1 / 6

Chapter 14

Chapter 14. Section Two - Railroads. Linking the Nation 35,000 miles of rail in 1865 to over 200,000 miles by 1900 Pacific Railway Act (1862) paid for the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific RR

asta
Download Presentation

Chapter 14

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Chapter 14 Section Two - Railroads

  2. Linking the Nation • 35,000 miles of rail in 1865 to over 200,000 miles by 1900 • Pacific Railway Act (1862) paid for the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific RR • Union Pacific (Greenville Dodge) built the railroad west from Omaha, NE • i. Employed Irish immigrants, former Civil War soldiers (10,000) workers • Central Pacific • Build from San Francisco east, used many Chinese immigrants

  3. II. Railroads Spur Growth i. Increased access to markets ii. Became huge consumers themselves (steel, coal, timber) a. Linking Other Lines i. Railroad consolidation become common ii. Eventually seven major companies would control rail traffic iii. Cornelius Vanderbilt a. Merged three New York rail lines, then expanded to Buffalo before linking Chicago to New York City b. Built Grand Central Station in 1871

  4. b. Benefits of a National System i. In 1883 the American Railway Association divided the country into four time zones. ii. Improvements in technology the rate per mile for a ton of freight went from two cents in 1860 to 3/4s of a cent in 1900.

  5. III. The Land Grant System a. The government gave land grants to railroad companies, which in turn could sell the excess land to raise the money needed to build the railroads b. In the 1850’s states granted over 28 million acres c. Over 120 million acres was given directly to railroad companies

  6. IV. Robber Barons i. Massive fortunes gained by rail companies led to accusations of unethical behavior (swindling investors, bribing officials, cheating on their contracts) ii. Jay Gould (Manipulating stock, asking for more land grants) a. The Credit Mobilier Scandal i. Construction company operated by the Union Pacific that overcharged itself for construction b. The Great Northern i. Operated by James Hill from St. Paul, MN to Everett, WA ii. No land grants or subsidies iii. Shipped goods in both directions, never went bankrupt

More Related