The Chinese and the iron road : building the transcontinental railroad / edited by Gordon H. Chang [and three others].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Chang, Gordon H., editor.

Series:

Asian America.

Asian America

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Central Pacific Railroad Company--Employees--History.

Central Pacific Railroad Company.

Railroad construction workers--West (U.S.)--History--19th century.

Railroad construction workers.

Foreign workers, Chinese--West (U.S.)--History--19th century.

Foreign workers, Chinese.

Chinese--West (U.S.)--History--19th century.

Chinese.

China--Emigration and immigration--History--19th century.

China.

West (U.S.)--History--19th century.

West (U.S.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (557 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2019]

Summary:

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 percent 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. This landmark volume explores the experiences of Chinese railroad workers and their place in cultural memory. The Chinese and the Iron Road illuminates more fully than ever before the interconnected economies of China and the US, how immigration across the Pacific changed both nations, the dynamics of the racism the workers encountered, the conditions under which they labored, and their role in shaping both the history of the railroad and the development of the American West.

Contents:

Chinese railroad workers and the US transcontinental railroad in global perspective / Gordon H. Chang

Chinese labor migrants to the Americas in the nineteenth century : an inquiry into who they were and the world they left behind / Evelyn Hu-DeHart

The view from home : dreams of Chinese railroad workers across the Pacific / Zhang Guoxiong, with Roland Hsu

Overseas remittances of Chinese railroad workers in North America / Yuan Ding, with Roland Hsu

Chinese railroad workers' remittance networks : insights based on qiaoxiang documents / Liu Jin, with Roland Hsu

Archaeological contributions to research on Chinese railroad workers in North America / Barbara L. Voss

Living between misery and triumph : the material practices of Chinese railroad workers in North America / Barbara L. Voss

Landscapes of change : culture, nature, and the archaeological heritage of transcontinental railroads in the North American West / Kelly J. Dixon

The health and well-being of Chinese railroad workers / J. Ryan Kennedy, Sarah Heffner, Virginia Popper, Ryan P. Harrod, and John J. Crandall

Religion on the road : how Chinese migrants adapted popular religion to an American context / Kathryn Gin Lum

Tracking memory : encounters between Chinese railroad workers and Native Americans / Hsinya Huang

Railroad frames : landscapes and the Chinese railroad worker in photography, 1865-1869 / Denise Khor

Les fils du ciel : European travelers' accounts of Chinese railroad workers / Greg Robinson

The Chinese railroad worker in United States history textbooks : a historical genealogy, 1849-1965 / William Gow

Representing Chinese railroad workers in North America : Chinese historiography and literature, 1949-2015 / Yuan Shu

History lessons : remembering Chinese railroad workers in Dragon's gate and Donald Duk / Pin-chia Feng

The Chinese as railroad builders after Promontory / Shelley Fisher Fishkin

The construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the transpacific Chinese diaspora, 1880-1885 / Zhongping Chen

Beyond railroad work : Chinese contributions to the development of Winnemucca and Elko, Nevada / Sue Fawn Chung

The remarkable life of a sometimes railroad worker : Chin Gee Hee, 1844-1929 / Beth Lew-Williams

The Chinese and the Stanfords : nineteenth-century America's fraught relationship with the China Men / Gordon H. Chang.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781503609259

1503609251

OCLC:

1198930696