Foreigners building railroads in the US.

[JanOlov]

Hi folks!

Having a relative (Andrew Nordstrom) who moved to Vancouver in British Columbia in 1924.
As far as I know he first started out in the logging business and later moved on to build railroads.
Was it a lot of emmigrants that took part in building the railroads in the US?
What was the living and working life like?
Was some of them more suitable to do certain constructionwork etc?
James J Hill is rumoured to have once said "Give me Swedes, Vodka and Snuff and I'll build a railroad to hell" is that true?
What other nationalities was common?
Did they live together or seperately?
Could you find them all over the US or was more up in the North?
What did the American crews think about them, did they have any more or less problems with some or did they get along just fine with all the of them?

Being a Swede myself, I'm really curios about this and would like to know as much as possible, is there any book s on the subject?


(Hope my spelling isn't too bad)

[AltonFan]

Immigrant labor was a key factor in the great age of US railroad construction. Keep in mind, from the Civil War (1860-1865) until World War I (1914-1918, US entered in 1917), the rapidly developing US needed vast numbers of laborers to build and settle the continent. This was also the great age of European immigration.

Irish and Chinese laborers built the first transcontinental railroad. Some railroads in the southern states also used convict labor ("chain gangs") in railroad construction.

As for James Hill, he recruited Scandanavians, Swedes and Norwegians, to not only build his railroad, but also to settle the lands along it, so as to provide a customer base for his enterprise. Hence in the areas served by the Hill lines (from Wisconsin to the Pacific Northwest), many of the people are of Swedish or Norwegian ancestry. (Hill himself was a Canadian.)

The late Gordon Odegard (an erstwhile associate editor at Model Railroader) reported that a railroad trade magazine from the late 19th or early 20th century had an article appraising the qualities of particular ethnic groups as railroad laborers. I think Odegard's assessment was that the article basically looked for the group that did the most work for the least pay and didn't challenge the management.

[AltonFan]

Whenever mass immigration appears, there is friction, not only between the natives and the immigrants, but also between the immigrant groups themselves. US cities are often a patchwork of ethnic neighborhoods. (And it was not unusual for ethnic gangs to make persons from other neighborhoods unwelcome.)

The immigrants themselves came from a variety of circumstances. Some came hoping simply to make enough money to return home and buy land; others fled religious persecution, political oppression, or as refugees from strife-torn regions. Some hoped to become American; others hoped to retain their ethnic identity in America. On the whole, early Irish, Italian, and East European immigrants came here destitute and illiterate; German, Scandanavian, and later Irish immigration often brought savings, skills, and a degree of education. Earlier immigrants and their descendants tended to resent later arrivals.

Eventually the European ethnic groups, including those that tried to maintain their separate identities began to meld together. (My latest arriving forebears were my paternal grandparents, and and two of my maternal great-grandparents. My ancestors come from at least eight European ethnic groups.)

[JanOlov]

Cheers AltonFan!

What happened when the track were laid, did some maybe stay on and work for the railroad in other ways?
How was it on the GM&O, one of my favourite railroads?

[ironhorseman]

Altonfan did a good job answering the questions, but here are the short answers to your questions. I want go into more detail about the working conditions, but I'll do it in a later post.

QUOTE: Was it a lot of emmigrants that took part in building the railroads in the US?

Yes, practically every nationality.

QUOTE: What was the living and working life like?

Terrible. Too many accidents, not enough doctors. In the west the proximity to railroad with civilization was wide. Chances of surviving were probably better the further east of the Mississippi River. After 1900 conditions would continually improve. (see my next post)

QUOTE: Was some of them more suitable to do certain constructionwork etc?

One group of people were not more suited for construction than another group. It was argued that the Chinese, whose bodies are small framed, couldn’t build a railroad with all the heavy work involved. But they built the Great Wall of china and that was good enough for Charles Crocker of the Central Pacific Railroad so he hired them. Plus they had a better work ethic/reliability than other immigrants of other nationalities.

