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Excursion Through America by Nicolaus Mohr Hard Cover
Excursion Through America by Nicolaus Mohr
The Lakeside Classics
Hard Cover
398 pages
Copyright 1973
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xix
The Text and Its Editing xxi
Historical Introduction xxv
Author's Preface lxxv
1. The Invitation3
2. The Journey Begins7
3. The Atlantic Crossing 17
4. The Arrival in New York 29
5. From Niagara to Chicago 45
6. A Minnesota Interlude67
7. Through Dakota and Montana 101
8. The Rocky Mountains and a Visit with the Indians 127
9. The Last Spike 157
10. Lake Pend d'Oreille and the Columbia River 173
11. Portland 191
12. To Victoria and Back by Boat 215
13. On the Way Home 233
14. Yellowstone National Park 251
15. Cities on the Mississippi: St. Paul and St. Louis 273
16. Cities on the Ohio: Louisville and Cincinnati 303
17. Cities of the East: Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington 311
18. Baltimore Back to New York 333
19. The Farewell Banquet 345
Epilogue: Nicolaus Mohr as a Foreign Observer of the United States. By Klaus Lanzinger 353
Index 371
List of The Lakeside Classics 395
ILLUSTRATIONS
Nicolaus Mohr Frontispiece
Original German Title Page vii
Henry Villard 2
The Elbe 11
The East River Suspension Bridge 35
The Falls of Niagara 48
State Street, Chicago 54
Pine Street (Michigan Avenue), Chicago 58
The Lakeside Building 60
The Chicago Board of Trade 62
Hotel Lafayette 82
Parade in St. Paul 87
Parade on Third Street, St. Paul 91
Parade down Washington Avenue, Minneapolis 95
The Four Sections at Bismarck 109
Laying Cornerstone of Territorial Capitol 111
The Badlands of Dakota 119
Crow Indians at Last Spike Site 159
Before the Arrival of Trains at Last Spike Site 162
The Famous "Nig" and Track Layers 167
Driving the Last Spike 169
First Train Over the New Tracks 171
Mount Hood and The Dalles of Columbia 189
Park and Montgomery Streets, Portland 202
Tacoma and Mount Rainier 219
Seattle, Washington Territory 229
St. Ignatius Mission, Montana Territory 244
Hot Springs, Yellowstone Park 255
Castle Geyser, Yellowstone Park 270
The Levee and the Eads Bridge, St. Louis 284
The Veiled Prophet Parade, St. Louis 294
St. Louis Fairgrounds 297
Southern Exposition Building, Louisville 304
Riverfront from Central Bridge, Cincinnati 307
Boston Common 314
Boston Athenaeum 319
Harvard University Campus 322
City Hall, Philadelphia 325
United States Capitol 329
View of Baltimore 334
Park Place, New York City 340
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE
EXCURSION THROUGH AMERICA is the story of a gala coast-to-coast journey to celebrate the completion of the rail link between the east coast and Oregon in 1883.
Although the excursion described in this year's edition of The Lakeside Classics is possibly the most extended and most well-publicized celebration of the completion of a transcontinental rail link, it was not the first. It was preceded by a celebration of the joining of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads which met at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869, and that of the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe which occurred in 1881 at Deming, New Mexico.
Nevertheless, when the Northern Pacific extended west from Lake Superior to meet the rails of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company in 1883, it was a great occasion. At last the Northwest had its own rail connection with the East. Henry Villard, president of the Northern Pacific, saw it also as a great public relations opportunity to attract investors. For these reasons he invited an impressive group of British, German, and American capitalists to join the other dignitaries on the tour. As the special excursion trains rolled westward along the new route, city after city staged great celebrations, each trying to outdo the others.
Among the invited guests was the distinguished German journalist, Nicolaus Mohr. Herr Mohr described the tour and the celebrations in enthusiastic but sometimes tongue-in-cheek detail in dispatches to his Bremen newspaper. When he returned home, he rearranged and edited these dispatches to form the present book which was first printed in Berlin in 1884. Incidentally, Herr Mohr was well known among Americans of German descent because of the overseas editions of his paper which appeared in this country.
Before work on our edition of this book was actually started, we were saddened by the death of the editor we had selected, John A. Hawgood of the University of Birmingham (England). Professor Hawgood, in addition to being an expert on the American West, was fluent in the German language in which the book originally was written.
Fortunately, however, Ray Allen Billington stepped into the breach. Professor Billington is an outstanding authority on frontier America. After serving Northwestern University as their William Smith Mason Professor of History and Chicago's Newberry Library as a Trustee, he left the Middle West for California where he became Senior Research Associate of the Huntington Library in San Marino.
Excursion Through America contains a far greater number of illustrations than have previously appeared in The Lakeside Classics series. We thus would be remiss if we did not call attention to the many institutions and individuals who helped us to obtain them. Each illustration, therefore, is accompanied by its own acknowledgement.
The map depicting the Villard journey is the third in this series to be produced by the eminent Chicago artist and calligrapher, Robert Williams.
