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Expansion of the United States
The United States gains the states of Texas, California, and Oregon, which increased the population. Many wanted to travel west, especially to California because it was famous by gold. -
Lincoln Finances the Railroad
Lincoln chose to finance the railroad to have Central Pacific meet Union Pacific in the middle. -
Open Ceremony
A ceremony held to start building the railway -
Central Pacific Advertisements
The Central Pacific needed five thousand workers. The Central Pacific sent advertisements offering high wages to white man willing to work. Chinese immigrants provided a cheap, plentiful, and easily exploitable labor. -
Discrimination Against the Chinese
White men did not wanted to work with Chinese but the Central Pacific hired fifthy Chinese anyway. Chinese would be working as former miners, laundary men, domestic servents, and market gardeners. White men thought the Chinese were too delicate for this job. The Chinese were excellent workers, very disciplined and fast learners which made them better workers than white man. -
Speeding Up the Process
Workers were forced to work in shifts through all day and night to speed up the process. -
Homeric Winter
Homeric Winter hit which slowed them down a lot. -
Cornish Miners
The Cornish miners walked off the job because they did not want to work with Chinese. -
Nitroglycerin
Central Pacific Railroad began using nitroglycerin to go through the solid rock, since they were going slow. They had men dangle over gorges to put in dynamite where many unpredictably died. Many white men became sick. -
Chinese Rebelled
Chinese rebelled and went on strike for a week. The Central Pacific Railroad put blacks to work for the Chinese and put a halt to paying and giving food to the Chinese. The Chinese showed that they were capable to fight back when they did not like something. -
Competition
The Central Pacific and Union Pacific began to compete to see who could lay track faster. -
Completion
The railroads were joined together.
