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Ghosts of Gold Mountain : the epic story of the Chinese who built the transcontinental railroad
Publication Information
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.
Physical Description
312 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Summary
From across the sea, they came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes in America. Converging on the enormous western worksite of the Transcontinental Railroad, the migrants spent years dynamiting tunnels through the snow-packed cliffs of the Sierra Nevada and laying tracks across the burning Utah desert. Their sweat and blood fueled the ascent of an interlinked, industrial United States. But those of them who survived this perilous effort would suffer a different kind of death--a historical one, as they were pushed first to the margins of American life and then to the fringes of public memory. In this groundbreaking account, award-winning scholar Gordon H. Chang draws on unprecedented research to recover the Chinese railroad workers' stories and celebrate their role in remaking America. An invaluable correction of a great historical injustice, The Ghosts of Gold Mountain returns these "silent spikes" to their rightful place in our national saga.
Contents
- Guangdong
- Gold Mountain
- Central Pacific
- Foothills
- The High Sierra
- The Summit
- The Strike
- Truckee
- The Golden Spike
- Beyond Promontory.
Subjects
- Railroad construction workers > West (U.S.) > History > 19th century.
- Foreign workers, Chinese > West (U.S.) > History > 19th century.
- Chinese > West (U.S.) > History > 19th century.
- China > Emigration and immigration > History > 19th century.
- West (U.S.) > History > 19th century.
- Central Pacific Railroad Company
- Central Pacific Railroad Company > History.
- Central Pacific Railroad Company > Employees > History.