From New York to San Francisco

Travel Sketches from the Year 1869

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 19th Century
Cover of the book From New York to San Francisco by Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Indiana University Press
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Author: Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy ISBN: 9780253031228
Publisher: Indiana University Press Publication: September 11, 2017
Imprint: Indiana University Press Language: English
Author: Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
ISBN: 9780253031228
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Publication: September 11, 2017
Imprint: Indiana University Press
Language: English

Welcome to an America you’ve never seen. Where anyone can drop by the White House and visit the President between 10 a.m. and noon; where cowcatchers are bloodied daily on train tracks between New York and Boston; where spent bullets are strewn across Civil War battlefields, and Indians still roam Yosemite Valley; where pigs rut in the sand-and-clay streets of Washington, DC., and the weather-bleached skeletons of oxen and horses line the old mail roads across the West.

For three hot summer months in 1869, Ernst Mendelssohn-Barthody, the nephew of famed composer Felix Mendelssohn, traveled by train across the United States accompanied by his older cousin. His letters back home to Prussia offer fascinating glimpses of a young, rapidly growing America. Unceasingly annoyed at the Americans’ tendency to spit all the time, the Prussian aristocrats seemingly visited everyone and everywhere: meeting President Grant and Brigham Young; touring Niagara Falls, Mammoth Cave, the Redwoods, and Yosemite; taking in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Omaha, San Francisco, and the still war-ravaged city of Richmond; and crossing the continent by rail just two months after the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads had been joined at Promontory, Utah.

Full of marvelous tales and insightful observations, Ernst Mendelssohn-Barthody’s letters are a revealing window to a long-ago America.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Welcome to an America you’ve never seen. Where anyone can drop by the White House and visit the President between 10 a.m. and noon; where cowcatchers are bloodied daily on train tracks between New York and Boston; where spent bullets are strewn across Civil War battlefields, and Indians still roam Yosemite Valley; where pigs rut in the sand-and-clay streets of Washington, DC., and the weather-bleached skeletons of oxen and horses line the old mail roads across the West.

For three hot summer months in 1869, Ernst Mendelssohn-Barthody, the nephew of famed composer Felix Mendelssohn, traveled by train across the United States accompanied by his older cousin. His letters back home to Prussia offer fascinating glimpses of a young, rapidly growing America. Unceasingly annoyed at the Americans’ tendency to spit all the time, the Prussian aristocrats seemingly visited everyone and everywhere: meeting President Grant and Brigham Young; touring Niagara Falls, Mammoth Cave, the Redwoods, and Yosemite; taking in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Omaha, San Francisco, and the still war-ravaged city of Richmond; and crossing the continent by rail just two months after the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads had been joined at Promontory, Utah.

Full of marvelous tales and insightful observations, Ernst Mendelssohn-Barthody’s letters are a revealing window to a long-ago America.

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