Essay On Transcontinental Railroad

The railroad shipped $50 million worth of freight coast to coast each year. The railroad brought an economic growth for businesses. It also allowed people to travel across country at a cheaper rate and at a much faster pace. The railroad brought many positive effects to California but it didn’t stay that way.

The B&O’s slogan of the time was “ Linking Thirteen Great States With The Nation” which ended up becoming very true. The Railroad was constructed in 1827 and is recognized as this country very first common-carrier railroad (charted especially for public use) (American Rails.) In the beginning of the B&O, there were many literal roadblocks, but the railroad ended up succeeded very well when it was completed. When fully completed the railroad ran for approximately 10,000 miles between the two main hubs Baltimore and Maryland. This success of the B&O railroad as the first of its kind had an enormous impact on the United States economy. Aside from the B&O railroad long-lasting effects on the economy and the people in the country long after it was created, when it was first created it still had an impressive impact on the country. It gave the people exactly what they wanted, a fast cheap and safe way to travel across the country and especially between major cities that needed faster transport between each other. The whole reasoning of creating the B&O railroad is very interesting. Before the B&O railroad was created there was the Erie canal that was being built to connect New York with ports in Albany and Buffalo. It was also well known that Philadelphia was planning on creating a similar transportation system to the Series canal between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The creators of the B&O railroad as a threat to the country leaving the city in the dust so they created the B&O railroad to compete with the

The Transcontinental Railroad had a drastic effects on many aspects of life during the 1860s, including society, the economy, and the Native Americans’ way of life. These are just a few of the ways the Transcontinental Railroad changed the world. Native Americans were forced to relocate, society had a new outlook on life, and the economy had been boosted almost incalculably.

The geography of Washington changed along with the building of the transcontinental railroads. Cities and farmland sprouted up in places, and others grew exponentially. Natural resources were extracted from environments, such as timber. For example, James J. Hill began using the land surrounding the Great Northern Line. He produced cattle, hogs, and wheat. Besides this, he also received a large land grant, for which he transferred into a timber industry. (Artifact T) By doing so, Hill turned natural timberland into farmland, modifying the original landscape. The railroads also made the demand for tunnels and cutting through mountains. Chinese men drilled holes into the mountains and filled them with dynamite. (Artifact N) The cutting and drilling meant for reworking the natural mountains and making them beneficial to our needs. The cutting also meant affecting the land and changing it. This was needed for the railroads to continue on their proposed routes that also altered the landscape, as well. The rail lines had cut through forest, causing deforestation, and cut through mountainous rock. The railways that draw through Washington go through natural land features, such as mountain ranges. (Artifact W) Bridges and blasting mountain rock took over 6 years, all the way to the completion of the transcontinental railroad, in 1869. During these times, much land

The railroad took three whole years to build, with the help of two railroad companies and thousands of other hired workers. Each railroad company got one side of the country. The Union Pacific got the East side of the country, starting at Omaha, Nebraska, and the Central Pacific got the West side of the country, starting at Sacramento, California. Both companies joined tracks on May 10, 1869 in Promontory Point, Utah.

The Mexican-American War changed the Unites States of America in a monumental way. This war changed The U.S.A.’s relationship with foreign powers and the economic standpoint of the nation. The Mexican- American war, and its strong ties to manifest destiny, shaped the nation in a country bordered by two seas with a chance for common folk and foreigners to have a sustainable life due to the gold rush. The war can also be accounted for the downfall leading to the Civil War over the conflict of slavery due to the land purchased in the wars treaty.

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.

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. With the advent of the railroad, many of these issues disappeared. Railroads had a major impact on advancing the American economy, transforming America into a modern society, and improving an antiquated transportation system.

Even though the railroad existed before the great division between the north and the south and it mainly contributed in providing goods for both sides, the invention of the railroad greatly contributed to the civil war. The first railroad created in the US was in 1827 and their major role was to transport goods from the North to the South and back. As slaves became more abundant in the South and less present in the North a war began on the idea of slavery. The railroad caused this Civil War by bringing goods to only one side and keeping their advantage. It went from having different point of views to all out battles that started with starvation and isolation, but led to death and separation.

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.

The Market Revolution generated a drastic change in the United States economy and altered gender barriers while at the same time accomplishing this in a provocative manner. This economic boom occurred around the first half of the 19th Century. The economic boom was achieved by inventions such as a transcontinental railroad system which resulted in a better transportation system which improved trade and the cotton gin which sped up the rate of removing seeds from cotton fiber. However like what the great Hugo said, “The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human race has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced”. That is exactly what happened with this revolution in fact and the progress

The North and South were both different and similar in how they operated. They were mostly based on the categories of transportation, agriculture, geography/climate, labor/industry, and society during the early 1800’s. These categories decided how much the North and South would progress as the country continued to grow.

In 1864 Congress approved the Northern Pacific Railway to be built. The NPR is the first transcontinental railroad in the northern part of the country. It is 8,316 miles long, beginning in Minnesota and ending in Washington state, with many branches going off the main line. When congress approved it they also supplied nearly 40million acres of land grants to build the railroad on. Construction didn 't go underway until 1870, and the rail road was finally christened to open on Sept. 8 1888.

There have been steam engine trains trailing the United States in the early 1800’s. Many of the early ones ran only a few dozen miles. When the railways ran longer distances, the cost to build and later ride them were be extremely high. However, long distances were what Minnesota needed to keep up with the competitive and growing nation around it. “Construction began on the first track in 1861 in St. Paul and was completed in 1862.” These railroads, however, were expensive and needed many willing workers and finances to keep it going. During the Panic of 1873, many of the railroads that were built or in the process of building, got shut down. The economy was plummeting and the railroad companies could not keep up with the expenses. One Canadian-born,

For a war to be fought strategically well, there first must be a form of simple, yet speedy, transportation. That is where the transcontinental railroad came in. Because of the rapid settlement of the western land in the 1850s, Congress wanted to enforce a transcontinental railroad to replace America’s current weak transportation system—horse-drawn carriages were still used and soldiers often had to walk. But due to the constant competition between the Northern members and the Southern