Themes in American History

The evolution of transportation allowed for explosive growth in immigration and the sizes of Americas cities. In New York City the increase in immigrants from Europe caused cities to overcrowd. This forced the development of public ferry lines. Before the public ferry system was established, transportation between NYC, its boroughs and the main land territory bordering the Hudson river, was possible only because of private, local shipowners that had to be hired to make the trip. This private ferrying system prevented the expansion of the population, as its limited capacity and its prices effectively made it impossible for the lower classes to travel. With  public transportation becoming available in early and mid 19th century, the immigrant population were given a way to settle in different parts of the land.

Transportation also allowed the immigrants arriving in New York City to expand across the country into places such as San Francisco, California. The only way European immigrant could get to California and other far off American land was by ship, that had to travel around south America then north to California, or by land, which was a quite long  journey through hostile Indian territory and the harsh  American landscape. With the creation of the train and its connection with the east coast, the west was opened to settlement by immigrants. Since the major stations for trains were cities and, compared to NYC, were small in size, arriving immigrants tended to stay in the cities as overcrowding was not as established as in NYC. That will not always be the case as those same cities, such as San Francisco would eventually outgrow its limit to house all the people arriving and the growth of its native population, causing an opening up of land outside cities in California to settlement by new immigrants and the native population tired of city life.

A main difference between NYC and San Francisco’s  increase in immigration is the difference in the nationalities of the immigrants. In NYC the majority of its immigrants were made up of Europeans,specifically Irish ,Germans and Italians.This is not to say that these nationalities did not find their way to Californians cities, but they did stick to the north eastern region of America. The western part of America’s immigrants were made up of people from Spain and other Spanish groups,such as Mexicans. This is due ,in major part, to the fact that San Francisco was once a part of the Spanish empire and its language being Spanish.

Ferry Building 1889, foot of Market Street Photo: Greg Gaar Collection, San Francisco, CA

Comments Off on The expansion of transportation in NYC and California

During the period of 1800 and 1865, the Erie Canal was built because of the in need of the trading in west coast. That was the first transportation system between New York City and the west coast. It made transportation much easier at that time. As the result, the Central Pacific Railroad Company was established in San Francisco in 1863 and they would like to construct the Pacific Railroad from Council Bluffs, Iowa to Oakland, California to increase trading. These two projects both faced one problem: the lack of labors. In the case of New York City, as the increase of the immigrants, more and more immigrants were hired to do the work. Almost the same as the case of San Francisco, however, the company hired labors from China. In both cases, many workers died during the construction because of the harsh and dangerous working condition. At last, the Erie Canal was not supported by the federal government. President Jefferson rejected the project and called this “a little short of madness”, but the New York governor, Dewitt Clinton, supported this idea. The Pacific Railroad was supported and funded by the Congress.

Comments Off on Transportation Between New York City and San Francisco

New York City was a city port that accepted many immigrants. By the 1850’s more than half the residents of New York were foreign born (Chudacoff pg.64). San Francisco became part of the United States in 1848 and soon after came the Gold Rush. San Francisco also accepted many immigrants but it seems that the Chinese was the main fastest growing group of people. White miners in the gold fields began to ask the state protection from competitive Chinese miners. San Francisco then imposed tax on “foreign” miners to encourage the Chinese to leave (Chudacoof pg.67). A similar action was taken on freed slaves that lived in New York and other cities; freed slaves had to pay an annual tax, even though they were “free.”

European Immigrants Arriving in New York, 1850's

Chinese Miners in San Francisco

Comments Off on San Francisco