The Chinese and the Iron Road ― Building the Transcontinental Railroad

The completion of the transcontinental railroad in May 1869 is usually told as a story of national triumph and a key moment for American "manifest destiny." The railroad made it possible to cross the country in a matter of days instead of months, paved the way for new settlers to come out West, and helped speed America's entry onto the world stage as a modern nation that spanned a full continent. It also created vast wealth for its four owners, including the fortune with which Leland Stanford would found Stanford University some two decades later. But while the transcontinental has often been celebrated in national memory, little attention has been paid to the Chinese workers who made up 90% of the workforce on the Western portion of the line. The railroad could not have been built without Chinese labor, but the lives of Chinese railroad workers themselves have been little understood and largely invisible.On the eve of the 150th anniversary of the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, The Chinese and the Iron Road seeks to change that. Based on interdisciplinary research from Stanford University's Chinese Railroad Workers Project, this landmark volume explores the many unanswered questions about these workers: Who were they and why did they come? How did they live and what did they experience? What were their spiritual beliefs? What did they do after the railroad was completed? What is their place in cultural memory? Shedding new light on the interconnected economies of China and the US, immigration across the Pacific, racism and labor conditions, the history of the railroad, and the development of the American West, The Chinese and the Iron Road aims to recover this neglected chapter of the past more fully than ever before.

Gordon H. Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin are Co-Directors of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford; Hilton Obenzinger is Associate Director and Roland Hsu is Director of Research.