Rivers of America
Subtitle: birthplaces of culture, commerce, and community
By: Russell Bourne.
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Golden, Colo.
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 290
ISBN-13: 9781555913052
Subjects: Rivers -- United States -- History -- Anecdotes.; River life -- United States -- History -- Anecdotes.; United States -- History -- Anecdotes.; United States -- Description and travel -- Anecdotes.
Description: The wondrous roll of American rivers' names! Because of the rivers' significance, because of their power to shape human endeavor and to stimulate creativity, U.S. history can quite properly be told through them. On the Ohio River in 1817, a literate traveler named Morris Birkbech saw that connection; he sensed the end of one historical age and the beginning of another when he noted the heavy pulsing of the waterborne traffic. He exclaimed, "Old America seems to be breaking up and moving westward!" In the twentieth century, rivers have continued to be at the center of American concerns, as agriculturalists and dam builders contend with shippers and environmentalists. Within the pages of this exciting and insightful book, well-known historian Russell Bourne takes readers on a journey through time and place, to the rivers that gave life to our nation and to the communities that flourished along their banks. - Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-280) and index.
Table of contents: title: Part one : The fighting American rivermen.; title: The spirit of the rivers; title: An age of rings in the Mississippi Basin; title: Rivertowns for a Spanish empire; title: France and England seek keys to the river kingdoms; title: Colonel Washington at the confluence of waters; title: Pivotal ports on the inland rivers; title: Victory by means of the rivers; title: Part two : By flatboat and keelboat and a few sternwheelers into a new America.; title: Federalism and liberty on La Belle Riviere; title: Upriver to victory at Fallen Timbers; title: Tragedy and revel on the western waters; title: Up the Mississury with the Corps of Discovery; title: Connecting the rivers across the Rockies; title: Conspiracies by keelboat; title: Competing technologies on the western rivers; title: "Remember the raisin" : river of a war not to be forgotten; title: Part three : Steaming the rivers to win a Union.; title: Steamboats struggle to claim the West; title: 1835 : a time for change on rivers of the young republic; title: A cotton kingdom on the rivers of the South; title: Miracle at the mouth of the Mississippi; title: Wagon boats on dry rivers to Oregon and California; title: Rivers of the golden West; title: Bloody rivers of the West and South; title: The Colorado : cause for regional river management; title: Part four : The rise and fall of the big dams.; title: Building America's "hydraulic society"; title: First white man to hear the music of the rivers; title: Conquering space by controlling the rivers; title: River pacts with various devils; title: TVA : America's first attempt at total river basin management; title: Training the Big Muddy; title: And then the waters rose; title: The terrible thirst of California; title: Dammed rivers for western utopias; title: Days of fear at Glen Canyon Dam; title: The saga of the "fully appropriated rivers"; title: And unto the golf courses of Tucson; title: An end to barbecues; title: For the love of salmon and snail darters; title: A time for compacts, no time for watts; title: Listen to the rivers