Who did most of the hard labor making the Transcontinental Railroad?

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.



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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.

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Thousands of workers from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds labored in grueling terrain and conditions to connect the Atlantic and Pacific. Most of them were Chinese workers who were paid less for their labor than their European counterparts.

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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. The work was tiresome, as the railroad was built entirely by manual laborers who used to shovel 20 pounds of rock over 400 times a day.

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“But the demand for labor increased, and white workers were reluctant to do such backbreaking, hazardous work.” 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.

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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.

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With dreams of having a better life, thousands of Chinese risked their lives across the Pacific Ocean to join in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad from 1863 to 1869. These Chinese laborers worked under extreme and hazardous environments.

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A Disaster for Native Americans The transcontinental railroad was not the beginning of white settlers' battles with Native Americans. Nor was it the final nail in the coffin. But it was an irrevocable marker of encroaching white society, that unstoppable force which would force Indians onto reservations within decades.

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In 1862 Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Acts which designated the 32nd parallel as the initial transcontinental route and gave huge grants of lands for rights-of-way. The legislation authorized two railroad companies, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, to construct the lines.

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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. “All workers on the railroad were 'other',” said Liebhold.

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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.

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“But the demand for labor increased, and white workers were reluctant to do such backbreaking, hazardous work.” 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.

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For immigrants to the United States, the Transcontinental Railroad presented an opportunity to seek their fortunes in the West. There, they found more opportunity than the port cities of the East Coast, where discrimination kept immigrants living in urban squalor.

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The building of America's railroads involved African Americans, many working as slaves. Virtually every railroad built in the Pre-emancipation Era South was built using slave labor. During the Civil War (1861–1865) the US Military Railroads (USMRR) employed thousands of freeman and contraband slaves (as seen here).

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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.

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The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was built in the United Kingdom in 1804 by Richard Trevithick, a British engineer born in Cornwall. This used high-pressure steam to drive the engine by one power stroke.

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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.

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