In Long Day's Journey Carlos Schwantes gathers historical photographs,
advertisements, posters, and contemporary accounts to recreate one of
the most colorful periods in the American West. He traces the rapidly
evolving saga of miners and settlers struggling to get from here to
there in the days before railroads reached the West, trying to establish
methods of transportation and communication between the eastern United
States and the new territories that became Oregon, Washington, Idaho,
Montana, and Wyoming--first by sea, around continents, then by land and
water routes across America. Many of the enduring images and myths of
the West derive from this era: the Pony Express, mule trains and
plodding ox-team freighters, the picturesque side-wheelers and
stern-wheelers that churned along the rivers, the colorful Concord
stagecoaches drawn by four or six jingling, fleet horses.
Schwantes describes in detail the technology of preindustrial modes of
transportation. He explains the economics that linked the birth and
death of western towns and cities, the business history of entrepreneurs
and stagecoach and steamboat companies, and the challenges facing
passengers and employees on the stages and steamers of the northern
West. Integrating more than 200 historical photographs and other
illustrations with vivid contemporary accounts, Schwantes presents a
fascinating history of Americans forging the first working connections
between the West and the rest of America--connections that the railroads
would soon smooth and strengthen. His book Railroad Signatures across
the Pacific Northwest detailed that story; here he tells of the people
and animals and equipment supplanted by the twin ribbons of steel.
