4
10
40
-
Newspaper/Magazine
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
<p><strong>TROUBLE EXPECTED<br /><br />A STRIKE TO BE ORDERED ALONG THE LINE OF THE UNION PACIFIC</strong><br /><em><br />Omaha, Sept. 16</em>. Gen Howard has received dispatches from Col. Chittenden to command of the troops stationed at Rock Springs saying that he fears the most serious trouble within the next 48 hours. He is informed and believes that the knights of Labor have ordered a strike all along the line of the Union Pacific Railway…</p>
<p>Rumors have been afloat several days that a strike on the Union Pacific was threatened if the company did not discharge the Chinese miners in its employ. Two weeks ago, after the murder of the Chinese, a committee of miners and businessmen started for Omaha to confer with the railroad people here about the situation at Rock Springs. The committee never reached this city, and it is now learned that it was intercepted by Knights of Labor . . .</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Newspaper/Magazine
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The New York Times</em> Predicts a Railroad Strike, 1885
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
This <em>New York Times</em> article from September 1885 makes reference to the tensions that existed between organized labor and Chinese immigrant workers on the Union Pacific and other railroad lines. According to the article, the Knights of Labor, the foremost labor organization of the time, were threatening to strike if Chinese laborers, whom white workers viewed as a source of unfair competition, were not dismissed. In addition to highlighting the racial animosities that festered between organized white labor and Chinese-Americans, the article also alludes to the ominous threat of violence portended by the murder of a Chinese worker and the presence of federal troops standing by to put down the impending strike.
Creator
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The New York Times
Source
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"Trouble Expected," <em>The New York Times</em>, 17 September 1885.
Primary
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1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1885
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Labor Activism
Race and Ethnicity
Chinese Immigration
railroads
-
Newspaper/Magazine
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
<p>The growth of the United States west of the Alleghenies during the past fifty years is due not so much to free institutions, or climate, or the fertility of the soil, as to railways. If the institutions and climate and soil had been favorable to the development of commonwealths, railways had not been invented, the freedom and natural advantages of our Western States would have beckoned to human immigration and industry in vain. Civilization would have crept slowly on, in a toilsome march over the immense spaces that lie between the Appalachian ranges and the Pacific Ocean; and what we now style the Great West would be, except in the valley of the Mississippi, an unknown and unproductive wilderness.</p>
<p>But although these benefits arising from railway construction are so obvious, no one asserts that railways have been laid from philanthropic motives; and therefore, since among the promoters, contractors, and capitalists who have done the work we find men who have acquired large fortunes, western railroad construction and management in general have been bitterly and frequently attacked by the press, and have been and now are the subject of hostile legislation. Grave charges are made; as for instance, that the roads have in numerous instances been fraudulently over-capitalized and excessively loaded with bonded debt;…that they charge unjust rates of freight in order to pay dividends on fictitious values of stock;…that they permit the accumulation of unreasonably large fortunes, and to use a favorite phrase of demagogic orators, constantly “tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.”</p>
Dublin Core
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Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Newspaper/Magazine
Title
A name given to the resource
The President of Union Pacific Praises the Railroads
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
This excerpt from Sidney Dillon's article "The West and the Railroads," from an 1891 issue of<em> The North American Review</em>, credits the railroad with the growth and positive transformation of the American West. The president of the Union Pacific Railway Company, Dillon dismisses criticisms of railroad companies and their fraudulent and unjust practices.
Creator
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Sidney Dillon
Source
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Sidney Dillon, "The West and the Railroads," <em>The North American Review</em>, April 1891, Volume 152, Issue 413.
Primary
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1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1891
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Expansion and Imperialism
railroads
-
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/annielilly_28d981b2f4.tif
1191e5f499947b9316b7a7c7df6758f2
Omeka Image File
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Width
1688
Height
2540
Music/Song
Dublin Core
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Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Music/Song
Title
A name given to the resource
"Verses on the Death of Miss Annie Lillie"
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
These verses memorialize Annie Lillie, a 16-year-old victim of the North Pennsylvania Railroad disaster, known as "The Great Train Wreck of 1856." The worst railroad accident in history up to that time, the disaster occurred when two trains collided head-on, killing approximately 60 people, many of them Sunday school children on a picnic excursion. "Verses on the Death of Miss Annie Lilly" exemplifies the nineteenth-century predilection for memorializing disasters and other significant events in song, and its lyrics are typical of the era's often maudlin and sentimental popular style.
