The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 3, Spring 2020 | Page 29

and the Transcontinental Railroad
such massive cultural, economic, political,
and social changes that the country
was perfectly ripe to welcome the
first cross-country railway line and culture-defining
entertainment. Reporters
compared the coming of the Transcontinental
Railroad to the first shot fired
at Lexington nearly one hundred years
prior and Barnum’s traveling show was
considered an “amusement miracle” in
the nineteenth century. 69 The railroad
helped create a nationwide stock market
and economy and a continent-wide
culture that saw entertainers like Barnum
easily being able to move from one
city to another in just hours. While the
victory of the Civil War held the Union
together, the Transcontinental Railroad
and Barnum’s circus made the country
feel a bit smaller and the changes of
Reconstruction not so overwhelming.
The railroad showed that any town or
industry could be established anywhere
there were tracks tying it to the Union,
and Barnum’s circus showed the profitability
and importance of a technology-driven
American entertainment industry.
70 When the bells pealed and the
telegrams sent the message of “DONE”
during the Golden Spike ceremony, and
when Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth
and its mile-long train rolled into dozens
of cities, they both were inaugurated
in the new American century. 71
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Bibliography
Ambrose, Stephen E. Nothing Like It
in the World: The Men Who Built the
Transcontinental Railroad: 1863-1869.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.