Books with title The Transcontinental Railroad: The Gateway to the West

In May 1869, the U.S. railroad network unified when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads came together in Promontory, Utah. The Transcontinental Railroad: The Gateway to the West discusses this important milestone in the expansion of the United States and its impact on the nation, both positive and negative. This book tells how the east-west railroad played an integral role in opening western markets to the residents of the eastern United States, but it also examines how the railroad led to the demise of many American Indian groups in the West. This is a brief introduction to the history of the subject. The audiobook is published by Chelsea House Publishers, a leading publisher of educational material.

On May 10, 1869, the Golden Spike linked the Central Pacific Railroad with the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory Point, Utah. The dream of a railroad across America had at last come true. This book tells the story of swaggering men with big plans, of an America emerging from the Civil War and reaching its manifest destiny.The men who imagined the transcontinental railroad were impassioned profiteers, an unlikely, often ruthless band, guilty of both financial double-dealing and ferocious ingenuity. When ice delayed operations in the Sierra Nevadas, the men of the Central Pacific formed the Summit Ice Company and sold their problem to California saloons. When herds of buffalo ripped up the tracks, the men of the Union Pacific brutally slaughtered tens of thousands of them. (Thus the legend of Buffalo Bill was born.) While his partners finagled in Washington and on Wall Street, Jack Casement, a former Union general, dressed in a fur coat, a Cossack hat, and shining cavalry boots and carrying a pistol and a bullwhip, drove the workers of the Union Pacific to new track-laying records. Meanwhile, from the West, thousands of Chinese immigrants blasted, climbed, and inched their way through the perilous California mountains.The railroad transformed the country forever. It decimated the Plains Indian culture by destroying the herds of buffalo that sustained it. It augmented the timber and steel industries; it opened up the West for commerce. Farms grew up along the length of the rails. Thousands of immigrants from Asia and Europe came here to build the iron road. Most important, it united a nation.The story of the railroad is capitalist theater, starring powerful politicians and generals and con artists. Set in opulent parlor cars, well-heeled boardrooms, and rowdy frontier towns, on desolate plains and deadly gorges, it is a story of vision and corruption, of empire building at its most vulgar and glorious.John Williams combines scholarship with personalities, historical analysis with plain old tall tales, to tell a story that will appeal to readers of American history and adventure and to lovers of the American West. The Transcontinental Railroad is an epic of every sense.

A True Book: Westward Expansion takes readers on an amazing journey to a fascinating time in U.S. history when the country was experiencing dynamic change and expanding westward.This book provides the keys to discovering the important people, places and events that helped shape the western United States. An age appropriate (grades 3-5) introduction to curriculum-relevant subjects and a robust resource section that encourages independent study is included.

The rise of railroads played an enormous part in uniting the eastern United States to the West. Readers look at the planning and execution of the Transcontinental Railroad including the obstacles faced in the race to complete it. Readers will also gain a sense of what roles immigration and migration played in building the railroad, what life was like for railroad workers, and how railroad workers of different races were treated differently. Larger issues such as the railroads impact on Native Americans and how transportation led to the growth of industry are also explored.