Railroads
Railroads made a decisive impact on the U.S. economy especially in the 1850–1873 era, making possible the transition to an urban industrial nation with high finance and advanced managerial skills. Railroads opened up remote areas, drastically cut the cost of moving freight as well as passenger travel, and stimulated new industries such as steel and telegraphy, as well as the profession of civil engineering. They greatly increased the importance of such hubs as made cities such as Atlanta, Billings, Chicago, and Dallas. Railroad executives invented modern methods for running large-scale business operations, creating a blueprint that all large corporations basically followed. They created career tracks that took 18 year old boys and turned them into brakemen, conductors and engineers. They were first to encounter managerial complexities, labor union issues, and problems of geographical competition. Due to these radical innovations, the railroad became the first large-scale business enterprise and the model for most large corporations.
Panics did not curtail rapid U.S. economic growth during the 19th century. Long term demographic growth, expansion into new farmlands, and creation of new factories continued. New inventions and capital investment led to the creation of new industries and economic growth. As transportation improved, new markets continuously opened. The steamboat made river traffic faster and cheaper, but development of railroads had an even greater effect, opening up vast stretches of new territory for development. Like canals and roads, railroads received large amounts of government assistance in their early building years in the form of land grants. But unlike other forms of transportation, railroads also attracted a good deal of domestic and European private investment.
Nevertheless, a combination of vision and foreign investment, combined with the discovery of gold and a major commitment of America's public and private wealth, enabled the nation to develop a large-scale railroad system, establishing the base for the country's industrialization.
| Table 1: RAILROAD MILEAGE INCREASE BY GROUPS OF STATES | |||||
| 1850 | 1860 | 1870 | 1880 | 1890 | |
| New England | 2,507 | 3,660 | 4,494 | 5,982 | 6,831 |
| Middle States | 3,202 | 6,705 | 10,964 | 15,872 | 21,536 |
| Southern States | 2,036 | 8,838 | 11,192 | 14,778 | 29,209 |
| Western States and Territories | 1,276 | 11,400 | 24,587 | 52,589 | 62,394 |
| Pacific States and Territories | 23 | 1,677 | 4,080 | 9,804 | |
| TOTAL USA | 9,021 | 30,626 | 52,914 | 93,301 | 129,774 |
| SOURCE: Chauncey M. Depew (ed.), One Hundred Years of American Commerce 1795–1895 p 111 | |||||
Read more about this topic: Economic History Of The United States
Famous quotes containing the word railroads:
“We noticed several other sandy tracts in our voyage; and the course of the Merrimack can be traced from the nearest mountain by its yellow sand-banks, though the river itself is for the most part invisible. Lawsuits, as we hear, have in some cases grown out of these causes. Railroads have been made through certain irritable districts, breaking their sod, and so have set the sand to blowing, till it has converted fertile farms into deserts, and the company has had to pay the damages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Shall the railroads govern the country, or shall the people govern the railroads? Shall the interest of railroad kings be chiefly regarded, or shall the interest of the people be paramount?”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Indeed, I believe that in the future, when we shall have seized again, as we will seize if we are true to ourselves, our own fair part of commerce upon the sea, and when we shall have again our appropriate share of South American trade, that these railroads from St. Louis, touching deep harbors on the gulf, and communicating there with lines of steamships, shall touch the ports of South America and bring their tribute to you.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)