Joseph Keppler: “The Modern Colossus Of (Rail) Roads” Cartoon

The Images, Cartoons, and Other Visual Sources That Shaped America
Table of Contents
Joseph Keppler: “The Modern Colossus Of (Rail) Roads” Cartoon
Overview
Document Image
About the Artist
Context
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
https://doi.org/10.3735/9781935306733.book-part-053

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Abstract

The history of the United States in the years between the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the dawn of the twentieth century can, from one perspective, be told through the history of the railroad industry. Before the early 1870s, about 45,000 miles of track had been laid. By 1900, 170,000 miles of track had been added. It was the Gilded Age, when business tycoons like William Henry Vanderbilt amassed immense fortunes, not just in the railroad industry but also in steel, oil, banking, timber, textiles, liquor, and other industries.

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