Views
Views are short interpretive historical presentations from materials in the Railroads collection. Each View is aimed a research question or problem and assembles information from multiple sources: documents, lists, records, orginal maps, and other historical sources. Rather than using traditional footnotes or citations, these Views contain direct links and references to relevant sources used in their assembly. Views are "assemblages" of data and interpretation and should be considered multimedia experiments in the presentation of digital history.
Railroad Workers and Railroad Work
In the 1850s railroads hired thousands of working people to build and operate their growing lines. In 1857 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad recorded every employee on the line. Over 6,000 individuals worked for the B & O in a variety of roles. At least one woman was employed by the company, Sarah Mally, as well as many free blacks and Irish immigrants. Our database will track these individuals over time and in coming months we will add more data from different railroads on slave laborers, Irish, and other workers. By Richard G. Healey, Katie Dooley, and William G. Thomas
