Pacific Railroad Act

(noun)

The Pacific Railroad Acts were a series Congressional acts that promoted the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the United States through authorizing the issuance of government bonds and the grants of land to railroad companies.

Examples of Pacific Railroad Act in the following topics:

  • Government During the War

    • With the establishment of the Confederacy, Republicans in Congress enacted sweeping federal changes, including implementation of the Morrill tariff and passage of the Homestead Act, Pacific Railroad Act, and National Banking Act.
    • The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 promoted the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the United States.
    • The government provided land grants to railroad companies and issued government bonds for financing.
    • Railroads were also encouraged to sell tracts for family farms at low prices with extended credit.
    • The 1862 Homestead Act opened up public domain lands for family farms at no cost.

  • The Transformation of the West

    • The Pacific Railroad Act was passed in 1862, which authorized construction of both the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railroad lines.
    • Six transcontinental railroads were built in total during the Gilded Age.
    • From north to south they were the Northern Pacific, Milwaukee Road, and Great Northern along the Canadian border; the Union Pacific/Central Pacific in the middle; and to the south the Santa Fe, and the Southern Pacific.
    • He worked closely with Gifford Pinchot and used the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230 million acres under federal protection.
    • The Golden Spike united the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroad lines.

  • Territorial Government

    • The Homestead Act granted 160 acres to each settler who improved the land for five years, whether citizens or non-citizens and including squatters and women, for no more than modest filing fees.
    • The law was especially important in the settling of the Plains states, although many farmers purchased their land from railroads at low rates.
    • The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 provided for the land needed to build the transcontinental railroad.
    • The land given to the railroads alternated with government-owned tracts saved for distribution to homesteaders.

  • Transportation: Roads, Canals, and Railroads

    • From 1848 to 1852 the canal was a popular passenger route, but this ended in 1853 with the opening of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad that ran parallel to the canal.
    • Railroads provided a quick, scheduled, and year-round mode of transportation.
    • The most prominent early railroad was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), which linked the port of Baltimore to the Ohio River and offered passenger and freight service as of 1830.
    • The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 was pivotal in helping settler-invaders move west more quickly.
    • Celebration of completion of the Trans-American railroad on May 10th 1869

  • The Sand-Lot Incident

    • The party took particular aim against Chinese immigrant labor and the Central Pacific Railroad , which employed them.
    • This sentiment led eventually to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
    • In July 1877, when anti-Chinese violence occurred in San Francisco, Kearney joined William Tell Coleman 's vigilante Public Safety Committee as a member of Coleman's "pick handle brigade. " By August 1877, however, Kearney had been elected Secretary of the newly formed Workingmen's Party of California , and often directed violent attacks on Chinese, including denunciations of the powerful Central Pacific Railroad , which had employed them in large numbers.
    • Corresponding with the English author and politician James Bryce in the late 1880s, Kearney nonetheless claimed credit for making the "Chinese Question" a national issue and affecting the legislation of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.
    • He warned railroad owners that they had three months to fire all of their Chinese workers or "remember Judge Lynch

  • The Transcontinental Railroads

    • The First Transcontinental Railroad was built between 1863 and 1869 to join the eastern and western halves of the United States.
    • Known as the Pacific Railroad when it opened, it served as a vital link for trade, commerce, and travel and opened up vast regions of the North American heartland for settlement.
    • The Central Pacific Railroad, facing a labor shortage in the more sparsely-settled West, relied on Chinese laborers who did prodigious work building the line over and through the Sierra Nevada mountains and then across Nevada to their meeting in northern Utah.
    • Initially, Central Pacific had a hard time hiring and keeping unskilled workers on its line, as many would leave for the prospect of far more lucrative gold or silver mining options elsewhere.
    • Workers celebrating the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869.

  • The Knights of Labor and the "Conditions Essential to Liberty"

    • In some cases, it acted as a labor union, negotiating with employers, but it was never well organized.
    • Their greatest victory was in the Union Pacific Railroad strike in 1884.
    • The Wabash Railroad strike in 1885 was also a significant success, as Powderly finally supported what became a successful strike on Jay Gould 's Wabash Line.
    • The Knights failed in the highly visible Missouri Pacific strike in 1886 .
    • They lost many craft unionists that year to the rival Railroad brotherhoods and the new American Federation of Labor , which had more conservative reputations.

  • Nimitz in the Central Pacific

    • Pacific Fleet with the rank of admiral.
    • Six days later the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) divided the theater into three areas: the Pacific Ocean Areas (POA), the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA, commanded by General Douglas MacArthur), and the South East Pacific area.
    • By an act of Congress, approved December 14, 1944, the grade of Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy, the highest grade in the Navy, was established and the next day, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Admiral Nimitz to that rank.
    • Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas, from June 1944 to August 1945...."
    • He held the dual command of Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), for U.S. naval forces and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas (CinCPOA), for United States and Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II.

  • The Railroad Strikes

    • Sixteen citizens were shot by state militia in the Reading Railroad Massacre.
    • Louis Workingman's Party led a group of approximately 500 people across the Missouri River in an act of solidarity with the nearly 1,000 workers on strike.
    • That act transformed an initial strike among railroad workers into a strike by thousands of workers in several industries for the eight-hour day and a ban on child labor.
    • Mail, violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, and represented a threat to public safety.
    • Analyze the two railroad strikes that occurred during the Gilded Age

  • Economic Nationalism

    • These programs included the establishment of the Patent Office in 1802; the creation of the Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1807; other measures to improve river and harbor navigation created by the 1824 Rivers and Harbors Act; and the various Army expeditions to the west, beginning with Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery in 1804 and continuing into the 1870s.
    • Other programs include the assignment of Army Engineer officers to assist or direct the surveying and construction of early railroads and canals; the establishment of the First and Second Banks of the United States; and various protectionist measures such as the tariff of 1828.
    • Policy examples include Cumberland Road and Union Pacific Railroad.
    • Policy examples include the First Bank of the United States, the Second Bank of the United States, and the National Banking Act.