Course Details

On May 10, 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad met the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory Point, Utah to complete the United States' first transcontinental railroad. With this unprecedented feat of engineering, a person could travel from New York to Sacramento in a week. This course gives insight into the building of the railroad. It discusses the Chinese and Irish immigrants who laid the track and often lost their lives while doing so, the Civil War soldiers who had become accustomed to living and working in the open, the investors who risked everything, and the politicians who sometimes had a financial stake in the success of the project. It also discusses the effects of the railroad on Native Americans, the role of government in the building of the railroad, and the effects on private business.