Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth: Coal, Politics, and Economy in Antebellum America (Studies in Early American Economy and Society from the Library Company of Philadelphia)

Book overview Description Editorial Reviews Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic TitleIn 1796, famed engineer and architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe toured the coal fields outside Richmond, Virginia, declaring enthusiastically, "Such a mine of Wealth exists, I believe, nowhere else!" With its abundant and accessible deposits, growing industries, and network of rivers and ports, Virginia stood poised to serve as the center of the young nation's coal trade.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, Virginia's leadership in the American coal industry had completely unraveled while Pennsylvania, at first slow to exploit its vast reserves of anthracite and bituminous coal, had become the country's leading producer.