19th Century Railroads

The Emergence of “Modern” America

Henry Adams, The Dynamo and the Virgin (1872)

• “the railroad necessitated the involvement of capital, banks, mines, furnaces, shops, powerhouses, technical knowledge, mechanical population, together wit ha steady remodeling of social and political habits, ideas, and institutions to fit the new scale and the new conditions.”

Railroads led to:

• Unions• Federal Regulation • The Managerial Revolution• New York City Capital Market• New York Stock Exchange• The Formation of Large Construction

Companies• The Rise of American Engineering Education

Pioneer Railroads

• George Stephenson and his “Rocket”

• Baltimore and Ohio

• Charlestown and Hamburg

• Boston and Albany

Post Civil War Innovations Included:

• Larger and More Powerful Locomotives

• Specialized Freight Cars

• Pullman Passenger Cars

• Westinghouse Air Brakes

• Steel Rails and Uniform Gauge

Railroad mileage increase by groups of states

1850 1860 1870 1880 1890

New England 2,507 3,660 4,494 5,982 6,831

Middle States 3,202 6,705 10,964 15,872 21,536

Southern States 2,036 8,838 11,192 14,778 29,209

Western States and Territories 1,276 11,400 24,587 52,589 62,394

Pacific States and Territories 23 1,677 4,080 9,804

Totals 9,021 30,626 52,914 93,301 129,774

Squire Whipple (1804-88)

• An Elementary and Practical Treatise on Bridgebuilding (New York: Van Nostrand, 1872).

• A Work on Bridge Building: Consisting of Two Essays, the One Elementary and General, the Other Giving Original Plans and Practical Details for Iron and Wooden Bridges (Utica, N.Y.: H. H. Curtiss, 1847).

W.J.M. Rankine

• Manual of Applied Mechanics (1858)

• Manual of Civil Engineering, 1861

Arthur Mellon Wellington (1847-1895) – the union of civil engineering knowledge with economics

• “The Justifiable Expenditure for Improving the Alignment of Railroads,” 1874.

• The Economic Theory of Railway Location (1877)