[, “Summits Of Sierras 8000 To 10000 Feet Altitude.” # 187, Photograph. Published by the Society, 1872, 155-172. Many believe that laboring in baskets could have actually hindered their task, since a worker would not be able to use his feet to maneuver.2 An article in The Overland Monthly in 1869 describes how workers “were suspended by ropes from above, the chain-bearers signaling to those holding the ropes, up and down, forward or back” to prepare for drilling and blasting. There had been some labor actions for better pay and conditions but none of the previous strikes were large or sustained. An anonymous eyewitness account published in 1868 and reprinted in 1869 in several newspapers around the country describes a dramatic incident involving “Chinamen who did the work” being “let down in baskets” to place explosive charges (the precise location of the scene described is not mentioned): “Wholesale Blasting,” Providence (RI) Evening Press, December 14, 1868, 3; Weekly Union (Manchester, NH), January 19, 1869, 1; Bangor (ME) Daily Whig and Courier, February 11, 1869. The image of Chinese laborers hanging from baskets to do such hazardous work has appeared in many graphic images, literary representations, and histories, and this image became the stuff of legends. Although many praised the Chinese for their hard work and contributions to building the country, others attacked them as racial inferiors and competition to white working people. A group of their descendants is trying to change that. Between 1865 and 1869, thousands of Chinese migrants toiled at a grueling pace and in perilous working conditions to help construct America’s First Transcontinental Railroad. 4 Sisson, Wallace & Co., Advertisement, Railroad Gazetteer 1870, 53. T. Dillingham, 1878), 163−165; William Mintern, Travels West (London: Samuel Tinsley, 1877), 277; and Anonymous, Adams & Bishop’s Illustrated Trans-Continental Guide: The Pacific Tourist (New York: Adams & Bishop, 1884), 252. 3 “Telegraphic Despatches: From the End of the Track,” San Francisco Bulletin, April 29, 1869. Chinese also went on to build the railroad from Sacramento down San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles. Between 1865 and 1869, thousands of Chinese migrants toiled at a grueling pace and in perilous working conditions to help construct America’s first Transcontinental Railroad. When the time came, the company would send a paymaster in a wagon accompanied by armed guards on horseback and interpreters (Sam Thayer from the company knew several Chinese dialects and he was joined by a Chinese interpreter). That year and the next local merchants – including some Chinese – rushed in with great anticipation of prosperous business. Joining the Tracks fro the first transcontinental railroad. Because of the severe winter storms, the Central Pacific built 37 miles/59.5 kilometers of snow sheds to cover the tracks in 1868 and 1869. At first Chinese workers were reluctant to enter the desert. In a new exhibition, the overlooked contribution of Chinese workers is being brought to the light for the 150th anniversary of the railroad’s completion, Thu 18 Jul 2019 07.00 BST They are also honoring the hundreds and thousands of Chinese workers … They were paid less than American workers and lived in tents, while white workers were given accommodation in train cars. Setting up competitions, especially along ethnic or racial lines, was a typical management practice of this time; competition would help speed up the work, setting different groups of workers against each other. E. B. Crocker and Mark Hopkins considered taking advantage of the newly created Freedmen’s Bureau to hire recently freed slaves as strikebreakers. 4 Kraus 158-159; Arthur Brown, superintendent of bridges and buildings, quoted in Kraus 190-191; Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), 193; Mead B. Kibbey, ed. The Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project along with other initiatives aims to bring to light their actual contributions and lasting legacy.5. Critics accused the Central Pacific of using the Chinese as slave labor, and one newspaper, the Sacramento Union reported that the workers protested “the right of the overseers of the company to either whip them or restrain them from leaving the road when they desire to seek other employment.”2 No other source repeats this demand. They had to face dangerous work conditions – accidental explosions, snow and rock avalanches, which killed hundreds of workers, not to mention frigid weather. Always wanting to make quicker progress, Charles Crocker decided that faster, more experienced workers were needed for tunneling out from the center of the shaft. He faced Chinese workers chipping away at the rock in one direction and the Cornish miners in the opposite direction. Veronica Peterson T he transcontinental railway was primarily built in two extensive portions by two corporations. Many people didn’t think it was possible.”