Q: When did the Central Pacific met the Union Pacific at Promontory, Utah to complete the transcontinental railroad?
A: 1869
Q: Who build the transcontinental railroad?
A: Immigrant labor was used: Chinese on the Central Pacific and Irish on the Union Pacific.
Q: Who controlled the California railroad industry and its political scene?
A: The Big Four: Hopkins, Crocker, Huntington, and Stanford
Q: How did the depression of the 1870s impact California?
A: It triggered an ongoing cycle of boom and bust.
A: The collapse of the Bank of California in 1875 (and other financial institutions) further weakened the California economy
Q: What explains the open hostility toward the Chinese?
A: They were blamed for most of the economic problems (backlash from the mining and railroad frontier).
A: The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress in 1882.
A: By 1877, politicians, newspapers, and citizens urged open agitation against the Chinese in California.
A: The Workingmen’s Party was established. It was nativist, anti-Chinese, and anti-big business (1877)
