ABSTRACT
Not content merely to comment on the convenience of rail travel to a top vacation spot, Miss Leslie goes on to suggest that readers “may have a chance of traveling in steam-cars to the Pacific, the last boundary of our country’s empire.” Finding proof of the nation’s progress not only in its “last boundary” but in the new modes of transportation, Leslie celebrates the conjunction between technology and empire:
We have only to be true to ourselves, and grateful for the blessings with which Heaven has endowed our favoured country, and the power exists not on earth that can stop us on our onward course. A bright light is forever gleaming through the mist that veils the futurity of America.
