Questions for 6-2-What impact did railroads have on the US?Time Zones, transportation, made the world flat, (yes that is a good thing) created jobs, helped the economy-Why were many people upset with the railroads?Unfair prices, rates, misuse of land grants, cheated the system of land grants,-What did the Grangers or government do to regulate the railroads?Made laws to regulate railroads, ICA regulated railroad rates.Age of RailroadsChapter 6, Section 2 by Greg ConryRichard Ely- raidroad person. Huge traincar factory in Pullman Illinois. Created time zones because of trains, to make it so they could arrive to places on time. Back then there wans't much standard time, everyone went by the sun. The railroads were really some that pushed for timezones which was definately an impact. "The idea of Pullman is un-American." The town was basically a company town, the company ran the town. Everything in that town was ran and owned by the company. The company began paying in scripts that could only be used in stores in that town, so they had no money to spend anywhere else. George Pullman was the owner of the company that built nice train cars. A lot od farmers had issues with the railroad compaies because the government would give the railroad companies land for railroads and the companies would give landgrants to other companies which caused problems with the farmers. The land that wasn't used for railroads was supposed to go to farmers, but it didn't. When the land was given to the companies the rates were lower than the farmers. The farmers felt as if they were being cheated. The farmers had to use the most likely one railroad in the most likely small town becayse they had to ship their goods somehow. The Granger Laws were laws that helped out the farmers. The Grangers (farmers) took political actions. They pressed laws to protect their interest. They passed a law so that all of the prices to use the trains were the same for everybody. Munn v. Illinois- Supreme court ruled that the states could set maximum rates to use the freights. They were passed in 1871. About ten years later the law was changed. In 1887 the Interstate Commerce Act was passed. The act helped secure past laws. The Interstate Commerce Act set up the Interstate Commerce Commision which was a group of men made to regulate the railroads. Eventually this law got shot down. In 1906, it was changed to give the Interstate Commerce Commision to give it back the power it should have, so they would no longer have the rich people saying if you don't give us this we'll go here, Basically it was a battle against the rich and the commoners. Back then the rich people basically totally dominated everything. The third question has to do with all of the ICC ICA and Granger Laws.. good stuff.
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