"Railroaded - The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America" by Richard White. Available on Amazon for $11.44. The Kindle edition is slightly less.
There is so much wrong in this book. Richard White might “Know what happened”, but he doesn’t understand what happened. (Big difference.) He seems unable, or unwilling, to put the facts he dug up into any context. White definitely has an ax to grind. Unfortunately, he seems to let the ax grinding displace an honest historical account.
His main conclusion, first presented near the end of the book, and supported by not much of anything in the book, is that the transcontinental railroads were constructed too early in time, “Ahead of Need” as he puts it. This “Ahead of Need” construction caused all kinds of problems according to White. Mainly, he’s concerned that it denied the Native Tribes time they could have used to develop an acceptance of the inevitable (his word) settlement of North America by Europeans. This denial of time lead to more violent conflict between the Indians and the Europeans than would have otherwise been the case.
OK, then why were the first transcontinental railroads built when they were built? White doesn’t address this issue at all. He just claims that they were built too soon and that the resultant economic and social costs outweighed any benefits. He really doesn’t support this claim.
White focuses on three important transcontinental rail routes: 1) The 1st North American transcontinental which linked Omaha and Sacramento, 2) another US transcontinental built to connect the head of navigation on the Great Lakes, Duluth, MN, with Puget Sound, and 3) a Canadian transcon built to link the west coast of that country with the rest of that nation.
White ignores a couple of really important facts. First, these early transcontinental railroads were what we would call today “Public – Private Partnerships.” The two national governments basically contracted the building of these rail lines. The governments wanted the rail lines built and they wanted them built quickly. As the Union Pacific puts it: “In 1862 President Lincoln said ‘Go’. And he never said ‘Stop’.” Why? White doesn’t even go near this issue.
Second, White ignores the fact that the 1st US transcontinental would have been built years before it actually was built if it had not been for sectional rivalry in the US. The northern states wanted a northerly route to California. They southern states wanted a southern route. It wasn’t until the southern states pulled their representatives and senators out of the national government that congress was able to move on The Pacific Railway Act.
So in some of the darkest days of the US Civil War congress and President Lincoln took time to create a railroad link between the Pacific and the already settled eastern United States. Why? White doesn’t say. There were reasons. White pronounces the transcons a prematurely built failure on all counts without examining the reasons for their creation. He doesn’t put facts in context, and context is what makes a fact important. Why did two national North American governments want the transcontinental railroads built at the time they were built? White doesn’t even start to deal with this issue.
If White is going to contend that the railroads were built too soon he should explain the reasons for building them. He just makes an unsupported claim and then he alters the history of South Dakota in an effort to show that building the transcons was a really bad idea.
In his chapter “The Diverging Dakotas” White contrasts North Dakota, which had one federally sponsored rail line, with South Dakota. South Dakota had virtually no land grant supported rail building. White falsely contends that the rail network in South Dakota was built “With Development” (settlement) while the North Dakota was built “Ahead of Development”. This is not what happened.
Contrary to what White claims, the South Dakota rail net was built ahead of settlement. Absent a significant gold strike, it was virtually impossible to have settlement without a transportation system. Families weren’t going to pull up stakes and move to South Dakota to engage in subsistence farming. This is what they’d be doing if they couldn’t ship their surplus agricultural production out to urban markets.
The Chicago and North Western Railroad got things going when it began construction into unsettled South Dakota. The corporation knew what it was doing. An officer of the railroad had toured eastern South Dakota and determined that it was suitable for farming. All that was needed was transportation, and transportation was the C&NW’s business. If they built into the unsettled lands settlement would follow. This settlement would produce a “win-win” situation in which the settlers got to better their lives by having their own farms and the railroad profited from hauling the agricultural production. The C&NW made a business investment that paid off for all concerned. It did so by building a rail line “Ahead of Need”/”Ahead of Settlement”. A fact that White turns on its head.
When a competing railroad corporation, later known as “The Milwaukee Road”, learned what the C&NW was doing they too began to build rail lines into unsettled South Dakota. The result was rapid settlement up to the boundaries of an Indian reservation, which blocked development in to the western part of South Dakota.
The important fact here is that White misrepresents the settling of the Dakotas to bolster his otherwise unsupported claim. It seems he just doesn’t understand the role of the railroads in developing North America. They were “development engines”. They were commonly built ahead of settlement. And they were built ahead of that settlement using private investment. The federal government only provided financial support for a very few lines that comprised a small percentage of the rail mileage constructed in the US. We’re back to why the government considered these few particular lines to be so important. White doesn’t say.
White literally parades his lack of understanding with the following statement:
“…similar technologies and similar economies should produce similar corporations. Great Britain, France, and Prussia, however, did not replicate the American form of railroad organization, although each was a capitalist nation and each employed similar technologies.”
The facts are: 1) North America and Europe did not have “Similar Economies”. Europe was settled and had existing population/commercial centers. The US was largely unsettled with few, if any, such centers beyond the Atlantic seaboard. 2) The rail technologies used on each continent had a rapid and profound divergence from the beginning of railroading. An example of this divergence would be that rail cars in North America had (and have) eight wheels. European rail cars had four wheels. It may seem minor, but unless one understands the reason for this difference it is impossible to understand why the North American railroads developed differently than the European railroads.
