Many workers contributed to the construction of railroads. On the East Coast, Native Americans, recently freed black people, and white laborers worked on the railroads. On the West Coast, many of the railroad workers were Chinese immigrants.
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Many workers contributed to the construction of railroads. On the East Coast, Native Americans, recently freed black people, and white laborers worked on the railroads.On the West Coast, many of the railroad workers were Chinese immigrants. New Jersey issued the first railroad charter in 1815.
Beginning in 1863, the Union Pacific, employing more than 8,000 Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, built west from Omaha, Nebraska; the Central Pacific, whose workforce included over 10,000 Chinese laborers, built eastward from Sacramento, California.
Altogether, the Central Pacific Railroad hired an estimated 12,000 Chinese workers, some as young as 12. The Chinese workers, at that time the largest industrial workforce in American history, made up 90 percent of the Central Pacific's total labor force.
Chinese workers made up most of the workforce between roughly 700 miles of train tracks between Sacramento, California, and Promontory, Utah. During the 19th century, more than 2.5 million Chinese citizens left their country and were hired in 1864 after a labor shortage threatened the railroad's completion.
Irish immigrants often entered the workforce at the bottom of the occupational ladder and took on the menial and dangerous jobs that were often avoided by other workers. Many Irish American women became servants or domestic workers, while many Irish American men labored in coal mines and built railroads and canals.
Leland Stanford, president of Central Pacific, former California governor and founder of Stanford University, told Congress in 1865, that the majority of the railroad labor force were Chinese.
The railroad was first developed in Great Britain. A man named George Stephenson successfully applied the steam technology of the day and created the world's first successful locomotive. The first engines used in the United States were purchased from the Stephenson Works in England.
Branches of the family are found on the United States East Coast. Contemporary descendants include American art historian John Wilmerding, journalist Anderson Cooper, actor Timothy Olyphant, musician John P. Hammond, screenwriter James Vanderbilt, and the Duke of Marlborough.
Although the 3000 Irish laborers did not suffer the same type of racial injustice while on the railroads, they still were not adequately paid for the dangerous types of work they were doing. They were paid little money to work on a dangerous and mainly unsettled terrain (Harvard).
Initially, Chinese employees received wages of $27 and then $30 a month, minus the cost of food and board. In contrast, Irishmen were paid $35 per month, with board provided. Workers lived in canvas camps alongside the grade.
Between 8,000 and 10,000 Irish immigrants made significant contributions to the development of modern America by helping to complete the transcontinental railroad.