What Was The Impact Of The Industrial Era

The Industrial Revolution in the United States took place during the 18th and 19th centuries. This revolution was one of the most prominent turning points of American history as it modernized the workforce, developed American economics, and impacted the way people lived their lives. Before it began, America was mostly a rural society, people farmer to make a living and all work was done at home (“Industrial Revolution”). Afterwards, individuals began to become depend on factories to produce the products they once hand-made.

The building of the First Transcontinental Railroad was a key symbol of the Industrial Revolution beginning in the United States. The railroad crossed the middle of the country and connected the eastern portion to the west. The building began in Sacramento, California and continued all the way to Council Bluffs, Iowa, resulting in 1,776 miles of new rails that were a staple for both the transportation of people and goods. Less lives were lost on the hazardous trails through the Rocky Mountains and thus the West Coast experienced an increase in population. The railroad greatly impacted the nation, as it united the people and also allowed for the improvement of the speed of shipment and price of goods throughout the nation. With the constant

To start, I will explain the purpose of the Transcontinental railroad. In Source #1”Full Steam Ahead The Transcontinental Railroad”, it says “People had been asking for coast-to-coast rail travel for decades. Since the invention of the locomotive in 1825, companies had built many rail lines. These railroads connected eastern cities and seaports,splashing travel times and helping these areas grow. Crossing the country, however was much more difficult. People and trade goods traveled by horse, stagecoach, or wagon train. The trip took months. Not many made the journey.” So the government during the time thought that building a railroad, would help businesses “ sprout up like corn.” According to Source #1 it also says “ Two companies immediately got to work. Railroads already existed that stretched from the East of Omaha, Nebraska. Now, the Union Pacific Railroad began extending the tracks from Omaha out to the West. The Central Pacific Railroad began in Sacramento,California and laid tracks out East. Eventually, the two companies would meet in Promontory, Utah. So, basically the purpose of the railroad was to get people and goods from coast-to-coast.

“In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law. The act said that there were two main railroad lines. The Central Pacific Railroad would come from California and the Union Pacific Railroad would come from the Midwest. The two railroads would meet somewhere in the middle.”(Ducksters). Seven years later the Transcontinental Railroad is finished and you can now travel across the country with ease. The Transcontinental Railroad has impacted positive Westward expansion because The Transcontinental Railroad helped people move west and create jobs, The Transcontinental Railroad was the cheapest and fastest way to get westward, and The Transcontinental Railroad set the foundation for moving westward in the United States.

The Transcontinental Railroad was a technological breakthrough that managed to make the USA feel smaller to travelers. Railroad systems had been in place decades before the transcontinental railroad had been constructed. However, these systems were not in synch as there were many different railroad companies and even more laws in place from state to state. This was in part due to the civil war, during this period both governments wanted better transportation of goods and troops. This caused many factors like track gauge (spacings of the rails) lengths to differ vastly. These differences in factors caused the slowing of transportation as, many of the times, people and goods being transported had to move trains where these railways met up. Also, many railways would not intersect towns, causing them to board trains on the other side of town. The Transcontinental Railroad was one of the stepping stones towards standardization as these factors were enforced by law for uniformity, and towns began to be built around these railways. This allowed people to travel from the eastern coast to the western coast without having to swap railways many times and would bring people and their ideas closer together, and, most importantly, caused the massive increase in western expansion. The transcontinental railroad was brought forth due to the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, Chinese laborers, and western migration allowing for decreased travel times, bulk movement of resources and products, and

The significance of the transcontinental railroads and the impact they made is quite profound. The first transcontinental line’s construction was chartered by the government in the Pacific Railroad Act. Construction of the line, which ran between Omaha Nebraska to Sacramento California, began in 1863 and it was completed in 1869. By 1900, other transcontinental lines, like the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Great Northern Railway, were in place and connected by numerous feeder lines, junctions, and

In 1860, the United States had more railroad track than the rest of the world combined. Shipping freight by rail became much more practical and affordable, easily beating out the use of steamboats. The railroad directly led to the increase of urban centers. Chicago, for example, virtually quadrupled its population during the 1850’s. By the 1880’s, there were at least 93, 267 miles of rail that stretched across the plains and just ten years later, there were 163,597 miles of rail. By 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act, which gave the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroads responsibility for building the transcontinental railroad. Congress also granted both railroads lands and millions of dollars of government loans. May 10, 1869, after six long years of hard intensive labor, the tracks of the two railroads finally met at