Creator
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J.H. Johnson
Source
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"Verses on the death of Miss. Annie Lilly," lyrics (Philadelphia: J.H. Johnson, [n.d.]); from Library of Congress, <em>America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets</em>, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/amss:@field(DOCID+@lit(as107730)).
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1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1856 (Circa)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Antebellum America (1816-1860)
railroads
-
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/ageofprogress_a97c18370a.tif
9e8ffbc83d5daad90719b59f5b926bd2
Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Width
909
Height
1400
Music/Song
Lyricist
H. De Marsan
Dublin Core
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Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Music/Song
Title
A name given to the resource
"The Age of Progress"
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
The optimism and hope of "The Age of Progress" is expressed in these song lyrics published in 1860 by H. De Marsan. In typically grandiloquent Victorian style, the author extols recent technological advancements, including the Pacific Railroad and the Transatlantic Telegraph Cable, under construction at the time of the song's composition and completed in 1866. De Marsan also predicts the future benefits gleaned from the emerging American public school system; by 1870, all states would provide free elementary schooling.
Creator
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H. De Marsan
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
"The Age of Progress," lyrics, (New York: H. De Marsan, 1860); from Library of Congress, <em>America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Songbooks</em>, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/amss:@field(DOCID+@lit(sb10001b)).
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1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1860
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
railroads
-
Fiction/Poetry
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
<p>...Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,</p>
<p>Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating,</p>
<p>shuttling at thy sides,</p>
<p>Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the</p>
<p>distance,</p>
<p>Thy great protruding head-light fix'd in front,</p>
<p>Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate</p>
<p>purple,</p>
<p>The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack,</p>
<p>Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle</p>
<p>of thy wheels,</p>
<p>Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following,</p>
<p>Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering;</p>
<p>Type of the modern-emblem of motion and power-pulse of</p>
<p>the continent...</p>
Dublin Core
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Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Fiction/Poetry
Title
A name given to the resource
"To A Locomotive in Winter" (Excerpt)
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
Walt Whitman ardently depicted scenes and objects of modernity in the mid 19th century, seeing beauty in the power and invention of the machine age. This set him apart from a slightly earlier generation of artists, poets, and writers like Henry David Thoreau or William Wordsworth who decried the onset of industrialization and romanticized "the sublime" of unspoiled nature.
Creator
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Walt Whitman
Source
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Walt Whitman, "To a Locomotive in Winter," in <em>Leaves of Grass</em> (Philadelphia: REES WELSCH & Co., 1882.) Available in The Walt Whitman Archive, http://www.whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/index.html
Primary
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1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1881 - 1882
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
railroads
Walt Whitman
-
Diary/Letter
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
<p>Baltimore, July 11th, 1877 Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company</p>
<p> Office of the President.</p>
<p> To the Officers and Employees of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company:</p>
<p> At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, held this day, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted:</p>
<p> WHEREAS The depression in the general business interests of the country continues, this seriously affecting the usual earnings of railway companies, and rendering a further reduction of expenses necessary: therefore, bit</p>
<p> RESOLVED That a reduction of ten per cent, be made in the present compensation of officers and employees, of every grade, in the service of the Company, where the amount received exceeds one dollar per day, to take effect on and after July 16th, instant. </p>
<p> RESOLVED That the said reduction shall apply to the Main Stem and Branches east of the Ohio River, and to the Trans-Ohio Divisions, and that it shall embrace all roads leased or operated by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.</p>
<p> It is hoped and believed that all persons in the service of the Company will appreciate the necessity of, and concur cordially in, this action.</p>
<p> The Board postponed action until some time after its great competitors, the Pennsylvania, New York Central and Hudson River, and New York and Erie Companies, had made general and similar reductions in pay, with the hope that business would so improve that this necessity would be obviated. In this they have been disappointed.</p>
<p> The President, in announcing the decision of the Board, takes occasion to express the conviction and expectation that every officer and man in the service will cheerfully recognize the necessity of the reduction, and earnestly co-operate in every measure of judicious economy, necessary to aid in maintaining effectively the usefulness and success of the Company.</p>
<p> JOHN W. GARRETT</p>
<p> President. </p>
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Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Diary/Letter
Title
A name given to the resource
The President of the B&O Railroad Announces Wage Cuts
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
After the Panic of 1873 plunged the U.S. economy into a severe and lasting depression, corporations such as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company found themselves cutting costs, usually by reducing employees' wages, as this letter from the company's president dictates. In an era when most workers had yet to be organized into trade unions, they had little recourse when faced with such a prospect. Three days after this letter was circulated, Baltimore & Ohio workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia began what became known as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, culminating in violent clashes between workers, militias, and federal troops that left scores dead nationwide.