QUOTE: James J Hill is rumoured to have once said "Give me Swedes, Vodka and Snuff and I'll build a railroad to hell" is that true?

Wouldn’t know, but probably. As long as you’re determined enough you can get anything done. (but I think maybe he was just bragging? [;)] )
What other nationalities was common?

QUOTE: Did they live together or seperately?

They naturally segregated themselves. Especially the Chinese from the Europeans.

QUOTE: Could you find them all over the US or was more up in the North?

All over. Where ever the railroads were going.

QUOTE: What did the American crews think about them, did they have any more or less problems with some or did they get along just fine with all the of them?

I think there was typical discrimination and suspicion of one other’s nationality based on stereotypes. Whatever group was the latest to arrive in the U.S. in droves was usually the most discriminated against, whether it was the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Swedes, etc. The further away from the east coast one got the less nationality discrimination one faced.

QUOTE: Being a Swede myself, I'm really curios about this and would like to know as much as possible, is there any book s on the subject?

The latest book is Stephen Ambrose’s “Nothing Like It In The World.” It’s supposed to concentrate more on the workers than the businessmen.
There are many other books but since the library is closed for Christmas I’ll have to wait a few days before I can get the names of those books. There also many books that weren’t specifically written about the railroads but include such topics you’re interested in.

[ironhorseman]

I think Altonfan pretty much answered the questions. There are many books written on building the first transcontinental railroad, the most recent was Steven Ambrose's "Nothing Like It In The World." (I never actually made it passed the first chapter. My dad, who gave the book to me for Christmas a year ago, took it and has been reading it ever since!) I did read the introduction and Ambrose said that his book was to be more about the labor and the common man rather than the men who got the project started. He despised the wealthy entrepreneurs of the 19th Century. If I can ever wrestle the book away from my dad I guess I'll find out. But other books talk about such issues, too.

Basically working conditions would vary depending on what region and what year and what time of year it was. Railroad being built east of the Mississippi River would probably have better working conditions because of the relative proximity to towns and cities. The population was denser. However the further west of the Mississippi River, particularly Kansas City and Omaha where the frontier began, the more desolate and hostile the environment became. There were Indians and few white settlements on the frontier. In 1865 the railroads were moving west with the people. All the supplies for a railroad and it’s crew were either shipped to the end of track by the newly laid rail or it could have possibly been shipped in by wagons.

Most towns sprung up only because the railroad was there or soon going to be there. By 1900 there was a vast network of railroads and railroads interchanging with railroads. With towns everywhere being supplied by railroads conditions for building a railroad would then become easier than before with the support of the ever increasing number of towns.

I think that probably the heyday of railroads in the U.S. was between 1900-1930, however that’s a broad estimate and could probably be narrowed down upon greater scrutiny. In this era of railroading there was an abundance of railroad companies and tracks going everywhere. Train stations were reaching their saturation points and newer, bigger stations like Grand Central and Penn Station in New York and Union Stations in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Los Angeles just to name a few, were being built at this time. I know more about the Kansas City station more than others. It’s the 2nd largest in the world (3rd at the time it was built) and it saw all time peak traffic in the 1920s I believe. It’s peak traffic was not during WWII, although it was probably the second busiest time period.

In essence, the early days of railroading were bad for workers because many would be killed under unsafe conditions, whether it would be from dynamite accidents or something else. Indian attacks were not as common as popular culture would have you believe, but they did happen. With the advancement in technology and safety working conditions would become better.

The concern of nationality was that people of different origins tended to segregate themselves. Every “new” group went through it’s own prejudices and discriminations. At one time the Irish were on the lowest rung of society and at a another time it was Italians and so forth for every group. Immigrants were hired for railroad work because it was widely available. It was widely available because it was undesirable and low paying work. But someone new to America that was poor and had no assets and had no credit in this world would have no choice but to take whatever work was available that didn’t require education or other prerequisites.

