Old Dominion, industrial commonwealth : coal, politics, and economy in antebellum America Sean Patrick Adams

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adams, Sean P.

Series:

Studies in early American economy and society from the Library Company of Philadelphia

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Coal trade--Pennsylvania--History.

Coal trade.

Coal trade--Virginia--History.

Physical Description:

xiv, 305 p. ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.

Summary:

"Sean Patrick Adams compares the political economies of coal in Virginia and Pennsylvania from the late eighteenth century through the Civil War, examining the divergent paths these two states took in developing their ample coal reserves during a critical period of American industrialization. In both cases, Adams finds, state economic policies played a major role." "Using coal as a barometer of economic change, Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth addresses longstanding questions about North-South economic divergence and the role of state government in American industrial development, providing new insights for both political and economic historians of nineteenth-century America."--Jacket.

Contents:

The political economy of coal

The intersection of politics and geology: America's first coal trade

The commonwealth's fuel: the rise of Pennsylvania anthracite

Trunk and branch: state internal improvement networks and the coal trade

"Hidden treasures" and nasty politics: antebellum geological surveys in Pennsylvania and Virginia

Miners without souls: corporations and coal in Pennsylvania and Virginia

Three separate paths: the impact of the civil war

Capture and confusion.

Notes:

Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D., University of Wisconsin).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Adams, Sean P. Old Dominion, industrial commonwealth.

ISBN:

080187968X (hardcover : alk. paper)

9780801879685 (hardcover : alk. paper)

OCLC:

54349872

Online:

Book review (H-Net)

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description