A Bracero Remembers Working Near Chicago
Work
Having heard about successful braceros, Salvador Esparza Carreño decided to enlist in the bracero program in 1945. He worked as a railroad worker, in the fields cutting asparagus, and as a camp cook. He describes his work and leisure time in and around Chicago in a camp of about 150 bracero railroad workers repairing track. He recalls entering the U.S. around the time that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he called "energetic," died. This interview was translated from the original Spanish.
Bracero History Archive
Laureano Martínez, "Salvador Esparza Carreño," in <em>Bracero History Archive</em>, Item #218, http://braceroarchive.org/items/show/218 (accessed 26 January 2010), translated by Tony Paulino.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2003
English
Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
A Bracero Is Disenchanted With the United States
Immigration and Migration
Race and Ethnicity
Work
Despite rumors that braceros would be sent off to fight in World War II, Manuel Sandoval Espino joined the bracero program in 1943. He recalls having to go to the local politician in order to get a pass to join. Mr. Sandoval worked in Kansas as a railroad worker. In this interview he describes some of the events that made him disillusioned with life in the United States. This interview was translated from the original Spanish. Mr. Sandoval repeats some offensive language that he heard others say in the United States.
Bracero History Archive
Violeta Domínguez, "Manuel Sandoval Espino," in <em>Bracero History Archive</em>, Item #130, http://braceroarchive.org/items/show/130 (accessed 26 January 2010), translated by Tony Paulino.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2002
English
Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
<em>"American Progress"</em>
Expansion and Imperialism
During the nineteenth century, the U.S. greatly expanded its territory by purchasing land from other countries, taking land from countries it defeated in war, and adding independent territories that wanted to become part of the United States. This illustration celebrated that territorial growth by using many popular symbols of American progress and westward expansion. It was produced as a chromolithograph in 1873, inspired by an 1872 painting by John Gast. Chromolithography was a method of mass producing images, making them inexpensive for people to buy and hang in their homes.
George A. Crofutt, after John Gast
George A. Crofutt, <em>American Progress</em>; after John Gast, 1873, chromolithograph, The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.09855. (original painting in The Gene Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles).
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1873
1753, 1752, 1431
English
Poster/Print
Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
<em>Calvary Escorting Meat Train Protected by Infantry from the Chicago Stock Yards During Strike</em>
Labor Activism
The Pullman Strike began on May 11, 1894, when Pullman Palace Car Company workers walked off the job in response to severe wage cuts; members of Eugene V. Debs' American Railway Union soon joined in by refusing to work in Pullman cars. U.S. Army troops eventually put down the strike by force, resulting in 13 deaths and hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of property damage. This print shows U.S. Calvary and Infantry troops, sent to escort a cargo train to the Chicago Stock Yards, being confronted by angry gestures from a crowd of defiant workers.
H.H. Van Meter
H.H. Van Meter, <em>Calvary escorting meat train proteced by infantry from the Chicago Stock Yards during strike</em>, (Chicago: Literary Art, 1894); from Paul V. Galvin Library Digital History Collection, Illinois Institute of Technology, <em>World's Columbian Exposition of 1893</em>, http://columbus.gl.iit.edu/vanfair/00014021.html.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1893 (Circa)
English
Poster/Print
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
"Union Pacific Announces the Opening of the Transcontinental Railroad"
Expansion and Imperialism
An 1869 poster announces the grand opening of the first Transcontinental Railroad. In an elaborate ceremony in Promontory Summit, Utah, the Union Pacific met with the Southern Pacific, linking the eastern United States with California for the first time. While the poster emphasizes the line's luxurious accommodations, the Transcontinental Railroad revolutionized the American West, paving the way for exponential growth in its population and economy, rendering covered wagons and the Pony Express obsolete, and contributing to the demise of Native American populations in the Great Plains.
Unknown
[Union Pacific Railroad Poster, c. 1869]; from KUED, <em>Promontory: An Online Companion to the KUED Documentary</em>, http://www.kued.org/productions/promontory/images/photos/union_pacific_poster.jpg.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1869 (Circa)
English
Poster/Print
Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
<em>Across the Continent: 'Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way'</em>
Expansion and Imperialism
From 1835 to 1907, the Currier & Ives printmaking company produced over a million lithograph illustrations of events, portraits, and scenes from American life. In the era before photography and the widespread use of illustrations in newspapers, people could buy these inexpensive and widely available images of events and places they had never seen. This 1868 illustration shows an idealized version of the transcontinental railroad expanding into the West.
J.M. Ives after Frances Flora Palmer
M. Ives after Frances Flora Palmer, "Across the Continent: 'Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way,'" lithograph (New York: Published by Currier & Ives, c. 1868); from Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90708413/
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1868 (Circa)
English
Poster/Print
Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
"A Philadelphia Poster Protests the Coming of the Railroad"
An 1839 poster urges citizens to rally against the coming of the railroad to Philadelphia. As the poster suggests, industrial technology and "progress" have not always been greeted with universal acclaim. The anonymous author(s) of this broadside warn of the danger to life and limb posed by the new technology (in fact a number of disasters did befall the early locomotives) and claim it will have a deleterious effect on the city's trade, the beauty of its streets, and the status of its artisans and tradesmen. Worst of all is the threat to the status of the city itself: the railroad, the poster claims, will turn Philadelphia into a mere "suburb of New York!!"
Department of Commerce Bureau of Public Roads
Department of Commerce Bureau of Public Roads, <em>Poster circulated in Philadelphia in 1839 to discourage the coming of the railroad</em>, 1839, National Archives, http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=513347.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1839
English
Poster/Print
Antebellum America (1816-1860)
<em>The Stride of a Century</em>
Expansion and Imperialism
In 1876. the United States marked its centennial (or one hundredth birthday) with a World's Fair held in Philadelpha. The fair celebrated American technological progress and expansion. In this print, created by Currier & Ives, "Brother Jonathan" (a symbol of the nation who came before Uncle Sam) straddles the towers of the main building at the Philadelphia World's fair. Currier & Ives produced and sold lithograph illustrations of events, portraits, and scenes from American life.
Currier & Ives
<em>The Stride of a Century,</em> lithograph (New York: Currier & Ives, c. 1876); from Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c06472.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1876
English
Poster/Print
Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
"East shakes hands with West at laying last rail"
Expansion and Imperialism
The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad is celebrated with a handshake, a bottle of champagne, and the laying of a golden railroad spike in Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10th, 1869. After years of speculation, government backing, corporate scandal, and arduous physical labor, the Union Pacific line met the Southern Pacific, linking the eastern United States with California. Heralded as the physical realization of America's "manifest destiny" to expand, the railway would not actually extend "from sea to shining sea" until several years later.
Andrew Joseph Russell
Andrew Joseph Russell, "East shakes hands with West at laying last rail," photograph, 1869; from Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b05344.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1869
English
Photograph
Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
<em>The New York Times</em> Describes Racial Unrest on the Railroads
Race and Ethnicity
Labor Activism
A <em>New York Times</em> article from 1889 describes another instance of racially-based labor unrest on the railroads. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a group of African-American railroad laborers spontaneously strike to protest the dismissal of a black brakeman. In response, they were summarily fired and replaced with white workers.
The New York Times
"White Labor instead of Negroes," <em>The New York Times, </em>9 February 1889.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1889
English
Newspaper/Magazine
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)