Immigrant Life in the 19th Century Western Frontier

Immigrant Workers on the TCRR In the West, The Central Pacific RR hired Chinese immigrants to lay track from California to Utah. In the East, the Union Pacific RR hired Irish immigrants to lay track from the Eastern Railroads out to Utah. Why would the respective sides of the country hire immigrants from these countries? Why wouldn’t they hire Americans for this job?

Chinese Immigrants Look at this quote from Congressman John Doolittle about the contributions of Chinese workers: “The first Chinese were hired in 1865 [sic] at approximately $28 per month to do the very dangerous work of blasting and laying ties over the treacherous terrain of the high Sierras. They lived in simply dwellings and cooked their own meals, often consisting of fish, dried oysters and fruit, mushrooms and seaweed.” Considering the work they did for the US, are they treated with the respect of a group that has just helped this country expand?

Life on the Job The Chinese labored from sunrise to sunset six days a week, in twelve-hour shifts. Only on Sundays did they have time to rest, mend their clothes, talk, smoke, and, of course, gamble. The tedium of their lives was aggravated by the systematized abuse and contempt heaped on them by the railroad executives. The Chinese worked longer and harder than whites, but received less pay: because the Chinese had to pay for their own board, their wages were two-thirds those of white workers and a fourth those of the white foremen. (Even the allocation for feed for horses-fifty dollars a month for each-was twenty dollars more than the average Chinese worker earned.) Worst of all, they endured whippings from their overseers, who treated them like slaves.

Overall Treatment On average, for each two miles of track laid, three Chinese laborers were killed by accidents. Eventually more than one thousand Chinese railroad workers died, and twenty thousand pounds of bones were shipped back to China.* Without Chinese labor and know-how, the railroad would not have been completed. Nonetheless, the Central Pacific Railroad cheated the Chinese railway workers of everything they could. They tried to write the Chinese out of history altogether. The Chinese workers were not only excluded from the ceremonies , but from the famous photograph of white American laborers celebrating as the last spike, the golden spike, was driven into the ground. Of more immediate concern, the Central Pacific immediately laid off most of the Chinese workers, refusing to give them even their promised return passage to California.

Irish Workers Irish workers were different They knew of how to strike for better treatment and better pay. They were seen as much closer to being “white” than were the Chinese, and thus much more likely to hold positions of power. The Irish social standing was improved because of the Chinese being the lowest on the pyramid.

Treatment of the Irish Despite being better paid than Chinese, the Irish were still underpaid and underappreciated. They worked closely with American whites, and often had to endure racial jokes and criticism. Irish workers never outranked white workers and given fractions of the pay of whites for the same jobs.