The Schuylkill River flows more than 100 miles from the mountains
of the Pennsylvania Coal Region to the Delaware River. It passes
through five counties - Schuylkill, Berks, Chester, Montgomery, and
Philadelphia - and its valley is home to more than three million
people, yet few are aware of the hidden ruins and traces left by a
pioneering 200-year-old inland waterway: the Schuylkill Navigation.
Some of it is literally buried in their own backyards. Often called
the Schuylkill Canal, this complex Navigation system actually
boasted twenty-seven canals. The first of the anthracite-carrying
routes in America, the 108-mile Navigation shadowed the Schuylkill
River for nearly all its length. It once had more than thirty dams
and slackwater pools, more than 100 stone locks, numerous
aqueducts, and the first transportation tunnel in the nation. They
were all built by hand starting in 1816. In the 1940s, as part of a
massive environmental cleanup of the river, this important and
influential infrastructure was largely dismantled - but not
entirely. Two short sections of the watered canal get plenty of
attention: the Oakes Reach at Schuylkill Canal Park near
Phoenixville and the Manayunk Canal in Philadelphia. Both are
popular recreational destinations. What happened to the rest of it?
Photographer Sandy Sorlien resolved to find out. Over the course of
seven years, she traveled upriver repeatedly to bushwhack along the
riverbanks and to row and paddle in the river itself. Armed with
camera and binoculars, loppers and trekking poles,
nineteenth-century maps and modern satellite imagery, and abetted
by local historians and an archaeologist, she found all sixty-one
lock sites and explored most of the canal beds. Her photographs
reveal a mysterious remnant landscape, evidence of a bold
industrial innovation that spelled its own demise. The water
pollution created by the coal industry and obstructive dams meant
the end of a way of life for the towns that boomed along the
canals, from Pottsville to Reading, Birdsboro to Phoenixville,
Bridgeport to Philadelphia. Along with Sorlien's full-color plates
and explanatory essays, Inland features a selection of historic
images, rare historic Schuylkill Navigation Company maps, and early
Philadelphia Watering Committee plans. The book also includes a
foreword by renowned landscape scholar John R. Stilgoe, an essay on
regional transportation history by Mike Szilagyi, Trails Project
Manager for the Schuylkill River Greenways Natural Heritage Area,
and an afterword by Karen Young, Director of the Fairmount Water
Works Interpretive Center. A sweeping new Schuylkill River map by
Morgan Pfaelzer connects it all. Inland is the first to present
contemporary photographs from a survey of the entire Schuylkill
Navigation, becoming an essential resource for future historians
and a resonant visual history all its own.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
