Much of America the Ingenious was written with the help of the countless articles, diagrams, illustrations, and book excerpts that we are lucky to enjoy instant access to on that great American invention, the Internet. There were also many old-fashioned books that proved invaluable. A partial list of them follows.
Ambrose, Stephen E. Upton and the Army. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1993.
Beecher, Catherine E. A Treatise on Domestic Economy, for the Use of Young Ladies at Home, and at School. Boston: T. H. Webb, 1842.
Bryson, Bill. One Summer: America, 1927. New York: Doubleday, 2013.
Burns, Ric, and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades. New York: An Illustrated History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
Callahan, North. TVA: Bridge Over Troubled Water, a History of the Tennessee Valley Authority. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1980.
Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.
Collins, Gail. America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines. New York: William Morrow, 2003.
Culvahouse, Tim, ed. The Tennessee Valley Authority: Design and Persuasion. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.
Denson, Charles. Coney Island: Lost and Found. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2002.
DeVeaux, Scott, and Gary Giddins. Jazz. New York: W. W. Norton, 2009.
Diehl, Lorraine B. The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station. Rockville, MD: American Heritage, 1985.
Eisenstadt, Peter, and Laura-Eve Moss, eds. The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005.
Evans, Harold, with Gail Buckland and David Lefer. They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators. New York: Little, Brown, 2004.
Gertner, Jon. The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. New York: Penguin Books, 2013.
Hamalian, Linda. The Cramoisy Queen: A Life of Caresse Crosby. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005.
Hiltzik, Michael. Colossus: The Turbulent, Thrilling Saga of the Building of the Hoover Dam. New York: Free Press, 2010.
Hitt, Jack. Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character. New York: Crown, 2012.
Hood, Clifton. 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. The Encyclopedia of New York City. New York: The New-York Historical Society / New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
Kaplan, David A. The Silicon Boys and Their Valley of Dreams. New York: William Morrow, 1999.
Kasson, John F. Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978.
Kevles, Bettyann Holtzman. Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997.
Kisseloff, Jeff. The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1929–1961. New York: Viking Press, 1995.
Lacey, Robert. Ford: The Men and the Machine. New York: Little, Brown, 1986.
Macaulay, David. The Way Things Work. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.
Miller, Donald L. City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
———. Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
Most, Doug. The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America’s First Subway. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2014.
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
———. Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements. New York: Basic Books, 1993.
Reidenbaugh, Lowell. Take Me Out to the Ballpark. St. Louis: Sporting News, 1983.
Roberts, Sam. Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America. New York: Grand Central, 2013.
Rosenblum, Constance. Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak, and Hope Along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. New York: NYU Press, 2009.
Snow, Richard. Coney Island: A Postcard Journey to the City of Fire. Brightwaters, NY: Brightwaters Press, 1989.
Starr, Kevin. Golden Gate: The Life and Times of America’s Greatest Bridge. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010.
———. Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Stevens, Joseph E. Hoover Dam: An American Adventure. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.
Straus III, Roger, Hugh Van Dusen, and Ed Breslin. America’s Great Railroad Stations. New York: Avery, 2011.
Thornley, Stewart. Land of the Giants: New York’s Polo Grounds. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000.
Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. Jazz: A History of America’s Music. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011.
Williams, John Hoyt. A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Times Books, 1988.
Wilson, Richard Guy, Dianne H. Pilgrim, and Dickran Tashjian. The Machine Age in America 1918–1941. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986.
Wineapple, Brenda. Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848–1877. New York: Harper, 2013.
Yergin, Daniel. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Yungblut, Gibson. Cincinnati Union Terminal: The Design and Construction of an Art Deco Masterpiece, vol. 1. Edited by Linda C. Rose and Patrick Rose. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Railroad Club, 1999.