The importance of the railroad in the nineteenth century is a historical cliché; a cliché can be true, of course, but will have lost its force, its original meaning. Garrison's letter, on the other hand, speaks to the railroad's dramatic impact at the time of the Civil War. It was, one contemporary writer argued, “the most tremendous and far-reaching engine of social revolution which has ever either blessed or cursed the earth.” It magnified the steamboat's impact, instilling a mobility in society that unraveled traditions, uprooted communities, and undercut old elites. It integrated markets,
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