The Industrial Revolution was a prosperous time for the western civilizations beginning in 1760 and ending between 1840 and 1860. The invention of railroads began in England, but was brought to the United States in the early 1800’s. In 1815, Colonel John Stevens got the first railroad charter with New Jersey Railroad Company, although a single train track was not laid until 1832 (www.american-rails.com/railroad-history.html). Therefore, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company built the first railroad in 1827. The machine was purchased from the Stephenson Works in England.
Industrialization's Rise The great titans of the U.S Industrial Revolution could never have become so gigantic if they did not play their cards perfectly. And they did indeed play their hands correctly, by taking advantage of all the resources they had available to them at the time. Not only did the great titans of this era, such as Standard Oil, invent and utilize a great number of machines to amplify the magnitude of business they could conduct, they also employed and took advantage of the grand pool of immigrants to employ. Furthermore, these "Robber Barons" invested further in this Industrialization, with some like J.P Morgan pooling his money into even more inventions.
The first railways were created in England and involved horse drawn carriages that moves along rails imbedded in the street. The English Richard Trevithick built the first full scale steam powered locomotive in 1802, it then proceeded to spread quickly throughout England becoming the quickest mode of long distance transportation. It wasn’t until 1830 that the US first started to develop steam powered locomotive of their own, before that the US had to import locomotives from Great Britain. Subsequent to seeing the immense potential of a railroad industry in America, locomotives and tracks began to be constructed seemingly overnight.
The railroad was first designed by George Stephenson whose original idea was to use steam to run the train and make transportation faster. When the US started using railroads and trains they purchased them from the Stephen Works company from Britain. “In the 1850s a boom in railroad development across the North was changing business organization and management and reducing freight costs. Railroads were influencing a rise in real estate values, increasing regional concentrations of industry, the size of business units and stimulating growth in investment banking and agriculture.
While the railroad construction began long before the 1860’s, the major push for the transcontinental ability was completed in 1869, as the final
They also needed a lot of steel to make the rails and trains, which benefited Carnegie a lot. Prior to the building of railroads in the USA, starting in the 1830’a with the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, things like clothes, food, letters, livestock could take months, and in some cases, even a year to get form the East coast to the West coast or vice versa. However, after people
One of the largest causes of this was that a more improved and better way of making steel was found. Steel was needed to further renovate our trains. Trains were one of the biggest franchises during the time period. Big businessess were the ones that owned the trains and often times the businesses would out-buy each other in order to gain more control.
In both the book and the video, railroads and the production of steel are spoken of in depth, and the reason this topic interests me is because railroads made industrialization possible. Railroads made it possible to transport goods on a national scale, so that people could sell their products to the nation instead of just locals. Also, railroads didn't provide transportation only for goods, they also allowed people to move cities easily in order to find jobs. With the need for more railroads to exist the demand for steel also increased, opening a new door to steel production. Once America started to become wealthier and more jobs were created many immigrants wanted to move to America.
Completed in 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad opened new doors for the United States. In order for this to happen though, some had to be closed. Our country was in desperate need on some of these changes, but some we could have lived without. This great connection of the coasts brought with it many positive and negative effects on the Native Americans, society, and the environment.
The first way that the economy was impacted was that with the ease and efficiency of the railroads, they created a large demand for goods and labor because they needed a lot of people to help build the railroads and also needed a large quantity of steel for the rails and wood for the railroad ties. Secondly the railroads created a huge national market because of the simplicity of delivering goods from place to place. The railroads helped the people in even the most rural place prosper with the cost efficient transportation of the trains. From 1830 to 1861, the United States laid aproximately 30,000 miles of railroad track, which led to an increase in demand for coal which was used to produce iron for the
The Transcontinental Railroad The completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad was an important event in the United States history. There were many challenges in building it, but after it was finished, it connected the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast. The railroad took three whole years to build, with the help of two railroad companies and thousands of other hired workers.
Steel was a much needed resource during the Gilded Age, as railroads were the most popular mean of transportation. Steel was needed for the production of these trains and railroads. Steel was produced using the Bessemer Process, which sped up the production of steel and made the process much easier. The increasing demand for steel also created many jobs, impacted the job industry. Many workers were employed by Mr. Carnegie,
During this time period, rapid expansion westward, centered around railroads (the total length of which doubled between 1865 and 1873) helped to expand markets and transport materials. Furthermore, there was no shortage of materials to transport and process. For example, the United States was producing four times as much crude iron as Britain by the year 1900. Due to this
In 1862, an act was passed down called the Pacific railroad act. This act chartered the Central Pacific and the Pacific railroad companies. In addition, the Pacific railroad act tasked them to build a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from coast to coast or east to west. It needed about 5,000 men to do this and since the chinese did the great wall of china why not make the Chinese to came to America and to build the railroad and ⅔ did. Over the next 7 years both companies would race toward each other, starting at Sacramento, California on one side and Omaha, Nebraska on the other.
With the advent of the railroad, many of these issues disappeared. Railroads had a major impact on advancing the American economy, transforming America into a modern society, and improving an antiquated transportation system. The building of railroads created rapid economic growth in America. Railroad companies employed more than one million workers to build and maintain railroads. At the same time, coal, timber, and steel industries employed thousands of workers to provide the supplies necessary to build railroads (Chapter 12 Industrialization).
