1. Week 2 The Railroads

2. Lesson 2 The Railroads 1865- 35,000 miles of railroad tracks 1900 200,000 miles of track Key legislation: Pacific Railway Act Gave 2 companies: Union Pacific and Central Pacific permission to build Railroad workers included: Civil War veterans, Irish immigrants, miners, farmers, cooks, adventurers, ex convicts 10,000 workers

3. Railroad Workers 4 California business owners: Leland Stanford, Charley Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Collis Huntington bought the Central Pacific Railroad Company. Shortage labor in California, so they hired 10,000 workers from China Paid them $1 a day The entire railroad was constructed in 4 years. Each mile of track required 400 rails, and 10 spikes for each rail. Starting out west, 688 miles of railroad track were laid out.

4. Transcontinental Railroad

5. Railroads Spur Growth Linking the nation by railroads increased: Markets for products Stimulated the economy by: Spending huge amounts of money on supplies: Steel, coal, timber, etc Hundreds of small unconnected railroads were integrated into large railroad systems. Ease of transportation spurred tourist industries and the need for multiple time zones Inventions: Air brakes enabled railroads to put longer and heavier trains on lines New technology made the railroads more efficient which means Cost to use the train to ship freight drops Bring settlers to the west and returned east with products from out west... Beef, wheat, lumber, gold

7. Railroads help close the frontier To encourage railroad expansion, the federal government gave away large pieces of land to the railroad companies. The railroad companies sold the land to help pay for the huge cost of building the railroads. Land Grants Land was sold to settlers, real estate companies, other businesses. The railroad companies had to convince people that they wanted to buy this land. Used pamphlets, posters, and newspaper advertisements to entice people to move out west.

9. How did the transcontinental railroad help unite the nation?

10. Robber barons or Captains of Industry

11. Captains of Industry or Robber Barons? Many of the more successful entrepreneurs became known as ‘Captains of Industry’. Some called them ‘robber barons’ because of the ruthless tactics they used to destroy their competition and methods used to keep workers wages low. Some of the best known were:

12. Jay Gould Most corrupt railroad owner Practiced insider trading, manipulated stock prices Lots of bribery Many railroad investors discovered they could may way more $$$ selling these free land grants than by operating the railroad, so some bribed politicians so that they could get more land grants

13. Credit Mobilier Scandal Credit Mobilier was construction company set up by several stockholders of Union Pacific Railroad. What do you think they did with this? Use their own construction company and charged their own railroads hugely inflated bills... Puts money directly back in the pockets of the railroad owners/stockholders Included was Oakes Ames- member of Congress Ames bribed his fellow congressmen to vote to give out more land grants by selling them shares of the Union Pacific Railroad well below their market value. Election of 1872 letter is printed in the New York Sun listing the names of the members of Congress that bought shares. This led to outrage and the railroad entrepreneurs became known as the Robber Barons.

14. The Great Northern Railroad Not all railroad men were robber barons. James J. Hill built Great Northern Railroad Wisconsin to Minnesota, to Washington State Used absolutely zero land grants Identified products that were in demand in China, cotton, textiles, and flour Hauled them to Washington state and shipped them to Asia Most successful transcontinental railroad One of very few that did not go bankrupt

16. Graded Lesson Objective Check Pearland.instructure.com Under assignments, turn in by Thursday 10:19 AM How did the transcontinental railroad help unite the nation? Why did robber barons bribe people in Congress?

17. Quiz: The Railroads Pearland.instructure.com Quiz Multiple Choice Due September 2