What Impact Did Railroad Have On The Economy Between 1820 And 1860

In 1830 the Baltimore and Ohio railroad tested a steam powered train this lead to Americans developing their own railroads.(pg. 256) Railroads helped transport goods and people move across the country faster than ever before. Railroads were used for many other things including transporting mail from one place to another. This helped people communicate with one another faster. By 1810 and 1820’s the number of letters delivered sent out went up by five million annually and cut the time in half to reach between cities and states. For example in 1817 it took 19 days for news to get to New York to Cincinnati and by 1841 the time was cut down to seven days. (pg. 258) After the steam engine was created the production of consumer goods and clothing started to expand as well. One of the

Factory workers started to produce more consumer goods and transport them because they became in high demand. Another way the new transportation effected the economy is it made it easier for people to travel from one place to another. This is how people started moving towards the East coast to the West coast. Many of these people were immigrants from Germany and Ireland which started to lead to tension and violence between one another. (pg. 264) Also ethnicity and religion played a part of the urbanization. Between the Americans and Europeans moving into the cities places like New York and Philadelphia started to grow. This is the time when cities started to become more urban and by 1860 nearly twenty percent of Americans had grown to live in cities. This is also when many of them started to separate into different sections between the working class and the urban slums. Transportation also increased the violence in the cities. As the cities grew so did the crime rate. Women started to move into the cities to find work and better their economic situation by doing things such as