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During the period between 1820 - 1860 a wave of immigrants from different countries captured America. For many of them emigrating to the U. S. was the bets solution to escape, as they thought, from poverty. And immigrants arrived as usual without resources, or capital to start their own business. Fortunately, America after the Civil war demands for muscle grunt; so, there was a work for them.
Due to immigrants, and first of all to Irish and Chinese, a lot of great canals and thousands of miles of rail were being laid. There were several pre-conditions which forced thousands of Chinese to emigrate to the USA. It was the result of China inner policy. In 1856 China suffered a defeat in the Wars with England and France. Foreign industry manufacturing crushed the local one. China economy needed extra sources of incomes.
The Chinese government increased taxation with the native people. The conditions of the Chinese people became worse and as a result of such kind of policy, they had to seek for better life. Comparing to the situation in China, the Irish people had the almost the same pre-conditions for moving to America. In the 1840 s there was the potato crisis, the potato crop failed and it was the main product for sale. Many Irish farmers had no means of subsistence.
The only way to escape starvation and persecution was to come to America. There they hoped to find work. And as it was said, there was work for them, because there was a need for them. The young state badly needed men to do the heavy work of building bridges, canals and railroads. Americans had a tend to look down on each group of new immigrants. The same happened with Chinese.
But The Irish people began the process of becoming Americans. The first permanent Chinese settlements were made in Los Angeles in 1856. It is known that the first Chinese immigrants were wealthy, successful merchants; and from the beginning there were only several men. First relationships between Americans and Chinese were not hostile. They were receipted by the public, government officials.
But later in the mid 1800 's American attitude became negative. There were several reasons for it. At the same time gold was discovered in California. And gold mining became a new occupation for many immigrants, who were to earn money. But because of racial discrimination Chinese were driven out of the gold mining areas. The Chinese labors had low wage and made competition to the job market.
Thats why Mexicans and Anglo's did not like them. And the attitude of American government worsen the situation. In California two discriminatory laws were passed in 1860. According to the laws there were forbidden to fish for Chinese fishermen without a special license; and the other one forbade Chinese children in America to attend public schools. Though there were 40 public high schools in the USA in 1860; and there was a tend that everyone in America should be more educated. After the Civil War the US became more industrial and urban, and needed more education.
So, it is clear that the law was an evidence of racial discrimination. Later in 1862 The United States Congress passed a "Could Traffic Law." The law prohibited immigration from China without special certification. Then a "police tax" law was passed, and Chinese had to pay a miner's tax. So, it is evident, that the life of Chinese immigrants was difficult; and their position changed for the worse during the building of Transcontinental railroad. The situation with Irish immigrations was quite different. They could access the life of the US and were engaged in many fields of work.
Philadelphia was the center for immigrants from Ireland and England. Though a trip to America was not cheap (almost a week's wage) nearly 20, 000 people landed there in the 1820 s. And during the period from 1860 Irish immigrants occupied Indiana; and establish there a distinctive ethnic group. Those first early immigrants created Irish history in the USA. Irish immigrants were unique among other immigrants.
They liked America, but never forgot their native traditions and customs. They keep their freedom, and twice they tried to invade Canada for Ireland's freedom. They came to America with their families (Chinese came without their relatives). Irish lived in more urban environments.
They worked in factories and studied at schools. New wave of immigrants from Ireland was in 1860. During that period more than 2. 6 million Irish came to the USA. Newcomers, as usual, settled in Irish communities.
They built churches and regularly attended them. Though most of Irish families assimilated into American culture, they kept their culture. They took an active part in politics, the church and the community. They were active in the development of social, military, religious and educational organizations. Like Chinese they were hard workers. Without them industrial development of America would have been slowed.
However, they were materialistically poor. As it was said Irish were hard workers and great builders. The first significant railroad was completed by Irish workers in Indiana in 1847. By 1860 great amount of canals were dug by Irish immigrants.
