America’s timeline is overflowing with important people, places, inventions, and events that all bare significance and are responsible for shaping American life as we know it today. The building of the Railroad railway systems and of the Transcontinental Railroad forever changed American transportation, its economy and overall way of life. The Industrial Revolution was a key period in American history and the railroad was of extreme importance to the Industrial Revolution.
Railroad was the first big business in America and is still a crucial component on how America runs and transports. Railroads are just as big and important now as they were back then. The railroad was developed in Great Britain and the first successful locomotive was invented by George Stephenson of England in 1804. John Stevens is thought to be the father of Americas railroads because he was granted the first railway charter in North America in 1815. The first railroad track in North America was only thirteen miles long and opened in 1830.Construction of this track began at Baltimore Harbor on July 4, 1828 where the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, who was 91 years old at that time, turned over the first spade full of dirt and laid the first stone for that railway.
In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed a bill authorizing the construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad. It was the largest government construction project in United States history to that date and of that time. There were only two companies, Union Pacific and Central Pacific, that were responsible for the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. Union Pacific started construction in the East and Central Pacific started construction in the West. The...
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Wallace D. Farnham (1963). Review of Wesley S. Griswold 'A Work of Giants: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad' Business History Review, 37, pp 464-465. doi:10.2307/3112726.
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the Editors of Publications International, Ltd.. "Railroad Expansion" 19 May 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. 25 April 2014.
AUTHOR ushistory.org TITLE OF PAGE Early American Railroads TITLE OF PROGRAM U.S. History Online Textbook URL OF PAGE http://www.ushistory.org/us/25b.asp DATE OF ACCESS Friday, April 25, 2014 COPYRIGHT 2014
Farmers began to cultivate vast areas of needed crops such as wheat, cotton, and even corn. Document D shows a picture of The Wheat Harvest in 1880, with men on earlier tractors and over 20-30 horses pulling the tractor along the long and wide fields of wheat. As farmers started to accumilate their goods, they needed to be able to transfer the goods across states, maybe from Illinios to Kansas, or Cheyenne to Ohmaha. Some farmers chose to use cattle trails to transport their goods. Document B demonstrates a good mapping of the major railroads in 1870 and 1890. Although cattle trails weren't used in 1890, this document shows the existent of several cattle trails leading into Chyenne, San Antonio, Kansas City and other towns nearby the named ones in 1870. So, farmers began to transport their goods by railroads, which were publically used in Germany by 1550 and migrated to the United States with the help of Colonel John Stevens in 1826. In 1890, railroads expanded not only from California, Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada, but up along to Washington, Montana, Michigan, down to New Mexico and Arizona as well. Eastern States such as New Jersey, Tennesse, Virginia and many others were filled with existing railroads prior to 1870, as Colonel John Stevens started out his railroad revolutionzing movement in New Jersey in 1815.
To urban middle-class Americans of the late 19th century, nothing symbolized the progress of the American civilization quite as much as the railroad. Not only had the great surge in railroad construction after the Civil War helped to create a modern market economy, but the iron horse itself seemed to embody the energy, force, and technology of the new order. In fact, the fanning out of railroads from urban centers was an integral part of the modernizing process, tying the natural and human resources of rural areas to the industrializing core.
The Act of 1862 called for construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast. So on January 8, 1863, with a ground breaking ceremony in Sacramento, Central Pacific Railroad started work on the western end of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Cannons boomed simultaneously in New York and San Francisco at the same moment the golden spike was hammered into the ground, connecting the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad companies at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869 (American 1). North America became the first continent to be connected by railroad from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast when the Transcontinental Railroad was finished (Gale 1). The railroad was an essential component of achieving manifest destiny. The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad spurred settlement in the American West, encouraged immigration, and began an economic boom in the United States.
In Henry George’s article, What the Railroad Will Bring Us, it discusses the main social, political, and economic transformations that the trans-continental railroad would bring to the state of California. More importantly, he discusses not only the benefits, but also discusses the major drawbacks with the arrival of the railroad. Henry George stated the railroad would be the “greatest work of the age” (297). With a railroad stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, multiple benefits would be brought to the state of California. First, the railroad will not only create a new means of transportation across the United States, it additionally would also become “one of the greatest material prosperity” of its time (298). This means more people, more houses,
WriteWork. "The 19th Century 'Railroad Boom.'" WriteWork . N.p., 1 May 2003. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
As shown in the photo above, on April 28th, 1869, the final ten miles of track were laid in an astonishing twelve hours. On May 10th, 1869, The Central Pacific Railroad met and connected with the Union Pacific Railroad in Promontory, Utah to complete the first transcontinental railroad after building 1,800 miles of new track.
This time period also saw many new inventions that would change American society forever. Such things as the telephone, radio, and television are things that the average present day American could not imagine living without. But a hundred years ago people were amazed at such things. Railroads were now able to bring people all over the country while steam ships could bring you all around the world and airplanes could let you fly. The horseless carriage turned into the automobile.
Although not a natural resource, railroads were considered one of the key factors in almost every widespread industry. It allowed companies to quickly send products across the entire nation without using expensive and time-consuming caravans or wagons. Cornelius Vanderbilt was a prominent leader in the railroad industry at this time. He was already in his later years by the time the Gilded Age rolled around and didn't even get to see the uprising of some of the greatest leaders of the time. The railroad companies took advantage of their necessity by constantly overcharging customers, especially farmers. This led to one of the first labor unio...
Railroads first appeared around the 1830’s, and helped the ideas of Manifest Destiny and Westward expansion; however, these were weak and didn’t connect as far as people needed, thus causing them to be forced to take more dangerous routes. On January 17th, 1848, a proposal was sent to Congress by Asa Whitney to approve and provide federal funding...
One of the most important achievements of the Gilded Age was the creation of a network of railroads including the transcontinental railroad, which connected the United States from New York to California, facilitating transportation across the continent. During the Gilded Age the length of all the railroads combined increased threefold ("Second Industrial Revolution"). This was significant not only because it decreased travel time from the eastern to western parts of the U.S and vice versa down from months to weeks and allowed people to settle the central United States, but also opened new areas for commercial farming and gave an economic boost to steel...
Seavoy, Ronald E. "Railroads." An Economic History of the United States: From 1607 to the Present. New York: Routledge, 2006. 188-200. Print.
With the mining came the railroads. In December of 1878 the first train came to New Mexico, the Atchison, Topeka, and S...
White, Richard. “Strike.” Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011. N. pag. Print.
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, transport, and technology had a profound effect in North America. The industrial revolution marked a major turning point in history because it changed every aspect of life in America and the country as a whole. People started replacing ploughs and other tools for machines that could do twice the work. While others moved to large cities and started working in factories and other businesses. Huge industries such as the textile, steel, and coal industry came out and had a profound effect on the industrial revolution but, they would not have been extremely successful if it was not for railroads. The railroads played a vital role in the development and success of other industries. The railroads triggered the biggest leap in transportation in history. Through technological and entrepreneurial innovations and the creation of steam-powered locomotives, the development of trains as public carriers of passengers and freight, brought forth the railroad. The railroad industry changed the nature of production because it became an important energy source that replaced human and animal power. Due to the important role of the railroads, workers became more productive, items were being shipped more quickly, and resources were becoming available to everyone including the working and middle class and not only the wealthy. The railroads became to be known as one of the biggest leaps of transportation in history. This is because it set up the next fifty years of America’s prosperity. The railroads became extremely popular and useful during the 1800’s to millions of people and other large companies. Although there were many indu...