Francis Bret Harte: “What the Engines Said”
The Essential Primary Sources
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Francis Bret Harte: “What the EnginesSaid”
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Abstract
What was it the Engines said, Pilots touching,—head to head Facing on the single track, Half a world behind each back? This is what the Engines said, Unreported and unread. With a prefatory screech, In a florid Western speech, Said the engine from the West, “I am from Sierra’s crest; And, if altitude’s a test, Why, I reckon, it’s confessed, That I’ve done my level best.”
Contents
- The U.S. Railroad Industry: Historical Overview
- Moses Holbrook: Letter to John James Gourgas about “Charleston’s Best Friend”
- Report of the Directors of the New York and Eire Railroad Company
- Charles Dickens: “An American Railroad,” from American Notes
- Henry David Thoreau Questions the Need for the Railroad
- Joseph C.G. Kennedy: “Progress of Railroads in the United States for the Decade 1850-1860”
- Pacific Railroad Act
- John P. Cone: “The Pacific Railroad”
- Rev. Dr. Vinton: “East and West Completion of the Great Line Spanning the Continent”
- “The Railroad Vote in Northampton”
- Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins: Petition to Congress
- New York Times Editorial Board: “The Great Railroad Strike of 1877”
- Chinese Exclusion Act
- Plessy v. Ferguson
- Grover Cleveland: Proclamation on the Pullman Strike
- Eugene V. Debs: “The Federal Government and the Chicago Strike”
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters: “The Pullman Porter”
- “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”
- Wallace Saunders, Eddie Newton, and T. Lawrence Siebert: “Casey Jones”
- Francis Bret Harte: “What the Engines Said”
- William T. Sherman: Letter to David Douty Colton on the Military Importance of the Transcontinental Railroad
- Woodrow Wilson: Government Assumption of Control of Transportation Systems
- U.S. War Department: Military Railroads and the Military Railway Service in World War II
- Thor Hultgren: Railway Traffic Expansion and Use of Resources in World War II
- Harry S. Truman: Radio Address to the American People on the Railroad Strike Emergency
- Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970
- Richard M. Nixon: Statement on Signing the Amtrak Improvement Act of 1973
- Jimmy Carter: Statement on Signing the Staggers Rail Act of 1980
- Randy Mallory: Press Release about the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad
- Joe Biden and Barack Obama: “The Future of High-Speed Rail”
- Daniel Webster: Congressional Hearing on America’s Freight and Passenger Rail Network