Excerpt from The Life of Henry Bradley Plant It is rare to find a man who has had dealings with so many of his fellows, and who, at the same time, has won the esteem and affection of his associates and employes, as has Henry Bradley Plant in every department of his great railroad system. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This is a detailed and accurate biography of Henry Bradley Plant (1819 – 1899), a businessman, entrepreneur, and investor concerned with many transportation welfares and projects, primarily railroads, in the southeastern United States. He was the founder of the famous Plant System of railroads and steamboats. After reading this well-written biography by G. Hutchinson Smyth, one can get a clear idea of the best period in the history of the states of the southern US. This book presents an accurate account of the major events that took place in the life of H.B. Plant and delivers several valuable insights into the success of the Plant system that he formed in 1882 to lease and buy other railroads and expand the system. The author details several significant happenings in the life of Plant from his birth to his sicknesses, from his hobbies and interests to his occupation, from his experiences pre and post the civil war, finally, to his demise.

Biographical account of the life of Henry B. Plant.

Florida's size and shape meant a largely remote interior until shortly before the Civil War. The catalysts for blasting through that anonymity were three ambitious and very different visionaries who built railroads linking east to west and north to south: Henry Morrison Flagler, David Levy Yulee, and Henry Bradley Plant. Their iron horses transported people––rich tourists from New York, slaves from Africa sold in Havana––and goods from around the state and the globe: oysters, cattle, sugar cane, molasses, and phosphate. Versions of the main lines run today––hauling freight in and out of the state and carrying passengers to connecting lines nationwide. Yet Florida’s size and shape still get in the way of efficient auto trips and affordable inter-state air travel. A private company is today planning to build a high-speed passenger train from Miami to Orlando. This book is the complete history of railways in the state of Florida––telling the tale of its beginnings as well as its future.

My long-time preoccupation with hotel history reveals one continuous strand: the achievements of unique entrepreneurs who created singular hotels one at a time. These pioneers were not by subsequent definition, “hotel men”. They did not attend hotel schools because there were none until 1924 with the creation of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. Most of them did not grew up in the hotel business but became successful because of their varied on-the-job training experiences, business acumen and unexpected opportunities. Their tradition-breaking vision and single-minded ambition led them to create iconic hotels. My research has uncovered three such hotel mavens two of whom 1) were both essentially in the railroad and steamship business 2) were friendly competitors 3) concentrated their hotel creations in the State of Florida: Henry Morrison Flagler, on the east coast and Henry Bradley Plant on the west coast. The third maven was Carl Graham Fisher who created Miami Beach and Montauk, Long Island, N.Y.

Amid the soaring oratory of Martin Luther King and the fiery rhetoric of George Wallace, scholars who worked with the Southern Regional Council during the civil rights movement spoke quietly, but with the authority of informed reason. Prominent among them was Professor Paul Gaston of the University of Virginia, who co-authored an influential analysis of school segregation, served as president of the SRC board, and authored The New South Creed. Gaston’s legacy of service includes his role as a mentor of historians. He oversaw more than two dozen dissertations at UVA from 1957 to the year 2000. These illuminated important aspects of the South and the civil rights movement while contributing to the growth of community and organizational studies within the field of social history. The articles in this Festschrift feature essays that he inspired among his students and colleagues.

"This book is a companion volume to Biographical books, 1950-1980, completing a comprehensive one hundred and five year bibliography of biographical and autobiographical works published or distributed in the United States"--Preface.