Westward Expansion
Hubert Bancroft Runs a History Factory
In 1868, a San Francisco book dealer named Hubert Howe Bancroft (1832-1918) set out to write the history of the Pacific slope,[1] from Alaska to the Isthmus of Panama. It was a project on a heroic scale. Bancroft did not write all the books himself, even though he was the only author listed. In fact,…
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The Exodusters
In 1870s, after the failed promise of equality and opportunity under Reconstruction had ended, thousands of formerly enslaved Black Americans headed to Kansas and other Western states, hoping to take advantage of the opportunity to own land offered by the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave 160 acres of federal land to anyone who agreed…
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From the Archives: Running on Railroad Time
In case you haven’t heard, I am still deep in book mode. May 1 approaches, and I am doing the revision hokey-pokey. (Put the right words in, take the wrong words out, but the right words, and you shake it all about.) While I turn myself around, here is a post for your amusement that…
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