History
371
Devine
Spring
2014
Writing
Assignment #1
Instructions
Below
are two sets of questions that will help guide your reading of the two articles
we will discuss in class on Tuesday, January 28th.
Choose
one question from each set and answer both questions as
fully as you can in about 1 double-spaced page per question. You should type your answers to both
questions and I will collect them in class. Be sure to identify which questions
you’re answering and make sure your name is at the top of the page.
QUESTION SET
ONE – “James J. Hill and the Transcontinental Railroads”
- The
government awarded subsidies to railroad builders based on how fast they
worked and how much track they laid. Why did this incentive system end up
producing badly run railroad lines that often went bankrupt?
- Why was
James Hill able to build a profitable railroad line without government
subsidies? What were the “secrets
of his success”?
- Why did
Henry Villard fail to build a profitable railroad line?
- How did
James Hill insure ahead of time that once his railroad was built, there
would be customers and goods to fill the trains?
- How did
the “strings attached” to government subsidies end up hurting the railroad
lines that accepted these subsidies?
- Railroad
owners asked for government subsidies in order to stimulate foreign
trade. Hill refused subsidies but
developed an extensive foreign trade with Asia.
Why did he succeed in doing so? Why did his competitors fail?
- What was
Hill’s business model? How would
you sum up his basic approach to building and running an efficient and
profitable railroad?
- How did
government regulations (the Hepburn Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) aimed
at reforming poorly run railroads instead end up hurting Hill’s well-run railroad?
QUESTION SET
TWO – “Railroads and the Reorganization of Nature and Time”
- Unlike
earlier transport systems (lakes, rivers, canals, mud roads), how were
railroads “liberated” from the limits imposed by both geography and
climate?
- How did
the railroads change people’s perception of space and time? How did they decrease the cost of
distance and increase the value of time?
- How did
the coming of the railroad change the process of farming?
- How did
railroads change the ways in which travelers interacted with the
surrounding environment?
- How did
the railroads literally come to dictate what time it was in any given
location? Why did this happen?
- Why does
the author say that the railroads created a whole new class of
professionals?