Stagecoaches and Wagons
The History of Overland Transportation Companies and Methods in 19th Century America
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Narrated by:
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Scott Clem
About this listen
“A more uncouth, clumsy machine can scarcely be imagined. In the front is a cabriolet, fixed to the body of the coach, for the accommodation of three passengers, who are protected from the rain above by the projecting roof of the coach and in the front by two heavy curtains of leather, well-oiled and smelling somewhat offensively, fastened to the roof. The inside, which is capacious and lofty, will hold six people in great comfort. It is lined with padded leather and surrounded with little pockets in which travelers deposit their bread, snuff, night caps, and pocket handkerchiefs, which generally enjoy each others' company in the same delicate depository. From the roof is suspended a large net for storing hats, swords, and bandboxes. Upon the roof, on the outside, is the imperial, which is generally occupied by six or seven persons. It is also loaded with a heap of luggage that also occupies the basket and generally presents a pile, half as high as the coach, secured by ropes and chains and tightened by a large iron windlass, constituting another appendage of this moving mass. The body of the carriage rests upon large thongs of leather fastened to heavy blocks of wood instead of springs, and the whole is drawn by seven horses.” (Based on a European tourist’s description of a stagecoach in the early 19th century).
By the time the United States came into existence, wagons were a tried-and-true method of transportation. Driven by oxen, horses, or mules, wagons and stagecoaches allowed people to traverse long distances much faster than walking. Although this form of travel remained relatively slow and perilous, the journey was often considered worth the risk. Some saw the potential profits in moving to the frontier, and as the nation expanded, enterprising individuals sought to form companies dedicated to stagecoach travel.
In fact, trails would be forged across the country to help spread settlers, and the westward movement of Americans in the 19th century became one of the largest and most consequential migrations in history. Among the paths that blazed west, the most well-known is the Oregon Trail, which was not a single trail but a network of paths that began at one of the four jumping-off points.The stagecoaches and wagons were the vehicles carrying the supplies and people, making them crucial in shaping the nation.
Stagecoaches and Wagons: The History of Overland Transportation Companies and Methods in 19th Century America looks at the vehicles that helped Americans travel across the young country. With an entertaining narration about important people, places, and events, you will learn about stagecoaches and wagons like never before!
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Story
Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner recounts the remarkable career of Major John Wesley Powell, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist who explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of the Southwest Indian tribes. This classic work is a penetrating and insightful study of the Powell’s career, from the beginning of the Powell Survey, in which Powell and his men famously became the first to descend the Colorado River, to his eventual expulsion from the Geological Survey.
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History repeats itself.
- By Roy on 09-12-11
By: Wallace Stegner
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Ghosts of Gold Mountain
- The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad
- By: Gordon H. Chang
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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From across the sea, they came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes in America. Converging on the enormous western worksite of the Transcontinental Railroad, the migrants spent years dynamiting tunnels through the snow-packed cliffs of the Sierra Nevada and laying tracks across the burning Utah desert. Their sweat and blood fueled the ascent of an interlinked, industrial United States. But those of them who survived this perilous effort would be pushed to the margins of American life and then to the fringes of public memory.
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Very inspiring, educational, and enlightening!
- By Amazon Customer on 06-25-19
By: Gordon H. Chang
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A Life Wild and Perilous
- Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific
- By: Robert M. Utley
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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If you have ever wondered what is was like to be an explorer in the unspoiled American West of the early 1800s, then this is the audiobook for you. Not only a groundbreaking work of American history by critically acclaimed author Robert M. Utley, A Life Wild and Perilous is also a dramatic story of innovation and survival. Here is your chance to live in the very heart of the American wilderness with legendary trappers and mountain men like Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Tom Fitzpatrick, and Jedediah Smith.
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A lot of good history and quite a story too.
- By David on 04-01-12
By: Robert M. Utley
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King and Queen of Malibu
- The True Story of the Battle for Paradise
- By: David K. Randall
- Narrated by: Eric Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Over a half century, Malibu went from an untamed ranch in the middle of nowhere to a paradise seeded with movie stars. Behind its transformation is the love story of Frederick and May Rindge. He was a Harvard-trained confidant of presidents; she grew up on a hardscrabble Midwestern farm; yet their unlikely bond would shape history.
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Detailed and interesting
- By SuperLuckyCat on 08-04-24
By: David K. Randall
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Empire of Shadows
- The Epic Story of Yellowstone
- By: George Black
- Narrated by: Jack de Golia
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Empire of Shadows is the epic story of the conquest of Yellowstone, a landscape uninhabited, inaccessible, and shrouded in myth in the aftermath of the Civil War. In a radical reinterpretation of the 19th century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands of history.
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Paints a big picture
- By Gail Thomalla on 07-13-21
By: George Black
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Nature's Metropolis
- Chicago and the Great West
- By: William Cronon
- Narrated by: Jonah Cummings
- Length: 18 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking work, William Cronon gives us an environmental perspective on the history of nineteenth-century America. By exploring the ecological and economic changes that made Chicago America's most dynamic city and the Great West its hinterland, Mr. Cronon opens a new window onto our national past. This is the story of city and country becoming ever more tightly bound in a system so powerful that it reshaped the American landscape and transformed American culture. The world that emerged is our own.
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Moving
- By JB on 02-09-18
By: William Cronon
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The Promise of the Grand Canyon
- John Wesley Powell's Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West
- By: John F. Ross
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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John Wesley Powell’s first descent of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869 counts among the most dramatic chapters in American exploration history. When the Canyon spit out the surviving members of the expedition - starving, battered, and nearly naked - they had accomplished what others thought impossible and finished the exploration of continental America that Lewis and Clark had begun almost 70 years before.
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Parallels
- By Bruce McClenahan on 01-25-19
By: John F. Ross
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Last Stand
- George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West
- By: Michael Punke
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the last three decades of the 19th century, an American buffalo herd once numbering 30 million animals was reduced to 23. It was the era of Manifest Destiny, a gilded age that viewed the West as nothing more than a treasure chest of resources to be dug up or shot down. Supporting hide hunters was the US Army, which considered the eradication of the buffalo essential to victory in its ongoing war on Native Americans.
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Depressing history of American tragedy
- By J. A. Bowen on 05-16-16
By: Michael Punke
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The Company
- The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire
- By: Stephen R. Bown
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hudson’s Bay Company started out small in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs with the indigenous inhabitants of inland subarctic Canada. Controlled by a handful of English aristocrats, it expanded into a powerful political force that ruled the lives of many thousands of people - from the lowlands south and west of Hudson Bay, to the tundra, the great plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest.
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Distracting and Annoying racist tropes
- By Eric on 10-28-22
By: Stephen R. Bown
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A Shorter History of Australia
- By: Geoffrey Blainey
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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After a lifetime of research and debate on Australian and international history, Geoffrey Blainey is well-placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events which have created the Australian identity: the mania for spectator sport, the suspicion of the tall poppy, the rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, Sydney and Melbourne, new and old homelands, the conflicts of war abroad and race at home, the importance of technology, the recognition of our Aboriginal past and Native Title.
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Just couldn't stand the paternalism
- By Matthew on 04-02-14
By: Geoffrey Blainey
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Fur, Fortune, and Empire
- The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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From the bestselling author of Leviathan comes this sweeping narrative of one of America’s most historically rich industries. Beginning his epic history in the early 1600s, Eric Jay Dolin traces the dramatic rise and fall of the American fur trade industry, from the first Dutch encounters with the Indians to the rise of the conservation movement in the late nineteenth century.
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a compilation of trivia
- By D. Littman on 07-18-10
By: Eric Jay Dolin