|
|
|
Reviews
SUNSET LIMITED: THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN WEST, 1850–1930
|
by Richard J. Orsi
|
University of California Press, Berkeley, 2005.
Photographs, maps, notes, index. 637 pages. $29.95 cloth. |
|
|
| This is an important, revisionist look at one of the West's most significant railroads. Taking his title from the Southern Pacific's luxury passenger liner, the Sunset Limited, Richard Orsi views the railroad as a pivotally creative influence on the economic development of the West, from its frontier era to the onset of the Great Depression. Rather than hindering development and undermining the honest operations of the political process, Orsi contends, the Southern Pacific (SP) left a balanced and positive legacy to the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century West. |
1
|
|
Orsi's viewpoint is controversial. Although he does not attempt to whitewash the SP's behavior, Orsi consciously eschews the view of the powerful railroad popularized by Frank Norris's 1901 novel, The Octopus: A Story of California. Taking on that almost-sacred cow of literary and historical interpretation, Orsi attempts "to go beyond the dichotomous mode" that pits "a malevolent monopoly representing selfish, greedy, corporate interests [versus] the 'people,' representing the inherently democratic, 'public' interest" (p. xvii). In the end, his massive study finds the Southern Pacific to be better than selfish private interest and many interests speaking for the people to be less than purely altruistic. |
2
|
|
Orsi focuses his attention on a broad array of subjects central to western economic development. After a brief survey of the company's leaders and its physical and corporate structure, beginning with Central Pacific construction days in the 1860s, he turns to the SP's always controversial policies regarding its land grants, settlement, water, agriculture, wilderness preservation, and management of natural resources. |
3
|
|
In an important sense, Orsi accomplishes his revisionist ends by piercing the corporate veil, going beyond the much discussed roles of the Big Four (Collis P. Huntington, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, and Mark Hopkins) and Edward H. Harriman. Although these people are important in the SP story, Orsi does not limit his account to them. Instead, he devotes considerable attention to the lower-level executives who helped shape and execute the railroad's policies throughout its sprawling domain. Among them was a bevy of officials — including SP Land Department executives Benjamin B. Redding (1865–1882) and William H. Mills (1883–1907) — who guided the company's land, agriculture, water, and resource policies into the twentieth century. Surprisingly, at least to modern-day readers, the efforts of these executives resulted in the SP's promotion of family farms, scientific agriculture, resource conservation, and wilderness and park land measures |
4
|
|
Their's proved particularly important voices against new policies initiated by the shotgun marriage of the SP and the Edward H. Harriman system. Despite their goals to help develop the West for small farmers, they were unable to thwart Harriman's temporary termination of most of the line's land-development programs. Consequently, Orsi insists, "from 1901 until at least 1909 or 1910, the Southern Pacific became in fact what some uninformed critics had always accused it of being — a land monopolist and speculator" (p. 125). |
5
|
|
Prior to and following that interlude, the SP — demonstrating enlightened self-interest —spoke emphatically against environmentally devastating practices, such as hydraulic mining and unrestrained timber harvesting , and other practices that undermined responsible western economic development. At the same time, it encouraged settlement through national promotional campaigns for the vast region its lines traversed. |
6
|
|
OHQ readers will be particularly interested in Orsi's inclusive, albeit brief, discussion of the SP's activities in Oregon. There, as in California, its small-scale farm promotions were quite visible. Through its ongoing educational efforts, the company supported scientific agriculture, including demonstration trains that promoted its use in isolated areas. At the same time, the SP supported the establishment of agricultural research stations through the Oregon Agricultural College (Oregon State University at Corvallis) and generally proved a "natural ally of agricultural researchers and educators" (p. 281). |
7
|
|
Orsi relies heavily on primary sources for this massive study. Particularly useful is his work within the scattered, and heretofore little used, materials from the Southern Pacific's files. This research allows him to go beyond the usual treatments, confined to the company's leaders, and to provide interesting insights into the conflicting opinions and accomplishments within the organization. Not all will concur with his positive — hence, revisionist — treatment of the Southern Pacific, but Orsi has given readers a well-researched, solid treatment that serves to redress the octopus that has dominated historiography of the company. |
8
|
| W. THOMAS WHITE
|
| James J. Hill Reference Library, St. Paul, Minn. |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|