Events that Changed the Course of History: The Story of the Transcontinental Railway 150 Years Later

Events that Changed the Course of History: The Story of the Transcontinental Railway 150 Years Later PDF Author: Anyone Pierucci
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Company
ISBN: 1620235528
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the 21st century, it’s easy to get from New York to California — take a road trip, board a plane, or hop on a train; you’ll be there in no time. The continental United States is separated by mere hours. But back in the 19th century, a journey from New York to California required voyaging around the entire continent by sea in disease- and vermin-infested ships or trekking across great stretches of unknown wilderness by covered wagon, a perilous journey that could take up to a year. But the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 changed everything. Travel was no longer relegated to the very rich or the very courageous. The average American could now make the coast-to-coast expedition in a matter of days for less than $150. It may seem like a railroad that spanned the massive continent was an obvious solution, but it wasn’t as simple as just laying some tracks. Such a feat was a high-risk business venture that most couldn’t envision ever being completed. The transcontinental railway was possible because of dreamers like Asa Whitney and Theodore Judah, the cutthroat businessmen who invested monetarily, and the millions of laborers who invested their own blood, sweat, and tears. into an unimaginably immense and momentous display of human ingenuity. Events That Changed the Course of History: The Story of the Transcontinental Railway 150 Years Later follows the transcontinental railway’s history, from the creation of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific companies (and the backroom dealing that made them possible) to the Credit Mobilier scandal and strikes on the front lines that threatened to upend the entire project. The transcontinental railway changed the course of history, setting us on a path to expansion that opened the door to the West like never before. Take a journey and learn more about the unimaginably immense and momentous display of human ingenuity that forever changed American life.

Events that Changed the Course of History: The Story of the Transcontinental Railway 150 Years Later

Events that Changed the Course of History: The Story of the Transcontinental Railway 150 Years Later PDF Author: Anyone Pierucci
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Company
ISBN: 1620235528
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the 21st century, it’s easy to get from New York to California — take a road trip, board a plane, or hop on a train; you’ll be there in no time. The continental United States is separated by mere hours. But back in the 19th century, a journey from New York to California required voyaging around the entire continent by sea in disease- and vermin-infested ships or trekking across great stretches of unknown wilderness by covered wagon, a perilous journey that could take up to a year. But the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 changed everything. Travel was no longer relegated to the very rich or the very courageous. The average American could now make the coast-to-coast expedition in a matter of days for less than $150. It may seem like a railroad that spanned the massive continent was an obvious solution, but it wasn’t as simple as just laying some tracks. Such a feat was a high-risk business venture that most couldn’t envision ever being completed. The transcontinental railway was possible because of dreamers like Asa Whitney and Theodore Judah, the cutthroat businessmen who invested monetarily, and the millions of laborers who invested their own blood, sweat, and tears. into an unimaginably immense and momentous display of human ingenuity. Events That Changed the Course of History: The Story of the Transcontinental Railway 150 Years Later follows the transcontinental railway’s history, from the creation of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific companies (and the backroom dealing that made them possible) to the Credit Mobilier scandal and strikes on the front lines that threatened to upend the entire project. The transcontinental railway changed the course of history, setting us on a path to expansion that opened the door to the West like never before. Take a journey and learn more about the unimaginably immense and momentous display of human ingenuity that forever changed American life.

Empire's Tracks

Empire's Tracks PDF Author: Manu Karuka
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520296648
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
Empire’s Tracks boldly reframes the history of the transcontinental railroad from the perspectives of the Cheyenne, Lakota, and Pawnee Native American tribes, and the Chinese migrants who toiled on its path. In this meticulously researched book, Manu Karuka situates the railroad within the violent global histories of colonialism and capitalism. Through an examination of legislative, military, and business records, Karuka deftly explains the imperial foundations of U.S. political economy. Tracing the shared paths of Indigenous and Asian American histories, this multisited interdisciplinary study connects military occupation to exclusionary border policies, a linked chain spanning the heart of U.S. imperialism. This highly original and beautifully wrought book unveils how the transcontinental railroad laid the tracks of the U.S. Empire.

Nothing Like It In the World

Nothing Like It In the World PDF Author: Stephen E. Ambrose
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9780743203173
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 468

Get Book Here

Book Description
The story of the men who build the transcontinental railroad in the 1860's.

Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America

Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America PDF Author: Richard White
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393082601
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1000

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize "A powerful book, crowded with telling details and shrewd observations." —Michael Kazin, New York Times Book Review The transcontinental railroads were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating economic panics. Their dependence on public largesse drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations rearranged space and time, remade the landscape of the West, and opened new ways of life and work. Their discriminatory rates sparked a new antimonopoly politics. The transcontinentals were pivotal actors in the making of modern America, but the triumphal myths of the golden spike, Robber Barons larger than life, and an innovative capitalism all die here. Instead we have a new vision of the Gilded Age, often darkly funny, that shows history to be rooted in failure as well as success.

The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories

The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories PDF Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101099887
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Get Book Here

Book Description
Of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s insight into the Puritan’s simultaneous need for fulfillment and self-destruction, D. H. Lawrence wrote, “Nathaniel knew disagreeable things in his inner soul. He was careful to send them out in disguise.” By means of artfully crafted and compelling tales, Hawthorne explored the destinies and concerns of early American settlers and citizens. In several of the stories in this collection, characters who hold themselves apart from their fellow man fall prey to the corroding desires of lust for perfection. Then they unwittingly commit evils—against themselves and others—in the name of pride. Edgar Allan Poe noted of Hawthorne’s writing: “Every word tells, and there is not a word which does not tell.”

Ghosts of Gold Mountain

Ghosts of Gold Mountain PDF Author: Gordon H. Chang
Publisher: Mariner Books
ISBN: 1328618579
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Get Book Here

Book Description
Guangdong -- Gold Mountain -- Central Pacific -- Foothills -- The High Sierra -- The Summit -- The Strike -- Truckee -- The Golden Spike -- Beyond Promontory.

Dun's Review

Dun's Review PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Commerce
Languages : en
Pages : 594

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age PDF Author: Mark Twain
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : City and town life
Languages : en
Pages : 380

Get Book Here

Book Description


Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad

Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad PDF Author: Eric Foner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393244385
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. More than any other scholar, Eric Foner has influenced our understanding of America's history. Now, making brilliant use of extraordinary evidence, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian once again reconfigures the national saga of American slavery and freedom. A deeply entrenched institution, slavery lived on legally and commercially even in the northern states that had abolished it after the American Revolution. Slaves could be found in the streets of New York well after abolition, traveling with owners doing business with the city's major banks, merchants, and manufacturers. New York was also home to the North’s largest free black community, making it a magnet for fugitive slaves seeking refuge. Slave catchers and gangs of kidnappers roamed the city, seizing free blacks, often children, and sending them south to slavery. To protect fugitives and fight kidnappings, the city's free blacks worked with white abolitionists to organize the New York Vigilance Committee in 1835. In the 1840s vigilance committees proliferated throughout the North and began collaborating to dispatch fugitive slaves from the upper South, Washington, and Baltimore, through Philadelphia and New York, to Albany, Syracuse, and Canada. These networks of antislavery resistance, centered on New York City, became known as the underground railroad. Forced to operate in secrecy by hostile laws, courts, and politicians, the city’s underground-railroad agents helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Until now, their stories have remained largely unknown, their significance little understood. Building on fresh evidence—including a detailed record of slave escapes secretly kept by Sydney Howard Gay, one of the key organizers in New York—Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history. The story is inspiring—full of memorable characters making their first appearance on the historical stage—and significant—the controversy over fugitive slaves inflamed the sectional crisis of the 1850s. It eventually took a civil war to destroy American slavery, but here at last is the story of the courageous effort to fight slavery by "practical abolition," person by person, family by family.

Empire Express

Empire Express PDF Author: David Haward Bain
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101658045
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1432

Get Book Here

Book Description
After the Civil War, the building of the transcontinental railroad was the nineteenth century's most transformative event. Beginning in 1842 with a visionary's dream to span the continent with twin bands of iron, Empire Express captures three dramatic decades in which the United States effectively doubled in size, fought three wars, and began to discover a new national identity. From self--made entrepreneurs such as the Union Pacific's Thomas Durant and era--defining figures such as President Lincoln to the thousands of laborers whose backbreaking work made the railroad possible, this extraordinary narrative summons an astonishing array of voices to give new dimension not only to this epic endeavor but also to the culture, political struggles, and social conflicts of an unforgettable period in American history.