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Genre/Form: | History |
---|---|
Material Type: | Government publication, State or province government publication |
Document Type: | Book |
All Authors / Contributors: |
LeRoy R Hafen |
ISBN: | 0806136006 9780806136004 |
OCLC Number: | 53285144 |
Notes: | Originally published: Cleveland : A.H. Clark, 1926. |
Description: | 361 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm |
Contents: | List of illustrations -- Establishment and early development of the Postal Service -- Ocean mail to the Pacific coast, 1848-1858 -- Pioneer monthly mails to the inter-mountain region, 1849-1858 -- Butterfield Overland Mail; South in the ascendency -- Extensive increases in mail lines to the Pacific, 1857-1859; Testing the routes -- Should the postal service be a pioneering agency or a business undertaking? Reform and conflict, 1859-1860 -- Mail service to the Pike's Peak region, 1858-1860 -- Pony Express, demonstrator of the central route -- Fight for a daily mail on the centrla route, 1859-1861 -- Million dollar mail in operation, 1861-1862 -- Indian peril -- Mail in the middle sixties -- In the days of the stage-coach -- Final years and passing of the overland stage -- Bibliography of references cited. |
Responsibility: | by LeRoy R. Hafen. ; foreword by David Dary ; with a note about the author by S. Matthew DeSpain. |
Abstract:
In the development of the American West, no two decades were so full of romance and change as the years from the California gold rush of 1849 to the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. In two decades, the West was conquered and the secession movement rose and fell. From slow ox-team and prairie schooner to the dashing Pony Express, the overland mail service mirrored these monumental strides. Originally published in 1926, The Overland Mail was the first scholarly work to examine the impact of the postal service on the expansion of the West as the service evolved from a private endeavor to a government-contracted business. LeRoy R. Hafen details how the mail service tied West to East, influenced politics and economics, promoted use of the overland trails, aided in settlement, and helped usher in the railroads. This classic work is here available in paperback for the first time. In a new foreword, David Dary assesses Hafen's contributions as a writer and historian. Examines the impact of the postal service on the expansion of the West as the service evolved from a private endeavor to a government-contracted business.
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