So, thats why they took part in construction of the Transcontinental railroad. But it should be pointed that their situation and living conditions were better because they were white and did not suffer greatly from racial discrimination. So, we can imagine the difference between Chinese and Irish workers while building Transcontinental railroad. But besides ethnic pre-conditions, there were political ones.
The problem was that the United States was divided into three distinct regions after the Civil War. They were the North, the South, and the West. They seemed to exist separately from each other and gained the prosperity and better life in significantly different ways. In the North industry and commerce were developed.
In the South there were a lot of plantations and farms. It was an agricultural part of the country. The Western part was a mixture of the North and the South, and was partly industrial and agricultural. But till 1860 the differences between the North and South was so great that the parts seemed to belong to different countries.
During that period Americas political life was divided as its economy. There were two major political parties: the Whigs and the Democrats. The Democrats was supported with the South and the Whigs with the North. (Later the last was changed with the new Republican Party. So, a victory in presidential elections meant a victory of one or other part of the country.
In 1800 s the main task of the government was to connect all the states together with the purpose to create a great state. The other aim was to decrease the time for travel. They were sure that helped to improve economic situation and different kinds of goods could be delivered to different parts of the country quickly. A lot of work should be done.
As it known from the history it took six months traveling from San Francisco to Missouri River. And with railroad would cut time to one week. Several attempts were made to made a road, but they failed, usually, because of lack of money. At last Funds for building railroads were approved by Congress. Government faced two main problems: money and workers. Two groups of workers were created: the Central Pacific and Union Pacific to build the railroads.
But white workers asked for high salary. And besides, the work was so dangerous and hard that white people were afraid of it. And finally, Transcontinental Railroad building began in 1863. The work was started by the Central Pacific group from Sacramento and then to the east to the Missouri River. But there were problems of money and labor. Only 50 miles of running tracks were made for almost two years.
The construction needed about 5, 000 workers for different kind work, permanent or constant. But because of some difficulties only 800 were engaged. The Central Pacific fell behind schedule because the Western route was very difficult. Then it was decided by the Government to use workers from other countries; and if it was not Chinese, railroad building would take longer time and cost more. At first there was not a great problem to hire workers. Most of them were Irishmen, who arrived in San Francisco.
But railroad work was very dangerous. Thats why the amount of workers diminished. Crocker was the first who suggested the way out. He proposed to use Chinese for the construction work. As it is known it was a period of recession in the mines at this time and former Chinese miners were seeking for work. They agreed on any work even with at low wages.
As a result of racial discrimination payment for Chinese work was very low because they were not white. Thats why Charles Crocker proposed to use Chinese. J. H. Strobridge was Irish construction superintendent in Central Pacific's construction, who was not agreed with Crocker. He resisted to hire Chinese laborers because he thought they did not fit to that work and did not want to be responsible for their work.
However, he changed his mind later. Strobridge hired fifty workers for the simple work of filling dump carts in 1865. Soon they were taught many other jobs. Chinese were adapted to the task, and it was decided to hire more workers. Besides, they were capable of really hard physical labor. Chinese immigrants seemed to fit perfectly to the work.
They could organize their work in a great way. Lets examine their community at that time. Chinese were united into gangs of about 12 to 20 persons in each. There was a cook and a "head man." A cook prepared their meals and had to boil water each night. When the workers came to their dwellings, they could take a hot bath. They always changed their clothes before the evening meal.
A head man was responsible for all provisions used by his gang. Every evening he received an account of credit from the foreman. Then he gave earned money to each worker. At the end of each month a head man collected definite sum of money for provision. The Chinese immigrants worked very hard from sunrise to sunset, six days per week; though their wage was very low.
They earned one dollar per day or twenty-six dollars per month while white workers had thirty-five, forty dollars. Even when wages were raised to thirty-five dollars per month only twenty dollars left after all expenses were deducted. There were a special Chinese diet which helped the workers to survive under bad living conditions. The diet included dried oysters, dried fish, dried fish, sweet rice, crackers, salted cabbage, Chinese sugar, dried fruits and vegetables, vermicelli, Chinese bacon, tea, rice, pork, and poultry etc. The diet was balanced better then meal of white laborers at the time. It helps Chinese workers to be physically strong.