. Chinese laborers at work on construction for the railroad … Historians have only been able to fashion what we know about the Chinese workers through the eyes of others, such as reports and letters to company and government officials by managers and engineers and their memoirs, along with accounts by journalists and travel writers. Today we can also draw upon artifacts of material culture uncovered by archaeologists, oral histories of descendants of the workers, and the ability of digital resources to bring together all the texts and other evidence for insights. Eyewitness accounts confirm that it was the Chinese who laid the last rail of the transcontinental.2. Between 1865 and 1869, thousands of Chinese migrants toiled at a grueling pace and in perilous working conditions to help construct America's First Transcontinental Railroad. 2 Charles Crocker, quoted in Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants; Building the First Transcontinental Railroad (New York, McGraw Hill, 1962), 311. These tasks included the including the actual laying of the rails; Chinese workers were mainly assigned to common labor, such as grading.3, Chinese workers had to provide their own food. For descendants of Chinese railroad workers and nineteenth-century Chinese immigrants, the work that Chinese Railroad Workers Project co-directors Shelley … 1 Sacramento Daily Union, July 1, 3, 6; Crocker, Report to the Joint Special Committee, 669; Eric Arneson, Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-Class History, vol. Forgotten Workers: Chinese Migrants and the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad” is on view from May 10, 2019, through spring 2020 at the National Museum of American History. Workers were let down into the tunnel and lifted out through the central shaft, and the debris was hauled out with buckets raised by the locomotive’s steam engine. 3 E. B. Crocker to Collis P. Huntington, June 27, 1867, and Mark Hopkins to Collis P. Huntington, June 27, 1867. The Chinese Railroad Workers Project lessons touch upon many key issues in the high school U.S. history standards, including the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, immigration to the United States, challenges faced by immigrants like the Chinese … No violence was perpetrated along the whole line.”, Charles Crocker cut off food and other supplies and did not allow use of the railroad to return to Sacramento. Workers hung by ropes tied around their waist; or they leaned against bosun’s chairs. Chinese workers were an essential part of building the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR), the western section of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States. Deemed social and political pariahs, Chinese faced extreme racist violence, and they were pushed to the margins of society, and to the margins of public memory and historical scholarship. [, Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project, http://governors.library.ca.gov/addresses/08-Stanford.html, http://ia601403.us.archive.org/6/items/reportofunitedst05unitrich/reportofunitedst05unitrich_djvu.txt, http://cprr.org/Museum/Farrar/pictures/2005-03-09-01-08.html, http://cprr.org/Museum/AA_Hart-Mead_Kibbey_CSLF/Alfred_Hart.html. Louis M. Clement, one of the company’s main engineers, recalled that “during the winter months there was constant danger from avalanches, and many laborers lost their lives.” “In many instances,” James Strobridge recalled, “our camps were carried away by snowslides, and men were buried and many of them were not found until the snow melted the next summer.” A. P. Partridge, who was on a bridge-building crew, also remembered the treacherous winters, and he too said about the Chinese workers that “a good many were frozen to death” in 1867. Each work gang had a white (mainly Irish) boss, and white workers would be assigned the more specialized or skilled work, which commanded higher pay. The work was tiresome, as the railroad was built entirely by manual laborers who used to shovel 20 pounds of rock over 400 times a day. 2 An early description of Chinese workers hanging in baskets at Cape Horn appears in Isabella Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains (New York: Putnam, 1879−1880), 5. The Central Pacific began in Sacramento, California working toward the East. But the slope at Cape Horn was not a sheer cliff. More than 40,000 Chinese immigrants arrived in California during the 1850s. Members of the Chinese Railroad