Urbanization Between 1850 And 1860 In The American Midwest

Using a newly developed geographic information system transportation database, we study the impact of gaining access to rail transportation on changes in population density and the rate of urbanization between 1850 and 1860 in the American Midwest. Differences-in-differences and instrumental variable analysis of a balanced panel of 278 countries reveals only a small positive effect of rail access on population density but a large positive impact on urbanization as measured by the fraction of people living in incorporated areas of 2,500 or more. Our estimates imply that one-half or more of the growth in urbanization in the Midwest in the late antebellum period may be attributable to the spread of the rail network. It is a truism that modern

The abundance of track gauges limited the redeployability of rolling stock and tracks to potential users with similar track gauge. Moreover, potential demand for both rolling stock and tracks were further diminished when many railroads went under equity receiverships. I find that the potential demand for a railroads rolling stock and tracks were significant determinants of debt maturity and the amount of debt that was issued by railroads. The results are consistent with liquidation values models of financial contracting and capital structure. It reexamines the well-known debate over the origins of de jure segregation in the American South, which began in 1955 with the publication of C.Vann Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Arguing that the debate over Woodward’s thesis implicates familiar but outmoded ways of looking at sociologic change and Southern society, the article proposes a reorientation of this debate using theoretical perspectives taken from recent work by legal historians, critical race theorists, and historians of race, class and

While industrialization and factory labor remain important ways to understand time consciousness, looking beyond the factory walls can help historians. The Staff Studies Group of the Association of American Railroads (AAR), of the economic impact on those communities that may lose rail service because deregulation might make easier the abandonment of light-density lines that serve them. Rather than depend on projections that be biased by assumptions, the method used was to examine the impacts on communities in which rail service had already been abandoned. Several case studies were examined of various communities between 1920 and 1975. It was concluded that there is little adverse community impact attributable to the loss of rail service. It was concluded that the studies have found many instances in which the postabandonment community impacts were positive. The competition of the northeastern rail network in the 1850s held great significance for the history of the American reading public. As to make sure that railroads opened a national mass market for books and assured easy distribution of literature from publishers in New York, Philadelphia and