Set against the backdrop of an expanding nation, Brilliant Beacons
traces the evolution of America's lighthouse system from its earliest
days, highlighting the political, military, and technological battles
fought to illuminate the nation's hardscrabble coastlines. Beginning
with Boston Light, America's first lighthouse, Dolin shows how the story
of America, from colony to regional backwater, to fledging nation, and
eventually to global industrial power, can be illustrated through its
lighthouses.
Even in the colonial era, the question of how best to solve the
collective problem of lighting our ports, reefs, and coasts through a
patchwork of private interests and independent localities telegraphed
the great American debate over federalism and the role of a centralized
government. As the nation expanded, throughout the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, so too did the coastlines in need of illumination,
from New England to the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, the Pacific
Coast all the way to Alaska. In Dolin's hands we see how each of these
beacons tell its own story of political squabbling, technological
advancement, engineering marvel, and individual derring-do.
In rollicking detail, Dolin treats readers to a memorable cast of
characters, from the penny-pinching Treasury official Stephen
Pleasonton, who hamstrung the country's efforts to adopt the
revolutionary Fresnel lens, to the indomitable Katherine Walker, who
presided so heroically over New York Harbor as keeper at Robbins Reef
Lighthouse that she was hailed as a genuine New York City folk hero upon
her death in 1931. He also animates American military history from the
Revolution to the Civil War and presents tales both humorous and
harrowing of soldiers, saboteurs, Civil War battles, ruthless egg
collectors, and, most important, the lighthouse keepers themselves, men
and women who often performed astonishing acts of heroism in carrying
out their duties.
In the modern world of GPS and satellite-monitored shipping lanes,
Brilliant Beacons forms a poignant elegy for the bygone days of the
lighthouse, a symbol of American ingenuity that served as both a warning
and a sign of hope for generations of mariners; and it also shows how
these sentinels have endured, retaining their vibrancy to the present
day. Containing over 150 photographs and illustrations, Brilliant
Beacons vividly reframes America's history.
