How did railroads break the bonds of nature in the United States during the mid 19th century quizlet?

Railroad development in the U.S. began before the Civil War, with the first trains arriving from Britain in the early 1830's. Railroads offered the promise of around the clock, year round, all-weather service. Steam engines could cross mountain passes and rocky gorges that animals could not go and canals could not reach. In the west, railroads opened large regions for farming, trade, and tourism. While European countries chose to have government owned railways, the United States opted to have them privately owned. However, the federal government provided loans, subsidies, and grants of public land. State and local governments also offered financial aid, mostly by purchasing railroad bonds, in order to have access to the rails. By 1900, virtually no part of the country was without service and the lines were also built into Mexico.

Railroad companies transformed American capitalism. The adopted a legal form of organization called the corporation, enabling them to raise large sums of money. Prior to this the only corporations were those formed for a public purpose, following the railroads lead, other private businesses began to form corporations and state legislatures began to allow any business to become a corporation by applying for a state charter.

As railroads expanded, it became impossible for workers to manage every detail due to the vast amount of railway tracks that had to be managed. Trains ran late, communications failed and trains crashed. Managers began to invent systems to solve these problems. One part of the solution was to distinguish top executives from those responsible for day-to-day operations. Operations became departmentalized by function - purchasing, machinery, freight traffic, passenger traffic - and clear lines of communication were established. Railroads perfected cost accounting to account for all of the monies earned and spent. This management revolution created the internal structure adopted by many large complex corporations.

Railroad tourism was an important motive for the creation of Yellowstone National Park. The Northern Pacific Railroad lobbied Congress to get the park established in order to bring tourists there (in luxurious Pullman cars - see below), where they also operated the hotel. As Americans began to travel in the U.S. Railroads began to reflect the emerging privileges of professional families. In Railroads began to make railway cars comfortable for middle-class women and children. Some, such as the Pullman car, set a national standard for taste and elegance; they embodied the growing prosperity of America's elite and influenced trends in home decorating. Ladies cars, soon became the site of the struggle for racial equality as African American women sought to secure seats in these cars. Black women often faced confrontations with conductors seeking to keep them from these seats. This set the stage for several law suits and for the SCOTUS ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 case that held segregation, in the form of separate but equal train car, did not violate the 14th Amendment. (Homer Plessy (who was 1/8th black) was ordered to leave a first class car and move to the "colored" car and was arrested when he refused.)

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How did railroads break the bonds of nature in the United States during the mid nineteenth century quizlet?

How did railroads "break the bonds of nature" in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century? REF: Railroads broke the bonds of nature because they made rapid and efficient transportation possible in areas without navigable rivers, canals, or seaports.

What accounted for the success of the railroads during the mid nineteenth century quizlet?

What accounted for the success of the railroads in the middle of the nineteenth century? The success of the railroads grew from the fact that they served Americans on farms in rural areas as well as those in cities.

How did the federal government promote the expansion of the rail network in the United States after 1850 quizlet?

How did the federal government promote the expansion of the rail network in the United States after 1850? The government made land grants to railroad companies.

What was one way the United States changed because of land grants made to private companies?

What was one way the United States changed because of land grants made to private companies? The granted land allowed transportation and communication infrastructure to spread, increasing western development. Railroads build new railroad lines on the granted lines, which created transcontinental railroads.