Discuss the significance of railroads in transforming the Western Hemisphere. How did railroads affect Latin America, the United States, and Canada?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
By improving transportation, railroads increased trade and connected the center and peripheral regions of each territory. Initially governments financed railroads, thus demonstrating how new economic planning could transform the countryside and, as the text notes, "affect national histories." Centralized, urbanized areas were connected to more rural, isolated, and indigenous regions that could not be exploited as extensively before. As a result, wealthier classes made large profits and seized the lands of Amerindians and Native Americans, who were displaced in favor of commercial development. The subsequent financing of railroads by foreign investments led to the further exploitation and development of "Third World" economic territories as "First World" nations were able to exploit resources using technology improvements and industrial growth. In the end railroads helped develop a global market economy.