Before the Pacific Rail Way Act was in action, there was much interest and need for a cross country railroad. The first railroad that was used in the states was along the east coast but unfortunately had minimal stops. In the 1840’s the railway expanded, extending throughout the east, south, and Midwest. This allowed more trades, but affected the way of life of the native Americans. Around the 1850’s congress sponsored numerous

The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in human history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. After the Civil War, industrialization took on an unpredictable change of events that had a major affect on improving American life.

The Transcontinental Railroad was one of the most ambitious engineering projects, economic stimulants, and efficient methods of transportation in the early United States. If completed, the United States would be truly be united from east to west. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Transcontinental Railroad helped develop new opportunities for many aspects of American life.

The transcontinental railroad was the most influential innovation of the United States, that brought a revolution of how people traveled. One year after the Civil War ended the people of the United States were looking for a way to unite their country back together. This helped mold the United States as to what it has become today. It helped people cross the country and improved how goods were transported. The man that was forming the transcontinental railroad was a merchant named Asa Whitney. He had asked the government for funding to construct one of the greatest innovation of the United States. “Two railroads, the Central Pacific starting in San Francisco and a new railroad, the Union Pacific, starting in Omaha, Nebraska, would build the rail-line.” (ushistory.org). One fear of building the railroad was the danger of the “Great American Desert” because of the lack of resources. The Central Pacific was primarily made by Chinese immigrants. The Union Pacific was primarily made up of Irish immigrants. By spring of 1866 the Central Pacific had only build 68 miles of track from Sacramento, while the Union Pacific going west from Omaha built 200 miles of track in less than a year. Therefore the Union Pacific made millions more. The next three years the railroads would continue to try and make history.

During the year of 1869, the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad companies met in Utah. This railroad connected Sacramento, to Promontory. The transcontinental railroad allowed Americans to maneuver goods across long distances. If this railroad was never built, short- term consequences would have been the inability to transport food, building materials, and medicine, making them cheaper and faster. This railroad was constructed during the time of the American Civil War. War veterans, as well as Irish and Chinese immigrants helped to build the railroad. If this railroad was never connected, these groups of people would never have had a job opportunity, since many at the time were unskilled workers.

The railroad coexisted with Western Expansion, the railroad allowed for quicker travel and Western Expansion allowed for the railroad business to progress. The Transcontinental Railroad was a product of Western Expansion and the construction of more railroads. The Transcontinental Railroad began to be built after the Pacific Railroad Act passed in 1862, that promoted and aided the construction of this railroad. The Transcontinental Railroad was built to link the east to the west in the United States. The Central Pacific and The Union Pacific Railroad Companies were appointed the task of completing the railroad where they would race to finish first and reach the west coast. Before the Transcontinental Railroad, railroads were only used to connect local cities on the east coast. The railroads on the east coast were used for travel from town to town, but it was less likely that you would travel to a major city by train because there were not railroad in

In total, nine strikers and seven Pinkertons were killed; many strikers and most of the remaining Pinkertons were seriously injured. The Carnegie Steel Corporation had more than a hundred strikers arrested, some were charged with murder. Most of the men were eventually released, but within each case much of the union’s time, money, and energy was consumed. Carnegie Steel quickly tried to institute longer hours and lower wages to many of the industry workers. After the terrible act of many of the lower class strikers fighting to defend their rights in the steel factory, and then getting charged with the outrageous charges of murder when trying to defend themselves from the hired Pinkerton agents, the company tries to implicate punishment on the strikers once more by making working conditions even worse than once before.

In the beginning stages of railroad building, the Union Pacific Railroad Company skillfully connected the cities in the east by 9,000 miles of tracks. Then on July 1, 1862 President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act, which granted financial aid to the two companies who would be working on the Transcontinental Railroad, the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad. A tough decision then arose, would the railroad be built in north through Montana and Oregon, in the south through Texas and Los Angeles or be built as a central route? After much discussion, the central route was chosen. Work started soon after, connecting the well-developed tracks in the east to the growing tracks in the west. On May 10, 1869 the two companies