Diagram of the United States of America, Mexico, the West India Islands and Isthmus of Darien : showing proposed routes of the Pacific Rail Road
Diagram of the United States of America, Mexico, the West India Islands and Isthmus of Darien
Item Information
Title:
Diagram of the United States of America, Mexico, the West India Islands and Isthmus of Darien : showing proposed routes of the Pacific Rail Road
Description:
America Transformed: By mid-19th century, with increased oceanic traffic between the East and West Coasts based on the China trade and discovery of gold in California, many Americans wanted to extend the nation’s rail network west of the Mississippi River by constructing a transcontinental route. In 1853, Congress authorized the War Department to conduct reconnaissance surveys in order to determine the best route for a transcontinental railroad. Because of growing sectional rivalries between the North and South in extending chattel slavery into the western territories, there were four east-west Pacific Railroad Surveys, as indicated on this schematic map.
Outline map of the United States and Middle America showing proposed routes of the Pacific Rail Road and its branches in connection with the various systems of existing and unfinished rail roads from the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
Includes tables of distances, recapitulation and lake route.
In upper right: Senate Mis. doc. no. 54. 4 Sess. 33 Cong.
Notes (exhibitions):
Exhibited: "America transformed. Part 1: the United States expands westward," organized by the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, 2019.
IIIF Manifest