Canadian Pacific Railway Workers Essay

The Central Pacific Railroad had much less land to cover, but they had to build through the harsh Sierra Nevada mountains. The workers were mostly Chinese immigrants that came to California from the Gold Rush of 1849. They lived in brutal condition, and had very low salaries. “Quote buy some guy that i can 't find” The Central Pacific Railroad Company had to blow up tunnels and level parts of mountain to get the railroad through.

Collective rights are what makes Canada uniquely different from the other countries. These rights have grown more equal over time to shape Canada to become a fair and equitable governed society. Collective rights are rights given to specific groups for historical and constitutional reasons for groups such as the First Nations, Inuit, Francophones and Anglophones. As great as it sounds, back in Canadian history back when collective rights were just starting off as treaties and laws, First Nations and the Metis were faced with assimilation. Francophones and Anglophones were given collective educational rights when put in a minority setting. Without collective rights shifting to become better, historical groups who found Canada would have either

The transcontinental railroad appeared like a golden route to a prosperous future, but the struggles of many peoples, cultures, and the downturn of the economy, show that the negative effects of the transcontinental railroad outweighed the benefits. Theodore Judah, and the Big Four, comprised of the Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker, decided to build the railroad by laying down the tracks. The founders did not realize the consequences of constructing this massive iron horse: the inhumane treatment of workers, the destruction of a culture, and the collapse of the economy in 1873. The people on the railroad faced the prejudices, inclement weather, and cruel actions because of the harshness shown by the Superintendent of Construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. Cruelty did not stop with the construction workers, but rather it spread to the innocent Native Americans. Armed forces killed Native Americans and food supplies off of ancestral land to build the transcontinental railroad. Although acts, such as the Pacific

Nellie McClung fought for the enfranchisement of women, which with its success would give women the right to vote. It was a movement to promote and secure women’s rights. Nellie was one of the first to sign a petition circulated in Manitou (*****-1981). The petition asked for the women’s right to vote. Nellie McClung advocated for women’s suffrage in order for women to gain power, privileges and a voice in their community and moreover, their country. Women’s suffrage was also a means of achieving other social reforms, such as temperance for example, which could be achieved through enfranchisement because women would vote for it. However, there were many people against women’s suffrage. They believed that, God never intended women to vote, it would break up the home and the world would be full of neglected children and women were meant to be mothers and nothing more (****McClung). As a suffragist, McClung took a stand against these ideologies of gender. In order to recognize women as citizens and give them the rights they deserved, such as the right to vote.

On May 10th, 1869, a large crowd gathered at Promontory Point, Utah to celebrate the completion of one of the most impressive engineering feats of the 1800’s: the Pacific Railroad. After six years of grueling work, millions of dollars spent, and many battles against Native Americans fought, sea to shining sea was finally connected by two ribbons of iron. The United States was transformed by the new railroad: Masses of immigrants flocked out to the newly connected territories in pursuit of better lives, towns cropped up over night along the route, and an agricultural empire was born as farming machinery was brought to the fertile western plains of the United States. The profoundly positive impact the railroad had on the United States came at a great cost, however. The more than 12,000 Chinese immigrant workers of the transcontinental railroad were treated poorly and unjustly throughout construction, and Native American empires in the plains laid in ruins from the white-American military and pioneers that induced conflict with indigenous people and the government that annexed their lands. These negative consequences of American progress force a question to be asked; did the socioeconomic benefits the Pacific Railroad brought to white American citizens justify the unequal respect and maltreatment given to the Chinese immigrant workers and the Native American tribes? This is the question this essay will answer, as it examines the role the Chinese workers had in

During the 1800s and early 1900s the farmers of Canada benefitted greatly from the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway because of the ease

The famous 5 are a group of women that have made a huge impact for equal rights for Canadian women. They were led by Judge Emily Murphy, along with Nellie McClung, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Irene Parlby and Louise McKinney. They are five women from Alberta that all believed in the rights of women and children. In the late 1880s and 1890s they fought against the prejudice of their day to fight for women’s suffrage and general human rights. Each woman was a leader to bring equal rights for women, so they could be considered people by the government and be given rights, including the right to vote and own property.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is part of Canada’s written constitution called the Constitution Act in 1982 it was the second main aspect of the Act and it guaranteed fundamental, democratic, legal, egalitarian, and linguistic rights and freedoms against government intrusion, it imposed formal new limitations on the governments in interaction with its citizens. The charter has made society more equitable for visible minorities through its use of its Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and Section 15 which say that every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of law without discrimination, but does the Charter really represent Canada’s egalitarian society or are we just saying we care without actually taking action. In this paper it will be shown that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has not made Canadian society more equitable and will discuss the right side and the left side of the debate, while agreeing with the left sided critiques. The right winged perspective on the Charter argues that the groups are not seeking equality, but, instead, are asking judges to grant them political advantages through favorable Charter decisions ( Smithey, S. I., 2001, p. 2) while the left winged perspective is the Charter not only does not go far enough, but actually retards egalitarian progress in Canada and that the Charter is essentially a classically liberal document designed to constrain state action rather than to require the

The Canadian Pacific Railway was the first transcontinental railway built in Canada to connect Canada from coast to coast. (Canadian Pacific Para. 9) The construction almost delayed completely because of John A. MacDonald losing power, but it was finally continued with the help of a syndicate. (Canadian Pacific Para. 4) Due to the insufficient amount of adequate workers in British Columbia, Chinese contract workers were imported to help construct the track with minimal pay and harsh conditions. (Canada Para. 1) Chinese-Canadians were discriminated by being given the most

The Chinese immigrants played a significant role in the construction of completion of Canadian Pacific

I believe some of the rights Canadians hold to their country is how people should have the same respect for their own country. The people of Canada respect each other no matter what the nationality is but just as long as you’re another human, voter, and understand there are two laws.

According to Historian David Silbey “Many Chinese worked in industries that were disrupted by the arrival of the railroad and the telegraph. There was a sense that China’s balance had been thrown out of whack by these modern innovations, and only by destroying the innovations and the foreigners who brought them could the balance be restored.”

The focus of this investigation is to evaluate the significance of the Chinese people for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The CPR was a transcontinental rail line that had the purpose of connecting the East and the West side of Canada (Lee 44). The construction of it took several years, it was expensive, and it required thousands of workers, that were not necessarily available in Canada (Cranny, Jarvis, Moles, and Senney 4). With the need for more workers, and having seen the success of Chinese workers in the mines of California, Andrew Onderdonk, the American engineer responsible for the railway (Cranny, Jarvis, Moles, and Senney 1-2), decided that if there were not enough white workers, he would engage Chinese people

To begin, the railway construction was divided into 4 major sections and was subject to supplementary sub-divisions throughout. According to information retrieved from The Dominion of Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway, the first set of tracks ran from Lake Nipissing to the Western end of Lake Superior and the second section continued from Lake Superior to the Red River in Manitoba. In addition, the third division extended from the Red River to a location in Fort Edmonton and the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and the final continuation ran from the Western station of the third section to a point in British Columbia on the Pacific (Rose and Pottinger 13).

According to the center for international climate and environmental research Canada ranks 5th in having the largest carbon, fossil fuel, land and water consumption footprint in the world. Keeping this staggering stat in mind a few Canadian companies have begun to reverse this trend and lean towards a more sustainable means of operation. On such company is the Canadian national railway company, more popularly known as CN.