Borrow it
Coverart for item
The Resource The King's best highway : the lost history of the Boston post road, the route that made America, Eric Jaffe

The King's best highway : the lost history of the Boston post road, the route that made America, Eric Jaffe

Creator
Summary
This book is a look at American history through the prism of the country's most storied highway, the Boston Post Road. It is based on extensive travels of the highway, interviews with people living up and down the road, and primary sources unearthed from the great libraries between New York City and Boston, including letters, maps, contemporaneous newspapers, and long forgotten government documents. During its evolution from Indian trails to modern interstates, the Boston Post Road, a system of over land routes between New York City and Boston, has carried not just travelers and mail but the march of American history itself. The author captures the progress of people and culture along the road through four centuries, from its earliest days as the king of England's "best highway" to the current era. Centuries before the telephone, radio, or Internet, the Boston Post Road was the primary conduit of America's prosperity and growth. News, rumor, political intrigue, financial transactions, and personal missives traveled with increasing rapidity, as did people from every walk of life. From post riders bearing the alarms of revolution, to coaches carrying George Washington on his first presidential tour, to railroads transporting soldiers to the Civil War, the Boston Post Road has been essential to the political, economic, and social development of the United States. Continuously raised, improved, rerouted, and widened for faster and heavier traffic, the road played a key role in the advent of newspapers, stagecoach travel, textiles, mass produced bicycles and guns, commuter railroads, automobiles, even Manhattan's modern grid. Many famous Americans traveled the highway, and it drew the keen attention of such diverse personages as Benjamin Franklin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, P.T. Barnum, J.P. Morgan, and Robert Moses. The author weaves this narrative with a historian's eye for detail and a journalist's flair for storytelling. A cast of historical figures, celebrated and unknown alike, tells the lost tale of this road. Revolutionary printer William Goddard created a postal network that united the colonies against the throne. General Washington struggled to hold the highway during the battle for Manhattan. Levi Pease convinced Americans to travel by stagecoach until, half a century later, Nathan Hale convinced them to go by train. Abe Lincoln, still a dark horse candidate in early 1860, embarked on a railroad speaking tour along the route that clinched the presidency. Bomb builder Lester Barlow, inspired by the Post Road's notorious traffic, nearly sold Congress on a national system of expressways twenty five years before the Interstate Highway Act of 1956
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
1st Scribner hardcover ed.
Extent
ix, 322 pages
Contents
  • From Indian path to post road
  • The "ordinary way"
  • Of fidelity and fate
  • Benjamin Franklin, postman
  • Inflammatory papers and tavern politicians
  • The general and the blacksmith
  • Setting the business in motion
  • The railroad as highway
  • The great Boston-New York rivalry
  • Toward union
  • Barnum, Morgan, and New England's "invisible government"
  • The nation's road standard
  • Colonel Pope and the good roads movement
  • "Rocks, ruts, and thank-you-marms"
  • Highway Route 1, relocated
  • Changing the face of America
  • Cruising the BPR
Isbn
9781416586159
Instance
Label
The King's best highway : the lost history of the Boston post road, the route that made America
Title
The King's best highway
Title remainder
the lost history of the Boston post road, the route that made America
Statement of responsibility
Eric Jaffe
Creator
Subject
Language
eng
Summary
This book is a look at American history through the prism of the country's most storied highway, the Boston Post Road. It is based on extensive travels of the highway, interviews with people living up and down the road, and primary sources unearthed from the great libraries between New York City and Boston, including letters, maps, contemporaneous newspapers, and long forgotten government documents. During its evolution from Indian trails to modern interstates, the Boston Post Road, a system of over land routes between New York City and Boston, has carried not just travelers and mail but the march of American history itself. The author captures the progress of people and culture along the road through four centuries, from its earliest days as the king of England's "best highway" to