Ch. 6.2:
-What impact did railroads have on the US?
- made it faster for things to get from one place to another.
-Why were many people upset with the railroads?
- deaths.
-What did the Grangers or government do to regulate the railroads?
A national Network:
- In 1865 railroads extended to the Mississippi river and just three years later they crossed the Missouri river.
- On May 10th 1869 a golden spike marked the spanning of the nation by the first transcontinental railroad
- By the time of the civil war and the united states had over 300,000 miles of track and was 6 time great by 1890
Railroad Time:
- The railroads made our country united.
- Each community operated on its own time
- Noon to each community was when the sun was overhead, but noon in Boston was different than New York and New York different from the rest of the country.
- From California to Maine one might reset their watch 20 different times.
- Professor C.F. Dowd proposed that the earths surface be divided into 24 time zones, one for each hour of the day.
- The united states would contain 4 time zones- Easters, Central,Mountain and Pacific.
- The railroad companies used third method and so did many towns.
- On November 18, 1833 towns and railroads across thee country
New Towns and Markets:
- The railroads promoted trade and interdependence
- Towns started specializing in certain things such as Chicago and how it became known for its stockyards and Minneapolis for its grain industry
- New towns grew up along the railroad lines
Pullman:
- The railroad helped cities grow and branch out
- In 1880 George M. Pullman built a factory for manufacturing sleepers and other railroad cars on the Illinois prairie.
- Pullman built a nearby town for his employees but had given them strict rules to abide to.
- The rules, the expensive rent, and the cutting of his employees pay led to a violent strike in 1894.
Railroad Abuses:
- The Granger (members of the grange, a farmers organization founded in 1867)
- They were upset with the government and misuse of land grants as the railroads sold to the businesses instead of selling it to the farmers.
- Also the government gave customers different rates on hauls(different shipping rates. They would charge a lot more than customers.)
Granger Laws:
- The granges went into political action as they sponsored and voted for their own political candidates to protect their way of life from the railroads.
- The railroads tried to fight back, in 1877 the supreme court went with the grander laws by voting 7 to 2 giving farmers and consumers benefits from the railroad.
Interstate commerce act:
- In 1887 congress passed the I.C.A which was the first true federal regulatory agency.
- It was designed to address issues of federal abuse
- ex: shipping rates had to be reasonable rates had to be published.
- Wasn't fully in affect until teddy Roosevelt was president.
Panic and consolidation
- The panic in 1893 was the worst depression up to the point of time
- By the end of 1893, 600 banks and 15,000 business had failed, and by 1895 4 million Americans were out of a job
- In the mid 1894 a quarter of the railroads were owned by financial companies.
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