What Was The Role Of The Railroads In The 1830's

During the 19th Century, the United States was downright obsessed with expanding westward. They believed it was their God-given right to span the entire continent. With more and more territories being added to the ever-growing roster, they needed a way to get from point A to point B quickly. The solution: The Erie Canal and the Transcontinental Railroad. The result: A huge growth in the U.S.’s economy.

Railroads were becoming huge for large cities to import goods and many could not support

Transcontinental railroad building costed a lot and was very risky to require government subsidies. Construction of the railway systems promised that it would create greater unity among the nation and increase economic growth. In the second half of the nineteenth century The screeching iron horse stimulated mining and agriculture especially in the West. The railroads took farmers to their land, took the fruits of their toil to the markets, brought manufactured necessities. Iron monsters could carry enormous amounts of food to people and ensure a livelihood by providing raw materials and markets. Railroad companies would seek settlers to their land that could be sold at a profit so they stimulated immigration. Even the land was impacted because

Before the civil war, railroads served local markets, but after some consolidation and the standardization of gauges. They could now serve a national economy. People could now transport goods over longer distances faster. This allowed goods to be sold all across the United States creating a national market, which allowed companies to reach demographics that were previously unavailable. For example, the four trunk lines that connected the Midwest to New England like the Pennsylvania Railroad merged the two markets, which was much faster than the Mississippi. In addition, the transcontinental railroads like the Union Pacific connected the eastern market to the western markets. Now businesses would not have to rely on local populations for profits, which permits those who produce the best goods to sell to the national demand causing prices to go down and revenue to go up. In conclusion, the railroad contributed to the end of economic isolationism within the US and, brought a age of economic

The transcontinental railroad was the most influential innovation of the United States, that brought a revolution of how people traveled. One year after the Civil War ended the people of the United States were looking for a way to unite their country back together. This helped mold the United States as to what it has become today. It helped people cross the country and improved how goods were transported. The man that was forming the transcontinental railroad was a merchant named Asa Whitney. He had asked the government for funding to construct one of the greatest innovation of the United States. “Two railroads, the Central Pacific starting in San Francisco and a new railroad, the Union Pacific, starting in Omaha, Nebraska, would build the rail-line.” (ushistory.org). One fear of building the railroad was the danger of the “Great American Desert” because of the lack of resources. The Central Pacific was primarily made by Chinese immigrants. The Union Pacific was primarily made up of Irish immigrants. By spring of 1866 the Central Pacific had only build 68 miles of track from Sacramento, while the Union Pacific going west from Omaha built 200 miles of track in less than a year. Therefore the Union Pacific made millions more. The next three years the railroads would continue to try and make history.

Railroads are the finest technology that could have ever been designed in the nineteenth century in America. Once railroads were invented it gave Americans a wide range of jobs. They were able to travel long distance with cutting near ninety percent of the travel time. Americans were also able to transport mail and goods across the states. Railroad unions rapidly grew across America; by the time civil war started in 1861 the United States had about 30,000 miles of rail net.

Before railroads were ever implemented into American society, there was another form of primary transportation. In the early 1800s, goods and passengers were carried by ships. For some time, boats on rivers, lakes, and the ocean proved to be adequate enough to convey freight and people where it needed to go. However, these methods of transportation often posed problems of being too slow and too inconvenient. First appearing in the 1830s, the railroad business grew and in 1869, the transcontinental railroad was completed, allowing people to think about more efficient settlement across the country. Railroads were the fountainhead of American expansion because they provided for town and city creation and development across the entire United States.

“If any act symbolized the taming of the Northwest frontier, it was the driving of the final spike to complete the nation’s first transcontinental railroad.”1 The first railroad west of the Mississippi River was opened on December 23, 1852. Five miles long, the track ran from St. Louis to Cheltanham, Missouri. Twenty-five years prior, there were no railroads in the United States; twenty-five years later, railroads joined the east and west coasts from New York to San Francisco.2

The Transcontinental Railroad was one of the most ambitious engineering projects, economic stimulants, and efficient methods of transportation in the early United States. If completed, the United States would be truly be united from east to west. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Transcontinental Railroad helped develop new opportunities for many aspects of American life.

The railways became an important system that guided settlement and delivered economic opportunity for much of the United States. Railroads allowed access to places that people had no means of getting to and provided an opportunity to develop cities and towns

for it (Cooke 254). If it had been left to the government, it would have taken

Through the development of a transcontinental railroad system, the west was settled and many American dreams were in reach.

Railroads became extremely popular in America in the 1800’s. The railroad industry itself began to boom; it was supported by its reputation for speed and efficiency. But, along with the booming industry of railroads came the strong debate that

Business growth on both sides of the country was expedited by a new form of cheap distribution into profitable, expanding markets. Easy transportation facilitated the concept of business travel and expansion on an unprecedented scale. However, some of the largest impacts of the Transcontinental Railroad can be seen through the cross­country exchange of ideas. Before the railroad existed, the only fast exchange of information was written through the pony express. The Transcontinental Railroad created an outlet of communicating new ideas and information in person. A smooth and swift cross­country exchange of people and ideas not only made America more infrastructurally sophisticated ­­ it acted as a foundation for the Western United States to grow from very little to the political, social, economic, and technological center that it is today.

Railroads were faster and cheaper than canals to construct, and they did not freeze over in the winter. Steamboats played a vital role in the United States economy as well. They stimulated the agricultural economy of the west by providing better access to markets at a lower cost. Farmers quickly bought land near navigable rivers, because they could ship their products out to other countries. Due to the foreign trade it helped strengthen the trade relationship between New England and the Northwest. The transportation development had many positive economic changes in the United States.