The American railroad system began. Many people did not believe train technology would work. In time, railroads became the most popular form of land transportation in the United States.
Watsonville, California, freight yards, 1890sIn nineteenth-century American culture, railroads were more than just a way to travel. Trains also found their way into the works of writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman.
VOICE ONE:
In eighteen-seventy-six, the United States celebrated its one-hundredth birthday. By now, there were new ways to move people and goods between farms, towns and cities. The flow of business changed. Lives improved.
Within those first one-hundred years, transportation links had helped form a new national economy.
(MUSIC: "I've Been Working on the Railroad")
VOICE TWO:
Workers finished the first coast-to-coast railroad in eighteen-sixty-nine. Towns and cities could develop farther away from major waterways and the coasts. But, to develop economically, many small communities had to build links to the railroads.
Railroads helped many industries, including agriculture. Farmers had a new way to send wheat and grain to ports. From there, ships could carry the goods around the world.
Trains had special container cars with ice to keep meat, milk and other goods cold for long distances on their way to market.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25