Diane Lindstrom

American Economic Growth before 1840: New Evidence and New Directions

This article reviews recent literature on American growth before 1840 and compares it with estimates derived from the Philadelphia region. The estimates indicate that national output per capita rose no less than 0.5 to 1.0 percent per annum in the period 1810-1840 and that growth exhibited trend acceleration. Relatively modest growth was accompanied by extensive development, initiated by sharply lowered transport costs. Faced with higher returns for exports and diminished costs for imports, regional producers increasingly specialized. Heightened intraregional trade fostered a pervasive reallocation of resources among sectors and among subsections of the region. This development helped ensure rapid, post-1840 growth.

Lake Michigan Passenger Steamers . By George W. Hilton. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 364,

The author, a retired UCLA economist, has written a number of highly specialized transportation studies. In his Lake Michigan Passenger Steamers much as in his Great Lakes Car Ferries and American Narrow Gauge Railroads, George W. Hinton acknowledges that “the principle purpose is to provide antiquarian scholarship†(p. xi). Here we learn about the wooden and steel, sailing and steam ships that operated on Lake Michigan from the early nineteenth century until well into the twentieth century. Although some attention is devoted to the interlake trade, the passenger lines that draw most of the authors attention are those that served Lake Michigan points exclusively.