Why farmers were upset with the railroad companies?
Small businesses and farmers were protesting that the railroads charged them higher rates than larger corporations, and that the railroads were also setting higher rates for short hauls than for long-distance hauls.
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Railroad Workers Were UnhappyEmployees often worked 10, 12 and even 16 hours a day. Sometimes they did not receive extra pay for the extra hours they worked. Conditions on the job were often very dangerous. Workers joined together to improve their poor working conditions and increase their salaries.
What was one positive and negative effect of the growth of railroads? One negative effect were building and running the railroads was difficult and dangerous work. More than 2,000 workers had died. Another 20,000 workers had been injured.
As white explorers and settlers entered Western territory, they disrupted a centuries-old culture — that of the Plains Indians. The arrival of the railroad and, with it, more permanent and numerous white settlement, spelled growing conflict between whites and natives.
The railroad opened the way for the settlement of the West, provided new economic opportunities, stimulated the development of town and communities, and generally tied the country together.
The railroads provided the efficient, relatively cheap transportation that made both farming and milling profitable. They also carried the foodstuffs and other products that the men and women living on the single-crop bonanza farms needed to live.
Railroads Were at the Forefront of Political Corruption“Railroads need monopoly franchises and subsidies, and to get them, they are more than willing to bribe public officials,” White says. The Central Pacific Railroad, for example, spent $500,000 annually in thinly disguised bribes between 1875 and 1885.
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.