The Industrial Revolution rode into Texas on the railroads. The entire state witnessed the political and economic climate change as the tracks were laid, creating urban centers and even a new governmental body, the Texas Railroad Commission. At the same time, Galveston was a city on a mission to become the primary seaport for the Great West. Together, the corporate strategy of the railroads and the city's own desire for greatness paved the way for Galveston's growth and transformation into a focal point of Texas railroad ventures. In Tracks to the Sea: Galveston and Western Rail Development, 1866-1900, Earle B. Young traces the efforts of "railroad generals" Jay Gould and Collis Huntington to control Texas' railroad ventures, as well as the struggles of the new railroads built during this era, such as the Houston and Great Northern, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe, and the Houston and Texas Central. Young also examines the men behind the rails, and the goals and rivalries which shaped the routes and profits of Texas railroads, especially Galveston's George Sealy in his battle with New York's Gould for the route to the thriving seaport and Gould's competition with Huntington over who would dominate the southwestern lines. By the end of the nineteenth century, these railroad builders had brought Galveston to a position of national prominence as a transportation center. In combination with the ships calling at Galveston's new deep water harbor, the railroads provided connections for all of the western states with markets around the world. Young, using resources from the Rosenberg Library's Galveston History Center, the Kansas Historical Society, and the Library of Congress, devotes chapters to the bankruptcy and revival of Sealy's Galveston's Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway. Tracks to the Sea is ideal for anyone interested in the history of Texas and Galveston, as well as the dreams, deals, and feuds that shaped the railroad industry of the 1800s.

Publisher Description

A valuable collection of folk music and lore from the Gullah culture, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands preserves the rich traditions of slave descendants on the barrier islands of Georgia by interweaving their music with descriptions of their language, religious and social customs, and material culture. Collected over a period of nearly twenty-five years by Lydia Parrish, the sixty folk songs and attendant lore included in this book are evidence of antebellum traditions kept alive in the relatively isolated coastal regions of Georgia. Over the years, Parrish won the confidence of many of the African-American singers, not only collecting their songs but also discovering other elements of traditional culture that formed the context of those songs. When it was first published in 1942, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands contained much material that had not previously appeared in print. The songs are grouped in categories, including African survival songs; shout songs; ring-play, dance, and fiddle songs; and religious and work songs. In additions to the lyrics and melodies, Slave Songs includes Lydia Parrish's explanatory notes, character sketches of her informants, anecdotes, and a striking portfolio of photographs. Reproduced in its original oversized format, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands will inform and delight students and scholars of African-American culture and folklore as well as folk music enthusiasts.

Most times left solely within the confine of plantation narratives, slavery was far from a land-based phenomenon. This book reveals for the first time how it took critical shape at sea. Expanding the gaze even more deeply, the book centers how the oceanic transport of human cargoes--infamously known as the Middle Passage--comprised a violently regulated process foundational to the institution of bondage. Sowande' Mustakeem's groundbreaking study goes inside the Atlantic slave trade to explore the social conditions and human costs embedded in the world of maritime slavery. Mining ship logs, records and personal documents, Mustakeem teases out the social histories produced between those on traveling ships: slaves, captains, sailors, and surgeons. As she shows, crewmen manufactured captives through enforced dependency, relentless cycles of physical, psychological terror, and pain that led to the the making--and unmaking--of enslaved Africans held and transported onboard slave ships. Mustakeem relates how this process, and related power struggles, played out not just for adult men, but also for women, children, teens, infants, nursing mothers, the elderly, diseased, ailing, and dying. Mustakeem offers provocative new insights into how gender, health, age, illness, and medical treatment intersected with trauma and violence transformed human beings into the world's most commercially sought commodity for over four centuries.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A riveting, adrenaline-fueled tour of a vast, lawless, and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways—drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil, and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely. Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning exposé, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching.

I’ll Give You the Sun meets Normal People in Cassandra Hartt's The Sea Is Salt and So Am I, a stunning YA contemporary debut that asks if the secrets we keep and the people we love can change who we are. "Achingly beautiful.”—Rachael Lippincott, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Five Feet Apart "Turbulent and tender, this deeply-felt debut will make your heart swell time and time again."—Julia Drake, author of The Last True Poets of the Sea West Finch is one hurricane away from falling into the sea. Yet sixteen-year-old Harlow Prout is determined to save her small Maine hometown. If only she could stop getting in her own way and find someone, anyone, willing to help. But her best friend Ellis MacQueen “fixes” problems by running away from them—including his broken relationship with his twin brother, Tommy. And Tommy’s depression has hit a new low, so he’s not up for fixing anything. In the wake of the town’s latest devastating storm, Tommy goes out for a swim that he doesn’t intend to survive. It’s his unexpected return that sets into motion a sea change between these three teens. One that tests old loyalties, sparks new romance, and uncovers painful secrets. And nothing stays secret in West Finch for long. Exquisitely honest and shimmering with emotion, The Sea is Salt and So Am I is a captivating multi-POV story that probes the depths of what it means to love and trust—both ourselves and others.

On a small Caribbean island nation a disgruntled faction plots to overthrow the government. When the government learns of the plot it must do two things, thwart the takeover attempt and push forward its own plans for reform. After a chance meeting, an unlikely pair of Americans is drawn into this complex situation. In a tropical setting that is both sensual and sinister, rising young American author Angela Lundgren and engaging and enigmatic ex-army Ranger Vince Lassiter are quickly and inexorably drawn into a world of adventure, political intrigue, danger and death. They forge a sometimes contentious relationship that soon deepens beyond friendship. Along the way, each begins to question the goals and the courses of their lives. When events come to a climax on one tumultuous night, the forces of man and nature combine to find Vince putting his life in Angelas hands. Reacting almost instinctively, Angela discovers unexpected things about herself as she must risk her own life and the lives of newfound friends to save the things that have become most important to her. As they struggle to survive the events they have been swept into, Angela and Vince also struggle to make decisions that will affect their lives forever.

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