Chapter Overview

-People were beginning to wonder "why are the best men not in politics?"

-One answer was simply because they were being pulled away from public life in hopes of becoming a part of the "booming private econonomy."

-Men wanted "profits not presidency," and dreamed of "controlling corporations, not congress."

-The United States may have been politically "dwarfed: at the time, but they were about to become a "industrial colossus" to the world.

Section Overviews

1.The Iron Colt Becomes an Iron Horse

-In 1865, there were only 35,000 miles of steam railways in the United States, but by 1900, that figure had grown to approximately 192,556 miles.

-Much of it ran west of the Mississippi.

-Transcontinental railroad building was very expensive and risky so it required government subsidies.

-Where there were small unpopulated areas that the railways extended to, there was a need for those areas to build up.

-Congress granted liberal money loans to two favored cross-continent companies in 1862.

-This added "enormous donations of acreage paralleling the tracks."

-Washington granted the railroads with 155,504,994 acres.

-"Land grants to railroads were made in broad belts along the prosed route."

-The cities that were bypassed by the railroads became known as "ghost cities."

2.Spanning the Continent with Rails

second post will be up later