In his book “The North American Railroad”, James E Vance Jr. understands and explains the difference between railroads in Britain and the US. The British rail lines were built to connect established centers of commerce and population. They ran through lands that had been settled for centuries. This resulted in a vastly different railroad than was built in the US.
In the US the railroads were commonly built into unsettled lands with no established population or commercial centers. This meant that the US lines were initially built to lower standards. Theses lower standards resulted in different equipment and operating procedures. When business developed, as it usually did, the American lines were upgraded as warranted.
White doesn’t seem to understand this. He doesn’t seem to get the fact that transportation was necessary for development, or at least necessary for development at anything more than a snail’s pace. It had taken Europe centuries to develop before the railways came about. The American frontier was gone within 100 years. I think that’s White’s main problem with the American railroads. The railroads accelerated development, and he doesn’t like that one bit.
White focuses much of his research and writing on digging up dirt on the men who headed the corporations that built the railroads. There was some dirt. These guys were not saints. But White doesn’t have a good word to say about anything they did. Not a word – they were all rotten to the core according to White. Evil men with hearts made in Hell.
He could have been more balanced with this. Some corruption did exist. But it was not exclusive to the railroads. Anytime the government starts throwing money at a problem, there are going to be those who seek to game the system. It happens today. Again, this is where White ignores the context.
I’ve got to wrap this up. It would take a book to try to correct White’s book.
So what was the result of all this railroading that White so disparages. Well, the US was settled and millions of people got life enhancing economic opportunities that would not have otherwise been available to them. The Pacific coast economy was linked to the rest of the nation by secure internal routes. The US got the most efficient rail freight system in the world – which helped the economy grow and created even more opportunities for even more people. The downside, which is paramount for White, is that the Indians had to rapidly adjust to change they weren’t ready for.
In his 1912 book “Railroads – Rates and Regulation” the economist William Z. Ripley briefly compared US railroads with European railroads. He noted that while the US corporations were regularly operating 2,000 ton freight trains the best Germany could do was 500 ton coal trains. Ripley notes `that it had taken the Germans 10 years of effort to get their trains up from 400 to 500 tons. By the second half of the 19th Century US railroad charges were steadily falling as improved technology created improved efficiency. The US system remains the safest and most cost efficient rail freight system in the world to this day. The transcontinental rail routes that White disparages continue to be important arteries of commerce. Not one transcontinental route built in the 19th century has fallen into disuse or been taken up.
I’d say, on balance, things worked out pretty well. White’s book, however, is apparently not intended to be anywhere near “On Balance”.
That sort of thing is called `revisionist history,' and is usually indulged in by technologically ignorant academics who, having little knowledge of either past or present reality, write about what they think SHOULD have happened as a far better alternative to what did happen.
One fact that White apparently either disregarded or discounted - California and the area along the Columbia River were already well developed. If there had been an ocean between the banks of the Missouri River and the west slopes of the Sierras, would he have objected to somebody taking a government subsidy to build , not a ship, but an entire shipping line. Of course, there wouldn't have been any Native Americans afloat in that ocean...
Having driven the major interstates paralleling all of the transcons I will say, right now, that, by comparison with Europe or Japan, a lot of the territory they were built through is still very sparsely populated. Those long strings of double stacks aren't serving Winslow, Arizona or Laramie, Wyoming. They are moving product from the ports on the left coast to the consumers east of the Missouri River. By White's logic, if the railroads had been built only when or after a need was proven at the spot where construction was taking place there would be huge gaps in the transcons and most commodities would still travel by ship - around the Horn, since the Panama Canal wouldn't have been built (To the considerable detriment of the natives of Panama whose lands were flooded when the Chagres River was dammed.)
After careful consideration, I believe the author could be called a retroactive NIMBY, who won't let a good fact get in the way of his opinion. If, while preparing documents which would be used by planners to make decisions, I had been as fast and loose with my interpretations of facts, I would have been court-martialed.
Chuck (USAF,Ret)
Excellent book review Greyhounds. Your English teachers must have thought you walked on water!
Excellent review by Greyhounds. Go the Amazon.com, bring up this book and read the reviews posted. You'd think this guy White discovered a whole new accurate interpretation of history.
Railroads back then were symbolic of American intuition, there's a challenge before us, and when, not if, we conquor it who knows what else may lie before us. They did what was said couldn't be done and the eventual benefit is one this country would never regret. They didn't do it too early, it was a tad late! It brough bold new adventure to people, technology in railroading that would be the envy of the world. And is to this day.
That said, I would ask Mr. White was NASA too early?
