In The Railway Journey, Wolfgang Schivelbusch masterfully delivers a succinct and insightful analysis in the way that railroads have radically altered perceptions of time and space. By underlining the dynamics showcasing the technological and social changes that came with it, Schivelbusch showcases the railroad as the dominant, mode of transportation that created new sprawls of urban space and a new way of experiencing the environment. Today it is seen as commonplace and a natural step in evolution but the railroad took its place in history by adapting to a pre-existing social order and evolving in a complex socio-economic biosphere along with its passengers.
Technology begins as a necessity that goes along with
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evolution. Schivelbusch mentions wood early on and how the demand outweighed the supply began a need to find another supply of fuel that would be coal. This in turn led to coal being used on a large scale and steam being the next step with the train with an engine powered by steam as a viable solution. This would lay the foundations for the industrial revolution and for modernity as man underwent the “gradual process of industry’s emancipation from nature.” 1 Railroads became a necessity and like a machine, they had to discipline the land in order to achieve the uniformity and frictionless movement that machines are known for. Trips in Europe were the byproduct the land and machine fusing with another to create a straight mode of travel. As the tracks spread further west, the traveler would see nature as usual but also telegraph poles that would remind them these two components were working together seamlessly. Machine and rail created a straight and disciplined mobility with no individual parts was known as the machine ensemble, a concept that was “more derived, more unnatural, even more restrictive…” 2 Individual lines of transport were seen as chaotic and with the implementation of sanctioned railroads in the form of monopolies, it became institutionalized. Competition disappeared and citizens were the mercy at the hands of the railroad companies such as shipping prices for farmers who depended on transport to make a living and there was little ways to combat this growing development. There was unity in machine but disunity with fellow man and nature.
Soon, the train would be seen as a metal projectile with the passengers shooting through the landscape barely getting a glimpse of their surroundings. At its peak, stagecoach travel offered an intimate relationship with the nature as seen through a slow moving transport and passengers had preconfigured senses that reacted to what they saw, heard, and felt; human perception would forever change due to the railroad compartmentalizing space and accelerating time. The generation who had only experienced stagecoach as the dominant mode of transport were the ones who suffered from any disorientation that the train had on their perception of time and space. Travelers of stagecoach were unprepared for the vast sensory differences they would experience from train and the residual physiological effects became more apparent as time went on. The landscape was unrecognizable since stagecoach travelers were used to being able to differentiate between distant or nearby objects but with the new view just bombarding their senses, it left them in a state of fatigue. They had to let go of pre-industrial nostalgia but later generations saw this relation of space and time as natural since they had nothing to compare it …show more content…
to. Eventually passengers adapted this so called mechanization of perception and introduced a new way to see the world. As prisoners inside their compartments, travelers become overstimulated and the ability to differentiate between disparate objects is lost. This new perception known as panoramic had the traveler see everything not through his own eyes but through the machine that moved him through space. The speed of the train became widely accepted and in any instances it was not and the visual stimulation proved too great, the passengers adopting new habits such as reading. In a stagecoach reading was unlikely since people were close to one another and engaged in conversation 3 but as trains gained popularity and numbers per compartment increased this sort of intimacy became rare; reading was a way for the passenger to avoid any interaction and to overcome any silence that followed a long journey. Cities all over the country began to show the abundant need for railroads and the train changed how urban landscapes were built from that point forward.
More railroads meant more cities creating specialized districts such as business and industrial not to mention accommodate the growing urban population that flooded these growing cities. Another important aspect of this change was the focus on the construction of attractive transport centers like railroad stations that would provide people comfort before or after a journey; such centers would be prime examples of modernity taking hold in society. Railroad stations were designed with glass and steel dominating the architecture as a way to create evanescence and light space; such large glass structures were abstract and so the people would become detached from a stable environment, a stability that before was prevalent with stone
structures. The cityscape was altered by the new form of mobility that the railways brought forth and made it modern. Traffic increase meant a growing need for urban street regulation that led to transport networks that delivered customers to centers of commerce and trade. The increase of traffic in all major cities due to railroad travel benefited the economy. If there was anything the railroad was good at, it was bringing customers and the goods they sought to the city where they would shop in department stores. The same way that the compartment produced “panoramic” vision, these shops now had prices tags that “interposed itself between goods and customers as the train’s speed interjected itself between traveler and landscape.” 4 This further added to the perception of railroad and street landscapes as the perspective was not landscapes but goods they saw in stores. From this point forward, everything was just part of the circulation system and time and space was just the motion of travel. Schivelbusch successfully shows the way in which the industrialized consciousness that dominates modern life came to be as a reaction to the technological innovation of the railroad. Everything from perceptions of time, speed, and distance were altered and the new generation would forever deal with the change that came forth from the railway system.
