The Filth of Progress: Immigrants, Americans, and the Building of Canals and Railroads in the West, by Ryan Dearinger
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The Filth of Progress: Immigrants, Americans, and the Building of Canals and Railroads in the West, by Ryan Dearinger
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The Filth of Progress explores the untold side of a well-known American story. For more than a century, accounts of progress in the West foregrounded the technological feats performed while canals and railroads were built and lionized the capitalists who financed the projects. This book salvages stories often omitted from the triumphant narrative of progress by focusing on the suffering and survival of the workers who were treated as outsiders. Ryan Dearinger examines the moving frontiers of canal and railroad construction workers in the tumultuous years of American expansion, from the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 to the joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads in 1869. He tells the story of the immigrants and Americans—the Irish, Chinese, Mormons, and native-born citizens—whose labor created the West’s infrastructure and turned the nation’s dreams of a continental empire into a reality. Dearinger reveals that canals and railroads were not static monuments to progress but moving spaces of conflict and contestation.
The Filth of Progress: Immigrants, Americans, and the Building of Canals and Railroads in the West, by Ryan Dearinger- Amazon Sales Rank: #1111712 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .80" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 284 pages
From the Inside Flap "The Filth of Progress persuasively outlines the dark underbelly of the much-celebrated 'progress' that transportation improvements wrought between the 1820s and 1870s. Dearinger skillfully brings together the histories of Irish immigrants, Mormons, and Chinese workers. This compact, vividly written book will be of benefit to students and scholars of U.S. labor history, U.S. immigration history, and the history of the American West."—Thomas G. Andrews, Associate Professor of History at the University of Colorado and author of Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War and Coyote Valley: Deep History in the High Rockies "The Filth of Progress unmasks the strangely neglected work and self-advocacy of immigrant and Mormon transportation workers in the building of the American West. Dearinger’s clear and polished prose reveals the commonalties and differences in how diverse workers tried to better their lives and conditions. This book will appeal to western historians, cultural historians of nineteenth-century American 'improvement' and 'progress,' labor historians, and historians of immigration."—Katherine Benton-Cohen, Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University and author of Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands "Just twenty years ago Peter Way introduced American historians to the harrowing lives of the 'navvies' working on New York’s Erie Canal. Now Ryan Dearinger offers a rich, new, up-to-date study of the hard-working armies of laborers who dug the canals and spiked the rails that eventually knit together a transcontinental United States. The Filth of Progress deftly links the cultural enthusiasm for technology and development with the enormous suffering wrung from the hands and backs of thousands of marginalized persons from the opening of the Erie through the celebratory Golden Spike nearly half a century later. Irish immigrants, Mormons, and contract Chinese laborers—each group held in some degree of contempt by 'free' and 'white' Americans—greased the skids of progress with their sweat and blood. Familiar racial and ethnic hostilities, rank exploitation, and shameless manipulations ornament the story; but lest we forgive the principles for the 'standards of the day,' Dearinger displays one after another the outrageous fictions concocted to fix blame on the victims after the fact. Americans not only did not build their greatest achievement themselves, they lied aggressively to rob those who did of any scrap of credit or dignity. Not an uplifting story, Dearinger’s account helps to balance scales too long tipped in the direction of bloodless triumph and Yankee ingenuity. Read ’em, and weep."—John Lauritz Larson, Professor of History at Purdue University and author of The Market Revolution in America: Liberty, Ambition, and the Eclipse of the Common Good
About the Author Ryan Dearinger is Associate Professor of History at Eastern Oregon University.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Our myths of American progress celebrate technology and management, but the actual builders are swept under the rug. By lyndonbrecht This is a solid book on an obscure subject. Here's a quote that says what the book is really about: "First and foremost, American progress was built on the backs of people deemed second class citizens at best. Its dark underbelly was punctuated by grueling labor, low wages, suffering and survival. Not only was railroad building and canal digging physically demanding, but these occupations were inherently dangerous and violent." The book falls into several categories, one of which is the history of labor, but also social science in looking at the question of why laborers have consistently been seen in negative terms.Dearinger has some interesting material, but at several points some academic concepts get in the way. These laborers also labored to "build masculine identity." Presumably any such workforce was already masculine in its identity. Certainly workers might find common interests as opposed to managers or the farming communities through which they built and dug, which appears often to have been expressed in hard drinking, hard playing and occasional violence. Throughout this era, the yeoman farmer was valued as the personification of American, and workers in cities and elsewhere seen differently, perhaps because so many were immigrants and perhaps because so few owned property.The book discusses such work generally in Chapter 1, and in Chapter 2 looks at the Indiana, Wabash and Erie Canal, which resulted in state bankruptcy in 1850 (and was paying down debt on it until 1909). Chapter 3 examines both the Illinois and Michigan Canal and the Illinois Central Railroad, in which financial irregularities sometimes resulted in wages not being paid (one can imagine workers being even more surly). Chapter 4 discusses the transcontinental railroad, examining in particular Mormon work crews--who were then considered essentially an un-American fringe group. This is the best chapter, with the portion on the Mormons being outstandingly well done. Chapter 5 looks at the Chinese, being the second best chapter.One major point is that when the projects were done, celebrations celebrated managers and American ingenuity, not the work or workers. The famed photo of the completion of the transcontinental railroads meeting in Utah has lots of people, but no Chinese, who largely built the section from California to Utah.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A fascinating well researched and well written book about lesser ... By R.E. A fascinating well researched and well written book about lesser known aspects of westward expansion in America. The information on 19th century Irish and Chinese immigration and the growth corporate power seem especially relevant in today's political climate.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five Stars By Amazon Customer Very Interesting read, keeps you engaged. Well written. History beyond the history books.
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