Railroads, US History, & Education

[xoxoxoBruce]

When I was digging into today's IOtD I found a report which was pages 171 through 194 of something bigger which I
assume was the Mississippi Valley Historical review. They were for some reason investigating how text books handled
the land grants by the government to the railroads.



So I says to myself, self says I, WTF? This was published in September of 1945. I don't know how long it took but there's
a war on, you know the Big One, WW II, don't you have more important things to think about?
OK, on the first page a footnote by the author...



Hmm, his associates in the Association of American Railroads.
Ah, the railroad boys doing some positive PR, eh?
I don't remember any of my book learnin' dwelling on it but I've always felt the vast stretches between the Mississippi River
and the other side of the Rockies was not of much use because it was hard to get there and once there completely isolated.
There was the danger of these areas breaking or being stolen away.

So the government gave the railroads land for right of ways plus land to built stations and land to sell around that land.
The railroad robber barons made vast fortunes but to be fair they spent invested vast fortunes. They slaughtered millions of
Bison saying the herds blocked the trains when in fact the were starving the Indians out. However they did open the west to
immigrants hungry for land of their own and tied the country together.
So I figured it's a wash besides it was long ago and what's done is done.

Over the 23 pages they compare the story as presented in 37 different textbooks compared to verifiable records of the transactions.
The textbooks are all over the place on facts often contradicting each other and even themselves. I guess in colleges the use
whatever book was written by the dude teaching the course. Like I said before it's over and done but I thought they did
make one case pretty well.

After the Civil War it was time to tie the country together so there wouldn't be another one. For the government to assert their
authority over the wilderness if you will. That meat Federal Troops moved all over the place and the railroad was a big help.



It doesn't look very impressive but this rabbit hole kept me going around in circles and loved me long time.