19 th 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 New England2,5073,6604,4945,9826,831 Middle States3,2026,70510,96415,87221,536 Southern States2,0368,83811,19214,77829,209 Western States and Territories1,27611,40024,58752,58962,394 Pacific States and Territories231,6774,0809,804 Totals9,02130,62652,91493,301129,774

Squire Whipple ( ) 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 ( ) – the union of civil engineering knowledge with economics “The Justifiable Expenditure for Improving the Alignment of Railroads,” The Economic Theory of Railway Location (1877)