Great book review, greyhounds. I wonder if White happens to have any views on modern corporate America.
greyhounds White literally parades his lack of understanding with the following statement: “…similar technologies and similar economies should produce similar corporations. Great Britain, France, and Prussia, however, did not replicate the American form of railroad organization, although each was a capitalist nation and each employed similar technologies.” The facts are: 1) North America and Europe did not have “Similar Economies”. Europe was settled and had existing population/commercial centers. The US was largely unsettled with few, if any, such centers beyond the Atlantic seaboard. 2) The rail technologies used on each continent had a rapid and profound divergence from the beginning of railroading. An example of this divergence would be that rail cars in North America had (and have) eight wheels. European rail cars had four wheels. It may seem minor, but unless one understands the reason for this difference it is impossible to understand why the North American railroads developed differently than the European railroads. In his book “The North American Railroad”, James E Vance Jr. understands and explains the difference between railroads in Britain and the US. The British rail lines were built to connect established centers of commerce and population. They ran through lands that had been settled for centuries. This resulted in a vastly different railroad than was built in the US.
Ken,
One of the first things that came to mind when reading about "Railroaded" was that White really needed to read Vance's book a few times before starting on his own.
What Vance explained in his book was how the markets/conditions for railroads differed between Britain and the US and why the US approach to building railroads evolved rapidly away from the British approach - with the first attempts at US construction copying British practice. Vance also pointed out that the US was capital poor with respect to Britain, requiring a different approach to financing a railroad.
I'll pass on White's book - sounds like he has a huge axe to grind.
- Erik
P.S. It does warm my heart to see a Berkeley guy (Vance) "showing the way" to a Stanford Guy (White) - I was at UCB from '72 to '78.
I wonder how many of us had a family history of grandparents or great-grandparents locating in an area opened for development by railroad construction in the 19th Century? The area where my grandparents (both sides) finally settled was the direct result of the Southern Pacific (which for quite some time owned a lot of the land in the particular county and thus had a double incentive for development at the turn of the 20th Century).
ChuckCobleigh I wonder how many of us had a family history of grandparents or great-grandparents locating in an area opened for development by railroad construction in the 19th Century? The area where my grandparents (both sides) finally settled was the direct result of the Southern Pacific (which for quite some time owned a lot of the land in the particular county and thus had a double incentive for development at the turn of the 20th Century).
Well, one reason White's book is so troubling to me is that I did grow up in a small midwestern town made possible by some private investors building a developmental railroad. Manito, IL simply did not exist until the Illinois River Railroad showed up. There was no significant population in the area until the railroad made farming and the mutually supporting town possible. And this was in central Illinois which has some of the best farm land in the world. Two factoids: 1) The US has 1/4 of all the arable land in the world. 2) My father lived the Biblically promised 70 years. He lived most of those 70 years without electric lighting. They didn't get electric power to his farm until 1947. He died 30 years later. He left farming and moved to town (with my mother!) the year I was born, 1950.
For those of you waiting with baited breath, my next intented book is "Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific and the Development of the American West" by Richard J. Orsi.
Orsi has a PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin and is now at Cal State, Hayward. He edits the quarterly publication of the Calfornia Historical Society. I understand he actually has some good things to say about the railroad. I need an antidote to Richard White's poison pen, and Orsi's book may be it. (Just as soon as I repair the Master Card account. Drat ebay and that mikado I really needed.)
Greyhounds:
A thorough book review! Sounds like your assessment is right in line with the thoughts of several other Posters.
Chuck (tomikawaTT) pretty much nailed it in his comments about Mr. White.
"...That sort of thing is called `revisionist history,' and is usually indulged in by technologically ignorant academics who, having little knowledge of either past or present reality, write about what they think SHOULD have happened as a far better alternative to what did happen..." [emphasis added]
greyhounds (Just as soon as I repair the Master Card account. Drat ebay and that mikado I really needed.)
(Just as soon as I repair the Master Card account. Drat ebay and that mikado I really needed.)
greyhounds For those of you waiting with baited breath, my next intented book is "Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific and the Development of the American West" by Richard J. Orsi.
Well, there should be a good description of how my birth county (Imperial) was settled, then.
EDIT: Thanks for the reminder. I saw the Orsi book when it came out five years ago and didn't pick it up before it disappeared from my B&N stores down here. Just ordered it online to add to the stack of waiting-to-be-read books.
Bucyrus greyhounds: (Just as soon as I repair the Master Card account. Drat ebay and that mikado I really needed.) Was that the Mikado that refused to abdicate?
greyhounds: (Just as soon as I repair the Master Card account. Drat ebay and that mikado I really needed.)
No, it was the mikado that seduced me. I couldn't help it I tell ya! I had to do it! I couldn't stop myself! It wasn't really my fault! I'm a victim I tell ya! A victim!
Seriously, as an infant I was brought home from the Big City Hospital to a home across the small town street from the Chicago & Illinois Midland. (Long ago, the Illinois River Railroad) My parents placed my baby crib by a window with a view of the railroad. My mother swore that I would pull myself up in the crib to watch the steam powered trains go past. I guess once it gets in your blood....
Some years later I began hanging out at the depot. It goes from there.
So, I want to build a C&IM model. I wanted every type of steam engine the C&IM had operating after I was born. The Mike was the last one I needed. I'll start work on the layout with the first frost. I'm going to embelish a little and indulge my other railroad passion; LCL and containerized LCL. I've had to do some research on how to model a cornfield. An ex girlfriend once described Manito, IL to her niece as "This Little Town Surrounded by Corn." I thought that to be very accurate.
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