Review this Book   Kindle Edition Amazon Amazon Barnes & Noble Category:  History Publisher: Self ISBN-10:  9798987000687 Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 133 Copyright: November 1, 2024 ISBN-13: 9798987000687 Price: $9.99 (eBook) Spanning a century of innovation from 1900 to 2000, discover how Delaware has made a huge contribution to our shared history Delaware from Freeways to E-Ways is a balanced blend of meticulous research and colorful anecdotes. From the first skyscraper in the early 20th century to the present day’s crucial digital medical technology, the evolution of this small-but-pivotal state has played a role in shaping modern society. Tabler’s painstaking work ensures readers will enjoy immersing themselves in the powerful local and national narratives that shape our country’s history.  Excerpt Welcome to Delaware: From Freeways to E-Ways, a survey of the First State’s multifaceted twentieth-century history. The title might seem like an odd juxtaposition; nonetheless, freeways and digital ways do have a purposeful connection to each other. Early twentieth century, people aspired to travel at what was the era’s epoch light speed. Thus, the book opens with T. Coleman du Pont’s pioneering highway project. The freedom of the freeway epitomized this titan’s engineering ambition. “E-Ways,” meanwhile, short for “digital ways,” harks back to the late 1990s. During that time, companies started adding an “e-” prefix to capitalize on the emerging world of e-commerce. This was done in an effort to comport with the rapidity of our changing world—to convey a sense of being on the cutting edge of technology.

Professional Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Tabler’s collection of facts, anecdotes, and photos explores Delaware’s rich history from the early 20th century to the year 2000.

This third installment in Tabler’s Delaware History Overview series is rife with engaging trivia, such as the fact that Delaware has more incorporated businesses than people, and it covers topics ranging from the state’s storied history of thriving agricultural fairs to its impressive digital advances in the health care field. The table of contents is handily sorted by subject matter and by year, and each topic is presented in bite-size portions in the text, rarely extending beyond one page. Various visual elements, consisting largely of archival photos and occasional artwork,are found on almost every page, alongside accompanying information. The narrative tone is a bit dry, though, with Tabler presenting copious amounts of information in relatively brief snippets. The only time readers get a more vivid version of events is in the extensive “Notes on Photographs” section at the book’s conclusion. For example, that’s where Tabler sets the scene for the social status implied by Delaware’s popular low-number license plates: “Animated auctioneers, the unique cadence of their theatrics echoing a rhythmic patois, fetch six-figure sums from the highest bidders. Gifted hawkers, their tongues spinning like helicopter blades, expertly push prices to impressive heights. Buyers, recognizing the deep-rooted status these plates confer, willingly engage in fierce bidding wars.” The balanced blend of straightforward facts and historical images—as well as the more florid details found in the Notes on Photographs—all result in what could be considered a classic coffee-table book.

Tabler has a knack for picking out odds and ends from history that together create a broadly engaging look at a topic that most readers might not ordinarily consider. But despite the abundance of details, the book never gets weighed down by them; instead, just as a topic risks becoming tiresome, the book zips right along to the next one. One drawback, though, is the odd organization of the information itself. The “Notes on Photographs” section is quite long, and it forces readers to flip back and forth between the photos and their in-depth explanations. These are not simply captions, either—they’re often multi-paragraph side stories, which can make for an occasionally frustrating reading experience. Still, Tabler’s investigation into Delaware’s history is impressive in its scope, and he has clearly done some rigorous research. Although the bulk of the book does indeed focus on the 20th century, Tabler includes plenty of references to pre-1900 events to provide context for certain achievements. While some readers may never have wondered (for example) how many bushels of oysters were harvested in Delaware between September 1866 and April 1867 (answer: 10 million), such trivia tidbits show the author’s unquestionable attention to detail. The resulting work will likely attract anyone with a penchant for Delaware history, or for trivia in general.

A unique deep dive into an often overlooked state.

BlueInk Review
Continuing a series that follows Delaware Before the Railways and Delaware from Railways to Freeways, Dave Tabler uses this well-researched final installment to describe how his home state changed over the course of the 20th century.

As before, he tells his story through a combination of images and detailed endnotes, structuring it via two narrative “bookends”: Delaware’s creation of a state highway system early in the 20th century and its contributions to the emerging Internet age late in the 20th century. In between, he covers other developments, from the New Deal-era push for rural electrification to the invention of synthetic fabrics (heavily underwritten, like the highway, by the wealthy and powerful Du Pont family.)

Tabler’s choice of illustrations shows how humble, unimpressive-looking objects could profoundly affect daily life, as with the crude-looking shed in Ocean View, Delaware, where in 1923 a local woman pioneered chicken factory farming, changing poultry meat from a delicacy into a staple.

Tabler also sprinkles some choice details throughout the text, as in a section on endearingly idiosyncratic local idioms (“By granny!”; “I declare to kings!”) One memorable anecdote involves a lurid series of “Lonely Hearts” murders of classified-ads respondents in 1949, and another, the dramatic surrender of a German U-boat off the coast several days after VE Day in 1945.

If the book falters, it’s by getting drier as it gets closer to the present and farther away from the more colorful, less well-ordered world of the past. Noting, for instance, that “Delaware’s modest size facilitates the state-wide acceptance of new medical applications” might be useful for healthcare professionals or patients but is unlikely to interest casual readers. Visual history buffs might also lament the occasional use of AI-generated drawings, perhaps a necessary shortcut but invariably less resonant than the well-chosen archival images otherwise used.

Although somewhat less compelling than its predecessors, Tabler’s latest book still provides a thoughtful and scrupulous continuation to the story of Delaware’s past.

Also available as an ebook.

Booklife Reviews
The third volume of Tabler’s celebration of The First State and its history moves from the late 19th century to what Tabler calls the “E-era,” charting the building of skyscrapers, highways (envisioned as early as 1911 by T. Coleman du Pont), and a leading edge in the development of the world’s digital present and future. As always, Tabler includes surprises (Neil Armstrong “took mankind’s first steps on the moon in a Delaware-designed and manufactured space suit”), like his delightful look at the rise and fall of the reputation among the upper crust of the Reedbird, a native of Delaware that “has been viewed through three lenses” across history: as a juicy delicacy, then a pest, and finally “as a fragile species warranting legal protection.” Its fall from grace as an epicurean event and fashionable accoutrement is captured by this turn-of-the-century dismissal from a newspaper columnist: “The up-to-date girl has finished with the toothsome reedbird and asks now for a stuffed partridge.”

Striking details like that abound, as in Tabler’s online writing and previous volumes as he sweeps across the history. This volume covers DuPont chemist Wallace Hume Carothers’s invention of nylon, educational activist Martha G. Bachman’s life-long campaign to improve and extend vocational education opportunities, and the founding of the Delaware Art Museum, originally conceived of as a one-time 1912 event to honor the work of “the recently deceased ‘father of illustration’” Howard Pyle and his proteges. Tabler also digs into the local impact of the Suffragist and Civil Rights movements, the World Wars, Prohibition—the Coast Guard was ill-equipped to deal with rum runners—and more.

Tabler closes with a look at the internet age, making a compelling case for the central role played in its development by three students from the University of Delaware. The result is an engaging, entertaining, warmly inclusive, and occasionally playful history with style and verve.

Takeaway: Engaging, highly illustrated guide to Delaware history from the 20th century on.

Comparable Titles: John Riley’s Delaware Eyewitness, Kennard R. Wiggins’s Delaware in World War I.

Reviews for "Delaware from Freeways to E-ways"