What were some of the challenges during the construction of the transcontinental railroad that many migrant workers had to endure?

At first railroad companies were reluctant to hire Chinese workers, but the immigrants soon proved to be vital. They toiled through back-breaking labor during both frigid winters and blazing summers. Hundreds died from explosions, landslides, accidents and disease.



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In the middle of the nineteenth century, U.S. railroad companies were expanding at a breakneck pace, straining to span the continent as quickly--and cheaply--as they could. The work was brutally difficult, the pay was low, and workers were injured and killed at a very high rate.

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But there was also a dark side to the historic national project. The railroad was completed by the sweat and muscle of exploited labor, it wiped out populations of buffalo, which had been essential to Indigenous communities, and it extended over land that had been unlawfully seized from tribal nations.

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But there was also a dark side to the historic national project. The railroad was completed by the sweat and muscle of exploited labor, it wiped out populations of buffalo, which had been essential to Indigenous communities, and it extended over land that had been unlawfully seized from tribal nations.

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Builders of the transcontinental railroad faced geographical obstacles across the entire line. But none were quite as formidable as the snowy granite mountain range rising east of Sacramento. Getting through the Sierra Nevada would require fortitude, technology -- and the sacrifice of many workers' lives.

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On July 16, 1877, workers at the B&O station at Martinsburg, West Virginia, responded to the announcement of 10 percent wage cuts by uncoupling the locomotives in the station, confining them in the roundhouse, and declaring that no trains would leave Martinsburg unless the cut was rescinded.

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Transcontinental Railroad Facts
  • It was built to connect the United States' East and West Coasts. ...
  • Approximately 1,800 miles of track. ...
  • The transcontinental railroad cost roughly $100 million. ...
  • Workers came from a wide range of backgrounds and ethnicity. ...
  • President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act.


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Railroad workers put in long hours; a 1907 law restricted train crews to 16 hours work out of every 24. Well into the twentieth century, work was unsteady and unsafe. One railroad worker in every 357 nationally died on the job in 1889.

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It made commerce possible on a vast scale. In addition to transporting western food crops and raw materials to East Coast markets and manufactured goods from East Coast cities to the West Coast, the railroad also facilitated international trade.

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The Transcontinental Railroad reduced travel time from New York to California from as long as six months to as little as a week and the cost for the trip from $1,000 to $150. The reduced travel time and cost created new business and settlement opportunities and enabled quicker and cheaper shipping of goods.

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They had to face dangerous work conditions – accidental explosions, snow and rock avalanches, which killed hundreds of workers, not to mention frigid weather.

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People were able to travel from one side of the country to the other. This brought new knowledge of the west that changed how the west was viewed and encouraged settlement. However, it also brought the mistreatment of native americans and railroad workers.

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Before the railroad, homesteaders would have to travel back via the Oregon Trail! The railroad also gave homesteaders greater access to manufactured goods, as they could be transported easily and quickly across the railway. However, the Transcontinental Railroad had a negative impact on the Plains Indians.

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What were the positive and negative aspects of railroad expansion? (+) allowing a huge communication network, the railroads also brought the dreams of available land, adventure. (-)caused harsh lives for the railroad workers, accidents, and diseases disabled and killed thousands of men each year.

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All immigrants working on the transcontinental railroad were treated equally and with high standards.

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The Transcontinental Railroad dramatically altered ecosystems. For instance, it brought thousands of hunters who killed the bison Native people relied on. The Cheyenne experience was different. The railroad disrupted intertribal trade on the Plains, and thereby broke a core aspect of Cheyenne economic life.

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