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By Kurt Vidmer

In class last Tuesday, my group (Group C) worked with a map that tracked the time, distance, and speed of trains traveling to and from New York city from various locations. This collection contained maps from many different years, but we chose to focus on the maps from the years 1800, 1830, and 1857. After analyzing the three different maps, our group came up with two main conclusion.

As Avery pointed out, there was a large jump from the year 1830 to the year 1857. During this 27 year span, travel times decreased a great amount. For example, from where I grew up in Northeast Ohio, it would have taken me roughly a week and a day to to travel to New York in 1830. However, in the year 1857, it only would have taken me about a day to travel this distance. This completely changes the way in which Americans could view and space, and greatly increase the efficiency of travel to various places.

Our other main finding was again looking at a key difference between the 1830 and 1857 map. In the map of 1830, the map only showed the railroads reaching the eastern tip of the midwest. However, in the map of 1857, it shows the railroads reaching all the way to pacific. This paints a clear picture of how railroad expansion opened the country up to everyone.

We did however have some questions that the maps could not answer for us. First, we were wondering if this map dealt primarily with commercial shipping, or personal transit and travel. Also, we would have liked to know whether or not the experience a train ride chained dramatically with the change in travel times being so great.

Overall these maps served as a very intriguing and informative way to gain knowledge about railroad expansion and their impact on the country.