3.2 Notes Padlet by RAYMOND CHECK https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu I didn't get this done. en-us 2016-09-23 12:49:30 UTC 2025-10-23 20:48:49 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Templeball.png Linking the Nation rcheck18 https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125990584 In 1865 the United States had about 35,000 miles of railroad track, almost all of it east of the Mississippi River. After the Civil War, railroad construction expanded dramatically. By 1900, the United States had more than 200,000 miles of track.]]> 2016-09-23 12:54:58 UTC https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125990584 Transcontinental Railroad rcheck18 https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125990694
The railroad boom began in 1862 with the Pacific Railway Act. This act gave two corporations—the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific—permission to build a transcontinental railroad. It also offered each company land along its right-of-way.

 At the height of the project, the Union Pacific employed about 10,000 workers.

Because of a shortage of labor in California, the Central Pacific Railroad hired about 10,000 workers from China. It paid them about $1 a day. All the equipment—rails, cars, locomotives, and machinery—was sent by ship from the eastern United States to San Francisco.


Workers completed the transcontinental railroad in only four years, despite the physical challenges. Each mile of track required 400 rails, and each rail took 10 spikes. The Central Pacific, starting from the west, laid a total of 688 miles of track. The Union Pacific laid 1,086 miles. On May 10, 1869, hundreds of spectators gathered at Promontory Summit, Utah. They watched dignitaries hammer five gold and silver spikes into the final rails that would join the Union Pacific and Central Pacific. Engineer Grenville Dodge was at the ceremony:

"The two trains pulled up facing each other, each crowded with workmen. . . . The officers and invited guests formed on each side of the track. . . . Prayer was offered; a number of spikes were driven in the two adjoining rails . . . and thus the two roads were wedded into one great trunk line from the Atlantic to the Pacific."


— from How We Built the Union Pacific Railway, 1910

]]> 2016-09-23 12:55:18 UTC https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125990694 Railroads Spur Growth rcheck18 https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125991287 The transcontinental railroad was the first of many lines that began crisscrossing the nation after the Civil War. By linking the nation, railroads increased the markets for many products, spurring industrial growth. Railroad companies also stimulated the economy by spending huge amounts of money on steel, coal, timber, and other materials.

]]> 2016-09-23 12:57:04 UTC https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125991287 Railroads Help Close the Frontier rcheck18 https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125992161
Building railroad lines often required more money than most private investors could raise on their own. To encourage railroad construction across the Great Plains, the federal government gave land grants to many railroad companies. The railroads then sold the land to settlers, real estate companies, and other businesses to raise money to build the railroad. During the 1850s and 1860s the federal land grant system gave railroads more than 120 million acres of public land, an area larger than New England, New York, and Pennsylvania combined. Several railroads, including the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, received enough land to cover most of the cost of building their lines.


The land was only valuable, however, if the railroads could sell it. To convince people to move west, railroads and real estate companies offered the land at low prices and provided credit to settlers. Pamphlets, posters, and newspaper advertisements enticed people to move west. The building of the railroads themselves offered further encouragement, as settlers no longer had to migrate the entire distance on their own. They could take the train to a location near the land they bought. In all of these ways, the railroads helped move settlers onto the Great Plains and thereby close the American frontier.

]]> 2016-09-23 12:59:20 UTC https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125992161 Robber Barons rcheck18 https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125992313 The great wealth many railroad entrepreneurs acquired in the late 1800s led to accusations that they had built their fortunes by swindling investors and taxpayers, bribing officials, and cheating on their contracts and debts. Jay Gould was perhaps the most notoriously corrupt railroad owner who practiced "insider trading" and manipulated stock prices. Bribery occurred frequently, partly because government was so deeply entangled in funding the railroads. Railroad investors discovered they could make more money by selling free government land grants than by operating a railroad and some bribed political representatives to vote for more grants.]]> 2016-09-23 12:59:51 UTC https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125992313 The Credit Mobilier Scandal rcheck18 https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125992485
Corruption in the railroad industry became public in 1872 with the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Crédit Mobilier was a construction company set up by several stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad, including Oakes Ames, a member of Congress. To convince Congress to give the railroad more grants, Ames sold other members of Congress shares at a price well below their market value. During the election campaign of 1872, a letter appeared in the New York Sun listing members of Congress who bought shares. The Crédit Mobilier scandal produced widespread anger and led to the impression that railroad entrepreneurs were “robber barons”—people who loot an industry and become rich unethically.

]]> 2016-09-23 13:00:17 UTC https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125992485 The Great Northern Railroad rcheck18 https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125992839 Not all railroad men were robber barons. James J. Hill was clearly not. Hill built the Great Northern Railroad from Wisconsin and Minnesota to Washington state without any federal land grants or subsidies. He planned the railroad’s route to pass by existing towns in the region and offered low fares to settlers who homesteaded along his route. He also identified products that were in demand in China, including cotton, textiles, and flour, and hauled those goods to Washington to ship to Asia. This way, his railroad efficiently hauled goods both east and west, instead of simply sending goods east and coming back empty like other railroads. The Great Northern became the most successful transcontinental railroad and one of the few railroads of the time that was not eventually forced into bankruptcy.]]> 2016-09-23 13:01:17 UTC https://padlet.com/rcheck18/a8mva0ezryvu/wish/125992839