Jay Youngdahl, an attorney who has represented Navajo workers in claims with their railroad employers since 1992 and who more recently earned a master's in divinity from Harvard, has used oral history and archival research to write a cultural history of Navajos' work on the railroad and the roles their religious traditions play in their lives of hard labor away from home.

Life on the tracks --Religion on the Rez -- A visit with a medicine man -- Adversaries and advocates -- How did Navajo men come to work for the railroads? -- Railroads, trading posts, and a fatal challenge to the RRB's system -- In the workers' words.