Expansion
Directions: Use the political cartoons, documents, and information sheets to complete the following…
EQ: How did railroads impact the United States? (Remember to come back and answer the EQ in your own
words at the end of the assignment!)
Growth of Railroads
1. What similarities do you see between the Railroads Map of 1890 and the Railroads Map of 1918?
2. What differences do you see between 1890 and 1918?
3. In what ways do you think the growth of railroads impacted or changed life in the U.S.?
Transcontinental Railroad
1. What was the Transcontinental Railroad? Why is it significant?
2. Who built the Transcontinental Railroad? What kind of challenges did workers face?
Political Cartoon #1
Title/Caption
Date
Description (Give
a detailed
description of what
you see)
Topic (Not just
“railroads”- what
about the
railroads?
Message- What
message is the
creator sending,
what is he saying
about the
railroads?
Political Cartoon #2
Title/Caption
Date
Description (Give
a detailed
description of what
you see)
Topic (Not just
“railroads”- what
about the
railroads?
Message- What
message is the
creator sending,
what is he saying
about the
railroads?
Political Cartoon #3
Title/Caption
Date
Description (Give
a detailed
description of what
you see)
Topic (Not just
“railroads”- what
about the
railroads?
Message- What
message is the
creator sending,
what is he saying
about the
railroads?
Railroads and Big Business
1. How did large railroad companies force small companies out of business?
2. What is pooling?
Political Cartoon #4
Title/Caption
Date
Description (Give
a detailed
description of what
you see)
Topic (Not just
“railroads”- what
about the
railroads?
Message- What
message is the
creator sending,
what is he saying
about the
railroads?
The Battle of Wounded Knee
1. What do you think the impact of the American hunting bison for sport was on Native Americans?
2. What caused the massacre at Wounded Knee?
3. What impact would the massacre have on Native American and American relations?
John D. Rockefeller and the Oil Industry
1. What is a monopoly?
2. How does horizontal integration lead to a monopoly?
3. Look at the Standard Oil Octopus Cartoon… What was the relationship between Standard Oil and the
government?
Andrew Carnegie and the Steel Industry
1. Why is the Bessemer Process significant and how did it contribute to the success of Carnegie?
2. What impact did the Bessemer process have on the development of the railroad industry?
3. How does vertical integration differ from horizontal integration?
Growth of Railroads
Railroads in 1890
Railroads in 1918
Transcontinental Railroad

In 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad was completed.
This was the first time that the railroad crossed the entire continent.

 Pacific Railway Act of 1862 – U.S. Government hired Union Pacific and Central Pacific
Railway Company to extend railways across the United States.
Who built the Transcontinental Railroad?
 Mostly Chinese immigrants, as well as Irish immigrants and desperate out-of-work
Civil War veterans
 The
working conditions were very difficult because
of weather and harsh terrains.
Political Cartoon #1
“A Good Square American Smile”
Printed in Frank Leslie’s Weekly on June 5, 1869
Creator: Frank Bellew
Political Cartoon #2
Caption: "All Hail and Farewell to the Pacific Railroad”
Source/Date: Harper's Weekly, June 10, 1869
Creator: Thomas Nast
Political Cartoon #3
Across the Continent: Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way
CIRCA 1868
Railroads and Big Business
-Railroad companies offered rebates, or discounts, in order to keep or win customers.
-This forced many small railroad companies out of business.
-Large companies bought smaller ones or forced them out of business.
-In order to end competition and keep prices high, railroad companies agreed to divide up business in an area
and set high prices. This was known as pooling.
Political Cartoon #4
Caption: The Modern Colossus of (Rail) Roads
Source/Date: Puck, December 10, 1879
The sign in the
foreground says "all
freight seeking the
seaboard must pass
here and pay any tolls
we demand." The flag
over Field's line says "L
Road; Many nickels
stolen are millions
gained, C. W. Field.”
Wounded Knee 1890
Native Americans on the plains and American settlers were in
constant conflict over land, supplies, and culture. The picture to
the right portrays a mountain of bison skulls killed by whites.
Americans hunted buffalo/bison for sport and drove the animals
to near extinction.
Throughout 1890, the U.S. government worried about the increasing influence at
Pine Ridge of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Indians had
been defeated and confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by
abandoning their traditional customs. Many Sioux believed that if they practiced
the Ghost Dance and rejected the ways of the white man, the gods would create the
world anew and destroy all non-believers, including non-Indians. The Ghost Dance
movement was viewed by U.S. government officials as aggression and preparation
for an attack. On December 15, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull,
the famous Sioux chief, who they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, and killed him in the process,
increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge.
WOUNDED KNEE: CONFLICT BREAKS OUT
On December 29, the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Big Foot, a
Lakota Sioux chief, near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was
happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it’s unclear
from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated 150 Indians were killed (some historians
put this number at twice as high), nearly half of
them women and children. The cavalry lost 25
men.
The conflict at Wounded Knee was
originally referred to as a battle, but in reality it
was a tragic and avoidable massacre.
Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it’s
unlikely that Big Foot’s band would have
intentionally started a fight. Some historians
speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry
were deliberately taking revenge for the
regiment’s defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876.
Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the
Ghost Dance movement and was the last major
confrontation in America’s deadly war against
the Plains Indians. (History.com)
John D. Rockefeller and the Oil Rockefeller



Rockefeller is considered a
“Captain of Industry”
Formed the first modern
Trust/Monopoly in the oil
industry = Standard Oil
Was the first billionaire in the
U.S. by 1900.
Rockefeller used money he made
selling stock in his company to buy
out other oil companies, thus creating
a monopoly and controlling the
market. This is what is known as
horizontal integration (you buy out
your competition)
The Standard Oil Octopus
Reaches into the Economy
and Government.
Andrew Carnegie and the Steel Industry
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish
immigrant who became a giant in the
steel industry
The Bessemer Process allowed Carnegie to build his
empire and become the richest man in the world.
Carnegie implemented vertical integration as opposed to
Rockefeller, who only used horizontal integration.