History / United States / 19th Century

Traces the Arc of Pittsburgh’s Rise from Frontier Outpost to Dynamic Industrial Region

This book examines the practice of science in the field in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains of the American West between the 1860s and the 1910s, when the railroad was the dominant form of long-distance transportation. Grounded in approaches from environmental history and the history of technology, it emphasizes the material basis of scientific fieldwork, joining together the human labor that produced knowledge with the natural world in which those practices were embedded.

Daniel French examines the American social perceptions of electricity as an energy technology between the mid-19th and early decades of the 20th centuries. Arguing that both technical and cultural factors played a role, French shows how electricity became an invisible and abstract form of energy in American society, leading Americans to culturally construct electricity as unlimited and environmentally inconsequential—a newfound “basic right” of life in the United States.

The weekly magazine Garden and Forest existed for only nine years (1888-1897). Yet, in that brief span, it brought to light many of the issues that would influence the future of American environmentalism. In The City Natural, Shen Hou presents the first “biography” of this important but largely overlooked vehicle for individuals with the common goal of preserving nature in American civilization. As Hou reveals, Garden and Forest was instrumental in redefining the fields of botany and horticulture, while also helping to shape the fledgling professions of landscape architecture and forestry.

Winner of the 1996 Phi Alpha Theta Best First Book Award Killing Time examines the cultural history of southwestern Pennsylvania through the lens of leisure activities. Scott Martin details how leisure activities were integral in the formation of class, gender, ethnic, and community identities.

Sarah Robbins identifies and defines a new genre in American letters—the domestic literacy narrative—and provides a cultural history of its development throughout the nineteenth century.

Winner of an Outstanding Academic Title Award from Choice Magazine (2006).

A Richly Illustrated Account of a Crucial Moment in US Labor History

This book tells the story of river boating in the west before the invention of the steamboat. Recreates life on the keelboats and flatboats that ran the Ohio, Mississippi, and other rivers from revolutionary days until about 1820.

The definitive biography of Albert Gallatin (1761-1849), recounting sixty years that the Swiss-born diplomat served his adopted country as a congressional leader, Secretary of the Treasury, financier, and ambassador.