For the first time in this series, type for the 1973 edition of The Lakeside Classics was set by a new process using high-speed computer-controlled electronic character generators. This new technique creates type characters made up into full pages as you see them in this book, on the face of a television-like cathode ray tube. The light pattern on the tube exposes the pages that are formed on a computer to photographic film from which sharp, well- defined printing plates can be made.
This character generation and page composition is done in the ultra-modern Donnelley Electronic Graphics Division where sophisticated Donnelley-developed computer techniques are combined with the craftsmanship of traditional typographic skills to produce type pages at the almost unbelievable rate of moo characters per second. Even the hyphenation, page numbers, and headings are dictated by computer instructions, and are produced at the same time the rest of the page is created.
The Electronic Graphics Division brings together techniques developed by our pioneering research in several different fields: computer-controlled hot-metal typesetting for which we developed our own computer in the late 195os; the utilization of electronically-controlled character generation on film, which also started at Donnelley in the 195os with the purchase and researching of the very first photo-composing machine to be put in use; and finally, our work with the manipulation of data which we started when computers first came on the market.
With the application several years later of the cathode ray tube for type generation and composition, the technology in our Company had achieved such high efficiency that the Electronic Graphics Division was created, in 1967, to make broad commercial application of these techniques. As a result of our continuing research and development, this Division today stands in a position of unquestioned leadership in the field of computerized electronic composition.
The Division produces accurate, high-quality typesetting for a variety of our customers. Not only does it do successful typography for books such as this, but also for nationally-known magazines, catalogs, and directories.
Another first for this edition of The Lakeside Classics is that it was printed in our Crawfordsville, Indiana plant. These books have been bound in Crawfordsville since 1941 when our book bindery was moved there from Chicago, but this is the first time the printing was done there. Like the last two books in the series, this one is again printed by offset lithography, which continues to increase its importance in the book production field.
This preface to the 71st edition of The Lakeside Classics, a series which was started in 1903, again gives us an opportunity to comment on our business during the past year.
The year 1973 was characterized by challenge, achievement, setbacks, and readjustment. Overall, the Company continued to grow. Major expansions continued throughout the Company.
As the year began, however, we were faced with the loss of an old friend when LIFE magazine ceased publication. We were the major printers of this remarkable publication from its founding in 1936. Hand in hand, Donnelley developed new printing technology as LIFE pioneered new concepts in news reporting. Its acceptance by the public was so great, and its rise so meteoric, that the standing production order in the early years was to produce every possible copy before the next week's edition had to be put to press. Over the years, the magnificent accomplishments and exciting challenges of this wonderful publication did much to stimulate and develop our own production capabilities. In fact, the printing of LIFE grew to become our largest single job and was a major factor in our Company's growth and success. We look back with pride on our association with LIFE, and with sadness at its passing.
In our Chicago and Old Saybrook plants we were faced with the most serious work-force reductions in our history. Our people have faced these reductions with unusual patience and understanding, but the impact has been difficult on the many who have been affected. Every effort has been made and substantial expense was incurred to minimize the effect by transfers, retraining, demotions, augmented early retirement, and special separation payments. Assistance in finding other employment was offered to all those whom we regretfully could not continue in the work force. During the year we have dedicated major efforts to the task of revitalizing these two Divisions. A substantial number of people have been recalled and many others have been restored to former jobs. These efforts shall continue.
Even though the year began on a sad note, there were many favorable developments as it progressed. The successful start-up of the new telephone directory plant in Lancaster is meeting our highest hopes and expectations. New press equipment has been installed in Chicago and Old Saybrook to offset, in part, the loss of work which resulted from the discontinuance of LIFE magazine. Major plant additions and new press equipment are now on stream or under construction in Mattoon, Willard, Warsaw, Glasgow, and Lancaster-East.
A new financial printing office was set up in the heart of Wall Street to offer Donnelley printing services to the New York financial community. This new office is electronically connected with new financial printing facilities in the Lancaster-East plant and we are able to provide the same services as if our printing plant were located on Wall Street. This financial printing facility offers New York the same excellent printing service we have provided for forty years to Chicago's financial community.
In September, we announced the decision to establish a new gravure printing plant in Gallatin, Tennessee.
Price controls also affect our business, requiring managerial attention and administrative effort which could be more profitably directed to other endeavors. The intense competition in the printing industry controls prices far more effectively than any artificial controls imposed by the government. By dealing with symptoms rather than causes, such controls become counter-productive and severely distort the free flow of goods and services in our society. Hopefully, they will soon be terminated.
Another major concern during this past year has been the securing of an adequate supply of certain grades of printing paper. Few new printing paper facilities have been brought into production in recent years, and very few are planned for the future. This most serious problem will continue until the demand is decreased or the supply is increased, or both. However, we are making a concerted effort, which so far has been largely successful, to assure an adequate supply of paper for the immediate and long-term requirements of our customers.
In spite of the problems we face, we continue to be confident and optimistic about the future of our Company as evidenced by the substantial expenditures for expansion of our manufacturing facilities. We are taking these steps in recognition of the ability of our managers, salesmen, staff, and production employees to meet the needs of our ever-growing list of customers and the many challenges of the future.
We hope all our friends share our confidence and enthusiasm, and wish them a very Merry Christmas and a most Happy New Year.
THE PUBLISHERSChristmas, 1973
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