Boosters, hustlers, and speculators
Subtitle: entrepreneurial culture and the rise of Minneapolis and St. Paul, 1849-1883
By: Jocelyn Wills.
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: St. Paul, Minn
Language: eng
Number of pages: 290
Subjects: Industrialization -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis -- History -- 19th century; Industrialization -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- History -- 19th century; Urbanization -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis -- History -- 19th century; Urbanization -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- History -- 19th century; Businesspeople -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis -- History -- 19th century; Businesspeople -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- History -- 19th century; Minneapolis (Minn.) -- History -- 19th century; Saint Paul (Minn.) -- History -- 19th century; Minneapolis (Minn.) -- Economic conditions -- 19th century; Saint Paul (Minn.) -- Economic conditions -- 19th century
Description: "Historian Jocelyn Wills offers a business and entrepreneurial history of Minneapolis and St. Paul during their start-up period, 1849-1883, with particular focus on the urban boosters, political hustlers, and western speculators who took chances on and promoted the Cities' development. Most arrived with limited means, and only some managed to realize their aspirations, but all contributed in some measure to this regional expansion of America's entrepreneurial culture. Boosters, Hustlers, and Speculators places the two cities at the center of the global economy-in-the-making, illuminating the important connections between local, regional, and international rivalries and the development of American industrialization."

"Exhaustively researched, Boosters, Hustlers, and Speculators provides a firm foundation for understanding how visionary entrepreneurs - benefiting from government policies and lucrative economic opportunities - transformed Minnesota's Twin Cities from riparian villages into the region's reigning metropolitan center."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-279) and index.
Table of contents: title: Market expansion and Minnesota's territorial vanguard, 1787-1849; title: Minnesota's territorial start-up and the race for riches, 1849-1855; title: Territorial expansion and Minnesota's first economic bust, 1855-1861; title: Civil war contracts and the revival of Minnesota's economy, 1861-1868; title: The post-civil war boom and the rise of the cities, 1866-1872; title: Industrial depression and the survival of St. Paul-Minneapolis, 1873-1877; title: The triumph of Minnesota's metropolitan complex, 1878-1883.