Website Spotlight: Transcontinental Railroad

Website URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tcrr/

Introductory Note:

Welcome to one in a series of posts which spotlight quality websites that I use with my U.S. History survey course students at Azusa Pacific University to enrich the regular material in our learning modules.

In this post, I limit myself to those specific aspects of the website which I find fit particularly well within our face-to-face class sessions (each student is required to bring a laptop to class) or as the basis for the students' regularly-assigned written reactions.

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I ask the students to work through the following links:

Introduction
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/1900/tguide/tguideweb.html

Photo Gallery: Building the Transcontinental Railroad
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/photo-gallery/tcrr-gallery/

The Race to Utah 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-race/

Flash Interactive: Race to Utah (Students will really like this one)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/flash-interactive/tcrr/

Workers of the Central Pacific Railroad (mostly Chinese)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-cprr/

Workers of the Union Pacific Railroad (mostly Irish)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-uprr/

Biography: Charles Crocker
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/tcrr-ccrocker/

Biography: Leland Stanford
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/tcrr-stanford/

Tunneling in the Sierra Nevada
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-tunnels/

Mark Twain's Observations of the Railroad
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/tcrr-twain/

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Concluding Note:

I hope you will use this blog post in conjunction with both the modules on my Learning Professor wiki and the numerous other posts in my Website Spotlight series.

1. The website spotlighted in this post fits within the following U.S. History survey course module on the wiki:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/Industrialization

2. The other blog posts in my Website Spotlight series--chronologically displayed by U.S. History survey course module-- can be found on this wiki page:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/WEBSITE+SPOTLIGHT