Title: Reading Check 6: Railroads and Corporate Empire
Course: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory > Section: Week 8 · October 12–16, 2026: Railroads, Corporate Empire, and Dispossession

Q: Which policy most directly supported transcontinental railroad construction?
- Federal grants and financial subsidies
- The elimination of every federal tariff
- The Homestead Act acting entirely alone
- A national ban on corporate charters
A: Federal grants and financial subsidies

Q: Why is a railroad promotional map not a neutral representation?
- It cannot represent geographic distance
- It selects routes to persuade audiences
- Its scale makes all claims objective
- Its place names remove commercial purpose
A: It selects routes to persuade audiences

Q: What does the term “corporate empire” emphasize?
- Companies operated without government
- Railroads functioned only as transport
- Workers held equal bargaining power
- State-backed firms reorganized land and labor
A: State-backed firms reorganized land and labor

Q: Name one piece of evidence from this unit and explain how its creator, audience, or collection context affects how a historian may use it.

Q: Make a one-sentence claim answering this unit question: What did railroads connect, and what relations of land, labor, and violence did they conceal? Then identify one limitation, uncertainty, or counterexample that keeps the claim from becoming too broad.