From 17th-century French coureurs de bois to lumberjacks of the 19th century, Wisconsin’s frontier era saw thousands arriving from Europe and other areas seeking wealth and opportunity. Indians mixed with these newcomers, sometimes helping and sometimes challenging them, often benefiting from their guns and other trade items. This captivating history reveals the conflicts, the defeats, the victories, and the way the future looked to Wisconsin’s peoples at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Wisconsin Frontier (A History of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier)

History

Wyman, Mark

Americas

Indiana University Press

From 17th-century French coureurs de bois to lumberjacks of the 19th century, Wisconsin's frontier era saw thousands arriving from Europe and other areas seeking wealth and opportunity. Indians mixed with these newcomers, sometimes helping and sometimes challenging them, often benefiting from their guns and other trade items. This captivating history reveals the conflicts, the defeats, the victories, and the way the future looked to Wisconsin's peoples at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Wisconsin Frontier (History of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier)

Indiana Univ. Pr

"The most comprehensive and interpretive study of the mining industry available to historians. . . . It is a book that will stand the test of time." -W. Turrentine Jackson, Technology and Culture "Mark Wyman's sympathetic account of the Western metal miners includes graphic details of their bitter struggle for unpaid wages, for industrial safety legislation, for corporate liability in the event of mine accidents and for workmen's compensation. . . . Throughout the book one finds the compassion and understanding that mark works in the best tradition of historical scholarship." -Milton Cantor, The Nation "Wyman has looked at miners in the larger context of American industrialization during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In doing so, he has produced a stimulating, informative account of how this group of workingmen responded to changes in the work place brought on by changes in technology, corporate capitalism, and the shifting labor forces of the day." -James E. Fell, Jr., Pacific Northwest Quarterly "Wyman's compassionate and thoughtful study is an important contribution to the social history of western mining. Hard Rock Epic is also a significant addition to the literature on the process of industrialization. It amply demonstrates that no group in the American West was so deeply affected by the Industrial Revolution as the hard rock miners." -Jeffrey K. Stine, The Midwest Review "Hard Rock Epic is both a descriptive and analytical study of the impact of technology on the life of metalliferous miners of the West. It is thoroughly researched, drawing heavily upon primary sources and the most relevant recent scholarship concerning the hardrock men. The study is judicious and balanced. . . . [and] fits well into the growing body of scholarship on Western metal mining. Historians of labor and the American West will find this volume instructive and definite contribution to their fields of study." -George C. Suggs, Jr., The American Historical Review

Hard rock epic: Western miners and the industrial revolution, 1860-1910

Business & Money

Economics

University of California Press

"The most comprehensive and interpretive study of the mining industry available to historians. . . . It is a book that will stand the test of time." -W. Turrentine Jackson, Technology and Culture "Mark Wyman's sympathetic account of the Western metal miners includes graphic details of their bitter struggle for unpaid wages, for industrial safety legislation, for corporate liability in the event of mine accidents and for workmen's compensation. . . . Throughout the book one finds the compassion and understanding that mark works in the best tradition of historical scholarship." -Milton Cantor, The Nation "Wyman has looked at miners in the larger context of American industrialization during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In doing so, he has produced a stimulating, informative account of how this group of workingmen responded to changes in the work place brought on by changes in technology, corporate capitalism, and the shifting labor forces of the day." -James E. Fell, Jr., Pacific Northwest Quarterly "Wyman's compassionate and thoughtful study is an important contribution to the social history of western mining. Hard Rock Epic is also a significant addition to the literature on the process of industrialization. It amply demonstrates that no group in the American West was so deeply affected by the Industrial Revolution as the hard rock miners." -Jeffrey K. Stine, The Midwest Review "Hard Rock Epic is both a descriptive and analytical study of the impact of technology on the life of metalliferous miners of the West. It is thoroughly researched, drawing heavily upon primary sources and the most relevant recent scholarship concerning the hardrock men. The study is judicious and balanced. . . . [and] fits well into the growing body of scholarship on Western metal mining. Historians of labor and the American West will find this volume instructive and definite contribution to their fields of study." -George C. Suggs, Jr., The American Historical Review

Hard Rock Epic: Western Miners and the Industrial Revolution, 1860-1910

"Wyman has written a fine book about the 4,000,000 or so European immigrants to the United States who arrived in this country between 1880 and 1930 and who chose to return to their native lands. . . . Even though much of the material is familiar, getting to look at it from another perspective is extraordinarily worthwhile." --Labor History

Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880–1930

Cornell University Press

"Historians of migration will welcome Mark Wyman's new book on the elusive subject of persons who returned to Europe after coming to the United States. Other scholars have dealt with particular national groups . . . but Wyman is the first to treat . . . every major group . . . . Wyman explains returning to Europe as not just the fulfillment of original intentions but also the result of 'anger at bosses and clocks, nostalgia for waiting families,' nativist resentment and heavy-handed Americanization programs, and a complex of other problems. . . . Wyman's 'nine broad conclusions' about the returnees deserve to be read by everyone concerned with international migration."―Journal of American History

Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880–1930 (Cornell Paperbacks)

"Wyman's book is the only one that comprehensively, and sensitively, depicts the plight of the postwar refugees in Western Europe."―M. Mark Stolarik, University of Ottawa 
"This is a fascinating and very moving book."―International Migration Review 
"Wyman has written a highly readable account of the movement of diverse ethnic and cultural groups of Europe's displaced persons, 1945-1951. An analysis of the social, economic, and political circumstances within which relocation, resettlement, and repatriation of millions of people occurred, this study is equally a study in diplomacy, in international relations, and in social history.... A vivid and compassionate recreation of the events and circumstances within which displaced persons found themselves, of the strategies and means by which people survived or did not, and an account of the major powers in response to an unprecedented human crisis mark this as an important book."―Choice 
"Wyman interviewed some eighty DPs as well as employees of various agencies who served them; he cites a broad range of published primary sources, secondary sources, and some archival material.... This book presents a useful overview and should stimulate further research."―Journal of American Ethnic History

DPs: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945–51

Europe

When the railroad stretched its steel rails across the American West in the 1870s, it opened up a vast expanse of territory with very few people but enormous agricultural potential: a second Western frontier, the garden West. Agriculture quickly followed the railroads, making way for Kansas wheat and Colorado sugar beets and Washington apples. With this new agriculture came an unavoidable need for harvest workers—for hands to pick the apples, cotton, oranges, and hops; to pull and top the sugar beets; to fill the trays with raisin grapes and apricots; to stack the wheat bundles in shocks to be pitched into the maw of the threshing machine. These were not the year-round hired hands but transients who would show up to harvest the crop and then leave when the work was finished. Variously called bindlestiffs, fruit tramps, hoboes, and bums, these men—and women and children—were vital to the creation of the West and its economy. Amazingly, it is an aspect of Western history that has never been told. In Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West, the award-winning historian Mark Wyman beautifully captures the lives of these workers. Exhaustively researched and highly original, this narrative history is a detailed, deeply sympathetic portrait of the lives of these hoboes, as well as a fresh look at the settling and development of the American West.

Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West

Hill and Wang

When the railroad stretched its steel rails across the American West in the 1870s, it opened up a vast expanse of territory. Agriculture quickly followed the railroads, making way for Kansas wheat and Colorado sugar beets and Washington apples. With this new agriculture came an unavoidable need for harvest workers. These were not the year-round hired hands but transients who would show up to harvest the crop and then leave when the work was finished. 
Variously called bindlestiffs, fruit tramps, hoboes, and bums, these men―and women and children―were vital to the creation of the West and its economy. Amazingly, it is an aspect of Western history that has never been told. In Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West, the award-winning historian Mark Wyman offers a detailed, deeply sympathetic portrait of the lives of these hoboes, as well as a fresh look at the settling and development of the American West.

Thousands of newcomers flocked into the Upper Mississippi country in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Minnesota received immigrants from most areas of Europe, as well as Americans from the Upper South, New England, and the Middle Atlantic states. They all carried with them religious beliefs, experiences, and expectations that differed widely, attitudes and opinions which often threw them into conflict with each other. Drawing extensively on family letters sent home to Europe, missionary reports, employment records, and other diverse materials from 1830 to 1860, Wyman shows the interplay between the major groups traveling the roads and waterways of the Upper Mississippi Valley during those crucial decades. The result is a lively, richly illustrated account that will help Americans everywhere better understand their diverse heritage and the environment in which their family trees took root. A new preface to this paperback edition helps to bring the scholarship up to date.

Immigrants in the Valley: Irish, Germans, and Americans in the Upper Mississippi Country, 1830-1860

Southern Illinois University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wyman, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wyman, Mark

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wyman, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Wisconsin Frontier (A History of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier)

The Wisconsin Frontier (History of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier)

Hard rock epic: Western miners and the industrial revolution, 1860-1910

Hard Rock Epic: Western Miners and the Industrial Revolution, 1860-1910

Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880–1930

Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880–1930 (Cornell Paperbacks)

DPs: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945–51

Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West

Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West

Immigrants in the Valley: Irish, Germans, and Americans in the Upper Mississippi Country, 1830-1860