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• 1 2024-03-27T16:12:25-07:00 Overseas Trade's Impact on the United States by Jade Yamawaki 3 This essay explores the impact of transatlantic railroads and trade routes on the US’s relations across the Pacific before the 20th century, using a map and academic journals as examples. plain 2024-03-27T17:42:30-07:00 8/1/1875 35.44556450506132, 139.63894080358142
  
  In the present, we often relate the word “Pacific” to things like beaches, vacations, and the season of summer. However, the pre-20th century United States saw this word as a means for expansion and a way to connect them to the previously distant corners of the world. While developments such as the transcontinental railroad helped with continental expansion, they were also equally significant in reshaping global communication and trade. This essay explores the impact of transatlantic railroads and trade routes on the US’s relations across the Pacific before the 20th century, using a map and academic journals as examples. By understanding these developments, we can view broader themes of economic development and cultural exchange, along with how they have shaped our modern world.
  The 19th century was a period of revolutionary transformation in transportation, characterized by the rapid expansion of railroad networks across Europe and North America. The invention and refinement of steam locomotion revolutionized travel and trade, making it faster, more efficient, and more accessible than ever before. These advancements in rail technology facilitated the movement of goods and people, thus transforming societal structures. As nations sought to assert their economic and political influence on a global scale, the idea of connecting continents through railroads became increasingly appealing. The construction of transatlantic railroads and transatlantic steamship services laid the groundwork for a truly interconnected world to enhance communication and open up new markets.
  An 1875 German composite map published by Justus Perthes gives us insight into what trade across the Pacific looked like before 1900. This map was created by Adolf Stieler, a German cartographer whose Handatlas was the leading German World Atlas until the mid-20th century (Geographicus Rare Antique Maps). The map shows us the Pacific Ocean, along with three main countries: China, Australia, and the United States. We are also able to zoom in on the map and see a direct line drawn on the map that connects Japan to San Francisco. This line on the legend (when translated to English) says that it represents “lines of regular steam shipping” with the number indicating the time of travel in days or hours. This particular route is Yokohama, Japan to San Francisco, which can be assumed to take around 22 or 24 days. There are also routes from Japan to China, which better explains the migration that took place from China to the US that began during the 1850s. Also pictured in this map are major railroads in the United States, one in particular being the First Transcontinental Railroad. This railroad combined the Central Pacific, Union Pacific, and Western Pacific railroads, and ran from Omaha, Nebraska to the San Francisco Bay. Overall, this map gives information on not just how goods and people were moved from Asia to the US, but also how goods and people moved throughout the United States.
  Chapter one of Kevin Waite’s “West of Slavery” supports the information on the map, as it dives into the lure of Asian markets to the US, and how underlying Southern motives helped expand the US westward. The Southern vision of a transcontinental empire was not only about economic expansion but also about the extension of slavery and the preservation of their interests. Through this perspective, Waite highlights the geopolitical and economic factors that drove the expansion of transportation infrastructure and how the expansion of railroads was seen as a way to extend the institution of slavery into new territories, leading to the exertion of political influence over the region. Moving towards the Pacific was also a way for the South to build its empire to rival the industrial North, thus creating another reason why a railroad passing through the South would be an even better idea. The debate about where this railroad would pass through led to more divide between the North and South. For example, Asa Whitney’s proposal for the first transcontinental railroad was shut down in the House of Representatives due to how North it was, even though he claimed he would privately fund it. Another example can be taken straight from the reading, where Waite says, “Meanwhile, slaveholders saw their commerce carried away on northern ships, as they themselves were becoming more dependent on Europe and New England for manufactured goods. To stem this tide, southerners placed their hopes in the twin objectives of a transcontinental railroad: to unite South and West and to open a way to the China trade. Such a road would accelerate southern migration into newly acquired western territory, which in time would become states with congressional representatives, beholden to slaveholding interests” (Waite 28). As shown in the text, the Southerners always had another motive. While of course, they wanted the railroad for economic reasons it would also help them politically by increasing population and spreading slavery. Finally, Waite closes out this chapter with this quote, “The transcontinental railroad, a great national project designed to bind together the American East and West, had triggered a rupture between North and South” (Waite 39). This final statement sums up the importance of where this railroad would go. Whoever won would ultimately gain the upper hand both politically and economically, which as we can see in Stieler’s map, ended up being the North with the port coming out of San Francisco.
  While the trade of goods and the creation of railroads helped the US spread its empire to the Pacific, the travel of people to the US was also very influential. Beth Lew-Williams tells us in chapter one of “The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America” about the struggles Chinese immigrants faced when first coming to the United States. As the US started construction on their railroads and the Gold Rush began in California, the demand for labor grew. While some Southerners sent their slaves to make money for them, many Chinese people saw an opportunity to support their families back home. The amount of Chinese that joined the gold rush went from 325 in 1849 to over 20,000 in 1852, as rumors spread about men becoming rich overnight. As the years went on, more and more Chinese immigrated to the US, which nationalists did not like. They only saw the Chinese as temporary and would only put up with them if they were assimilated. As Lew-Williams says, “(They) viewed the Chinese as an existential threat to their vision of a free white republic.” Complaints about Chinese workers taking jobs and being anti-Americans spread, with hate not just being verbal, but physically violent. This is related to Stieler’s map because it depicts how the steam routes between Asia and the States not only exchanged goods but also people and culture, not always in a positive way.
  In closing, the Pacific Ocean not only connected the US to other countries economically but also culturally. The development of steamboats and railroads made trade and communication more efficient but also created tensions between not just immigrants and Americans, but also between the North and South. The map created by Adolf Stieler combined with the writings of Waite and Lew-Williams supports this, and all three sources also show how transportation towards and across the Pacific impacted the United States before 1900.
  
  Works Cited
  Lew-Williams, Beth. “The Chinese Question.” Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the
  Making of the Alien in America, Harvard University Press, 2021. Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.
  “Stieler, Adolf (1775-1836).” Geographicus Rare Antique Maps, www.geographicus.com/P/
  ctgy&Category_Code=stieler. Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.
  Stieler, Adolf. “Polynesien Und Der Grosse Ocean.” David Rumsey Historical Map Collection,
  Justus Perthes, 1875, https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~333193~90101360:Composite--Nos--76-77--Polynesien-u?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort,Pub_Date,Pub_List_No,Series_No&qvq=q:Composite: Nos. 76-77. Polynesien und Der Grosse Ocean;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort,Pub_Date,Pub_List_No,Series_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=0&trs=1. Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.
  Waite, Kevin. “Chapter 1: The Southern Dream of a Pacific Empire.” West of Slavery, The
  University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.