeed in this grueling and dangerous sport. Late in his career, however, hard drinking and injuries took their toll, and McNamara became estranged from his wife and children. He fought back just as he always had on the race course, conquering his addiction to alcohol and becoming one of the earliest success stories of Alcoholics Anonymous. In this humorous and exciting biography of the original Iron Man, Andrew M. Homan pulls McNamara back into the spotlight, depicting a flawed but beloved man whose success in those unrelenting six-day races came at a price.

Autobiography of Michigan’s controversial governor from the Upper Peninsula. Originally published in 1919, The Iron Hunter is the autobiography of one of Michigan's most influential and flamboyant historical figures: the reporter, publisher, explorer, politician, and twenty-seventh governor of Michigan, Chase Salmon Osborn (1860-1949). Making unprecedented use of the automobile in his 1910 campaign, Osborn ran a memorable campaign that was followed by an even more remarkable term as governor. In two years he eliminated Michigan's deficit, ended corruption, and produced the state's first workmen's compensation law and a reform of the electoral process. His autobiography reflects the energy and enthusiasm of a reformer inspired by the Progressive Movement, but it also reveals the poetic spirit of an adventurer who fell in love with Michigan's Upper Peninsula after traveling the world.

Essays examining the Chinese worker experience during the construction of America’s Transcontinental Railroad. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in May 1869 is usually told as a story of national triumph and a key moment for American Manifest Destiny. The Railroad made it possible to cross the country in a matter of days instead of months, paved the way for new settlers to come out west, and helped speed America’s entry onto the world stage as a modern nation that spanned a full continent. It also created vast wealth for its four owners, including the fortune with which Leland Stanford would found Stanford University some two decades later. But while the Transcontinental has often been celebrated in national memory, little attention has been paid to the Chinese workers who made up 90 percent of the workforce on the Western portion of the line. The Railroad could not have been built without Chinese labor, but the lives of Chinese railroad workers themselves have been little understood and largely invisible. This landmark volume explores the experiences of Chinese railroad workers and their place in cultural memory. The Chinese and the Iron Road illuminates more fully than ever before the interconnected economies of China and the US, how immigration across the Pacific changed both nations, the dynamics of the racism the workers encountered, the conditions under which they labored, and their role in shaping both the history of the railroad and the development of the American West. Praise for The Chinese and the Iron Road “This timely and essential volume preserves the humanity of the often-ignored and forgotten immigrant worker, while also uncovering just how important Chinese American railroad workers were in the making of America and its place in the world.” —Erika Lee, author of The Making of Asian America “Gordon H. Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin’s meticulously researched and beautifully written book fills [a] critical gap in our nation’s history. The Chinese and the Iron Road brings to life the stories of workers who defied incredible odds and gave their lives to unite these states into a nation.” —David Henry Hwang, Tony Award–winning playwright of The Dance and the Railroad and M. Butterfly “Destined to become the go-to resource about Chinese railroad workers in the American West.” —Madeline Hsu, author of The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority “Deeply researched and richly detailed, The Chinese and the Iron Road brings to life the Chinese immigrants whose work was essential to the railroad’s construction.” —Thomas Bender, author of A Nation Among Nations: America’s Place in World History

By mastering founding, fining, puddling, or bloom smelting, ironworkers gained a degree of control over their lives not easily attained by others.

American national trade bibliography.