Transcontinental Railroad Research Paper

The transcontinental Railroad was completed on May 10, 1869. It had started in 1830 and took almost 4 decades to finish. By 1850 the track was about 9,000 miles long east of the Missouri River. At about the same time many people were moving west. It was a dangerous path over mountains, rivers, and deserts. Before the Transcontinental Railroad it cost almost $1,000 ($31,250.00 in 2015) to travel across the country, after the railroad it cost only $100 ($4,687.50 in

Larry Page once said, “Especially in technology, [we] need revolutionary change, not incremental change.” Whether he is speaking about the Transcontinental Railroad system or the latest iPhone, what he says is true. If change is going to happen, it needs to bring a revolution of some kind along with it, otherwise, it will just become lost in history. This makes us wonder, how did the railroad system affect the US? The railroad system benefited the US most economically by industrializing towns it ran through, lowering shipping costs, and allowing for mass imports and exports.

The Great Railroad Strike, also known as the Great Upheaval, commenced on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Due to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroads lowering wages for the third time in a year, the workers began to revolt. The strike lasted 45 days before it was put down by local and state militias and federal troops. The strike in West Virginia set off a chain reaction resulting in workers in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois, and Missouri going on strikes. The strike disrupted work everywhere, as 100,000 workers across the country supported it. Workers burned down factories and destroyed railroads, engines, and cars. In response to the chaotic strike, the railroads organized private militias, as did the city and state governments,

Fifteen thousand men. One thousand- two hundred dead. Twenty thousand pounds of bones. One thousand, seven hundred and fifty- six miles of railways. The creation of the transcontinental railroad began in 1863. It originated in the northern states and made its way to the west. Nobody knew that one day this new technology would lead to the future that we live today. During the time that the railroad was in the process of being created, many things were escalating in the US, all for the best. The Transcontinental Railroad transformed the United States more economically by creating new opportunities, improving transportation, and boosting imports and exports.

Construction of the Transcontinental Railroad not only affected the United States itself but also anything that inhabited the lands that it was constructed on. As a necessary to build the railroad they had to go through mountains, Native American land, animals homes, etc. Native Americans being inhabitants of the land did not welcome the white settlers which resulted in violent conflict. When it came to building the railroad two companies were assigned the task, pinning them up against each other to lay the most track for more money. The Central Pacific company which started in California had to go through mountains while the Union Pacific which started in Nebraska only had to go through the Great Plains. For Central Pacific workers there was horrible working conditions, discrimination, and the chance dying for every mile laid.

The first transcontinental Railroad is being called one of the best civil engineering marvels of 19th century.

Throughout the 1800’s there were more and more Americans that had moved onto the frontier of the West coast. The people of the United States believed they were destined to have their land stretched from the Pacific Ocean (the west) to the Atlantic Ocean (the east); from sea to shining sea. This settlement came from the fact that the west not only had an abundance of fertile land for farming, but it had such a great abundance of gold and mineral mining available. The Americans also believed that this was a way (and chance) to spread their beliefs! Many people saw the West as a new beginning, so they decided to head West and begin this journey. This is what the Americans believed they were destined to do… The rapid settlement of the West was caused by the great desire of the American

Has there ever been a super big change in your life just randomly? Which do you believe the transcontinental railroad changed the United States more politically, socially, or economically? The transcontinental railroad changed the United States most socially because it changed the relationships with the indians, moved people west, and changed the different ethnic groups in the US.

Inventions like the iPhone have paved the road for social, economical, and political improvements. It allowed many opportunities for people to capitalize on whether it be economically like amazon, or socially like youtube as did the railroad that connected the states together. The transcontinental railroad most impacted America economically through encouraging imports and exports amongst the states, making transportation cheaper, and opening up cities along the railroad itself.

(flattened) the land by as much as a hundred miles a stretch. Behind them came

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

The First Transcontinental Railroad, completed in 1869 by the U.S. government under president and former Army general Ulysses S. Grant, was a defining moment in American history. The railroad, which stretches across 1,900 miles of mountainous terrain, was completed nearly 6 years after construction began in 1863. The First Transcontinental Railroad became the cornerstone of the economic prosperity in the western United States, allowing American citizens to conveniently travel to the west coast in a matter of days. The creation of this railroad, along with the American dream of unifying the coasts, is what ultimately drove Americans to colonizing and transforming the west into the urban environment it is today. Significantly, this railroad became the physical manifestation of Manifest Destiny, or the idea that America not only could, but was destined to be connected between its coasts. The First Transcontinental Railroad became the physical manifestation of the American Identities consisting of American Exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, as well as the fundamental American ideals such as prosperity, freedom, and democracy which were first brought to the continent in the 1600s.

After America acquired the West, the need for efficient transportation heightened. Ideas circulated about a railroad that would spread across the continent from East to West. Republican congresses ruled for the federal funding of railroad construction, however, all actions were halted for a few years on account of a war. Following the American Civil War of 1861-1865, the race to build transcontinental railroad began in 1866. Lincoln approved Pacific Railway Act of 1862, granting two railroad companies the right to build the first American transcontinental railroad, (Clark 432).

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

The Underground Railroad was not a railroad or underground. The Underground Railroad was a path for slaves to escape. More than 100,000 slaves escaped through the Underground Railroad. (History.com, history.com staff, paragraphs one and two) The slaves can thank people like Harriet Tubman because she was one of the people that helped the slaves leave and be free. There were other people, like William Still, Levi Coffin, and John Fairfield. One of the paths that went through the Underground Railroad was in Cincinnati, Ohio. Different paths extended through fourteen states and including Canada. The Underground Railroad was formed during the 1700-1790s. The Underground Railroad ended in 1861 when the Civil War started. (history.net, in between paragraphs one and two)