History 371Hon
Devine
Fall 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, September 2nd.
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?