The transcontinental railroad
It may seem remarkable toady, but the railroad did not win immediate popularity in America, even though the youthful nation seemed the ideal place for this revolutionary form of transportation. At the time, the United States was a land of vast territories, poor roads, and waterways that could only reach a limited area, so new forms of transportation systems were needed (Brief 1998). People eagerly embraced every transportation fad from canals to toll roads and from turnpikes to plank roads, but were very hesitant and skeptical of these railways. They believed they were as impractical as they were impossible(Brief 1998). America had no idea what the iron horse had in store for them and the future of transportation. Never would they have guessed that these impractical, "crackpot" ideas would turn into an invention whose impact can be considered one of the most significant turning points in American history( Fogel 1999).What brought forth the railroad was a combination of technological and entrepreneurial innovations along with the development of trains as public carriers of passengers and freight. By 1804, English as well as American inventors had experimented with steam engines for moving land vehicles.
Skeptics emphasized the dangers of the railroad. They provided employment for thousands and thousands of workers. Its tracks entered Council Bluffs in 1869. Freight trains supplied local retailers with national name brand foods designed to appeal to the majority of customers (Fogel 1964). Trunk lines ended generations of economic isolation for Southern farmers. In 1831, the Mohawk and Hudson in New York began running trains between Schenectady and Albany in 1831, a distance of sixteen miles. Paul Railroad played a leading role, not only connecting Chicago with Minneapolis and St. Steam locomotives became more flexible and powerful. This financial aid came from hamlets through which the roads passed, the state in which they lay, and, more importantly, the federal government. Canals were considered the most advantageous means of communication at the time due too there relatively low cost of construction and maintenance. They were a prize to be won for each part of the divided nation in the volatile years before the Civil War, yet linked the nation together with the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 (Brief 1998). Entrepreneurs could see that the "iron horse" had taken the place of the waterways in inland transportation and proposed vast projects for covering the nation with railroads. Railroads defeated the canals wherever free competition existed because they had so many more advantages. They held the power of economic life and death over many communities, and quite often abusing that power.
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Acceptance Essays
