Gilded Age

The Way West…

• Settlers had three main methods of heading West:

– By foot or wagon.– By boat.– By train.

Railroads

1865-1900

Why Build Railroads?

• Used to connect people.– Towns to cities, states to states, East Coast to West

Coast.– Help people move from place to place, settle new

areas.• Used to connect resources and production.

– Cattle to butchers to the dinner table; gold from mines to smelters to banks; corn from farms to markets to the dinner table.

• Make money.– Capitalists who specialized in buying, building, and

running, Railroads to make turn a profit for themselves and (sometimes) for share holders.

Which statement best describes the role of railroads in the industrialization

of the United States?1 They were the earliest form

of commercial transportation.

2 They are more important to industry today than they were 100 years ago.

3 They provided an efficient means of transportation during the Age of Big Business.

4 They were unable to compete in areas that had good water transportation

Early Railroads

• Were primarily in the Northeast.

• Connected markets to producers.

• Expanded greatly after the Civil War.

• Thousands of miles of track were added every year.

Miles of Railway

186535,000

Miles of Railway

1900192,556

How is a Railroad Built?

• What is needed?– Land – Labor (people)– Wood– Fuel (wood, coal, later diesel)– Iron & Steel– Organization– Capital (money)

Land• Railroads were

provided land on which to build. (Right of way)

• Railroads were given every other square acre of land to sell to help pay for building the railroads.

• Land grants helped to promote railroad building.

Railroad Towns

• Frontier villages competed to become a stop along a railroad– Sometimes blackmail and bribes were offered– Those not linked to the railroad became

Ghost Towns

Industry

• Industry grew with the Railroads.– Iron and Steel, Coal and Wood.

• Leaders emerged who build (and lose) fortunes providing what the railroad companies needed.

• Pushes innovation and creates new technologies.

Which factor was most critical to the building of transcontinental railroads after the Civil War?

1 government ownership of the railroads

2 capital investment by labor unions

3 land and money provided by the Federal Government

4 willingness of Native American Indians to leave tribal lands

Connecting East and West

• Needed to connect both halves of the country together.

The Union Pacific Railroad

• Commissioned by Congress to start westward from Omaha, Nebraska

Central Pacific Railroad

• Commissioned by Congress to build railroad starting in California and moving east.

Which two developments following the Civil War most helped open the American West?

1 the building of the Erie Canal and the purchase of he Louisiana Territory

2 the discovery of gold in California and the construction of the Panama Canal

3 the annexation of Texas and the invention of the cotton gin

4 the implementation of the Homestead Act and the completion of the transcontinental railroad

People

• Building and running a Railroad is extremely labor intensive.

• Thousands of workers were needed for the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.

RR Workers

• Hard to find those willing to brave the conditions to build the railroads:– Indians who attacked the UP line.– Snow avalanches that struck the CP.– Working with dynamite, hot sun, bad food,

bad shelter, and poor pay.

“Paddies”

Irish immigrants and out of work Civil War veterans laid most of the tracks of the

Union Pacific

The Chinese Immigrants

Nearly 10,000 Chinese laborers laid track for the CP, cutting into the Sierra Nevada Mts.

Deadly Jobs

• The Railroads provided jobs for thousands of workers during construction and after.

• Quickly became the nation’s largest employer.

• Hundreds died every year and thousands were maimed.

Promontory Point, UtahThe Transcontinental Railroad is Complete

May 10, 1869

What’s Missing?

Effects of the Transcontinental RR

• Magnificent engineering feat

• Welded West Coast to the Union

• Increased trade with Asia

• Sometimes laid down railroad that led from “nowhere to nothing”

• Paved way for the growth of the West

• Quickened demise of Native Americans– Cut through their lands, helped kill buffalo

“Ours is a country where people...can attain to the most elevated positions or acquire a

large amount of wealth...according to their

talents, prudence, and personal exertions.”

Leading the Way to Wealth

• Jumped at any chance to advance– 1st in the Steamboat

Revolution• Transported goods in

the War of 1812

• Worked for Gibbons in the NY waterways

• Started his own fleet of steamboats to transport goods

How About Here and the Northeast?

• Amassed fortune of $100 million in the railroads – Helped Consolidate railroads in

East

• During the Panic of 1873 and the resulting depression, Vanderbilt began construction of Grand Central Terminal in New York City, offering employment to thousands who otherwise would have been unemployed.

• Donated $ to start Vanderbilt University

“Manufacturing has positive benefits to offer society and therefore should be encouraged

by government.”The author of this statement would most

likely be an advocate of1 allowing them to develop

with few restrictions

2 governmental control over prices charged by manufacturers for their products

3 government ownership of big business

4 antitrust legislation

East Becomes Standard

• Steel replaced iron for use as tracks

• Standard Gauge of track – allowed railcars to switch from line to line without changing cargo

• Why were railroad lines constructed where they were?• What cities are linked within New York?• Why do you think these were linked?• How were locations in New York affected by the

railroad?

I LIKE to see it lap the miles,

And lick the valleys up,

And stop to feed itself at tanks;

And then, prodigious, step  

Around a pile of mountains,        

And, supercilious, peer

In shanties by the sides of roads;

And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between,

Complaining all the while        

In horrid, hooting stanza;

Then chase itself down hill  

And neigh like Boanerges;

Then, punctual as a star,

Stop—docile and omnipotent— 

At its own stable door.

Scandal

• Credit Mobilier construction company– Insiders pocketed $73 million for $50 million in

breakneck work– Bribed congressmen to look the other way– VP Colfax forced to resign– President Ulysses S. Grant linked to scandal

Price Fixing

• Railroads were quickly concentrated into the hands of a few businessmen.

• Some of these railroad men took advantage of the public and charged some more than others.

• Farmers were particularly hard hit as they had little money and were routinely charged more.

• Called for Government control of the Railroads.

Compare and Contrast the Viewpoint