Ghosts Of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad

The Chinese were instrumental in building the transcontinental railroad. Without their labor and industriousness, the railroad would have never been completed when it was. Alas, very little is known about their history. Ghosts of Gold Mountain attempts to remedy this. Alas, because few detailed records are available, the book is mostly a recitation of facts and occasional anecdotes. There is no life story that we can follow to understand the life of the Chinese laborer.

The story we have is that of men that came from southern China. Travel from there to California took a similar amount of time as travel from the Eastern US. They worked together and often stayed together with other Chinese. There were very few Chinese women. Men came as gold prospectors and later laborers. Many died, but we have difficulty getting an exact number. They were much more reliable on railroad construction than many white laborers (yet were paid less.)

After the completion of the transcontinental railroad, they were lauded as the next great laborers. They could replace the freed slaves on plantations. They were hired to build many other railroads. They were seen as the next great immigrant group and expected to play a key role in American society. However, this optimism quickly fell away. It was replaced by an even worse discrimination. Chinese were denied citizenship, prevented from immigrating and killed. It wasn't until after World War 2 that the Chinese Exclusion Act was ended.