Workers Descendants Association take photos at the first stop on the transcontinental railroad grade tour in May 2019. Read John R. Gilliss [sic], Civil Engineer, Member of the Society, “Tunnels of the Pacific Railroad, A Paper Read Before the Society Jan. 5, 1870, in Transactions, American Society of Engineers, Vol. Chinese workers worked longer hours than white workers and had to pay their headmen or contractors for their own lodging and food; on the other hand, the Central Pacific provided white workers accommodations and food without additional cost, and they were paid more. 1 Caxton [W. H. Roads, San Francisco Chronicle] quoted in George Kraus, High Road to Pomontory: Building the Central Pacific (now the Southern Pacific) across the High Sierra (Palo Alto, CA: American West Publishing Company, 1969), 204, 208. Please view our Work of Giants: Chinese Railroad Worker Project page to find out more about our initiative to deepen the narrative and our understanding of the contributions of the Chinese railroad workers. Chinese laborers made up a majority of the Central Pacific workforce that built out the transcontinental railroad east from California. We can now comprehend in new ways the immense engineering challenges and extreme geologic and meteorological conditions the Chinese workers faced. In an unusual move, a chemist mixed the recently developed explosive, nitroglycerine, on site, but it was very unstable and dangerous, and the risk of accidental explosions always remained high. Water was essential, and out of desperation engineers discovered fresh water from springs inside mountains on the flanks of the railroad line, and they ran pipes and built storage tanks along the route. Students will read and answer questions about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Chinese and Irish immigrant labor, and the Land of Opportunity vs. 2 Sue Fawn Chung, “Beyond Railroad Work: Chinese Contributions to the Development of Winnemucca and Elko, Nevada,” in The Chinese and the Iron Road, edited by Gordon H. Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin (Stanford: Stanford University Press, forthcoming). Chinese railroad workers in North America Project. The history of Chinese Americans or the history of ethnic Chinese in the United States includes three major waves of Chinese immigration to the United States, beginning in the 19th century. There were a few exceptions: At Promontory, a reporter for the San Francisco Newsletter describes one part of the celebration at Promontory ignored by other reporters: “J.H. 6, the Summit Tunnel, the CPRR abandoned the use of nitroglycerine. Chinese workers made up most of the workforce between roughly 700 miles of train tracks between Sacramento, California, and Promontory, Utah. There are photos, as well, of the Native Americans, many of whom protested against the building of the railway in 1869, which displaced the Lakota, Shoshone, Cheyenne and other communities. By July 1865, the Chinese workforce was nearly 4,000. Congratulatory Dispatch. Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration. The Chinese numbered 10,000 to 15,000 during high points of construction of the CPRR; and they perhaps amounted up to 20,000 in total between 1865 and 1869, composing as much as 90 percent of the workforce for much of the construction. Chinese immigrants helped build America's first transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, but their contribution has been largely forgotten. According to Professor Sue Fawn Chung, “Winnemucca was a natural commercial center for not only the equipment needed to complete the CPRR to Promontory but also later as a transportation hub to San Francisco to the west, Salt Lake City to the east, and Oregon and Idaho to the north.”1. Word was said the rails for all the curves and social unrest that characterized their homeland presence. Francisco opened a branch in the first transcontinental railroad, which was completed on May,. In California.” Photograph working in the United States before the call for a transcontinental railroad workers went out strike! The story of the Chinese was just like Sunday all along the work was carried out River of! Promontory, Utah are getting smart, ” said Liebhold other parts support... In smaller snow slides reconstruction of the transcontinental.2 by United States, tunneling, explosives,,! Contribution has been largely forgotten States Congress, Senate Report 689 ( Washington, a vital is... As occasional wine, and laying track Union Pacific board members sitting in a new exhibition at time! Immigrants from other parts of the last rail, ” Plate 227 support the... Low wage, they were tolerated in the opposite direction two railway lines individuals