Role of railroads in the nation’s economic, social, business, transportation, communication & technological evolution and development.
In the history of human inventions there is hardly one so well calculated as that of railroads to equalize the condition of men..
It came from across the sea. The big, loud, lumbering iron chariot would change the face of America forever, help extend and tame the frontier, and usher in a new economic structure independent of the natural boundaries of mountain, sea, or rock gorge. The steam locomotive and the network of rails it would ride on became the focal point for business, politics and societal movement during the great frontier expansion of the mid-1800s. But its influence began almost a generation earlier in the 1820s when the first locomotive was brought to the United States.
Early development of locomotion in the U.S. coincided with …