In the late 19th century there was a spike in Railroad Construction in the United States. The growth began as a result of congress passing the Pacific Railroad Bill in 1862 which began the construction of the Transcontinental Railroads. In the near future the Transcontinental Railroads would connect both sides of the United States, therefore they would eventually lead up to the settling of the west. Railroads in the late 19th century would affect the settling of the west by allowing people to travel to find work in an efficient manner, by allowing faster and more efficient methods to transport goods to consumers, and improving the economy overall. Starting off Railroads greatly impacted travel time from one place to another. According to the article How the Transcontinental Railroads Changed America, Traveling from New York To California took about a month and cost about a grand. After the Transcontinental railroad was completed traveling from coast to coast was completely different. Now Traveling from coast to coast took a week and cost about $150. Since both the time and cost of traveling went down you could expect to see people who were struggling in one place financially would move to a different environment. …show more content…
Before railroads everything was shipped by wagon which took longer and cost more. Now with the help of the railroads goods were now processed faster. Since the cost of transporting goods went down it is only right that the price of the good goes down as well which is what took place. According to the article “How the Transcontinental Railroad shaped America” over the course of the first ten years of the railroad in action trains were shipping about Fifty million dollars worth of products. Railroads helped bringing and taking the product to the consumers in an efficient manner or begin a new
The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 authorized the construction of the transcontinental railroad which made it easier for settlers to travel West. Since it was more affordable and safer, it was easier for railroad companies to encourage western
The railroad completely changed the way trade worked. Before the railroad people had to deliver goods by wagon, and that would cause a lot of problems because of the rough terrain and long delivery times, but with the railroad it made things 100 times easier for the single conductor, and the buyers who would get their product much faster than before. Railroads not only helped the economy, but it helped people as well, unlike most things that happened in the U.S. economy, there was little to nothing negative about the creation of railroads which was ideal because it is still being used today. Preceding the railroads there were steamboats, the steamboats were a big hassle because of the dangers, such as indian attacks or boiler explosions, but the Framers were not going to back down until they found the perfect way of trade, hence the railroad. Another way America increased trade was when the cotton gin was created.
The 1860-1900 age was lacking transportation, however the sudden spark through technological growth helped solve that issue. Throughout the gilded age there was a lack of technology in the area of transportation. Most goods and resources were taken on horseback and this whole process was tedious and unnecessary. Then the transcontinental Railroad came along, this railroad changed the United States forever it allowed us to transport goods much easier then we were ever able to before. The Transcontinental Railroad was created May 10, 1869 and is 1,912 miles long.
The transcontinental railroad revolutionized the nation, it was the first railroad to stretch across the United States. It began in 1863 and kept changing transportation and many other areas of life in America long after. The railroad was sometimes called the technological equivalent of manifest destiny. Three of the largest areas that it affected were transportation, industry expansion, and the economy. Transportation was widely influenced by the railroad mainly because of the train’s efficiency.
Marshall Lasater Mr. L Military History P6 1/27/23 Transcontinental Railroad Imagine a railroad that stretches across half of the nation. The Transcontinental Railroad was an immensely important development in American history. It connected the east and west coasts of the United States, allowing for faster transportation of goods and people across the country. The railroad also opened up new economic opportunities for businesses that could now easily move their products to far-away markets, leading to a period of unprecedented industrial growth in America during this time.
These grants caused more people to travel and buy land in the West. The journey for a family heading West was now safer and easier. Railroads encouraged travel directly. The Transcontinental Railroad cut a six month and 1,000 dollar trip down to 105 dollars in a week’s time. This allowed easy travel from coast to coast.
In conclusion, the United States federal government took many actions to promote westward expansion in the late 1800s and early 1900s which caused many changes within the United States of America. The relocation of indigenous Natives, the passing of the Homestead Act in 1862, and the expansion of transcontinental railroads had many different impacts on the country, some being positive and some being negative. Because of all of the actions taken by United States federal government in the late 1800s and early 1900s to promote westward expansion, the country’s shape and character was greatly
The railroad was built crossing the western half of America which opened up a father route during 1863 to 1869. It was 1,776 miles long and served for the Atlantic and Pacific coast for the United States including the two railroad companies as well. In less than a century, the expansion has the stretched the U.S. from a lot of states along the eastern seaboard until they reached the pacific. Don't forget that this railroad took six years to build and was entirely made with the workers bare hands. The two railroad companies supported the westward expansion by issuing U.S. government bonds.
history because a link from the Western part of the United States to the Eastern part of the United States had finally been established. Commercial trains from the East could now transport people to the West and vice versa. This provided for easier transport of humans and commercial goods as well. There was only one problem, the price of each train ticket. Not only did the journey take months to travel from the East to the West by train, but the cost of a ticket was outrageous for most people residing in the U.S. at the time.
With more railroads being built, it helped to establish the United States, and industries in the West used the railroads to connect industry to retail markets in Eastern United States. Without railroads, it would have been hard for the Western States to expand.
For twenty years after the Gold Rush, Americans in California felt extremely remote from the rest of the United States. The early Forty-Niners of the California Gold Rush wishing to come to California were faced with limited options. Some options included sailing around South America from the Atlantic which could take up to eight months or travel by land but that came with many dangers as well. The railroads helped establish countless towns and settlements, it paved the way to abundant mineral deposits and fertile tracts of pastures and farmland, and created new markets for eastern goods. For many, the dream of a transcontinental railroad symbolized all sorts of hopes for better things.
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.
According to the article The Railway Journey, modern transportation “created a definite spatial distance between the places of production and the place of consumption did the goods become uprooted commodities” (40 Railroad Journey). Basically, this means that since the railroad allowed goods to be shipped to further distances at faster rates which resulted in mass productions and shipments of goods which resulted in a stable economy for the United
The first way that the economy was impacted was that with the ease and efficiency of the railroads, they created a large demand for goods and labor because they needed a lot of people to help build the railroads and also needed a large quantity of steel for the rails and wood for the railroad ties. Secondly the railroads created a huge national market because of the simplicity of delivering goods from place to place. The railroads helped the people in even the most rural place prosper with the cost efficient transportation of the trains. From 1830 to 1861, the United States laid aproximately 30,000 miles of railroad track, which led to an increase in demand for coal which was used to produce iron for the
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.