BIBFRAME Work

Title

The road that made America

Other Titles (e.g. Variant)

Modern pilgrim's journey on the great wagon road

Type

  • Text
  • Monograph

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Illustrative Content

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Supplementary content

Summary

"Little known today, the Great Wagon Road was the primary road of frontier America: a mass migration route that stretched more than eight hundred miles from Philadelphia to Augusta, Georgia. It opened the Southern frontier and wilderness east of the Appalachian Mountains to America's first settlers, and later served as the gateway for the exploration of the American West. In the mid-1700s, waves of European colonists in search of land for new homes left Pennsylvania to settle in the colonial backcountry of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. More than one hundred thousand settlers made the arduous trek, those who would become the foundational generations of the world's first true immigrant nation. In their newly formed village squares, democracy took root and bloomed. During the Revolutionary War, the road served as the key supply line to the American resistance in the western areas of the colonies, especially in the South. Drawing on years of fieldwork and scholarship by an army of archeologists, academics, archivists, preservationists, and passionate history lovers, James Dodson sets out to follow the road's original path from Philadelphia to Georgia. On his journey, he crosses six contiguous states and some of the most historic and hallowed landscapes of eastern America, touching many of the nation's most sacred battlefields and burying grounds. Due to its strategic importance, military engagements were staged along the Great Wagon Road throughout North America's three major wars, including the early days of the bloody French and Indian conflict and pivotal Revolutionary War encounters. In time, the Great Wagon Road became America's first technology highway, as growing roadside villages and towns and cities became, in effect, the first incubators of America's early Industrial age. The people and ideas that traveled down the road shaped the character of the fledgling nation and helped define who we are today. Dodson's ancestors on both sides took the Great Wagon Road to Maryland and North Carolina, respectively, giving him a personal stake in uncovering the road's buried legacy. An illuminating and entertaining first-person history, The Road That Made America restores this long-forgotten route to its rightful place in our national story." -- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

The lost mill -- God and good beer -- Six hundred miles nearer the Sun -- America's original man -- Remember Paoli -- Young Daniels -- The last Conestoga -- The most important man in America -- The great commoner -- Faith & meadow tea -- Time & a river -- History night in York -- The Gettysburg gospeler -- Rising from the ashes -- Antietam -- The great illumination -- Appalachian spring -- The past cannot be unremembered -- Narrow passage -- Angels of the road -- Smoke & memory -- Cousin Steve -- The ghosts of Lexington -- The bridge of God -- The belles of Big Lick -- The Great Road scholars -- The amazing tale of Valentine Leonard -- The Beech Island Boys -- The world is not your home -- After the road: the stone in the road.

Authorized Access Point

Dodson, James. The road that made America

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Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-11T20:18:33.481700+00:00
  • Agent: cbc
  • Status: c
  • Derived from: 24148413

Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-11
  • Cataloger id: Unknown
  • Description level: http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/bibframe-2-6-0/
  • Description language: eng
  • Description authentication: pcc

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