The Railroad, the Telegraph, and Other Technologies
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
CHAPTER ONE THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD At the dawn of the nineteenth century the United States looked very different from the way it does today In 1800 the United States had been a country for only a few decades The Mississippi River served as the border for the entire country and the entire population lived to the east of it People traveled differently from the way we do today Many simply walked where they needed to go Roads were bumpy muddy and rough Horses pulled carts wagons wagons and stagecoaches at a slow pace Boats navigated rivers and lakes Sometimes boats were pulled along waterways by teams of horses or mules on the shores Around 1820 however a revolution in transportation brought more and better ways to travel Canals like the great Erie Canal in New York were dug opening new waterways for the transport of goods and people Soon many waterways were also carrying the newly developed 8
THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD Over a period of twenty years the advent of the railways changed business transportation significantly leading to decreased use of the horse-drawn coach steamboats which moved at a greater clip than the earlier canal boats improving efficiency and convenience Amid these changes came the development that would connect the nation from border to border and beyond the railroad INVENTION OF THE RAILROAD Even before the first locomotives and railcars were built there were tracks In Central Europe during the sixteenth 9
