Pony Express
On April 3rd, 1860, the Pony Express started. The first rider named Henry Wallace left St. Joseph, Missouri. On April 13th the last rider reached Sacramento, California. To become a rider you had to be a brave young man, and an orphan, because it was a dangerous job. They had to be very good riders, and able to shoot good. And they must not fear Indian attacks. Every rider had to ride sixty miles at very high speed. He had to travel the 60 miles with six different ponies and in six hours. Every day except on Sundays a rider left Missouri at 12 o’clock. The rider in Sacramento arrived at 8 o’clock in the morning. The pony express lasted only for one and a half year. The completion of the transcontinental telegraph line between Missouri and California was the reason the pony express ended. “Tele” means distant and “graphein” means to write, in greek. They could send messages and news over long distance. The first inventor of the telegraph was Samuel Finley Breese Morse. Groups working to finish the transcontinental telegraph meet at Fort Bridger in Utah territory. The first transcontinental telegraph was sent from San Fransico to Washington. The message was from the states Chief Justice to President Lincoln. http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/gen_act/travel/pony1.html The telegraph line only went as far west as St. Joseph, Missouri in 1860. It was 2,000 miles from St. Joseph to the west coast as Sacramento, California. It took over months for messages to be carried by ships, wagon trains, or stage coaches to reach California. They needed a faster way for mail and messages to get to the west coast. A system of horse riders, called the Pony Express was started. The riders would bring the mail quicker. The first rider of the Pony Express left St. Joseph, Missouri, on April 3, 1860. The stations where the riders could stop were 10 to 15 miles apart from each other. At some stations, a rider could get a new horse. Each rider had to ride about 75 miles before the mail was passed on to another rider. The schedule allowed eight days for mail to be carried from Missouri to California. The Pony Express was much faster than carrying mail and messages by ships, wagon trains, or stage coach. The man who managed the Pony Express system was Alexander Majors, from Kentucky. At one time it cost $5 to send a letter weighing half an ounce to California. Later on it c...
... middle of paper ...
...s staffed by 400 station men.
Twenty-five of the stations were for the riders to change horses. These twenty-five stations were called “home” for the riders. Some 500 fast, wiry horses were bought and 80 riders were hired. The riders had to be at least 18 years of age, not weigh too much or too little. They had to be strong. They sworn to be sober, descent in speech and gentlemanly in conduct. They had to be brave, because if they got attacked by Indians, and weren’t brave, they would try to escape and get killed. The famous sign for the Pony Express read: “Wanted- young, skinny, wiry fellows, not over 18. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 a week” Seventy five horses was used in each direction for a run. At every station, the rider would have two minutes to throw his saddle bags with the mail in it onto his next mount and race again. The first rider left St. Joseph on April 3, 1860 to Sacramento. The young riders usually survived attacks by Indians, blizzards, raging rivers and wild animals. The Pony Express ended in Oct of 1861. The reason of the ending was because of the completion of the first transcontinental telegraph line.
Two railway companies competed in this venture: The Central Pacific company laid track eastward from Sacramento, California and at the same time The Union Pacific company began laying track westward from Omaha, Nebraska and when the two lines met, the transcontinental railway would be complete. Each company wanted to cover more ground than the other – not just out of pride and competitiveness, but ...
The railroads were the first to have a corporate organization, labor relations, and government regulation. The necessary structure of the railroad business brought order to the untamed west. Before the railroad, both time and space were estimated. The position of the sun produced an approximate time. For example, “The difference in time between Idaho City and New York is about two hours and forty minutes; between San Francisco and this place about thirty-five minutes” (Schwantes 3). Since trains shared a single track, timekeeping became critical to prevent train collisions. To keep a standard time, the railroad introduced time zones on November 18, 1883 (Schwantes 3). The distance was also estimated before land surveyors, paid by the railroad, came through to measure and draw maps. Keeping a standard width to within an inch between tracks was also important to keep the train from de-railing. However, the railroads began to collude to keep prices high. To combat this collusion, the government formed the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887, which was America’s first regulatory agency (Binding
Richard Rodriguez commences, “ Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” recounting the memory of his first day of school. A memory that will help support against the use of “family language” as the child 's primary language at school. Rodriguez is forced to say no: it 's not possible for children to use the family language at school. To support against the “family language” used at school, Rodriguez uses simple and complex sentences to help achieve the readers to understand that to only accept the family language is to be closed off by society; to not have a “public life” is to not share one 's life experiences with society. Bilingual Educators state that you would “lose a degree of ‘individuality’ if one assimilates. Rodriguez refutes this statement through his expressive use of diction and narration educing emotion from his audience building his pathos. Rodriguez also develops ethos due to the experiences he went
Railroads were America’s first big business and contributed a great deal towards advancing industrialization. Beginning in the early 1870's, railroad construction in the United States expanded substantially. Before the year 1871, approximately fourty-five thousand miles of track had been laid. Up until the 1900's another one-hundred and seventy thousand miles were added to the nation's growing railroad system. This growth came about due to the erection of transcontinental railroads. Railroads supplied cities and towns with food, fuel, materials, and access to markets. The railroad system made way for an economic prosperity. The railroad system helped to build the physical growth of cities and towns. It even became another means of communication. Most importantly, it helped to produce a second
Transportation improved from the market revolution through many new inventions, railroads, steamboats, and canals. Pressure for improvements in transportation came at least as much from cities eager to buy as from farmers seeking to sell. The first railroad built was in 1792, it started a spread throughout the states. Cumberland which began to be built in 1811 and finished in 1852, known to be called the national road stretched over five hundred miles from Cumberland to Illinois. By 1821, there were four thousand miles of turnpike in the United States. Turnpikes were not economical to ship bulky goods by land across long distance across America, so another invention came about. Robert Fulton created steam boats in 1807; he named his first one ‘Clermont.’ These steam boats allowed quick travel upriver against the currents, they were also faster and cheaper. The steamboats became a huge innovation with the time travel of five miles per hour. It also stimulated agricultural economy of west by providing better access to markets at lower cost. While steamboats were conquering the western rivers, canals were being constructed in the northeastern states. The firs...
