This investigation is designed to explore to what extent did attitudes toward the Chinese immigrants during the building of the transcontinental railroad differ from those towards Irsih immigrants? To assess the attitudes toward the Chinese immigrants, this study focuses on the building of the transcontinental railroad in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century. This study investigates the views, tasks given during the building of the railroad, and benefits given to the Chinese and Irish immigrants and the impact of their work on the views toward each group of immigrants.
In order to investigate the attitudes toward the Chinese and Irish immigrants, this study looks into economic accounts taken during the second half of the nineteenth century. This investigation also uses sources detailing the differences in job benefits and position during the building of the transcontinental railroad and the extent to which Irish immigrants and Chinese immigrants differed in the opportunities they were offered.
B. Summary of Evidence
The transcontinental railroad was a 1,800 mile railroad linking Omaha, Missouri with Sacramento, California. This railroad was built through varying environmental conditions including grassy plains, desserts, and mountains such as the Sierra. The railroad revolutionized transportation in the nineteenth century (Galloway 4). The First Transcontinental Railroad was built in the 1860s in order to connect the Eastern and Western coasts of the United States. In the book The Railroads, statistical data describes that “In 1830, 23 miles of railroad track were being operated in the United States; by 1890 that figure had grown to 166,703 miles, as cities and villages were linked across the lan...
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...f Farm Animals as Products, in the Western and Southwestern States and Territories, and in Virginia, and of the Best Routes to and the Cost of Reaching the Districts Described 2nd Ed. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1876. Print.
Moody, John. The Railroad Builders: A Chronicle of the Welding of the States. New Haven, CT: Yale UP;, 1921. Print.
Parker, Nathan Howe. Parker's Illustrated Hand Book of the Great West a Record of Statistics and Facts, with Practical Suggestions for Immigrants as to Profitable Investment of Labor & Capital in Industrial Pursuits in the Great West .. New York: American News, 1869. Print.
Reinhardt, Richard. Workin' on the Railroad; Reminiscences from the Age of Steam. Palo Alto, CA: American West Pub., 1970. Print.
Taylor, George Rogers, and Irene D. Neu. The American Railroad Network, 1861-1890. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1956. Print.
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.
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,
One of America’s oldest railroads, known as the first common-carrier railroad, was chartered on February 28th 1827, by a group of Baltimore businessmen. The main objective of the railway was to ensure traffic would not be lost to the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, which was proposed and ground broken the same time as the railroad. The new railroad was a big invention, which allowed people and freight to travel by train. This was a huge improvement for the United States, since everything was becoming more advanced in other countries. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company is the great railroad that owns up to the big title of “The First Common Carrier.” The B&O railroad has a rich history dealing with its background, building, competition, growth tactics, numerous raids, and involvement in the Civil War.
John Debo Galloway, The First Transcontinental Railroad: Central Pacific, Union Pacific (New York: Simmons-Boardman, 1950), 141, http://www.questiaschool.com/read/14065867.
Seavoy, Ronald E. "Railroads." An Economic History of the United States: From 1607 to the Present. New York: Routledge, 2006. 188-200. Print.
The first Chinese immigrants to arrive in America came in the early 1800s. Chinese sailors visited New York City in the 1830s (“The Chinese Experience”); others came as servants to Europeans (“Chinese Americans”). However, these immigrants were few in number, and usually didn’t even st...
On the July of 1877, thousands of railroad laborers went on strike. The rest of America watched in shock. The Great Railroad Strike was one of the first of its nature, a complete halt in railroad traffic and seizure of railroads—across the entire country. The strikers would even destroy buildings, train cars, and other rail property, and in the wake of their destruction, other laborers and sympathizers still gathered in protest for the same workingman’s cause. Allan Pinkerton would condemn the strikers, stating that they had “unlocked the floodgates of anarchy and riot.” They were certainly violent. But they had also organized in less than a month—almost spontaneously—revealing that there were serious, commonly shared concerns toward industrial
While modern Chinese immigrants come to the United States seeking jobs as did their predecessors, new motivations have drawn families to the country. In the mid-1800s large numbers of Chinese people began to arrive in America. These immigrants were driven from their homeland by the opium wars, British colonization, peasant rebellion, floods, and ...
“The early Chinese immigrants came to America in search of gold, and the rest of them who came to help United States to build railroad; afterward some of the Chinese immigrants they sent large amount money back to their family, some of Chinese immigrants who stayed in United States”( Manuel). That’s how Chinatown was built. In our lecture, I studied that many of Chinese immigrants who were coming in the 1840s to 1860s were to look for gold, just like people were coming to California from all over the world to look for gold, At that time, China was controlled by Qing dynasty, and people who were living Guangdong province were suffering poor disease, and war, so they did seek a place to make large amount money. Later on, they had a new mission, the Chinese immigrants built railroad for American. The Chinese immigrants found that the American people did not like them at all, even though they were working diligently. In our lecture, we see many photos of old Chinese immigrants, the photos of building the railroad, the photos of digging gold, and the photos that when they were treated unfairly. Chinese American should not forget those tough, being discrimination, and poor days; Chinese American should thank their predecessors. But today, everything is changed; Chinese
However, it was not easy for the railroad industry to promote their innovative new mode of transportation. With vision and ingenuity, the pioneers of the early American railroads were able to surmount all obstacles that stood in their way and led the Nation into a “transportation revolution.”
Spanning 1,775 miles of American land and needing approximately six years to build, the Transcontinental Railroad was far from a small feat. Its paramount nature is heightened considering the fact that it was built within 60 years after the debut of the first steam locomotive in this country in 1830. After said debut,
The antebellum period in America was a hard time for all that lived, native born and those coming to America shared in the labors and hardships equally. Irish immigrants however, seemed to have struggled a little more. Many were regarded as inferior to the Anglo-Americans and immigrants already established in America. This problem came chiefly because of the lack of skilled labors, thus causing Irish immigrants to bear the load of working in mines, in quarries, digging canals, and building bridges and railroads. Others still, wer...
Head, F. B. Stokers and Pokers (or the London and North Western Railway, The Electric Telegraph and The Railway Clearing-House. Augustus M. Kelley, New York. 1969
In our reading for this week, “Asian American: An Interpretative History” by Sucheng Chan and “The New Chinese America: Class, Economy, and Social Hierarchy” by Xianjian Zhao, both collections of information regarding Asian immigrants to the United States of America we are presented with the challenges of these immigrants. Though the two authors used different approaches their intention appears to be documenting, presenting, and recording the history of this migration during the early nineteenth century. As with any large migration of immigrants to any country this caused a significant impact on not only the immigrants life, but that of the residents, the country’s economy, and society.
The first railroad in the United States was built in 1764 in Lewiston, New York. It was a gravity railroad (works with a system of poles and doesn’t need a locomotive) that was used to transport products between the British troops. After 1829 when the first locomotive was incorporated in the country, the railroad industry experienced a great development and many businesses developed with it. The presence of railroads stimulated commerce . Many goods were transported from city to city. The most common ones were cotton (from south to north) and food. This food that was shipped was transported mostly from south to north. Other products like fuel and wood or building materials were transported from north to south. Also gold and fuel was transported from western US to eastern US.