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The impact of the transcontinental railroad
Transcontinental railroad impact on america
Transcontinental railroad and historical impacts
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In 1868 the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central merged to form Penn Central. There was a ceremony for the driving of the “Last Spike” at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869. Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the industrial revolution to the settlement of the West. For the first time the opposite ends of the nation had been linked and it was possible to reach distant California. Although the South started early to build railways, it concentrated on short lines linking cotton regions to oceanic or river ports, and the absence of an interconnected network was a major handicap during the Civil War.
After America had obtained the west, the need for a better transportation heightened. Many ideas were proposed to get from the east to the west shores, but the railroad was the best choice. The Republican Congress convened and ruled that federal funding on the railroad construction. The congress voted for the funding, but it was halted because of a war. The American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, the race to build the railroad began in 1866.
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.
The Transcontinental Railroad transformed the United States socially by allowing people to travel across the country, bringing people together, and beginning discrimination against the Chinese. The first way that the Transcontinental Railroad transformed the United States is by allowing people to travel across the country. Many ads invited “tourists and pleasure seekers” to use the Transcontinental Railroad to see mountains, valley, lakes, and more attractions (Doc G). Before the Transcontinental Railroad, it was difficult and dangerous to travel away from home, but the railroads made it easy, safe, and convenient to explore the country.
After the railroad lines had been built out west changes occurred for both the Western and Eastern United States. By 1860 railroads connected nearly every major city and over 80 percent of farms were 5 miles from the railroad. It was easier and faster to transport goods such as; lumber, grain, corn, etc. to the Eastern United States. Farming changed with railroads because farmers could put their products and animals on the trains and make money. Within the first 10 years of completion the railroad had shipped over $50 million in goods.
Transcontinental Railroad Tera Richardson, 4336787 History 102 B008 Sum 17 Professor Traci Sumner American Military University July 22, 2017 Abstract The transcontinental railroad was one of the biggest advocates for the industrial economy and westward expansion. The railroads could transfer goods and people across the country with ease, and quickly. While some bad came from this miraculous progression, such as the panic of 1873 and a yellow fever epidemic, the good outweighed the bad as it enabled the United States to fulfill its Manifest Destiny through westward expansion.
In 1862 Miners began to invade the rocky mountains and plains, clashing with Indians, the Lakota Siox massacre or capture 1000 people on the Minnesota Frontier. John Henry goes to the mine to get money for his family in a time of need. The captain tells John Henry that the mountain is caving in but John tells him that its just his hammer suckin wind.
The railroad was vital in the setting of the west for the American people. The Pacific Railway Act gave the American people a much easier way of travel to the east. This made it more likely for large families to participate in the expansion due to the lack of hardship that many encountered during the Oregon Trail. The Act gave the Union Pacific Railroad the expansion from Nebraska west, while the Central Pacific Railroad moved from California east. Thus, the first railroad was completed when the two companies finally connected in Promontory Point, Utah in spring 1869.
The transcontinental railroad connected the East Coast to the West Coast. With the merge between the West Coast’s Central Pacific railroad, which started in Sacramento and conquered the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the East Coast’s Union Pacific railroad, which
The Union Pacific Railroad was the first railroad to connect the east and west coasts as it stretched from Chicago to San Francisco. The Union Pacific Railroad decided to skirt the Rocky Mountains on their north side, and instead of going through Denver, CO it ran through Cheyenne, WY. The people of Denver were not very happy about being left out, so a group of investors raised over $300,000. They then used this money to build their own railroad, calling themselves the Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company (Noel
The greatest cultural conflict between the years 1865 and 1898 was the Transcontinental Railroad. The Transcontinental Railroad was a railway stretching from “sea to shining sea”. It was built by two teams of workers, the Central Pacific Railroad Company starting in Sacramento and the Union Pacific Railroad building west from the Missouri River. The teams worked day and night to connect the two ends in Promontory Summit, Utah. The Transcontinental Railroad was a major breakthrough in the connection of markets and the transportation of goods and people from coast to coast.
The Transcontinental Railroad was the first line across the continent. The railroad line stretched from Omaha, Nebraska, all the way to Sacramento, California. This railroad allowed the United States the opportunity to expand westward, as both people and resources would be able to be shipped much faster than before. In 1862 The Pacific Railway Act was passed, which allowed the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad to construct the lines for the transcontinental railroad. On May 10, 1869 the Transcontinental Railroad was established at Promontory, Utah.
The Transcontinental Railroad and Impact on Westward Expansion The Indian’s called it the “Iron Horse”, we called it a ‘Locomotive”. But, no matter what you call it, the Transcontinental Railroad was the key to Westward Expansion and the gateway to a new way of life. Many new jobs were created by the railroad and many different people upheld them. There were the Chinese, who used their knowledge with explosives to help build the actual railroad.
This gave birth to the creation of a huge network of railroads including the transcontinental railroads. The transcontinental railroad connected the United States from New York all the way to California. The growth of the railroads was greater in the west then the east. This new system shortened travel time from the eastern part of the United States to the Western part. It dropped
America’s first steam locomotive made its debut in 1830, and over the next two decades railroad tracks linked many cities on the East Coast. By 1850, some 9,000 miles of track had been laid east of the Missouri River. During that same period, the first settlers began to move westward across the United States; this trend increased dramatically after the discovery of gold in California in 1849. The overland journey–across mountains, plains, rivers and deserts–was risky and difficult, and many westward migrants instead chose to travel by sea, taking the six-month route around Cape Horn at the tip of South America, or risking yellow fever and other diseases by crossing the Isthmus of Panama and traveling via ship to San
