This paper examines the historical and economic impact of the Transcontinental Railroad, completed on May 10, 1869, on American society during and after the Civil War era. Drawing on a qualitative literature review, the study addresses two core questions: the financial impact of the railroad and the regions of the United States most affected by its construction. The paper argues that the Transcontinental Railroad dramatically reduced travel time, stimulated interstate commerce, enabled near-instantaneous communication through accompanying telegraph lines, and drove rapid settlement of the American West — effects broadly comparable to the transformative reach of the modern World Wide Web.
The Transcontinental Railroad connected the U.S. states and greatly reduced the "distance" in terms of travel time required, while simultaneously fueling Westward Expansion. The impact of the Transcontinental Railroad during the Civil War period can be likened to the impact of the World Wide Web in contemporary times.
The work of Marieke Van Ophem, entitled "The Iron Horse: The Impact of the Railroads on 19th Century American Society," relates that twenty years prior to the Civil War, the U.S. was "still in a pioneer spirit" (Van Ophem, 2003). The Civil War served to delay the Transcontinental Railroad's completion; however, upon completion, the Transcontinental Railroads were credited with "the annihilation of time and space with an enduring sense of wonder whenever a railroad penetrated a new region. When passengers found that they could get to distant places more quickly, they translated reduced time into contracting space and spoke as if distant places had grown closer" (Byrne, 2006).
Byrne (2006) relates that Margaret Irvin Carrington wrote in 1869 that the Transcontinental Railroad, "with only a single wire to underlie the Pacific, the whole earth will become as a whispering gallery, wherein all nations, by one electric pulsation, may throb in unison, and the continent shall tremble with the rumbling of wheels that swiftly and without interruption or delay transport its gospel and commerce." By 1869, the Pacific Coast was only four days from Omaha, and Carrington reported that "[a]n officer of the army recently returned in forty hours over a distance which required a march of sixty-four days in 1866" (Byrne, 2006).
The research questions in this study are: (1) What was the financial impact of the Transcontinental Railroad? (2) What area of the United States was most affected by the Transcontinental Railroad?
The research design is qualitative in nature and is conducted through a review of the existing literature on this subject.
Construction on the Transcontinental Railroad was completed on May 10, 1869. The railroads did not begin to create coherent technological systems until after the Civil War, largely because of the lack of a standardized system or a "single standard gauge" (Byrne, 2006). Tracks were not uniform, and many lines entering a city did not connect. However, following the Civil War, railroad technology is stated by Byrne (2006) to have "underwent virtually perpetual refinement." Byrne further relates that the "real economic significance of the railroads" was the movement of goods over long distances at "relatively cheap rates" (Byrne, 2006).
The railroads "consumed the raw stuff of nature" and were "the largest consumers of wood and coal in the United States by the late nineteenth century" (Byrne, 2006). Once the railroads were in operation, the trains "caused forests to fall and the earth to be ripped open" (Byrne, 2006). The Transcontinental Railroads "changed this society by stitching it together ever more tightly, by amplifying dramatically the number of commercial, social, and communications exchanges that could take place over broad distances" (Byrne, 2006).
When the Transcontinental Railroad was complete, it stretched across the vast expanse of land between California and the Missouri River, and a journey that had previously taken between four and six months was cut to a mere six days. "With such an increase in the speed of travel, the states became more united and the world felt smaller. The telegraph lines that were strung up alongside the railroad added to this feeling by enabling nearly instantaneous communication across the country" (Nosotro, 2007).
Increases in commerce and communication between the states were one result of the Transcontinental Railroad, as "fifty million dollars worth of cargo annually surged across the railroad during its first decade of use" (Nosotro, 2007). The trade that the Transcontinental Railroad sparked resulted in an acceleration of the progress "of the entire country" (Nosotro, 2007). Nosotro (2007) holds that rapid settlement in the West was likely "the single most important effect of the Transcontinental Railroad." The broader social and demographic effects of this expansion reshaped the American landscape for generations to come.
"Western expansion as the railroad's primary impact"
"Sources cited throughout the paper"
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