Ambrose, Stephen. Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. Print.
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.
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,
Reinhardt, Richard. Workin' on the Railroad; Reminiscences from the Age of Steam. Palo Alto, CA: American West Pub., 1970. Print.
In order to detail the rise of railroads throughout this era of technological boom, it is important to understand the Industrial Revolution, which was the start of this success; it paved the way for major changes in the modern society we live in today. This is the period between the 18th and 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportatio...
Railroads were America’s first big business and contributed a great deal towards advancing industrialization. Beginning in the early 1870's, railroad construction in the United States expanded substantially. Before the year 1871, approximately fourty-five thousand miles of track had been laid. Up until the 1900's another one-hundred and seventy thousand miles were added to the nation's growing railroad system. This growth came about due to the erection of transcontinental railroads. Railroads supplied cities and towns with food, fuel, materials, and access to markets. The railroad system made way for an economic prosperity. The railroad system helped to build the physical growth of cities and towns. It even became another means of communication. Most importantly, it helped to produce a second
As the need of human transportation and various forms of cargo began to rise in the United States of America, a group of railroads with terminal connections along the way began to form across the land mass of this country, ending with the result of one of the most influential innovations in American history, allowing trade to flow easily from location to location, and a fast form of transportation, named the Transcontinental Railroad.
Throughout the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, the United States economy changed dramatically as the country transformed from a rural agricultural nation to an urban industrial gian, becoming the leading manufacturing country in the world. The vast expansion of the railroads in the late 1800s’ changed the early American economy by tying the country together into one national market. The railroads provided tremendous economic growth because it provided a massive market for transporting goods such as steel, lumber, and oil. Although the first railroads were extremely successful, the attempt to finance new railroads originally failed. Perhaps the greatest physical feat late 19th century America was the creation of the transcontinental railroad. The Central Pacific Company, starting in San Francisco, and the new competitor, Union Pacific, starting in Omaha. The two companies slaved away crossing mountains, digging tunnels, and laying track the entire way. Both railroads met at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869, and drove one last golden spike into the completed railway. Of course the expansion of railroads wasn’t the only change being made. Another change in the economy was immigration.
Seavoy, Ronald E. "Railroads." An Economic History of the United States: From 1607 to the Present. New York: Routledge, 2006. 188-200. Print.
One positive of the new transportation networks was how it made travel faster around the country. “They made travel, if not enjoyable, at least faster, less expensive, and less perilous than it had ever been. The 1830s had reduced the travel time between Boston and New York to a day and a half” (Historical Background on Traveling in the
There is no refuting that the railroad companies transformed business operations and encouraged industrial expansion. The raw materials required for construction of the transcontinental railroad directly resulted in the expansion of the steel, lumber and stone industries. (Gillon p.652) The railroad stimulated growth in manufacturing and agriculture providing an efficient manner to ship raw materials and products throughout the country. Which in turn, increased consumerism and introduced t...
The railroad created a more economic means of transporting the grains and produce from the breadbasket of America to the markets in the population centers of the coast.
At the beginning of the industrial revolution in England during the mid-nineteenth century, the railroad was the most innovative mode of transportation known. The British Rail system was a forerunner in railroad technology, uses, and underground engineering. Though the rail system was extremely slow at first and prohibitively expensive to build and run, the British were not to be dissuaded in their pursuit of non-animal driven transportation. The most advanced mode of transportation prior to the introduction of the rail system was the horse drawn omnibus on a track, called a tram. This paper will examine the rail system from a cultural perspective, presenting the impact the railway had on everyday lives in Victorian London and its surrounding communities.
Canals, steamboats, and railroads allowed for faster travel of exports and the creation of bigger cities. The invention of the Pony Express, specialized regions, and infrastructure permitted Americans to keep in touch over long distances and the creation of market towns, which inspired a deep, national connection from all corners of the country. The giant leap made by the Transportation Revolution changed America greatly in ways of their economy and
Transportation systems and the routes they use have greatly influenced both how and where people live. Reliable transportation allows a population to expand throughout a country's territory and to live comfortably in remote areas far from factories and farms. The growth and expansion of the United States were directly related to the means of transportation available at the time. The more compact cities of the U.S. eastern seaboard are the result of early human- and animal-based transportation systems that allowed only short trips. The more sprawling cities of the western United States are the result of an automobile-based transportation system that permits much longer travel distances.