And there was another secret. The Chinese always drank warm tea, while white workers drank cold water. That water usually was contaminated. Thats why white workers often were ill. Though there were with low cloth tents, but many Chinese preferred to live in dugouts or to burrow into the earth. The Chinese demonstrated their clean living, patience.
They had no fights and were not drunker's as Irishmen were. Stanford said that they were peaceable, economical and industrious. Because of it soon they became as efficient as the white laborers and even more. They showed their power to overcome difficulties. In 1865 they came up against Cape Horn, a rocky promontory. The work became very dangerous.
The workers had to climb down in baskets. As almost all Chinese they were usually small and skinny. Thats why their task was to go down in a basket and to put dynamite. After that, they had to get back up. The work should be done very quickly otherwise they might be blown into pieces. Step by step the Chinese gouged a road from the granite.
The other problem was snow blizzards. That winter was very severe. During them many Chinese were killed and frozen to death. But Crocker ordered the workers to start the tunneling. He and Strobridge were very rude and merciless towards the workers. And as the result when builders reached High Sierras they went on strike.
They asked to raise their wage to forty dollars per month (for equal work equal pay), and to shorten the working day to eight hours. But it was said to them that eight hours would be for white men and no mercy for them. Unfortunately, the strike had no support from the other workers. It should be mentioned, that at that time there was not allow to unite White unions and Chinese Americans had no support from them. The punishment for the strike was rough: the masters did not gave the Chinese workers enough meal and water to drink. It was a lesson for builders: there was no any strike any more.
Unfortunately, the great and hard work of Chinese people was not appreciated at its true value. Though they were not only good workers but also creative. They used special techniques and made metal on the road. They had used it in China.
In December 1866 Crocker's army reached Cisco. It was on the western slope. And only in 1868 the army of the workers could break through the Sierra barrier. Frankly speaking, it was a road made on humans bones. Human losses could be hardly counted.
But it goes without saying that the figure was high. Many people died because of dangerous work, many laborers were killed by snow. But Chinese misfortune followed them after the finishing of the construction in 1870. Almost nobody wanted to paid tribute to their role in the process. B. Crocker was one of the very few who recognized Chinese workers great contribution in building of Transcontinental rail road.
Croker said in his speech that they should thank to poor, despised class of laborers called the Chinese. He pointed their fidelity and industry. However those were only words. Real facts say that about 1, 500 Chinese builder died building the railroads. Chinese immigrants had a tradition to send bones, of people who died, back to the villages they had come from in China. In 1870 it was reported about 20, 000 pounds of bones of thousands of Chinese immigrants.
When the construction was finished anti-Chinese movement began. Labor unions forced Chinese Americans to leave their working places. They said that the cheap labor of Chinese Americans caused unemployment and an economic depression. The organizations of the building were sure that the transcontinental railroad would bring prosperity to the country. But instead, it led to an economic depression. It happened because cheap manufactured goods from the East captured the market and made some industries non-competitive.
And the situation changed from the worse when a great number of unemployed European immigrants moved to other states. Their cheap and efficient labor was low paid. After 1870 it was forbidden to hire immigrants, spatially Chinese. There left only several enterprises which hired them.
Having known all the facts, we can come to conclusion that the life of Irish and Chinese immigrants differed. From the very beginning Irishmen were treated as White people. They were more active in various spheres of life. In spite of difficulties and privations during the construction of the rail road, They were in more beneficial conditions than Chinamen. Their work was well paid and they were not treated as second-quality workers.
Thats why Irishmen were more active in different political movement and were more independent and free. Chinese people, in their turn, suffered greatly from being treated as colored. Though their communities were always calm and peaceful, they had no opportunity to express their feelings and to be active participants of life. Their belief and cultural traditions had no chance to exist. Bibliography: A History of Chinese Americans in California.
Oxford University Press. New York, 1940. A History of Chinese in California. The Chinese Historical Society of America. San Francisco, 1969 web web web.
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Research essay sample on Part Of The Country Transcontinental Railroad
