The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore & Ohio, the Nation’s First Railroad, 1828–1853 by James D. Dilts

Abstract

technologyand culture Book Reviews 189 tired to occupy himself with various odd inventions, recounting his life and visiting old haunts. That is the story in brief. The book lacks detailed references, although the source of information is often identified in the text. A minor irritation is the back cover, which describes Sendzimir with the absurd hype Hollywood applies to superstars, reflecting the publisher’s catering to a chauvinistic Polish readership. For the author, it is in the first instance a personal story. Fully detailed technical descriptions can be found elsewhere. In view of the unique vantage point and careful research underlying Steel Will, whatever the publisher—or even the author—had in mind, it is important that it be recognized as an extraordinary contribution to the history of the technology of steelmaking. Steve Joshua Heims Mr. Heims is the author ofJohn von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies ofLife and Death (MIT Press, 1980) and The Cybernetics Group (MIT Press, 1991). The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore & Ohio, the Nations First Railroad, 1828-1853. By James D. Dilts. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993. Pp. xix+472; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $60.00. In the history of early American railroading, the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) deservedly occupies a prominent place—as the first projected all-rail trunk line, a pioneer in corporate organization, and a leading innovator in railway technology. James Dilts’s fine new study of the B&O focuses essentially on one theme, however, its twenty-four-year (182852 ) effort to construct a line from Baltimore to the Ohio River at Wheeling, Virginia. The author succeeds admirably in recounting that hard-won contest against nature, recalcitrant politicians, inadequate capital, and the rival Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Although his is traditional narrative history, Dilts provides a layered portrait from the line’s presidents to its Irish laborers that surmounts many of the limitations common to corporate histories. Written for a general audience, his account largely lacks an analytical perspective. Yet this detailed primary study offers much to technological history. The B&O is well-trod territory for historians, the subject of two full-length corporate histories and numerous specialized studies. Dilts takes good advantage of this material while reaching well beyond it—thanks to his specialized focus on construction and his extensive research. The author plumbed the depths of the carrier’s extensive internal archives and tapped nearly twenty other related manuscript collections. By literally trekking across most of the line’s original 379 miles, he brings these archival sources to life with evocative portraits of the mountains and chasms traversed by the track gangs. Although 190 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE primary sources dominate, he also draws on the relevant second­ ary literature in political, legal, economic, local, and technological history. With full command of this range of material, Dilts has written an authoritative case study on early railway promotion and construction. He overreaches somewhat in arguing that the B&O’s history “is to a large extent the history of all early American railroads” (p. 2); in fact, the company was exceptional in many respects. Yet it proved a vital training ground for the railway age. The narrative is ordered chrono­ logically, focusing on the successive extensions of the line westward from Baltimore. Three related topics dominate: the intricacies of construc­ tion financing and accompanying political maneuvering, the problems and triumphs of building this novel technology, and the people who built the line. Given the limited capital available in the 1830s for railway construc­ tion, finance necessarily involved support from government, particularly since the B&O accompanied the state-sponsored canal boom. The railroad’s lobbyists often tangled with counterparts from the Chesa­ peake and Ohio Canal whose projected line from the District of Columbia to the Ohio River made it a direct competitor for funds, authorized routes, and traffic. In the mid-1830s, the two companies temporarily put aside their political infighting to feast on pork together. By the late 1840s, however, the railroad vanquished the canal out in the field. The rugged mountains ofwestern Virginia certainly were no place for a canal, and the B&O’s laborers found them scarcely more hospitable to a railway. Chief engineer Benjamin H. Latrobe, Jr., oversaw the route surveys with...