1. Mr. Knoblauch Social Studies Council Rock High School South
The Railroads
Mr. Knoblauch
Social Studies
Council Rock High School South
Railroad Clips History.Com

2. The railroad boom began in the year 1862 with the Pacific Railway Act.
1. This act gave two corporations—the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific —permission to build a transcontinental railroad.
2. It also offered each company land along its right-of-way

4. It paid them about $1 a day.
Chinese workers on the railroad.
Because of a shortage of labor in California, the Central Pacific Railroad hired about 10,000 workers from China.
It paid them about $1 a day.

5. Pacific (3 pm) Mountain (4 pm) Central (5 pm) Eastern (6pm)
In order to make rail service safer and more reliable, the country was divided into 4 time zones.
Pacific (3 pm)
Mountain (4 pm)
Central (5 pm)
Eastern (6pm)

6. American business entrepreneur and philanthropist who built his wealth in railroads and shipping.
He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history.
He provided the initial gift to found Vanderbilt University, which is named in his honor.
Cornelius Vanderbilt

7. Jay Gould 1. Infamous for manipulating railroad stocks.
2. Widely considered the most notoriously corrupt railroad owner.
3. BY 1874, Gould owned more than 15,000 miles of railroad track around the nation.
Jay Gould

8. Robber barons… or “Captains of industry”
The term combines the sense of criminal ("robber") and illegitimate aristocrat (a baron is an illegitimate role in a republic).
In social criticism and economic literature, robber barons became a derogatory term applied to wealthy and powerful 19th-century American businessmen.
By the late 1800s, the term was typically applied to businessmen who used what were considered to be exploitative practices to amass their wealth.

9. These practices included…
1. Exerting control over national resources,
2. Accruing high levels of government influence
3. Paying extremely low wages to workers
4. Squashing competition by acquiring competitors in order to create monopolies and eventually raise prices
5. Schemes to sell stock at inflated prices to unsuspecting investors in a manner which would eventually destroy the company for which the stock was issued and impoverish investors.

10. Summary:
1. Railroads gave companies the ability to transport goods quickly, including farm products to the cities and manufactured products to rural areas.
2. The railroad boom also encouraged an integrated railway network that made shipping cheaper and more efficient.
3. The transcontinental railroad united the country into a more cohesive whole.