American Transportation Revolution: A Social and Cultural History - Hardcoverby Aaron W. Marrs (Author) A history of steamboats and railroads in the United States prior to the Civil War. In the first half of the nineteenth century, transportation in the United States underwent an extraordinary transformation. Steamboats and railroads turned long distance travel from an arduous undertaking into a regularized commodity: travel became something that people could purchase. Historians have long understood the economic and political