![]() ![]() Chinese workers eventually accounted for 90 percent of the company’s construction force. By the 1860s, officers of the Central Pacific, having abandoned ideas to recruit Mexicans or former slaves, looked to China to meet their enormous labor needs. Many went to California (nicknamed jinshan, or “Gold Mountain,” because of the Gold Rush), and some found work in the state’s early railroad ventures. ![]() Chang’s book is a moving effort to recover their stories and honor their indispensable contribution to the building of modern America.Ĭhang, a historian at Stanford University, begins in the Siyi, a coastal region in southeastern China where social turbulence during the 19th century pushed waves of immigrants to North American shores. 3 After a successful trial run where 50 Chinese laborers were tested, the company began hiring them in droves. This story is rightfully theirs, and the historical account of it is long overdue. Chang relates in “Ghosts of Gold Mountain,” the “Railroad Chinese” and their countrymen soon became the most despised group in the West, before being largely forgotten. The railroad company experimented with hiring Chinese laborers, despite racially-driven protests from white workers and foremen. The Chinese, held in tremendous contempt by most white Americans, in fact greased the skids of railroad progress with their sweat and blood. When they entered the car, a newspaper reporter wrote, the other guests “cheered them as the chosen representatives of the race which have greatly helped to build the road.” The good feelings would not last. On hand at Strobridge’s gathering were a few Chinese, invited to stand in for thousands of others who had assembled the line. No less important was the symbolism: Only four years after the end of the Civil War, iron rails stitched the United States back together. With the linking of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways, cross-country travel had been cut from several months to a single week. Shortly after the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, 1869, James Strobridge - the construction foreman of the Central Pacific Railroad - held a celebratory meal in his private railcar. The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad It is believed that China’s railway globalization will benefit increasingly more countries worldwide.New York Times Book Review by Andrew Graybill Meanwhile, the possibility of China’s investing in British high-speed railways has recently been a frequent topic in the U.K., which first introduced the railway to China one and a half centuries ago. Trains, particularly high-speed trains, have become the first choice for Chinese people making long journeys. That of high speed rail now exceeds 18,000 kilometers. ![]() Chinese engineer Zhan Tianyou (1861-1919), who studied in the U.S., was appointed in 1903 to design a line leading to the Western Imperial Tombs situated in Yixian County.īetween 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was established, and the end of 2015, the total length of the country’s operating rail network increased from 10,000 kilometers to more than 110,000 kilometers. Its purpose was to provide convenience for the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) royal family in their making of ritual sacrifices to their ancestors. The rail line between Gaobeidian and Yixian County in Hebei Province is deemed China’s first self-constructed railway. Eleven years later, a British company constructed the Wusong-Shanghai Railway to transport both passengers and goods. However, it was more decorative than functional. In 1865, British businessmen constructed in Beijing a 500-meter-long track on which a small steam locomotive ran. ![]() A locomotive named after late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, and a high-speed train come to a halt at Beijing Railway Station.Īt their early stage, China’s railways were British built. ![]()
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