What worker population dominated the Central Pacific Railway in the 19th century?
The Transcontinental Railroad was built mostly with immigrant labor. The Union Pacific Railroad hired Irish immigrants and Civil War veterans, including African American freemen. The Central Pacific Railroad hired Chinese and Irish immigrants.
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Cornelius Vanderbilt gained control of most of the railroad industry. He offered rebates to customers and refused service for people traveling on competing railroad lines. He lowered the rates on his railroad in order to gain more business.
While Chinese workers dominated the railroad workforce in the West, most eastern and southern railroad companies relied on Black Americans to do the back-breaking construction work.
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.
Chinese railroad workers, who at one point made up 90% of the Central Pacific line's workers, were joined by the Union Pacific line's Irish immigrants and Civil War veterans in the east. Mormons, African Americans, and some Native American tribes, specifically the Pawnee, helped to build the railroad as well.
Most of them were Chinese workers who were paid less for their labor than their European counterparts. Chinese migrants worked in the Sierra foothills for the Central Pacific Railroad. For years, railroad workers were largely overlooked in memorial events marking the railroad's completion.
Robber BaronsThey soon accumulated vast amounts of money and dominated every major industry including the railroad, oil, banking, timber, sugar, liquor, meatpacking, steel, mining, tobacco and textile industries.
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.
From 1863 to 1869, Central Pacific hired roughly 15,000 Chinese laborers—enduring long journeys across the ocean from China to California—to complete the Summit Tunnel at Donner Pass.
Whitney suggested the use of Irish and German immigrant labor, which was in great abundance at the time. Wages were to be paid in land, thus ensuring that there would be settlers along the route to supply produce to and become patrons of the completed line.
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.
Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), nicknamed the Commodore, was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping.
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.