Text 1: Historian Park argues that the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s was the defining American engineering achievement of the nineteenth century. The railroad knit the nation together, accelerated western settlement, and transformed the United States into a continental economic power.
Text 2: Historian Singh accepts the railroad's transformative impact but argues that the celebratory narrative omits its costs. Chinese laborers and Irish immigrants died in dangerous working conditions; Indigenous nations lost lands across which the tracks were laid; bison populations collapsed as hunters arrived by rail. The achievement, Singh contends, is inseparable from these losses.
Both authors would most likely agree that
- Acheck_circle
the transcontinental railroad had transformative effects.
- B
the railroad caused no significant changes.
- C
the railroad was a small, regional project.
- D
the railroad was never completed.
Explanation
Both authors describe the railroad as transformative; they differ on what to highlight. A is shared. B, C, and D contradict both.