What was the largest immigrant group who worked on the transcontinental railroad?
The building of the Transcontinental Railroad relied on the labor of thousands of migrant workers, including Chinese, Irish, and Mormons workers. On the western portion, about 90% of the backbreaking work was done by Chinese migrants.
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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.
The first transcontinental railroad was built primarily by immigrants from China and Ireland. The government provided loans for each mile of track laid and the railroad corporations that received about twenty million acres of land grants as a reward and incentive from the federal government.
The transcontinental railroad married the East with the West, and it melded a variety of cultures — from the estimated 15,000 Chinese workers to the 10,000 Irishmen.
The major groups of immigrants that worked on the transcontinental railroad were from Ireland and China. All immigrants working on the transcontinental railroad were treated equally and with high standards.
Chinese Workers Dominated the Workforce. Chinese laborers at work with pick and shovel wheelbarrows and one-horse dump carts filling in under a trestle built in 1865 as part of the transcontinental railroad.
The railroad workers were paid, on average, a dollar a day. They lived in twenty railroad cars, including dormitories and an arsenal car containing a thousand loaded rifles. They worked hard and were usually able to lay from one to three miles of track per day depending upon the available materials.
“Wars, ethnic conflicts and economic insecurity were scourges, and young people were leaving to seek work and support their families from afar.” Altogether, the Central Pacific Railroad hired an estimated 12,000 Chinese workers, some as young as 12.