The Great Northern Railway: A History by Ralph W. Hidy, et al

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1057 what the actual story is. Without such insights, he is left without a skeleton on which to hang the information at his disposal. Maury Klein Dr. Klein teaches at the University of Rhode Island. His most recent books have been The Life and Legend ofJay Gould (1986) and Union Pacific: The Birth, 1862—1893 (1987). The second volume of his Union Pacific history, Union Pacific: The Rebirth, 1894-1969, will be published by Doubleday. The Great Northern Railway: A History. By Ralph W. Hidy, Muriel E. Hidy, and Roy V. Scott, with Don L. Hofsommer. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1988. Pp. xv + 360; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, appendixes, index. $49.95. The history of this volume is as interesting as the book itself; it took over thirty years and four authors to write it. The final result, however, illustrates their careful scholarship and their thoroughness in recounting the Great Northern’s history from its earliest trials in 1856 to the road’s merger into the Burlington Northern. And it is a fascinating story, even though the much larger original manuscript has been condensed to its essential core at the expense of some of the road’s personalities and color. The authors never lost sight of their theme, however. They delineate James J. Hill’s struggles to extend rail technology out into lonely wastes far ahead of settlement. Later the Great Northern spent millions to entice settlers and to promote enlightened livestock breeding, dry farming techniques, modern farm equipment, irriga­ tion, and better roads. The company also hired scientists to analyze nearby oil, coal, and iron ore reserves and to suggest commercial uses for them. The initial rail technology that opened the region quickly spawned further agricultural advances that dictated the region’s fundamental economic and social orders. In the larger sense, postCivil War railway technology enabled immigrants to skip an interme­ diate step in the settlement process; they advanced directly from homesteading to commercial farming for worldwide markets. The Great Northern, with its educational efforts, made it possible to transport millions of tons of raw agricultural and mineral products to processing centers in the Midwest and East, enabling the United States to emerge as the world’s largest industrial power by 1894. The second part of the book, covering the period from Hill’s death in 1916 to the merger, is in many ways the more interesting. Hill was a careful builder and always considered his operating costs as he located his road through the best lands and over the mountains with the lowest grades. The soundness of his planning paid dividends in the ‘20th century when his railway struggled with rising labor costs, 1058 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY ANI) CULTURE the need for new equipment, and a changing traffic mix. The Great Depression almost broke the transcontinental, but some adroit fi­ nancing through the RFC and a superb physical plant enabled it to survive and handle huge wartime tonnages. Post—World War II inflation, labor regulations, and constantly rising wages forced the Great Northern to cut its labor force through mechanization and to adopt the more economical diesel locomotives. All the technological advances, however, could not protect the road against trucks, buses, and automobiles. Ralph Budd and his contemporaries on the North­ ern Pacific and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy understood the need for a merger. They worked out its details in 1960, but road­ blocks at levels from the ICC to the Supreme Court delayed the merger’s consummation until March 3, 1970. The book ends with that date. This excellent corporate history chronicles how rails and their associated technologies created new societies on the American fron­ tier where the company’s policies literally determined the shape of the on-line communities. This is technological history at its most basic level. And no reviewer in good conscience could omit mention of the volume’s superb photographs and maps; they are worth the book’s price. James A. Ward Dr. Ward is professor of history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and has written That Man Haupt: A Biography ofHerman Haupt;J. Edgar Thomson: Master ofthe Pennsylvania; and Railroads and the Character of...