In this Book

  • Fueling the Gilded Age: Railroads, Miners, and Disorder in Pennsylvania Coal Country
  • Book
  • Andrew B. Arnold
  • 2014
  • Published by: NYU Press
summary

If the railroads won the Gilded Age, the coal industry lost it. Railroads epitomized modern management, high technology, and vast economies of scale. By comparison, the coal industry was embarrassingly primitive. Miners and operators dug coal, bought it, and sold it in 1900 in the same ways that they had for generations. In the popular imagination, coal miners epitomized anti-modern forces as the so-called “Molly Maguire” terrorists.

Yet the sleekly modern railroads were utterly dependent upon the disorderly coal industry. Railroad managers demanded that coal operators and miners accept the purely subordinate role implied by their status. They refused.

Fueling the Gilded Age shows how disorder in the coal industry disrupted the strategic plans of the railroads. It does so by expertly intertwining the history of two industries—railroads and coal mining—that historians have generally examined from separate vantage points. It shows the surprising connections between railroad management and miner organizing; railroad freight rate structure and coal mine operations; railroad strategy and strictly local legal precedents. It combines social, economic, and institutional approaches to explain the Gilded Age from the perspective of the relative losers of history rather than the winners. It beckons readers to examine the still-unresolved nature of America’s national conundrum: how to reconcile the competing demands of national corporations, local businesses, and employees.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page, Copyright
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. pp. v-vi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. List of Illustrations
  2. pp. vii-viii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. About Lewis Hine’s Photographs
  2. pp. ix-x
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction: Railroads, Miners, and Disorder in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900
  2. pp. 1-12
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part I. Hubris
  1. 1. Cultural: Coal Mining and Community, 1872
  2. pp. 15-34
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 2. Formal: The Right to Strike, 1875
  2. pp. 35-62
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 3. Secret: Regional Leadership Networks, 1875–1882
  2. pp. 63-88
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part II. Humility
  1. 4. Compromise: The Great Upheaval in Coal, 1886
  2. pp. 91-116
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part III. Stalemate
  1. 5. Origins: New Organizational Forms, 1886–1890
  2. pp. 119-152
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 6. Association: Organization and Industry, 1890–1894
  2. pp. 153-184
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 7. National Scale: A Living Wage for Capital and for Labor, 1895–1902
  2. pp. 185-220
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Conclusion: Failures of Order in the Gilded Age
  2. pp. 221-232
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. 233-240
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Notes
  2. pp. 241-268
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 269-276
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. About the Author
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.