How the Transcontinental Railroad change the community. This was part of a symposium marking the railroads 150th anniversary. Your sponsor today of the Stanford Historical society provides members and supporters access and trying to be objective about telling the whole story to lectures and special events, membership is open to anyone, whether you are affiliated with Stanford University as an alum list, a faculty member, staff member or just live in the area or live outside of the area and are interested in history and the impact that stanford has had in the development of the nation. Please visit us in the reception area regarding membership or tell a friend to visit us at the Stanford Historical society. As i am mentioning the historical society, our next week or just happens to serve as the president of the Stanford Historical society. Doctor laura jones is responsible for Stanford University nearly 100 archaeological sites and 200 historic buildings. She earned her masters degree from the university of california san diego and a masters and doctors of philosophy from Stanford University. Her archaeological experience includes serving as a director and a number of major excavations and sites in the San Francisco bay area where she worked closely with the in indigenous indian tribes. She also conducted several historic archaeology projects and is currently leading the excavation of things such as the monumental stanford ruins created by the great earthquake of 1906. Laura has Extensive Knowledge of inference history and legends and continues to uncover the history of this university, its key players and how its past has played a role in our world today. She also runs all this work around the archaeology site in protecting the heritage of stanford and serves as the president right now of the Stanford Historical society as a volunteer. So, please welcome laura jones and learn more about stanford and the railroad. What we pull up the slides, isnt this a perfect event . I am learning so much. I am not an expert on the railroad, so please dont ask me technical questions about the railroad. But i do have the privilege of having the last word of some of this. These be grateful that richard had to go off to a family event. He may have to hear my disagreement with some of what he had to say about the railroad legacy of stanford. I do however have to say that i love these kinds of events. I like my history straight up. I really want to hear critical perspectives. I want to hear more than one perspective. I want to hear a scholarly debate about history. That is what makes this exciting to me. And i have to say i reread the Railroad Book a couple weeks ago to get ready for the talk. I stop while i am reading with the book and argue with richard and mumble and exclaim and put it down and say, i dont need a read that again. And it lures me back and and i read it again. I did have the privilege of reading a copy of percival mountainbrook. I was so drawn into the book that i read the whole thing in one weekend. It is an astonishing story. A set of stories about the chinese experience on the railroad. I hope that you are finding yourself motivated to go back to some of these scholarly sources with an open mind and look at them in any way. What i am going to talk about today is how the building of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Southern Pacific Railroad enabled of course what created Stanford University but also how the memory of the railroad, the legend of the railroad connects the university. What that means for us today if we accept that the loans were never repaid and that it was a swindle and that the whole thing rests on this paper mountain of unpaid debts to the american taxpayers. What does that mean for us when we are thinking about the railroad legacy at stanford. That is what i will be talking about. And of course i have beautiful historic photos. Because of the internet, it is so easy to get them now. And to look at them and to think about how seductive their beauty is and how that reinforces this romantic vision we have of the American West and can sometimes skew our memory of it. And more it in ways that restore some of the more complicated narratives that we can experience in scholarship. Thank you so much. I opened my mouth. So stanford universities railroad legacy. This is really the beginning of the university which was a muddy path from the dirt in El Camino Real to the wheatfield that later became Stanford University. I dont want to look at myself, lets look at this. This story starts as many Great American stories do with ambition and with hope. A drive for a better life. So here is Leland Stanford moving west to california. After the fire that destroyed his law library in wisconsin. Essentially ruined him and left him penniless. His brothers were in california in 1849 to sell supplies to minors. Leland stanford arrived and established his own store in cold springs in about 1855. This is hard work. This is a rough place. There is no railroad here yet. Leland is scraping by. This is part of his story with the Transcontinental Railroad. A pretty good salesman. And he sells people, the 10 a, he is selling people stuff. He sells a lot of stuff. He sold the Railroad Bond to congress. He was a good salesman. He goes on to move to sacramento in about 1860 and he takes over his brother store in sacramento and he is still selling minor implements, mining supplies liquor and cigars in sacramento. He is an even more successful salesman in sacramento and gets himself elected governor. This is also the era of his first foray into selling worthless pieces of paper. Where he starts dabbling in mining bonds and mining stock and learning that you can sell things to people. I love capital stock, 1 million, 110,000. It was probably 200 somewhere. He is starting to learn and get exposed to a wider frame of Business People in sacramento and schemes for advancing yourself and your family and your personal wealth. This was about his family and personal wealth at the time. Here they are in their sacramental mansion in 1862 before he had it listed above the flood waters a few years later. Clearly he has come a long way from cold springs here. In his mansion. He is a prosperous local merchant and a boss in the local republican party. He is a happy man and his family is secure and he is in upandcoming member of the party of lincoln. Closer examination of his career as governor might be warranted. And i think eventually someone will take a hard look at it. This is also a period of indian war and maliciousness in california. As we know Leland Stanford supported the chinese exclusion act. His career as a politician is the kind of thing that historians write books about. In our point of view in the story is about his ambition and his vision for what he wanted california to be. This is all part of what we were talking about earlier, the Great American imperial expansion, american colonialism, america taking over the continent of north america. He is one of those great colonizers. He arrived in california and there is no doubt that Leland Stanford loves california. He thinks he is in paradise. He is a booster of california promise. Of its beauty, agricultural potential and the potential of california citizens to form