The Transcontinental Railroad and Westward Expansion

The transcontinental railroad appeared like a golden route to a prosperous future, but the struggles of many peoples, cultures, and the downturn of the economy, show that the negative effects of the transcontinental railroad outweighed the benefits. Theodore Judah, and the Big Four, comprised of the Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker, decided to build the railroad by laying down the tracks. The founders did not realize the consequences of constructing this massive iron horse: the inhumane treatment of workers, the destruction of a culture, and the collapse of the economy in 1873. The people on the railroad faced the prejudices, inclement weather, and cruel actions because of the harshness shown by the Superintendent of Construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. Cruelty did not stop with the construction workers, but rather it spread to the innocent Native Americans. Armed forces killed Native Americans and food supplies off of ancestral land to build the transcontinental railroad. Although acts, such as the Pacific

The Old West refers to any area west of the Mississippi River. Its era began in the early 19th century and ended in 1920 along with the Mexican revolution. The Old West was settled in numerous ways. Starting April 1, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase played a huge part in westward expansion. In this purchase, the U.S. gained approximately 828,000,000 square miles of land previously owned by France. This land extended from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. After the purchase, westward expansion immediately followed.

From the time of the Declaration of Independence to the late 18th century the population of America had grown to millions. As the population of America grew, the necessity for more land also grew. People slowly started to move west and populate other territories. This time period in America is known as Westward Expansion.

1) The Transcontinental Railroad was important, as it was the first railroad that connected both the East and West coasts, and it made a quicker, more efficient way to transport people and goods to different places. It cut travel time from a minimum of 3 months (and often a year)down to a week. The transcontinental railroad was important for westward expansion for an obvious reason. It made traveling west easier and cheaper. It also facilitated west ward expansion in more subtle, but equally if not more important ways. The transcontinental railroad created a vast amount of jobs for people working on the railroads as well as for people working to feed, clothe, and house these railroad workers.

In the early to mid 1800s, Americans began to want to expand the country again. Some Americans did not agree with the idea of expansion, and wanted to remain complacent with the amount of territory that they currently owned. The nation was torn. There were supporters and opponents of the idea of expansion. Each side presented their points but we eventually ended up expanding.

for it (Cooke 254). If it had been left to the government, it would have taken

Made in the 1860s ,the railroads were used to move supplies from place to place. They also used trains to move men to places with less men. The North

In reference to, the Carrying Method mail was dangerous and difficult, but was made for one destination. The founders of Pony Express line found that they were bankrupt.Even though the pony express company was no longer operating, its logo lived on when wells fargo purchased it and used it from 1866 until 1890 in their fright and stagecoach. Nineteen months after launching the pony express it was replaced by the biggest telegraph line ever. Everyone that rode a horse avoided the heavy snow. Pony Bob Halsam was the holder of the record for the longest and fastest run in history on the celebrated run in may 1860,began at friday’s station on the southwest shore of the lake tahoe and took the route to buckland’s station. Having ridden some 190 miles Halsam in the essence turned around and went right back, this time replacing a rider who did not show up and Indians came along the way. In the end he traveled about 360 miles (580) km in 40 hours.

How do you see progress, as a process that is beneficial or in contrast, that it´s a hurtful process that everyone at one point of their lives has to pass through it? At the time, progress was beneficial for the United States, but those benefits came with a cost, such cost that instead of advancements and developments being advantageous factors for humanity, it also became a harmful process in which numerous people were affected in many facets of life. This all means that progress is awsome to achieve, but when achieved, people have to realize the process they had to do to achieve it, which was stepping on other people to get there.

Since the beginning of recorded history, mankind has been caught in the middle of being

I learned many events of history and my most favorite one was the building of transcontinental railroad. A transcontinental railroad is a railroad that spanned the entire continent. For the transcontinental railroad to be built congress passed a bill that called two companies to built a transcontinental railroad across the center of the United States. The two companies was the Central Pacific and Union Pacific. The Central Pacific hired Chinese. The Union Pacific hired former soldiers from the north and south, freed slaves, and Irish immigrants. Both companies hired native americans. The two companies building the railroad were given given 20 square miles of land for every track that laid. With land they got they got money because they sold

On May 10, 1869 Americans celebrated the first rail road crossing north America. The Union Pacific reached westward from Omaha, Nebraska and central pacific. This real road helped to transport horses and men west in the battle with Native Americans where they were weak to fight. It also helped hunters to gain a quick access to bison and they were able to harvest animals in easy way. After the civil war there was there was more, than twenty thousand bison but after the railroad the natural environment was destroyed and by the end of 1885, only one thousand bison remained. In 1893 congress gave the railroads 4,840 square yards, which worth more than 500 million dollars the railroad changed American economy, society and politics in gilded age. The railroad had a big impact by bringing millions of migrants to America. Between 1870 and 1900, the railroad helped bring more than two million American migrants to the Mississippi west. By 1905, sixty thousand Russian Mennonites come to fertile Kansas plains by using the Santa Fe

Through the four decades between 1860 and 1890 the land scape of the United States changed dramatically. One of the more important factors evident while observing the interactive map, is the expansion of the railroad system. The combination of railroad system and the increasing population of America created the grand expansion west. Through the decades’ rail systems increase, states were established, densely populated city began to appear, and improved land grow. The west expanded at a gradual rate except for the great railway expansions towards San Francisco. What didn’t happen was a resemblance of change in the south. The rail system increase, but the south lacked an increase in highly populated cities and improved agricultural land. Through the change of America, the states around New Orleans remained the same. Important factors accord between 1860 and 1870 that completely changed the migration of Americans through the next four decades.

Westward expansion was a time of successes and failures, a time celebrations and grief, a time full of life and death but in the end it shaped how America is the way is today. Westward expansion was put in action because of the belief of Manifest Destiny, the belief that it is America fate to expand from the Atlantic to Pacific ocean. The economical, political and humanitarians impacts were necessary to achieve the goal of manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion.

Before the United States blew up to what it is now today, it started out as a lonely 13 colonies that turned into states. “Even before the American colonies won their independence from Britain in the Revolutionary War, settlers were migrating westward into what are now the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as parts of the Ohio Valley and the Deep South” (Huntington, 1998). Expansion of the new country was paramount to the building of the empire that stands today and at the time shunning out the European countries that once squatted in the areas of the “New World” by changing the way of life, thinking, and institutions that once governed the land that is known as the United States of America. There are many factors that helped the expansion of the United States of America during the late 1800’s but, the most factors that helped was Manifest Dynasty, the Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican-American War, California Gold Rush, and the Transcontinental Railroad.