Railroads first appeared around the 1830’s, and helped the ideas of Manifest Destiny and Westward expansion; however, these were weak and didn’t connect as far as people needed, thus causing them to be forced to take more dangerous routes. On January 17th, 1848, a proposal was sent to Congress by Asa Whitney to approve and provide federal funding...
Bilingual education offers a completely different world for students of different ethnic background and thus creates a comfort zone limiting the risk-taking factor necessary for the maturation of a child to an adult. Rodriguez argues supporters of bilingualism fail to realize "while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality" (Rodriguez 26). He explains that the imperative "radical self-reformation" required by education is lost by offering bilingual education and such a program suggests a place where the need for a sense of public identity disappears. A bilingual program gives a student the opportunity to be separated from real life and institutes a life that leaves out an essential understanding of the world. Bilingual students do not know the complexities of their world, including emotion, ethics, and logic, because the bilingual program secludes the eager minds to a much simpler, more naïve idea of how the society works, leaving out the confidence of belonging in public. This situation not only limits the education experience for non-English speaking students, but also hinders the further education of English speaking students by erecting a communicat...
Steamboats were invented in the early 1800's, but it took until the 1820's to make them a common site on U.S. rivers. In the 1840's their popularity kept rising as they continued to increase the amount of trade possible. The reaper, for farming, was also developed in 1831. This allowed more farming in the west on the prairies. Many other farming machines were also developed during this time period, they all made farming in the west much more popular, easier, and profitable. The Trans-continental railroad was started in 1862, even though other trains were already running in different parts of the U.S. The telegraph also went up along with the railroads, although the first time it was used was in 1844. All four of these major technological advancements made the United States really get going on their Manifest Destiny.
With the amazing delivery of mail in 10 days across 2,000-miles of prairie land, mountains and deserts led many people to use them. With the growth communication between the east and the west the Pony Express grew in popularity. The Pony Express proved that the central route through the U.S could be traveled all winter. It supported the cattle route for the Transcontinental Railroad to meet with the Union Pacific Railroad. Communications was kept open with California during the Civil War. The Pony Express was the fastest communication between the east and west until the telegraph. It captured the hearts and imagination of people all over the world.
Spearman, Frank H. "The First Transcontinental Railroad." Harper's Monthly Magazine, Volume 109 2011: 711-20. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. .
Another struggle for identity with Latinos is their struggle with the Spanish and English languages. While some Latinos may speak Spanish in their homes, the language may not be conversationally used in their schools. Some Lat...
Farmers began to cultivate vast areas of needed crops such as wheat, cotton, and even corn. Document D shows a picture of The Wheat Harvest in 1880, with men on earlier tractors and over 20-30 horses pulling the tractor along the long and wide fields of wheat. As farmers started to accumilate their goods, they needed to be able to transfer the goods across states, maybe from Illinios to Kansas, or Cheyenne to Ohmaha. Some farmers chose to use cattle trails to transport their goods. Document B demonstrates a good mapping of the major railroads in 1870 and 1890. Although cattle trails weren't used in 1890, this document shows the existent of several cattle trails leading into Chyenne, San Antonio, Kansas City and other towns nearby the named ones in 1870. So, farmers began to transport their goods by railroads, which were publically used in Germany by 1550 and migrated to the United States with the help of Colonel John Stevens in 1826. In 1890, railroads expanded not only from California, Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada, but up along to Washington, Montana, Michigan, down to New Mexico and Arizona as well. Eastern States such as New Jersey, Tennesse, Virginia and many others were filled with existing railroads prior to 1870, as Colonel John Stevens started out his railroad revolutionzing movement in New Jersey in 1815.
Canals, steamboats, and railroads allowed for faster travel of exports and the creation of bigger cities. The invention of the Pony Express, specialized regions, and infrastructure permitted Americans to keep in touch over long distances and the creation of market towns, which inspired a deep, national connection from all corners of the country. The giant leap made by the Transportation Revolution changed America greatly in ways of their economy and
Transportation in the Victorian era consisted mostly of horse pulled carriages, horses, and various type of railway carts, or trains in 1837-1901. In the
From my experience, bilingual education was a disadvantage during my childhood. At the age of twelve, I was introduced into a bilingual classroom for the first time. The crowded classroom was a combination of seventh and eighth grade Spanish-speaking students, who ranged from the ages of twelve to fifteen. The idea of bilingual education was to help students who weren’t fluent in the English language. The main focus of bilingual education was to teach English and, at the same time, teach a very basic knowledge of the core curriculum subjects: Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences. Unfortunately, bilingual education had academic, psychological, and social disadvantages for me.