Chinese Working on the Railroad

In 1869, America completed the first transcontinental railroad. Americans could then travel from one coast to the other by train. Though it made it possible for Americans to travel with greater ease, building the railroad was far from easy! Much of the construction work for the railroad was performed by Chinese immigrants. Most of these men had left their wives and families in China, traveled to the United States to work for several years, and intended to return home to China. Read the following facts and quotes describing their work.

1. "Fifty Chinese were hired [at first]. They were hauled to the end of the track. They disembarked, glanced without curiosity at the surrounding forest, then tranquilly established camp, cooked a meal of rice and dried cuttlefish, and went to sleep. By sunrise, they were at work with picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. At the end of their first twelve hours of plodding industry, Crocker [director of construction] and his engineers viewed the result with gratified astonishment."¹
2. The Chinese workers organized themselves into labor crews of 12 to 20 men, often keeping a few extra workers so that even if someone got sick, they could turn out a full crew.
3. Each Chinese work crew set up tents or huts in which they lived. Each crew had its own Chinese head man who organized the work and kept discipline. They each also had their own cook who organized the food; dried oysters, abalone, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, crackers, noodles, Chinese bacon and pork, poultry and tea were all imported by the Chinese to feed themselves.
4. Each night the Chinese workers bathed after work and changed into clean clothes before supper. These customs amazed the other workers who seldom bathed.
5. Cutting trees, rooting out stumps, breaking and carting rocks, grading roadbeds, putting down ties, spiking the rails, the Chinese soon earned a reputation as tireless, disciplined, and energetic workers.
6. The Chinese workers found a way to resolve the problem of the sheer Sierra Mountains. They gathered reeds in San Francisco Bay and wove waist-high baskets. With a rope and pulley, Chinese workmen were lowered in these baskets down the side of the steep cliff. After chipping holes for the blasting powder in the rock, they were pulled up to safety before the blast created a ledge for workers to enlarge into a road for the railroad.
7. Working day and night, Chinese construction crews tunneled through solid granite. They organized themselves into eight-hour shifts. Even when winter snowstorms hit and many of the other workers refused to work, many of the Chinese laborers went on working. By creating air shafts and access tunnels, they worked and lived completely under the snow. Between 500 and 1,000 Chinese workers were killed by rock and snow avalanches, falls, and other accidents.
8. Testimony Before United States Congress by Oswald Garrison Villard:
   "I want to remind you of the things that Chinese labor did for us in opening up the western portion of this country. I am the son of the man who drove the first transcontinental railroad across the American Northwest, the first rail link from Minnesota to Oregon and the waters of Puget Sound. I was near him when he drove the last spike and paid an eloquent tribute to the men who had built that railroad by their manual labor for there were no road-making machines in those days.

   He never forgot and never failed to praise the Chinese, of whom nearly 10,000 stormed the forest fastness, endured cold and heat . . . to aid in the opening up of our great Northwestern empire.

   I have a dispatch from the chief engineer of the Northwestern Pacific telling how the Chinese laborers went out into eight feet of snow with the temperature far below zero to carry on the work when no American dared face the conditions."²

DIRECTIONS: Imagine you are one of these Chinese immigrants, and write a letter to your family (mother, father, wife), describing your American experience. (Add a picture to help them understand what you are going through!)

1864

Dear




















1. Oscar Lewis, The Big Four (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938), p. 70.
2. Congressional record (testimony by Oswald Garrison Villard).

Excerpt from Ready-to-Use Multicultural Activities for the American History Classroom .