CHAPTER 24
QUESTIONS
1. How did the government subsidize the railroads? What were the advantages and disadvantages of this policy
Government subsidized railroads by giving companies money loans, adding enormous donations of acreage paralleling the tracks, and were allowed to alternate their mile square sections. The disadvantaged would be when railroads would often sell the land and make money off the land that was paid for by citizens (their tax money goes to the government which gave the land grants). They also withheld land from other users until they figured out where their tracks would lay. A benefit was that railroad companies were able to expand further west. Granting land was a "cheap" way to subsidize a much-desired transportation system, because it avoided new taxes for direct cash grants.
2. Describe how the first transcontinental railroad was built.
In 1862 Congress made provisions to start the first transcontinental railroad and urgently did so to bind the Pacific Coast states, most specifically California, to the rest of the Republic. The name of the first transcontinental railroad was the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad and was commissioned by Congress to be thrust westward from Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento. For each mile of track constructed, the company was granted 20 sq miles of land and for each mile builders were also to receive a generous federal loan ranging from $16,000 on the flat prairie land to $48,000 for mountainous country. The Union Pacific was built by sweaty construction gangs, mostly consisting of Irish "Paddies" who fought in the Union armies, and when hostile Indians would try to protect land that was once theirs the construction workers would drop their picks and seize their rifles. The Central Pacific was granted the same subsidies as the Union Pacific and was built by Chinese laborers who were: cheap, expendable, and efficient. The two lines of track met in the middle and connected it, creating the first transcontinental railroad.
3. By the end of the Gilded Age, how many transcontinental railroads had been built? Where?
By the end of the Gilded age, 5 transcontinental railroads had been built. The first was connected from Omaha, Nebraska to California and met in Ogden, Utah in 1869.
The Northern Pacific Railroad stretched from Lake Superior to Puget Sound and was completed in 1883. The Atchison, from Topeka to Santa Fe, went through the southwestern deserts to California and was completed in 1884. The Southern Pacific ribboned from New Orleans to San Francisco and also was finished in 1884. The last railroad was the Great Northern, which ran from Duluth to Seattle, north of the Northern Pacific, and was completed in 1893.
4. Identify and discuss the technological improvements made to the railroad industry.
The steel rail would help replace old iron tracks with tougher metals, making railroads safer and more economical because it could bear a heavier load. A standard gauge of track width came into wide use during the postwar years, eliminating expense and inconvenience of numerous changes from one line to another. The Westinghouse air brake made a contribution to safety and efficiency. The telegraph was also considered a safety device seeing that it allowed for people to communicate with each other.
5. What impact did the railroad have on the following:
• industry- generated the largest single source of orders for the adolescent steel industry
• agriculture- took farmers out to their land, carried their fruits to the market, and brought manufactured goods
• urbanization- could carry food to enormous concentrations of people and at the same time ensure them a livelihood by providing both raw materials and markets; stimulated a growth in cities
• immigration- seeking settlers to whom their land grants might be sold at profit, advertised seductively in Europe and sometimes offered to transport the newcomers free to their farms; stimulated a stream of immigration
