Introduction -- Recurrent and non-recurrent economic fluctuations at the national level -- Constraints on business decision-making-the impact of geology, topography and mining technology -- Prior investment in mining and transportation infrastructure -- Railroad expansion and corporate control -- Network development strategies and the articulation of the anthracite distribution region in interior markets -- Railroad expansion and corporate control II: tidewater markets, trunk line connections and comparative economic performance -- Waxing and waning markets I: sectoral shifts in the use of anthracite -- Waxing and waning markets II: the changing geography of market power -- Waxing and waning markets III : regional shifts, price behaviour and the changing size -- Composition of anthracite production -- Corporations, competition and the rise of the cartels I : precursors and pre-disposing factors to industry-wide combination -- Corporations, competition and the rise of the cartels II: the 1873 combination and its successors -- Developing and managing the coal estate -- Region building I: financing development in the mining economy -- Region building II: investment in new mining and railroad capacity -- Regional retrenchment: rationalization and reorganisation in the Schuylkill region 1872-1902 -- Regional dynamics, disequilibrium tendencies and regional economic development -- Notes for chapters 1-16 -- Preface to bibliography.

A riveting narrative of Wall Street buccaneering, political intrigue, and two of American history's most colossal characters, struggling for mastery in an era of social upheaval and rampant inequality. It seemed like no force in the world could slow J. P. Morgan's drive to power. In the summer of 1901, the financier was assembling his next mega-deal: Northern Securities, an enterprise that would affirm his dominance in America's most important industry-the railroads. Then, a bullet from an anarchist's gun put an end to the business-friendly presidency of William McKinley. A new chief executive bounded into office: Theodore Roosevelt. He was convinced that as big business got bigger, the government had to check the influence of the wealthiest or the country would inch ever closer to collapse. By March 1902, battle lines were drawn: the government sued Northern Securities for antitrust violations. But as the case ramped up, the coal miners' union went on strike and the anthracite pits that fueled Morgan's trains and heated the homes of Roosevelt's citizens went silent. With millions of dollars on the line, winter bearing down, and revolution in the air, it was a crisis that neither man alone could solve. Richly detailed and propulsively told, The Hour of Fate is the gripping story of a banker and a president thrown together in the crucible of national emergency even as they fought in court. The outcome of the strike and the case would change the course of our history. Today, as the country again asks whether saving democracy means taming capital, the lessons of Roosevelt and Morgan's time are more urgent than ever. Winner of the 2021 Theodore Roosevelt Association Book Prize Finalist for the Presidential Leadership Book Award

Describes the conditions and treatment that drove workers, including many children, to various strikes, from the mill workers strikes in 1828 and 1836 and the coal strikes at the turn of the century to the work of Mother Jones on behalf of child workers.