the current era. Centuries before the telephone, radio, or Internet, the Boston Post Road was the primary conduit of America's prosperity and growth. News, rumor, political intrigue, financial transactions, and personal missives traveled with increasing rapidity, as did people from every walk of life. From post riders bearing the alarms of revolution, to coaches carrying George Washington on his first presidential tour, to railroads transporting soldiers to the Civil War, the Boston Post Road has been essential to the political, economic, and social development of the United States. Continuously raised, improved, rerouted, and widened for faster and heavier traffic, the road played a key role in the advent of newspapers, stagecoach travel, textiles, mass produced bicycles and guns, commuter railroads, automobiles, even Manhattan's modern grid. Many famous Americans traveled the highway, and it drew the keen attention of such diverse personages as Benjamin Franklin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, P.T. Barnum, J.P. Morgan, and Robert Moses. The author weaves this narrative with a historian's eye for detail and a journalist's flair for storytelling. A cast of historical figures, celebrated and unknown alike, tells the lost tale of this road. Revolutionary printer William Goddard created a postal network that united the colonies against the throne. General Washington struggled to hold the highway during the battle for Manhattan. Levi Pease convinced Americans to travel by stagecoach until, half a century later, Nathan Hale convinced them to go by train. Abe Lincoln, still a dark horse candidate in early 1860, embarked on a railroad speaking tour along the route that clinched the presidency. Bomb builder Lester Barlow, inspired by the Post Road's notorious traffic, nearly sold Congress on a national system of expressways twenty five years before the Interstate Highway Act of 1956
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Jaffe, Eric
Dewey number
388.10974
Illustrations
maps
Index
index present
LC call number
HE356.B6
LC item number
J34 2010
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Roads
  • Transportation
  • Transportation and state
  • Social change
  • Post roads
  • Post roads
  • Boston Post Roads
  • Boston (Mass.)
  • New York (N.Y.)
Label
The King's best highway : the lost history of the Boston post road, the route that made America, Eric Jaffe
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-309) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
From Indian path to post road -- The "ordinary way" -- Of fidelity and fate -- Benjamin Franklin, postman -- Inflammatory papers and tavern politicians -- The general and the blacksmith -- Setting the business in motion -- The railroad as highway -- The great Boston-New York rivalry -- Toward union -- Barnum, Morgan, and New England's "invisible government" -- The nation's road standard -- Colonel Pope and the good roads movement -- "Rocks, ruts, and thank-you-marms" -- Highway Route 1, relocated -- Changing the face of America -- Cruising the BPR
Control code
464593163
Dimensions
24 cm
Edition
1st Scribner hardcover ed.
Extent
ix, 322 pages
Isbn
9781416586159
Isbn Type
(trade pbk.)
Lccn
2009051453
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
maps
System control number
(OCoLC)464593163
Label
The King's best highway : the lost history of the Boston post road, the route that made America, Eric Jaffe
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-309) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
From Indian path to post road -- The "ordinary way" -- Of fidelity and fate -- Benjamin Franklin, postman -- Inflammatory papers and tavern politicians -- The general and the blacksmith -- Setting the business in motion -- The railroad as highway -- The great Boston-New York rivalry -- Toward union -- Barnum, Morgan, and New England's "invisible government" -- The nation's road standard -- Colonel Pope and the good roads movement -- "Rocks, ruts, and thank-you-marms" -- Highway Route 1, relocated -- Changing the face of America -- Cruising the BPR
Control code
464593163
Dimensions
24 cm
Edition
1st Scribner hardcover ed.
Extent
ix, 322 pages
Isbn
9781416586159
Isbn Type
(trade pbk.)
Lccn
2009051453
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
maps
System control number
(OCoLC)464593163

Subject

Library Locations

    • Ellis LibraryBorrow it
      1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, MO, 65201, US
      38.944491 -92.326012

Library Links

Structured data from the Bibframe namespace is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by University of Missouri Libraries. Additional terms may apply to data associated with third party namespaces.
Processing Feedback ...