Chapter 37

MATERIAL PROGRESS

[1860]

The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,443,321. In spite of the threatening political complications between 1840 and 1860, these years were characterized by astonishing economic prosperity. The decade after 1848 was, indeed, in point of advance in material weal, the golden age of our history. Between 1850 and 1860, the wealth of the nation swelled 120 per cent., the value of its farms 103 per cent., its total manufacturing product 87 per cent., its manufactured export 171 per cent., its railroad mileage 220 per cent. Making all due allowance for the rise of prices during the period, this is still a remarkable exhibit.

The great West continued to come under the hand of civilization. Between 1850 and 1860 our centre of population made a longer stride westward than during any other decade--from east of the meridian of Parkersburg, W. Va., to the meridian of Chillicothe, O. Florida and Texas having been admitted to statehood in 1845, Iowa followed next year, Wisconsin in 1848, California in 1850, Minnesota, which had been an organized Territory since 1849, in 1858, and Oregon in 1859. Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and Washington Territories were organized before 1860. By this date there were settlements far up the Rio Grande. The Pacific coast was sought for lands and homes as well as for gold. Fremont's expeditions in 1842, 1844, and 1848 had done much to show people the way thither. In 1853 the Government sent out four different parties to survey suitable routes for a Pacific railway, a work followed up by three other parties the next summer. The settlements in Oregon had, by 1845, in places become dense.

The old West prospered, notwithstanding the drain which it, in common with the East, experienced in favor of parts farther toward the setting sun. The first lake propeller was launched at Cleveland in 1847. The same year the Tribune was started in Chicago. In 1850 the city had its theatre and its board of trade. The Chicago streets began this year to be lighted with gas. The first bridge across the Mississippi was built in 1855 at Minneapolis; that at Rock Island, 1,582 feet long, in 1856. The Niagara suspension bridge was finished in 1855.

The increase of railways did not at once end the opening of canals. The Miami Canal, between Cincinnati and Toledo, 215 miles, begun in 1825, was finished in 1843, and the Wabash and Erie, between Evansville and Toledo, opened in 1851; but the Middlesex Canal in Massachusetts was, in 1853, abandoned and filled up from the loss of its business to railroads. In 1857 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company purchased from the State the canal and railway line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and soon after extended the railway portion to cover the whole. A traveller from Boston to the West could get to Rochester by rail in 1841. Next year he could go on to Buffalo by the same means. In 1842, Augusta, Ga., was connected by rail with Atlanta, Savannah with Macon, and the Boston & Maine Railway finished to Berwick.

The first railway out of Chicago--it was the first in Illinois--was built in 1850, to Elgin. Chicago had no railway connection with the East till two years later, when the Michigan Southern was opened. The Michigan Central was finished soon after the Southern, and the Rock Island before the end of the year. The Michigan Central had direct connection east across Canada to Niagara Falls by 1854. In 1856 the Burlington route reached the Mississippi and the Rock Island went on to Iowa City. This year witnessed the opening of the first railroad in California--from Sacramento to Folsom. In 1857 Chicago and St. Louis were joined by rails, as also the latter city with Baltimore, over the Parkersburg branch of the Baltimore & Ohio.

In 1850 Hiram Sibley embarked in the telegraph business. He bought the House patent, and next year organized the New York and Mississippi Valley Telegraph Company. By 1853 or 1854, some twenty companies had started, with a capital of $7,000,000--too many for good management or high profits. Accordingly, Sibley and Cornell united in buying them up, and thus formed, in 1856, the Western Union, which Sibley's energy extended all over the country east of the Rocky Mountains. In 1860 he went to Washington with a scheme for a transcontinental telegraph line, and secured from Congress a subsidy of $40,000 for ten years. Just then the Overland Telegraph Company was started in San Francisco. It and Sibley united, breaking ground July 1, 1861, and proceeding at the rate of nearly ten miles of wire per day. On October 25th, telegraph wire stretched all the way between the two oceans. In 1864 this line was amalgamated with the Western Union.

PERIOD IV.

CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION

1860-1868