The politicians argued because they were eager for the economic benefits that would go with the railroad.
The Pacific Railway Act would set up charters for two railroad lines, which, when they met, would span the country.
At their peak, the work crews would lay two to five miles of track a day.
The determined crews were armed with hammers, sledges, iron hand drills, and kegs of black powder forged tunnels through thick walls of solid rock.
Other than mineral wealth, grass and cattle were plentiful resources in the West.
Section 2
The determining factor for white respect for Indian ownership of land depended on how desirable the land was for settlement.
The Bozeman Trail was an overland route connecting the gold rush territory of Montana to the Oregon Trail.
Some reform and church groups wanted a humane peace policy.
The East and the West questioned the approach because they were convinced that Indians were savages unfit for civilization.
In 1889 the Plains Indians way of life was impossible because of the decline of buffalo.
The Dawes Act of 1887 authorized the President of the United States to subdivide Native American tribal communal landholdings into allotments.
Section 3
The building of the transcontinental railroad network acted as a spur to the American free enterprise economy. More than anything else, railroads transformed a continent of isolated communities into a unified nation with an interdependent economy.
Growth on railroads was rapid, by 1870 railroad workers had laid almost 52,000 miles of track across America. By 1875 the nation had 74,000 miles. By 1890 the nation had doubled.
Most railroads would extend fewer than 50 miles.
Before the 1880s, the three main ways to tell the time were the clock at the center of town, the railroads, and the sun.
Thomas A. Edison's phonograph, light bulb, and hundreds of other devices were important for innovation.
Most workers in a factory spent their hours performing one task in the production process over and over again. Workers spent 10 - 15 hours a day, 6 and sometimes even 7 days a week. If you were skilled, you would earn about 20 cents an hour, but without skills, just half that.
Section 4
Two major figures of industry are "captains of industry" and "robber barons".
Social Darwinism was a loose set of ideologies that emerged in the late 1800s in which Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was used to justify certain political, social, or economic views.
Social Darwinism was such a welcome theory because it allowed them to overlook the profound misery to be found in urban slums.
The Gospel of Wealth was an article written by Andrew Carnegie in June of 1889 that describes the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich.
Smith argued that by giving everyone the freedom to produce and exchange goods as they pleased (free trade) and opening the markets up to domestic and foreign competition.
The invisible hand theory led to a policy called "laissez-faire". The policy held that the government's proper role was to leave the economy alone.
Capital is the amount of money, property, or other resources a company or person uses to carry a business.
Factories had to be built expensive machinery had to be installed and maintained, and thousands of workers had to be paid. No single person had the resources to begin such a business.
The solution to the problem of resources was to lay in the adaptation of a form of group ownership and investment, the corporation.
Most American entrepreneurs had been raised to believe that competition was the key to American prosperity. This made business risky. so they began a steady trend away from competition and toward a form of cooperation. The results sometimes troubled both reformers and consumers and challenged the free-enterprise basis of the American economy.
The pool is one of the earliest forms of cooperation.
The railroad owners argued that the pool was a rational step, but other Americans saw it as a conspiracy to raise prices of profits. Pools were outlawed in 1887 because they were against public interest.
After the pool was banned, businesses made use of the trust. In a trust, the major stockholders of several companies turned over their shares to "trustees" in return for certificates promising them divided payments.
The "roller coaster" economy became known as the "booms" and "busts". They occurred during bankruptcy.
Section 5
The country that was built upon the ideals and labor of immigrants was now having second thoughts about extending the invitation of citizenship to others. An important difference about immigrants is during the 1880s a shift occurred in the origins of America's immigrants.
Essentially two types of immigrants came to America at this time, migrant workers and permanent settlers.
Native-born Americans were both suspicious and resentful of immigrants, especially those from eastern and southern Europe.
Xenophobia means disliking people from other countries.
Most new immigrants settled in America's growing cities, where unskilled factory labor was in high demand.