The Industrial Revloution and the Impact of Rail Roads on Early America

I found the Stowell paper to be very interesting in the way it portrayed American life in the eighteen hundreds. During the antebellum period in our history, America became increasingly industrial. The paper gave statistical figures from an industrial census that showed how much certain American towns expanded during the revolution. I found it interesting how Buffalo, Albany, and Syracuse were some ranked as some of the biggest cities in America during this time. When rail road technology began to appear in America, the public feared how it would impact their life. at first they were awed st the sight of these massive new marvels of technology. However, they quickly became a nuisance. Property owners did not want trains running through the main streets of towns in front of there houses. They noise was bearable at first as only a two or three trains would run through a day. However, when second lines were added to improve train traffic flow, trains were running through on eleven minute intervals in some towns. Another strange statistic that Stowell brought up was the death toll caused by the train. It seemed so unreasonable that Americans were this stupid that they could be killed in such numbers by trains. the figures stated that people were trying to jump trains which was apparently popular among young men of the time and would get killed when they missed and got ran over. Also people standing on the tracts for some reason could not hear the massive ton'age of metal coming and get destroyed. It is amazing how many people died and all of the injuries that occurred. Then it went into indirect deaths such as the boy who tried to cross the tracks in his laden wagon and the jolt or going over the tracks sent him head over heals in front of his own cart which quickly reduced him to a memory. What is seriously wrong with Americans of this time? I do agree with separating tracks from main city centers because they are definitely a noise nuisance.