Working on the Railroad

Between 1865 and 1869, thousands of Chinese migrants toiled at a grueling pace and in perilous working conditions to help construct America’s first transcontinental railroad. Gordon Chang, professor of history at Stanford University, leads an ambitious international research project on that crucial emergence of modern America. Using sources in Chinese and English, photographs, oral histories, and the latest digital technologies, he reveals this long-neglected history.

This program is presented in partnership with the Stanford Humanities Center, the Stanford Arts Institute, The Newberry Library, and the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture and the University of Chicago.