The Transcontinental Railroad It would connect the county. It would increase business. It would start the race of the century. It would cause the demise of natives and the rise of the settlers. It would represent power unity and America. The Transcontinental Railroad is an important part of American history. This paper will include the influences that caused the Transcontinental Railroad, the union pacific A Transcontinental Railroad had been talked about for decades. It would be a railroad that would connect the East and western part of the country. When Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860, talk of the railroad was set aside by the U.S. Congress due to talk of war. Lincoln, however, kept encouraging the railroad, …show more content…
The Gold Rush in California and the Silver Rush in Nevada had caused many Americans to travel west. Thousands of immigrants came from both the United States and other countries in search of great fortune. This caused the population to increase dramatically. At the time there were only two ways to get to the West. Either by covered wagon or by ship. The wagon trail took six months and was a journey over rugged terrain and hostile territory. The sea voyage would also take six months. Due to the extremely bad living conditions aboard the boats, many did not choose this route. With the growing populations, the government felt a powerful need to bridge the gap between the Eastern and the Western of the country. The completion of a Transcontinental Railroad would do this as well as make the trip easier and quicker. (Gold Rush 1) (West …show more content…
These grants caused more people to travel and buy land in the West. The journey for a family heading West was now safer and easier. Railroads encouraged travel directly. The Transcontinental Railroad cut a six month and 1,000 dollar trip down to 105 dollars in a week’s time. This allowed easy travel from coast to coast. Easy travel caused growth through expanding markets and cheap distribution. This also increased possibilities for partnerships and exchange of ideas. After ten years of being completed, the Transcontinental Railroad was already shipping fifty million dollars of goods every year. This also sped up the process of making goods because they could be transported quickly. (West 2)(Endsley
People always say that the best inventions ever are phones or computers, but there is one that people take for granted. This invention changed the way we look at shipping forever. The Transcontinental railroad changed the United States economically more than socially or politically because, it allowed western states export their goods easier, increased the amount of goods exported, and made it cheaper for states to export their products. The U.S was changed more economically, because it helped transport the western states goods to the east so it could be transported. Lovelock Nevada was a city that mined silver.
The transcontinental railroad improved transportation by increasing supply and demand, and connecting people in the United States. Before the railroad,
After this invention the people will never know a world without machine transportation. Before the railroad, it took almost six months and costed up $1000 to travel between California and New York. After the transcontinental railroad was completed, it costed $150 and took one week. Easier business travel allowed growth through expanding markets and
The Transcontinental Railroad The completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad was an important event in the United States history. There were many challenges in building it, but after it was finished, it connected the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast. The railroad took three whole years to build, with the help of two railroad companies and thousands of other hired workers.
Inevitably lead to the distortion of food all along the west. Population exceedingly grew as people started to move to other places due to how simple it was to arrive at that destination. People living in San Francisco moved to California. This became a trend where the transcontinental road was used to take people to various places very quickly, especially california because of the gold found
The construction of railroads played a huge role in the development of Colorado. In the mid-1800s, the Union Pacific Railroad was set to be the first transcontinental railway. The Colorado Central and the Denver Pacific were in competition with one another to be the first to connect to the Union Pacific. As the tracks were laid, and the rail companies clashed, the number of white settlers in the region was growing exponentially. Increasing permanent villages triggered conflict between native tribes and settlers.
It would be harder to get from place to place if there was never the Transcontinental Railroad, which surely would have influenced the ideas of other methods of transportation, like cars and planes. One of the most important points from Document F quotes: “Had it not been for these captains of industry, the free world might have lost the First World War and most certainly have lost the second.” They changed and protected the U.S. and the right of freedom with their work, and that’s
The trains were noisy and scared animals away. Trains destroyed a lot of the wide open land. Trains made moving long distances possible, so more people started to move West. This took even more Native American land. Pacific Railway Act
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.
It did not only impact economic development but also it made the government more difficult to control the country. The development of this transcontinental route provided a vein that could carry information, people, and goods across the whole mainland. The subsequent railroads that were built only paid tribute to this stately merits and achievements that changed the course of American history. Though the age of exploration and the wagon trains was over, the central railroad embodied the American spirit of the United States, which has made American overcome many difficulties on the way. The Central Pacific railroad finally united the two estranged regions of this land and finally united the United
The transcontinental railroad caused a lot of political impacts including uniting divided houses. In the 1850s, the greatest obstacle building the transcontinental railroad was the sectionalism in the American politics: between the North and the South. The biggest barrier in getting the railroad built in the mid-century in America is slavery. Congress had to make a decision whether or not slavery should be allowed in the new territory that was made easily accessible but the transcontinental railroad. Abraham Lincoln, the president, was less known as a great friend of the railroad.
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
The Tremendous Impact of Railroads on America 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.
From 1860-1890 the United States began to dramatically increase in population and land. The increase in population required the need and use of more resources, in order sustain the living conditions at the time, thus requiring more land. Additionally, the resources were necessary, if the United States was to continue to thrive and expand as a nation of power. Some of the resources that were continuously sought after were lands for farming and agriculture, transportation, and housing. The establishment and usage of the railroad system played a critical role in the westward expansion of the United States, it was crucial in providing a means of communication, but more importantly it was the key in transporting the much-needed resources across the United States and the territories in order to expand.
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.