The story of Brunel's most famous ship and the people who knew her, using new archive sources

Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS Great Britain was a world first when she was launched at Bristol in 1843. This uniquely successful passenger ship design brought together the leading technologies of the day (screw propeller, iron hull and 1,000hp steam engine) to transform world travel. She was a successful ship and continued sailing until 1886, travelling 32 times around the world and nearly one million miles at sea. Great Britain was finally abandoned in the Falkland Islands in 1937, but in 1970 an ambitious salvage effort brought her home to Bristol, where today she is conserved.

Taking the subject of much lore as the topic of his book, Dunbaugh has written a carefully researched, comprehensive history of the overnight steamboat on Long Island Sound. In the nineteenth century, these steamboats provided the major means of transportation from New York to ports in southern New England or from Boston north to ports on the coast of Maine. Earlier accounts have either focused on the lore or been heavy with statistical data. Dunbaugh here provides a readable narrative history based on solid research. The book's approach is chronological, discussing the early steamboat era, 1815-1835, in the first chapter and the feeder lines developing with the advent of the railroad in chapter 2. Chapter 3 covers the Vanderbilt era of the 1840s, while the next chapter turns to the Great Fall River Line, 1847-1854. Chapter 5 discusses the years from 1854 to 1861, a period of stability, and chapter 6 covers the Civil War years. Chapters on the era of Fisk and Gould and the Depression and Recovery of 1873-1880 follow. The final chapter covers the last decade of the independent lines and of the century. This volume will be of interest to historians specializing in the history of technology, business, or economic history--as well as to those interested in the history of steamboat transportation.

History of the S.S. Savannah. This ship marked the beginning of a new maritime epoch in which ocean-going vessels were no longer dependent on the vagaries of wind and tide.

A celebration of the life and engineering achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel by two of the world's foremost authorities. In his lifetime, Isambard Kingdom Brunel towered over his profession. Today, he remains the most famous engineer in history, the epitome of the volcanic creative forces which brought about the Industrial Revolution - and brought modern society into being. Brunel's extraordinary talents were drawn out by some remarkable opportunities - above all his appointment as engineer to the new Great Western Railway at the age of 26 - but it was his nature to take nothing for granted, and to look at every project, whether it was the longest railway yet planned, or the largest ship ever imagined, from first principles. A hard taskmaster to those who served him, he ultimately sacrificed his own life to his work in his tragically early death at the age of 53. His legacy, though, is all around us, in the railways and bridges that he personally designed, and in his wider influence. This fascinating new book draws on Brunel's own diaries, letters and sketchbooks to understand his life, times, and work.