Creator
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John W. Garrett
Source
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"John W. Garrett to the Officers and Employees of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, July 11, 1877," B & O Railroad Minute Book, B & O Railroad Museum Archive, Baltimore, Maryland.
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1
Relation
A related resource
1915, 1472
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1877
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Labor Activism
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
railroads
-
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/kingdebs_edc6ea2a08.png
a9fc39bac43bb162fd93809882c3b6a1
Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Height
872
Width
981
Cartoon
Original Caption
King Debs
Dublin Core
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Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Cartoon
Title
A name given to the resource
An American Railway Union Strike Halts Cross-Country Trade
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
In 1894, the American Railway Union organized a national boycott and strike against all trains hauling Pullman Cars in response to a strike called by workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company. The strike spread across the nation. Strikers were met with the full force of company and government might. Thirty-four people were killed in two weeks of clashes between troops and workers across the nation. Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) was President of the ARU. This <em>Harper's Weekly</em> cartoon, like many other published pictures, portrayed Debs as a tyrant paralyzing the country's commerce. Debs later ran for president as a Socialist Party candidate in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920.
Creator
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W. A. Rogers
Source
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W.A. Rogers, "King Debs," <em>Harper's Weekly</em>, 14 July 1894.
Primary
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1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1894
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Labor Activism
Eugene V. Debs
Pullman Strike
railroads
-
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/lesliecartoon5-29-1869_46928a18e0.tif
882d9d61ee2caba40567694da11e51d9
Omeka Image File
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Height
589
Width
950
Cartoon
Dublin Core
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Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Cartoon
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper</em> Celebrates a National Reunion
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
This cartoon from the May 29, 1869 issue of <em>Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper</em> celebrates the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad linking the eastern and western halves of the United States, but its caption also hints at the hope for a deeper reconciliation. For a country just beginning to heal from the division of the Civil War, the railroad offered a symbol of renewed hopes for national unity.
Creator
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Unknown
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Frank Bellew, "Does Not Such a Meeting Make Amends?," wood engraving, <em>Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper</em>, 29 May 1869; from Central Pacific Railroad History Museum, http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Done!.htm.
