Positive Impacts
Q: This industry grew rapidly because it supplied materials for railroads, helping people like Andrew Carnegie become wealthy.
A: What is the steel industry?
Q: Rebates and low prices from big companies caused many of these to go out of business.
A: What are small railroad or shipping companies?
Q: Railroad companies used these partial refunds to attract customers.
A: What are rebates?
Q: This 1862 act encouraged settlement by offering 160 acres of free land to settlers.
A: What is the Homestead Act?
Q: These two immigrant groups were the primary laborers building the Transcontinental Railroad.
A: Who are the Chinese and Irish?
Q: The railroad connected the country by making the shipment of goods faster and opening new ________ for businesses.
A: What are markets?
Q: This animal, crucial to Native Americans on the Plains, was nearly wiped out because of railroad expansion.
A: What is the bison?
Q: Land set aside by the government for Native Americans is known as a ____________.
A: What is a reservation?
Q: This 1887 law tried to force Native Americans to assimilate by dividing tribal lands into individual plots.
A: What is the Dawes Act?
Q: This group relied heavily on bison and suffered when the railroad disrupted their hunting grounds.
A: Who are the Plains Native American tribes?
Q: This city became a major industrial hub because railroads allowed goods to move east and west through it.
A: What is Chicago?
Q: Coal-burning trains harmed the environment by creating this type of pollution.
A: What is air pollution (smoke)?
Q: African American men worked in luxury sleeping cars in this railroad job.
A: What are Pullman porters?
Q: This act in 1830 forced Native Americans off their homeland, leading to the Trail of Tears.
A: What is the Indian Removal Act?
Q: These workers had a respectable but demanding job in sleeping cars, serving passengers across the country.
A: Who were the Pullman porters (African American workers)?
Q: One major transportation improvement: the travel time from New York to San Francisco dropped from six months to about ____________.
A: What is one week?
Q: Railroad expansion forced many Native Americans off their land and onto these.
A: What are reservations?
Q: Government support (usually land grants) given to railroad companies is known as ____________.
A: What are subsidies?
Q: The Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 created these regions where Native Americans were forced to live.
A: What are reservations?
Q: This wealthy businessman controlled a huge portion of the railroad industry.
A: Who is Cornelius Vanderbilt?
Q: The government supported economic growth by giving railroad companies these land-based financial supports.
A: What are subsidies/land grants?
Q: Mexican Americans lost their land to white settlers even though this treaty promised to protect their rights.
A: What is the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
Q: The word used to describe the land that settlers gained by moving west under the Homestead Act.
A: What is a homestead or free land?
Q: The Homestead Act, Dawes Act, and subsidies all share this common purpose related to western growth.
A: What is encouraging westward expansion?
Q: These U.S. citizens in the Southwest lost their land to white settlers despite promises made after the Mexican-American War.
A: Who are Mexican Americans / Californios?