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Jeremy Vetter. Field Life: Science in the American West during the Railroad Era.

2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 123; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ahr/123.1.231

1937-5239

H. Roger Grant,

Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies

As the book indicates, Jeremy Vetter’s Field Life: Science in the American West during the Railroad Era focuses on field science activities that took place on the Great Plains and in the Rocky Mountains from the 1860s to the 1920s. And the subtitle suggests the importance of railroads for good reason. Development of a network of rail lines, especially completion of several transcontinental routes, facilitated a range of scientific endeavors. Curious individuals, whether amateurs or professionals, had earlier explored parts the vastness of the trans-Mississippi West, but they found themselves limited by the tyranny of distance. These intrepid souls, though, might have traveled in stagecoaches or on steamboats. While the former offered greater possibilities than the latter, most roads were little more than trails, either of animals or of American Indians. Usually, too, explorations involved extensive walking, or perhaps use of horses and mules. But the railway age, which included the expanding commercial telegraph and enhanced U.S. postal service, made possible a more productive field life; after all, much of the previous scientific work had been largely superficial.