Waterways of Westward Expansion - The Ohio River and its Tributaries

Archer Butler HulbertProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
215K words
Chapters
22

Tags

English Originals Historical Geography Human GeographyHistorical ReappraisalRiver ExplorationSocial ObservationGeography Science

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Waterways of Westward Expansion - The Ohio River and its Tributaries by HulbertAuthor: Hulbert, Archer Butler, 1873-1933,Language: English, Class: E151: History: America: United States, Release Date: Oct 18, 2012

Editor's review

This book is a historical work examining the role played by the Ohio River and its tributaries in America's westward expansion. Taking waterways as its thread, the author traces how these transport arteries shaped migration, trade, and settlement patterns during this period. For understanding the early history of American westward expansion, the waterways perspective offers a concrete and solid entry point, helping readers move beyond a narrative of purely political events to see how geography and transport conditions shaped the course of history. The material is organized around rivers, making it suitable for readers interested in American frontier history, transport history, or regional history as focused reading. As a work of historical research, it likely involves numerous place names, personal names, and chronological clues; readers are advised to read with a map at hand to grasp spatial relationships more clearly. As a public-domain ebook, it is easy to search and excerpt, making it suitable as a research aid, but readers should not expect popularized narrative or abundant illustrations.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Keep a map of the Ohio River basin on hand while reading, checking geographic locations as you go.
  2. Skim the table of contents first and read in sections by river or theme rather than straight through from beginning to end.
  3. Read alongside general histories of American westward expansion to supplement the background framework.
  4. Take brief notes on key place names and dates for easier later reference and citation.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22

FAQ

Is this book suitable for beginning history readers? Not really. This is a specialized historical study involving numerous place names, personal names, and chronological clues, with little popularized narrative or background groundwork. If you have no basic understanding of American westward expansion, it is advisable to read one or two general introductory histories first, then return to this book, which will make its structure and value easier to grasp.
Do I need a map to read this book? Strongly recommended. The book unfolds along the Ohio River and its tributaries, and spatial relationships are key to understanding the content. Keeping a basin map or digital map at hand and locating relevant rivers and towns as you read can significantly improve reading efficiency and depth of understanding.
What is the edition status of this book? This is a public-domain ebook released by Project Gutenberg, in English, under the American history category. The electronic edition is convenient for full-text search and excerpting and suitable as a research aid, but it contains no modern editorial notes or illustrations, so readers must supplement background materials themselves.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Archer Butler Hulbert Author · American · 1873–1933

Archer Butler Hulbert (1873–1933) was an American historical geographer and writer who served as professor of history at Colorado College. He devoted himself to the study of early roads, river transport, and westward pioneering, edited the sixteen-volume "Historic Highways of America," and wrote extensively on the history of transportation and the frontier. His works center on the opening of overland and water routes, examining specific roads such as the Cumberland Road and Washington's early road, as well as the paths of the mound-building Indians and great game animals, and the role of the Ohio River and its tributaries in westward expansion. He combined close attention to roads and rivers with travelers' firsthand accounts, blending archival research with narrative verve to produce solid, readable records of America's early transportation networks and western development. Public information about his life is limited, and his influence rests chiefly on these transportation histories.