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9781609389796

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"""Trekking across America vividly recalls a bygone era when people would cross the continent on foot, hoping the publicity would lead to fame and riches . . . or at least a better life. The incredible stories that Lyell Henry has collected are by turns hilarious and haunting. The cast is as colorful as America itself: the trekkers are Black and white, rich and poor, men, women, and children. It's a resoundingly American story of dreamers, seekers, and scoundrels, hitting the road in search of that mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: the American Dream.""--Matthew Algeo, author, Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport ""'Pedestrian' today usually means plain and commonplace. Lyell Henry takes us back more than a century in this wonderful book, to a time when pedestrians were superheroes and pre-automobile cross-country trekkers were the football and basketball stars of their era. It's a glorious journey, from one coast to the other.""--Wayne Curtis, author, The Last Great Walk ""At long last, Trekking across America delivers the colorful stories of an overlooked but incredibly popular Gilded Age pastime: walking long. Lyell Henry stitches together pedestrian tales both interesting and insightful, forming the quizzical, quilted backdrop to the coming of professional pedestrianism and, later, endurance athletics and ultramarathons. Makes you want to shout, 'Keep going!'""--Ben Montgomery, author, The Man Who Walked Backward: An American Dreamer's Search for Meaning in the Great Depression"

“Trekking across America vividly recalls a bygone era when people would cross the continent on foot, hoping the publicity would lead to fame and riches . . . or at least a better life. The incredible stories that Lyell Henry has collected are by turns hilarious and haunting. The cast is as colorful as America itself: the trekkers are Black and white, rich and poor, men, women, and children. It’s a resoundingly American story of dreamers, seekers, and scoundrels, hitting the road in search of that mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: the American Dream.”—Matthew Algeo, author, Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America’s Favorite Spectator Sport “At long last, Trekking across America delivers the colorful stories of an overlooked but incredibly popular Gilded Age pastime: walking long. Lyell Henry stitches together pedestrian tales both interesting and insightful, forming the quizzical, quilted backdrop to the coming of professional pedestrianism and, later, endurance athletics and ultramarathons. Makes you want to shout, ‘Keep going!’”—Ben Montgomery, author, The Man Who Walked Backward: An American Dreamer’s Search for Meaning in the Great Depression “‘Pedestrian’ today usually means plain and commonplace. Lyell Henry takes us back more than a century in this wonderful book, to a time when pedestrians were superheroes and pre-automobile cross-country trekkers were the football and basketball stars of their era. It’s a glorious journey, from one coast to the other.”—Wayne Curtis, author, The Last Great Walk

Author Information

Lyell D. Henry Jr. is professor emeritus of political science at Mount Mercy University. He is author of The Jefferson Highway: Blazing the Way from Winnipeg to New Orleans (Iowa, 2016). He lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

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