Primary
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1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1869
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
railroads
-
Book (excerpt)
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
<p>Our foreman then ordered us to pack up and return to Yale. So, although already suffering pangs of hunger, we had to start on our way immediately. When we were passing China Bar on the way, many of the Chinese died from an epidemic. As there were no coffins to bury the dead, the bodies were stuffed into rock crevices or beneath the trees to await their arrival. Those whose burials could not wait were buried on the spot in boxes made of crude thin planks hastily fastened together. There were even some who were buried in the ground wrapped only in blankets or grass mats. New graves dotted the landscape and the sight sent chills up and down my spine. . . .</p>
<p>The work at Hope was very dangerous. On one occasion, there was a huge rock on the slope of the mountain that stood in the railroad’s path and must be removed by blasting before the tracks could go through. However, the sides of the rock were nearly perpendicular all around and there was no easy way to reach the top. The workers had to scramble to the top by use of timber scaffolding and by ropes fastened to the rock. After they reached the top they drilled holes in the rock to hold the dynamite charges. I was one of the workers who were assigned the task of drilling. Each morning I climbed the rock, and after I had finished the day’s work I was lowered again by rope. I remembered that in blasting this rock more than three hundred barrels of explosives were used. . . .</p>
<p>Another incident occurred about ten to fifteen miles west of Yale. Dynamite was used to blast a rock cave. Twenty charges were placed and ignited, but only eighteen blasts went off. However, the white foreman, thinking that all of the dynamite had gone off, ordered the Chinese workers to enter the cave to resume work. Just at that moment the remaining two charges suddenly exploded. Chinese bodies flew from the cave as if shot from a cannon. Blood and flesh were mixed in a horrible mess. On this occasion about ten or twenty workers were killed.</p>
Dublin Core
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Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Book
Title
A name given to the resource
A Chinese Immigrant Recalls the Dangers of Railroad Work
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
From the 1860s to the 1880s, thousands of Chinese immigrants found work in railroad construction in the West, notably on the Central Pacific line of the First Transcontinental Railroad, which was built primarily by Chinese. The extreme danger of this work is suggested by this excerpt from <em>Chinese American Voices</em>, in which a railroad worker recalls some of the life-threatening hazards Chinese workers faced, often under worse conditions and for lower pay than their white counterparts.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Wong Hau-hon
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Judy Yung, Gordon H. Chang, and Him Mark Lai, eds., <em>Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present </em>(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 40-41.
Primary
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1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1926
Subject
The topic of the resource
Work
Chinese Immigration
railroads
-
Book (excerpt)
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
<p>…Universally the evils of powerful combinations in industry and trade were traced to the conspiratorial action of the railroad masters. Moreover the scandals of stockjobbing and railroad-wrecking multiplied in the early ’80s. Tales of the quick fortunes seized by the men who possessed themselves of the common carriers, and of the purses they maintained for political corruption, aroused hot resentment in the breasts of honest middle-class Americans of almost every section…[it did not] escape the eye of politicians that farmers and tradespeople throughout the Southwest, where a great strike raged along Gould’s Missouri Pacific, aided the workers heartily in their struggle. In these years, whenever business flagged in the state legislatures or in the halls of Congress the statesmen rose from their seats and denounced the railway “robbers” in furious rodomontades. That railroads like the Union and Southern Pacific, which owed their inception to federal subsidies of cash as well as land, refused to repay the government mortgage added fuel to the flame of the statesmen’s rhetoric. Their proposals varied from divers plans of regulation to the construction of a People’s Railroad by the government, upon a narrow gauge, for the cheap transport of freight ; from a nation-wide People’s Canal System to legislative acts compelling the humane treatment of immigrant and native passengers—propositions which were always speedily voted down, thanks to the watchful lobbies maintained by the Collis Huntingtons, Goulds and Vanderbilts.</p>
<p>In short order the railroad presidents, the copper barons, the big dry-goods merchants and the steel masters became Senators, ruling in the highest councils of the national government, and sometimes scattered twenty-dollar gold pieces to newsboys of Washington. But they also became in even greater number lay leaders of churches, trustees of universities, partners or owners of newspapers or press services and figures of fashionable, cultured society. And through all these channels they labored to advance their policies and principles, sometimes directly, more often with skillful indirection.</p>
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Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Book
Title
A name given to the resource
Robber Barons Advance Railroad Policy
Language
A language of the resource
English
Publisher
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
A passage from Matthew Josephson's <em>The Robber Barons</em> outlines the often unsavory history of the railroad industry in America. As Josephson tells it, the history of the railroads traced a trajectory of corruption, scandal, popular outrage, largely failed attempts at legislation and regulation, and finally accommodation as the railroad barons became increasingly influential in positions as congressmen, church leaders, university trustees, and newspaper owners.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Matthew Josephson
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Matthew Josephson, <em>The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901</em> (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934).
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1934
railroads