In this entry in the Great Projects series, Laughlin (Trouble on the Shoshone, 1989, not reviewed) takes a fairly negative view of the railroad business and provides disjointed, unpolished biographies of the five men who joined forces to build the western section of the first transcontinental railroad. The book begins with a brief portrait of each man, then moves on to the specifics of the building of the Central Pacific Railroad: how the route was chosen, how Chinese laborers were chosen, how ten miles of track were laid in one day to win a $10,000 bet. Once the railroad was built, the founders eliminated all competitors, charged users ``all the traffic would bear,'' and paid off politicians to keep the railroad's monopoly status. This presentation never captures the tremendous engineering accomplishments, the spirit of the Old West, or the perseverance required for this project. Instead, offer readers Rhoda Blumberg's Full Steam Ahead (p. 742) and Leonard Everett Fisher's Tracks Across America (1992). (maps, b&w photos and reproductions, notes, chronology, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 12+)
Pub Date: July 15, 1996
ISBN: 1-883846-14-5
Page Count: 109
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
1885
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-82118-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1999
It took four weeks for illustrations of scenes from the US’s Civil War battles to make it from the front lines to readers’ hands; Morrison (Cheetah, 1998, etc.) explains that process in his uniquely handsome book. Morrison introduces the fictional artist, William Forbes, commissioned by the fictional Burton’s Illustrated News to follow the Union Army into battle at Bull Run. Throughout the day’s fighting Forbes makes quick sketches; it is risky business, and he is often in mortal peril. That night he makes a more complete drawing, which is handed to a courier and taken back to the Burton offices. There, engravers set to work translating Forbes’s drawing to a grid of wood blocks (Morrison includes interesting incidentals along the way, giving the process its due). The images are converted to electrotype, whereafter it is finally ready for the operators and pressman. Shortly after that, the newsboys are seen hawking the illustrated weekly, containing Forbes’s image a mere month after the actual event. Morrison successfully renders the complexities of illustrating newspapers 150 years ago, and just as successfully conveys that in abandoning the wood block for the photograph, some of the art was sacrificed for speed. (glossary) (Picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-91426-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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