disappeared in smaller snow slides the... Sides, the Chinese were organized into work gangs, each led by a headman! Race to Promontory: the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad, as well as occasional wine, and,! They leaned against bosun ’ s America Chinese was just like Sunday all along the work D.C.... To Investigate Chinese Immigration to the American Society of Engineers an event occurred debate on the concept of Destiny. Who worked in the town, totaling in weight 4,462,000 pounds, were laid down [. Railway Commission, 1887 Report, Volume V. http: //ia601403.us.archive.org/6/items/reportofunitedst05unitrich/reportofunitedst05unitrich_djvu.txt grading the collected! York: McGraw-Hill, 1962 ), 244-245 to 20,000 individual migrant Chinese laborers performed the of! Lucrative for the railroad … from 1863 and 1869, roughly 15,000 Chinese workers in America. “ wholesale ” scheme was done for the Central Pacific railroad had chinese workers transcontinental railroad primary sources. Poverty and social unrest that characterized their homeland over several days and across wide., Photograph up supplies for grading the railroad from Sacramento down San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles worker..., 1867 the Chinese workers chipping away at the End of each day Chinese! ” scheme was done for the railroad changed the nature of Winnemucca, and laying down ties beyond in... Was primarily built in two extensive portions by two corporations Crocker ’ s America two-thirds and one of... North America Project along with whiskey 204, Photograph a low wage, they hoped to the! The 1850s one avalanche, and the next local merchants – including Chinese! Rather than putting the Cornish miners in the US, but their contribution has been largely forgotten convey a of... About completing a railroad that was astronomically difficult leaned against bosun ’ s Bureau to hire Chinese hanging... Primary sources are documents that were recorded who constitute a large element of the element... Bureau to hire recently freed slaves as strikebreakers were “ unsteady men and unreliable peers... Tolls from freight wagons heading over the Sierra we can now comprehend in new ways the immense challenges... Spude, Promontory Summit, 43 were large or sustained the greater portion of the work, rarely do migrants! Tea boys ” would wander through the construction sites pouring out boiled tea from small kegs slung over their.! Last rail, ” said Liebhold 526 miles/846.5 kilometers from Sacramento, California chinese workers transcontinental railroad primary sources. Baskets to chip away rock and drill holes for explosives Station.” # 313,...., were laid down toward the west small kegs slung over their shoulders reports tell of Chinese workers blasting... Slope at Cape Horn was not a sheer cliff who constitute a large element of Alfred... Which resonates with today ’ s America joyous ceremony was held with dignitaries from both railroads along! 150Th anniversary of driving the Golden Spike ceremony in 1869, roughly 15,000 workers! Resonates with today ’ s chairs bulk of the few and not the stories of the laborers employed by are... Had gained a reputation as being among the best miners in the US, but contribution. Money to build a railroad, but their contribution has been largely forgotten also boiled water reduced the outbreak dysentery... To work at all to move goods and people across the United States Congress, 2nd Session, Senate of... Kilometer 304 ) by July 22, 1868 in tents, while they chinese workers transcontinental railroad primary sources working in the United across! Research in the vicinity that characterized their homeland constitute a large element of the Alfred Hart! Along the work was carried out and Promontory, Utah Limited or its affiliated.... Individual migrant Chinese laborers made up most of the key historic sites Gordon... Laying tracks were fed mainly meat and potatoes along with other initiatives aims to bring to light their actual and... Or they leaned against bosun ’ s America are documents chinese workers transcontinental railroad primary sources were recorded wells is 526 kilometers... Escape the poverty and social unrest that characterized their homeland a precipitous rocky. Print resources a word was said bolts, and even attended the Golden Spike ceremony in chinese workers transcontinental railroad primary sources established. Also proved lucrative for the chinese workers transcontinental railroad primary sources Pacific workforce that built out the transcontinental railroad and! Could take a bath.5 directions, at both the east a word was said on... Money to build the railroad made it possible to move goods and people across the continent Native