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The development of railroads essay
The development of railroads essay
Transcontinental railroad impact on america
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In 1864 Congress approved the Northern Pacific Railway to be built. The NPR is the first transcontinental railroad in the northern part of the country. It is 8,316 miles long, beginning in Minnesota and ending in Washington state, with many branches going off the main line. When congress approved it they also supplied nearly 40million acres of land grants to build the railroad on. Construction didn 't go underway until 1870, and the rail road was finally christened to open on Sept. 8 1888.
There have been steam engine trains trailing the United States in the early 1800’s. Many of the early ones ran only a few dozen miles. When the railways ran longer distances, the cost to build and later ride them were be extremely high. However, long distances were what Minnesota needed to keep up with the competitive and growing nation around it. “Construction began on the first track in 1861 in St. Paul and was completed in 1862.”
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.
President Jefferson told Lewis and Clark to “cultivate good relations with the Sioux” because at the time “the Sioux were the dominant power on the northern and central Great Plains more than able to hold their own against white Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century.” (The American Journey Ch.13 Pg.349). This was because the Sioux were able to successfully mix important components of American life with their traditions. Unfortunately these components including guns they had acquired from the French and horses introduced to the New World by the Spanish helped the Sioux push weaker tribes to the south and west of the Missouri River basin. These weak tribes became dependent on the Sioux.
Central Pacific Railroad started from San Francisco, and used Chinese laborers for their work, pushing through the Sierra Nevada mountains. In 1867, to encourage quick progression, Congress deemed the land remaining between the two companies, which was the Utah plains, to be paid at mountain rate. This motivated the Union Pacific crew to lay 360 miles of track, and the Central Pacific crew to lay 425 miles of track within the year (Stockwell, 2011). Unfortunately, this hasty pace came at a cost.
The Washington state railroads had a monumental impact on the development of Washington. The first Transcontinental Railroad, the Northern Pacific, was built, uniting the western half of America, including Washington State, with the eastern half. Radical thinkers such as Governor Stevens proposed a direct connection from the East to the untouched resources of the West. The United Sates government supported the railway lines by providing state grants. They gave the railroad millions of acres of land in the undeveloped West.
Each railroad company got one side of the country. The Union Pacific got the East side of the country, starting at Omaha, Nebraska, and the Central Pacific got the West side of the country, starting at Sacramento, California. Both companies joined tracks on May 10, 1869 in Promontory Point, Utah. During the time of the building, The Civil War
It was a cold night in the small shed we were forced to sleep in. It was dirty, smelly, and dark. The only thing we had to drink was a bottle filled with only about thirty-two ounces of rain water. Some other slaves were nibbling on small pieces of bread that had bits of mold on them. Slaves weren't treated fairly at all.
In between California and the rest of the country were the Great Plains which were not heavily populated so there was no easy way of trade and transportation to the growing western territories. A group of men called the “Big Four” which consisted of Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins, decided what the country needed was a transcontinental railroad. Their company, The Central Pacific Railroad company would hire 15,000 Chinese men to work on constructing the railroad due to the fact that they would work for less than the average American. This made transportation cheaper and quicker than ever
These issues can still improve through cooperation and understanding, however, and reaching a satisfactory decision about the Dakota Access Pipeline provides a perfect gateway to uplifting improvement of the reservations’ lifestyle. If the government agrees to give a little, a great opportunity arises for them to get a little as well. In the last decades, lack of funding has led to blatantly subpar education for the majority of Native American students, even when the government made an attempt to intervene due to an understandable inherent distrust of Government interference. Through a monumental compromise via the Dakota Access Pipeline, the government could prove its decency, transparency, and trustworthiness, which would advance the relationship of Native Americans and the United States Government brilliantly. The newfound trust could easily apply to areas such as financial welfare, educational support, and government-run health clinics.
The building of roads, canals and railroads played a large role in the United States during the 1800s. They served the purpose of connecting towns and settlements so that goods could be transported quickly and more efficiently. These goods could be transported fast, cheap and in safe way through the Erie Canal that was built to connect the Great Lakes to New York. Railroads were important during Civil War as well, because it helped in the transportation of goods, supplies and weapons when necessary. These new forms of transportation shaped the United States into the place that it is today.
The Tremendous Impact of Railroads on America In the late 19th century, railroads propelled America into an era of unprecedented growth, prosperity, and convenient transportation. Prior to the building of the railroads, America lacked the proper and rapid transportation to make traveling across the country economical or practical. Lengthy travel was often cumbersome, costly, and dangerous.
The story is about an Indian girl and 7 other Indian kids who were sent to the red apple country so that they could learn how to be civilized and socialize with white people. Before the kids left for school they were impatient and excited to start their journey. The kids were told that they will be riding the iron horse (train). The girl was excited to get to school she believed she will be as free and happy as she was on the Dakota plain (the reservation she lived in). Once she got on the train, it was not what she expected it would be.
Firstly, Native Americans were already in an inconvenient position, being relocated multiple times, and were further being pressured to move again. With the railroad in place, many white settlers would go onto the Native Americans’ land and hunt wild Buffalo to near extinction. To add
The novel The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead is full of ahistorical elements. In a book about slavery in America, his use of ahistorical elements results in a commentary on racial discrimination and abuse in a unique, narrative way. He portrays every state differently, using each of them as an example of a different type of discrimination. South Carolina is represented as a “progressive” and modern state, with new and innovative ideas on how to treat slaves. It even has the Griffin Building to represent its modernism, even though that wasn 't built historically until 1910.
