The Railroad, the Telegraph, and Other Technologies
INTRODUCTION The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubled the size of the United States Thomas Jefferson pursued the purchase from Napoleon of France in order to make room for the nation’s growing population population The slow steady push westward had been underway since the settlement of the American colonies colonies It increased as time passed and more European immigrants landed on American shores In 1845 the journalist John L O’Sullivan captured this restless spirit in a newspaper article stating that American expansion was the right of our manifest manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and self-government entrusted to us It did not take long for the term Manifest Destiny to root itself in the minds of Americans as a means of expressing this hunger for western lands Following O’Sullivan’s declaration further increases in territory 4
INTRODUCTION 5 BRITISH POSSESSIONS A Br Washington Territory Claimed by U S and Br boundary 1853 59 Part of Oregon established in 1842 Territory 1848 53 Maine Minnesota Columbia Territory Michigan 1849 58 Oregon Territory N H Nebraska Territory 1837 1854 61 Wisconsin Mass New York 1848 R L 1848 59 Snake Conn Penn Platte N J lowa Utah Territory 1846 Ind Ohio Ohio 1850 61 LIAdded to Mo in 1836 Illinois Washington D C Del Kansas Territory Ohio Md Virginia 1854 61 Missouri Kentucky California 1850 North Carolina Public Land Strip Tennessee New Mexico Territory Indian Arkansas South 1836 Territory Carolina Miss Georgia Texas Alabama ATLANTIC OCEAN Louisiana Florida PACIFIC 1845 OCEAN G 1850 61 1845 Brazos Bio Grande 0 100 300 mi 0 200 400 km MEXICO Gulf of Mexico 2012 Encyclopædia Britannica Inc Territories in 1854 Gadsden Purchase dates of boundaries shown O from Mexico in 1853 O Territory ceded to U S by Texas in 1850 States in 1822 States admitted 1823 54 date of admittance lowa lowa Wisconsin Territory Michigan Territory 1834 36 Wisconsin Territory 1836 38 Territory 1838 48 1838 46 Michigan Territory 1836 37 Michigan 1837 The steady acquisition of land across the United States in the nineteenth century enabled the great westward expansion that marked the period came quickly Congress annexed Texas in 1845 spurring spurring a war with Mexico In 1846 an agreement with Britain brought the acquisition of the Oregon Territory The United States won the war with Mexico in 1848 Both countries signed a treaty that allowed for the Mexican Cession and brought California Nevada Arizona and parts of Wyoming Colorado Utah and New Mexico into the United States
THE RAILROAD THE TELEGRAPH AND OTHER TECHNOLOGIES By acquiring these territories Manifest Destiny was achieved But though the United States now stretched from sea to shining sea the problem became what to do with all of that land The solution in part was to encourage settlement of the land During the nineteenth century many thousands of people eager for a fresh start and the chance to have land of their own made the journey west The United States treated the land’s original inhabitants the Native Americans with little regard however Treaties with tribes were regularly made broken and renegotiated and the tribes were forced onto reservations While the Native Americans often resisted new settlers in their lands the government's government’s strength proved too great for them to endure One factor more than any other led to the successful successful expansion of settlers across the land the railroad Completing tracks that connected the heavily populated East with the sparsely settled West allowed resources food products and people to be transported from one end of the country to the other quickly safely and more efficiently than ever before The struggles and endurance endurance needed to accomplish this are covered here as are the effects the railroad industry had on life and business in today’s world The effort to master the West was aided greatly by improvements in communication This was especially 6
INTRODUCTION true of the telegraph The debut of this never-before-seen invention startled the public and transformed society and business Among other things it helped pave the way for the later development of the telephone Inventions like the steel plow and other farm devices increased productivity and produced an abundance of food for US residents as well as for people around the world The development of inexpensive steel production led to the growth of cities and industries providing jobs housing and business empires the likes of which had never been seen before In the following pages you will learn how these new technologies transformed the face of the country and in doing so brought the United States into the modern age 7
