Linked Data Explorerhttp://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1136447
The wind leans West
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- "This new novel in August Derleth's Wisconsin Saga is less a novel than a fictionized account of the part played by Alexander Mitchell in the struggle to establish banks and sound banking practises in the Territory and later the State of Wisconsin. Persuaded to come to America from his native Scotland, Mitchell landed in Milwaukee in 1839, carrying a carpetbag containing $50,000, with which to open an insurance business for his employer, the well-known midwestern promoter, George Smith. Operating his business very much like a bank, the young Mitchell soon found himself pitted against not only unscrupulous rivals in the wild-cat bankers who looted the pioneers and immigrants at will and were not desirous of the establishment of honest banking, but also the territorial legislators, who naively assumed that the only way to control the wild-catters was to legislate against all banking. With dedicated single-mindedness, Mitchell met the tactics of his opposition- engineered runs on the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company, hoodlumism, attempted murder, and the frequent moves in the Territorial Legislature against the Company, some of them at the behest of the shadowy Elisha Butterick, a wild-cat banker from Detroit, who was as determined that Mitchell would not succeed as Mitchell was to make a success of the Company's operation in Wisconsin. All else- romance, marriage, fatherhood- was secondary to Mitchell's dedication to his business. A panorama of Milwaukee's growth from 1839 to 1854, The Wind Leans West is also the story of one man's unfailing integrity. Its dramatic scenes include the great Milwaukee fire of 1845, Mitchell's wild ride to Chicago for funds to stem a destructive run on the Company, and his rescue of Rab Harker, a spy for the Company, from a brothel; its characters number among them some of Wisconsin's historical figures- Governor Henry Dodge, Byron Kilbourn, Edward G. Ryan, Moses Strong, Solomon Juneau, and many others. The Wind Leans West is another in August Derleth's historically authentic portraits of his native Wisconsin."
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- "The wind leans West"@en
- "The wind leans West"