Tuesday September 20th

[4Chancey]

On this day we continued working on our project. Mr. Bruns quizzed me over Chapter 6 section 2. After that, I began to find a second and third resource for my section. We should begin putting our slide show/powerpoint together hopefully by the end of the day or possibly tonight/tomorrow during class. The Transcontinental Railroad was the first thing I researched further. First I found an Executive Order from President Abraham Lincoln about fixing a part of the railroad at Council Bluffs, here in Iowa. He wrote: "I deem it proper to add, that on the 17th day of November last, an exectuive order, was made upon this subject and delivered to the vice-president of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, which fixed the point on the western boundary of the State of Iowa, from which the company should construct their branch road to the one hundredth degree of west longitude and declared it to be within the limits of the township, in Iowa, opposite of Omaha, in Nebraska." I found this at: http://cprr.org/Museum/Lincoln_1864.html The third source I researched was George Pullman, who revolutionized how workers were respected in railroad work. He was born on March 3rd, 1831 in Chautauqua, New York, and died October 19 1897 in Chicago, Illinois at the age of 66. He remained in New York until 1859, doing such jobs as country merchant, cabinet-making, and moving warehouses along the Erie Canal. Once he moved, he found easy work in making buildings. A few years ago, he noted how uncomfortable travel was for the people and workers of the railroad, at this point a freshly booming travel way that would become dire to a norther victory in the Civil War, and after moving to Chicago he transformed two ordinary train cars into sleeping cars, and ever since he became the biggest man in comfort, sort of a Lazyboy for the day in railroad travel comfort. In 1863, he expanded his business further, by constructing a sleeping-ear (this needs more research itself) and pushed him into the reach of a millionaire. This research will be expanded on a little more as we get our powerpoint/presentation ready.