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c. 1869-1914Reputable source · 3 sourcesWell documented

Railroads, Industry, and Mass Immigration

A continent joined by rail and a nation remade by twelve million new arrivals

On the timeline · around c. 1869-1914 · Gilded Age and IndustrializationCivil War and ReconstructionGilded Age and IndustrializationRailroads, Industry, and Mass Immigration188018851890189519001905

Quick facts

Transcontinental railroad completed
May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah
Chinese workers on the Central Pacific
Over 11,000
Immigrants through Ellis Island
Over 12 million, 1892-1924
Busiest year
1907

What happened

In the decades after the Civil War the United States industrialized at extraordinary speed. The first transcontinental railroad opened to traffic on May 10, 1869, when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines met at Promontory Summit, Utah, cutting coast-to-coast travel from months to days. The Central Pacific had recruited over 11,000 workers from China to build its western half. Steel, oil, and manufacturing fortunes grew alongside the rail network, and the labor came in large part from immigrants. From 1892 to 1924, Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the country's largest and most active immigration station, processing over 12 million immigrants, with 1907 its single busiest year. Most came from southern and eastern Europe, transforming American cities.

Why it matters

This is the era when the United States became an industrial power and a nation of immigrants on a mass scale. The railroads knit the continent into a single market and accelerated the settlement that displaced remaining Native nations, while the waves of new arrivals through Ellis Island reshaped the country's population, cities, and politics. The wealth and inequality of what Mark Twain called the Gilded Age set the stage for the reform movements that followed.

How we know

The transcontinental railroad's completion is documented in the records of the two railroad companies and the Golden Spike ceremony, and Ellis Island's immigration figures come from the federal immigration station's own processing records preserved by the National Park Service.

Sources

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