QUOTE: Originally posted by JanOlov

Cheers AltonFan!

What happened when the track were laid, did some maybe stay on and work for the railroad in other ways?
How was it on the GM&O, one of my favourite railroads?

To answer your question about where the workers went after the laying of track most had saved up enough money to go on to other things. Some would still work with the railroad. One Chinese immigrant who worked on the first transcontinental railway for the Central Pacific went back to China to start and build a railroad of his own.

The best video I’ve seen on the transcontinental railroad was done by PBS in the 1980s called “The Iron Road.”

[JanOlov]

Wow!

Thanks for your replies Ironhorseman, much appreciated!
I could talk about this for ages, it's very interesting.
I guess that it was just as tough working in the woods.
Thinking about MILW, GN and NP was running high up in
the north, did they own any logging railroads, or were they
all independent?
What about the living conditions, did they live in camps
or in rebuilt cars?
How were they treated by the railroads?
I guess that the rumours went which railroad to sign up for,
that treated you fair, paid you "good" etc and who didn't.
Is there any stories still being told about trackgangs and their
great deads etc. etc (wasn't there some fighting going on on the
D&RGW)?

[mudchicken]

Jan:

Still in print here, hopefully available to you there....try to read a copy of Stephen Ambrose's "Nothing Like It In The World - The Men Who Built The Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869" ...will give you insights to most of your questions... wait 'till you see where the term Hell on Wheels" came from....

Mudchicken

[Anonymous]

I thought you guys might be interested to know that some of the presence of the workers is still visible in many parts of the west.

The example that is most familiar to me is that of the Southern Pacific west of Del Rio, Texas in Judge Roy Bean country. The original Southern Pacific line in the area intially crossed the Pecos river where it joined the Rio Grande. Constant washouts forced the building of the Pecos High Bridge and the original line was abandoned. The roadbed is still highly visible and construction camp locations are easy to find in the desert. The most accessable is the ruin of a forge that may be seen within the boundaries of Seminole Canyon State Park. In these areas flattened cans, tent foundations, and various pi;es of junk are easily found. It was known that Mexicans, Anglos, Irish, and Chinese workers were all on the line.

-TX Don

[AltonFan]

QUOTE: How was it on the GM&O, one of my favourite railroads?

I'm ashamed to admit that my knowledge of the history of the GM&O, and its predecessors (including the Alton) is not as deep as it should be for someone calling himself "AltonFan". (Gene Glendinning's book on the Chicago and Alton is on my shelf, but not yet read.)

The Chicago and Alton predates the US Civil War, so I would assume a sizable proportion of the labor force was Irish and German. It is possible that French workers (descendants of French settlers, who arrived in the 17th century) might have been recruited in southern Illinois.

The southern part of the GM&O was cobbled together from a number of small southern railroads. (One source described these as logging railroads.) While I am sure there was some immigrant labor (perhaps veterans of the construction of other railroads), I do know convict labor was used on at least one, and probably all of the GM&O's southern lines. (Some southern states used to have lucrative programs allowing for the lease of prisoners to private companies needing labor.) I suspect there was also some non-convict African-American labor involved in the construction of the southern lines.

A book about life in the Alton's Bloomington, Illinois shops, in the early part of the 20th century, mentions that shop workers included Irish, Germans, and Hungarians. Mention is made of nearby churches that served German-speaking and Hungarian parishioners.

[coalminer3]

Immigrant situation was similar in mining, steelmaking, and just about any other heavy 19th and early 20th century American heavy industry you care to examine. Working conditions were apalling, to say the least; not just for the cinstruction crews but for those who did other jobs.

BTW, that quote sounds like something Jim Hill would have said!

I'll look around and see what else I can find as there are lots of books out there on the subject of immigrants in the labor force; THE book on American rr labor still has to be written.

work safe