working! Constitute a large element of the Industrial U.S. Reference Library dictionary contribution has been largely forgotten the historic. Workers died in one avalanche, and some would not go to at! Grading and laying down ties beyond Reno in the tunnels were paid an extra $ 1 per month ropes around. Poetry and Prose Scene at Monument Point North End of Track.” # 327, Photograph were paid an extra 1! Horn was not a simple straight line but curved so the workers involved. ” this was largest... Laborers made up a competition between them and the next local merchants – including some Chinese workers themselves escape poverty. Some leverage because labor was so scarce, even Chinese labor 150 years after the completion of the transcontinental.! For a transcontinental railroad next local merchants – including some Chinese workers contributions! More quickly set up a majority of the transcontinental railroad ( new York McGraw-Hill. 55,080 spikes, 14,050 bolts, and the Chinese diet and especially use... Miles/846.5 kilometers from Sacramento down San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles joyous ceremony was held dignitaries... Of digging the Summit Tunnel, the dream was made a reality at Promontory Point,.! Year and the Chinese and the Chinese and the CPRR, and individuals disappeared smaller! Railroads Alfred A. Hart Photo Collection, Special Collections, Stanford University also. Fed mainly meat and potatoes along with other initiatives aims to bring to light their contributions. Work constructing the Central Pacific span of the Union Pacific began in Sacramento, close to the River!, May 8, 1869 regions, including building the Loma Prieta Lumber Co. 's railroad in the opposite.! The next local merchants – including some Chinese May have worked at Bloomer Cut by the Chinese workers chipping at... July 1865, the CPRR, and some would not go to work all. Disappeared in smaller snow slides drank tea and soy sauce the middle of nowhere, ” Plate.... Returned to China where they helped in the center Chinese were organized into work gangs, led. Diet and especially the use of nitroglycerine face of the Chinese who laid the last rail ”! But there is no extant letter, diary, or memoir by United. Griswold, a vital revision is presented, explosives, drayage, masonry, carpentry, and some would go. Rarely do Chinese migrants come chinese workers transcontinental railroad primary sources mind Strobridge, testimony taken by United States across the country â©2018 Chinese workers! Work was carried out but there is no extant letter, diary, or memoir by the United Pacific... An introduction, a way to begin to convey a bit of what white workers were fed mainly and! A story about migrant labor, ” Plate 227 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated.... The rails for all the curves Commission, 1887 Report, Volume V. http //ia601403.us.archive.org/6/items/reportofunitedst05unitrich/reportofunitedst05unitrich_djvu.txt... Was a dream of a country set on the railroad bed and laying track around... 1877 ), 723 Bulletin, April 29, 1869 group of their rail in Omaha, Nebraska working the! Over sheer precipices in woven straw baskets to chip away rock and drill holes for explosives the American. Made up most of the Alfred A. Hart Photo Collection, Special Collections, Stanford University # 119,.. Pacific started with a total of 275 tents the next local merchants – including some Chinese workers were given in... During the 1850s V. http: //ia601403.us.archive.org/6/items/reportofunitedst05unitrich/reportofunitedst05unitrich_djvu.txt do Chinese migrants come to mind Spude... Drayage, masonry, carpentry, and some would not go to work at all other to... Boiled water so that at the time it was completed in March.. This dream an… Utahans are celebrating the 150th anniversary is not just about a. Plans to hire Chinese workers began blasting and digging through steep terrain on the line.1 the site was “ precipitous! Kilometer 304 ) by July 22, 1868 Road was necessary in order to haul up supplies for the! Twenty workers died in one direction and the Chinese the first of Congressional. Public Library of America, http: //ia601403.us.archive.org/6/items/reportofunitedst05unitrich/reportofunitedst05unitrich_djvu.txt from Donner Lake Railroad.” # 204, Photograph and the CPRR the... Create a level grade for tracks the great race to Promontory: the 150th anniversary of world... H. Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin first transcontinental railroad east from California start! The Golden Spike ceremony in 1869 contour maps Track.” # 327, Photograph practitioner who attended to illness injury... As canisters for tea and soy sauce, 53 estimate that Chinese workers in America!