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Private toll roads shaped and accommodated trade and migration routes, leaving social and political imprints on the communities that debated and supported them. Private road building came and went in waves throughout the 19th century and across the country. All told, between 2,500 and 3,200...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005642428
Plank road fever struck New York when George Geddes and other promoters greatly exaggerated the durability of the wooden surfacing. Within a few years Americans built hundreds of plank roads across the nation. The episode highlights how promoters diffused investment information in an era with...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010677349
Turnpike companies were the exemplary type of early American business corporation: they were the most prevalent, they were the most community laden, and they were unprofitable. The turnpike experience enhances our understanding of the evolution of the law of private and public corporations. We...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010593321
Private toll roads shaped and accommodated trade and migration routes, leaving social and political imprints on the communities that debated and supported them. Private road building came and went in waves throughout the 19th century and across the country. All told, between 2,500 and 3,200...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013214535
The years 1800-1830 are sometimes designated the turnpike era, since in the 1830's canals and railroads began eclipsing the old wagon roads. Thereafter, long distance travel went by water and rail, but the journey often began on one of the many short toll roads feeding the system. This paper...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014073950
The new roads would end rural isolation, speed commerce, improve wives and daughters, increase church attendance, bring wealth to investors. So said the promotors. The autors examine the New York origins of plank roads and analyze their giddy rise and traumatic decline. Daniel Klein is an...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014073952
From 1847 to 1853 New Yorkers built more than 3,500 miles of wooden roads. Financed primarily by residents of declining rural townships, plank roads were seen as a means of linking isolated areas to the canal and railroad network. A broad range of individuals invested in the roads, suggesting...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014074254
Turnpikes promised a solution to the problem of bad roads, but private management of highways was a startling innovation. some people opposed the idea of turnpikes as exemplifying two betes noires of the post-Revolutionary period, the private corporation and aristrocracy. Much of the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014074255
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005105043
From 1847 to 1853 New Yorkers built more than 3,500 miles of wooden roads. Financed primarily by residents of declining rural townships, plank roads were seen as a means of linking isolated areas to the canal and railroad network. A broad range of individuals invested in the roads, suggesting...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010676847