the greatest society on earth. And then he tumbles into bad company. Our leland. And forms an association with these gentlemen, his partners of commerce in sacramento, the big four associate. They formed the Union Pacific railroad. Their initial vision is they will build a wagon road turnpike poole rd. Into the sierras for the mine. They discover that the government is selling bonds so you can get paid to do that. So they Start Building a wagon road. They need the wagon road to build the railroad anyway. And then they discover that there is all this cash that you can get from the government. They struggle for a couple years on how to get their hands on that cash. And richard whites book will tell you all about that. Eventually floods of money are coming in and Leland Stanfords job in the Transcontinental Railroad was to keep the political Engine Running that was bringing in that money on the west coast and utah in particular. And to appear at least in the press to be the friend of the working man and the advocate for the potential of the railroad to invigorate the economies of california. He was selling the railroad. That was Leland Stanfords job. He did that job very very well. This is one of the things i disagree with richard about. I dont believe that Leland Stanford was stupid. Or ignorant or lazy. I think he was good at this thing that many politicians are good at which is convincing you that something is good for you when maybe it really isnt. And he becomes this legendary figure in this predigital, prephotographic period. He becomes an american hero. This is a legend in part created out of the railroad machine, he did press for the railroad and american colonial expansion and Public Investment in the west. He also inspires people to think that you can lose everything and then go on to be this great builder of a Great Railroad and to have this fortune. This is what inspires everyone whoever walks into a 711 and buys a lottery ticket, right . This hope that somehow out of all the american stories, that your story will be the story of greatness and success. And Leland Stanford was. We cannot deny that there was some sharp business practice that they engaged in. It is even more important, and i was interested to understand that the merciless competitiveness of capitalism is still with us today. The Union Pacific and the southern pacific and the occidental and oriental Steamship Company and the pacific improvement company, and a lot of other businesses that they were involved in engaged in ruthlessly competitive Business Practices is certainly true and not unique to them and it is not unique to their time. I think it is important for us when we are looking at history to see our heroes in their full human context and their full fallibility and bravery and courage and also in their greed and their failings. We do this every day now on social media. And we need to bring that perspective that Leland Stanford accomplished some great things and we will talk more about that and that he accomplished that at the expense of many hundreds of thousands of people who were losers in that game. So, as you have seen already, Leland Stanford e mast and enormous fortune from the building of railroads, the central and southern pacific. Most of it in paper money from these finance schemes. Eventually the southern pacific does produce considerable income. Leland stanford enjoys his money. And he uses it to amass properties in california and in his view to demonstrate the potential of californias greatness and to bring civilization to the west. So they built this enormous mansion on mount hill and fill it with art from europe. They throw lavish parties. Leland stanfords wife, i dont know whether you can believe these things in the newspapers. He buys her over 2 million in jewels. She is one of the richest women in the world. And you can see this as extra. To me it is also a very poignant tribute to his love for his wife and her importance in his life. As we heard earlier, where are the women in the story . Jane stanford was at Leland Stanfords side. When he lobbied the Railroad Bonds, he was the one who prepared the menu and hired the chef and schmoozed those people and handed the gentlemen their cigars. Mrs. Stanford was a philanthropist before senator stanford was. She funded 16 kindergartens in San Francisco and sacramento. She was a huge supporter of the ywca and both stanfords were supporters of womens suffrage and mrs. Stanford was particularly fond of giving away Free Railroad tickets to women who were going off on marches for the womens right to vote. These are people with real dimensionality. Mrs. Stanford simultaneously was at times a conservative woman and it times an incredibly progressive one. Had Business Contracts with chinese businessmen. Served chinese food in the Governors Mansion in sacramento. She was a very interesting person and here she is decked out in all these riches paid for by the american taxpayer. I dont think she thought that way. Unfortunately because my stanford destroyed all the correspondence between her and the senator, we are not sure how they explain that to themselves. How they view their role except that you can go to the Stanford Museum and look at the murals on the face of the museum that ms. Stanford built and you will see progress and civilization up there. In their view, they are bringing progress and civilization to the paradise that they viewed the state of california to be. They did this in part through lots and lots of political lobbying. This is president harrison, three president s visited the campus in the years. Visiting the stanfords home in palo alto. I like this photo even more. You get more of a sense, there is senator stanford with president harrison on the front porch of that house. The amount of wheeling and dealing and lobbying and presage and is in this time period to convince people on the east coast that california was worth investing in. But it wasnt some backwater over there that they didnt have to worry about. This was Leland Stanfords mission in life. Like me, i come from a tiny town that doesnt even have a railroad. Six miles outside of town with one traffic light, manning, south carolina. I came to california and i love california. So did Leland Stanford. That is important to remember. In his mind, he is building california. He has an imperialist view of that that we will talk about again in a minute. This is the palo alto spring by thomas hill. This is how the stanford saw themselves. Here in palo alto, this is a portrait of their only son. In this paradise on earth with their family. Enjoying the benefits of all that Railroad Money. Leland stanford also established the largest winery in the world with that money at dina in chico in northern california. This was part of his california project where he was going to show the world that you can grow anything in california and you could grow it better in california than you could in france or italy or anywhere else in the world. They make pretty good wine up there still today. He owns the fastest horse in the world. This is the first world record holder that he had. He also believed you had to improve the stock of california. Along with a number of other gentlemen farmers of the era, people from burbank for example , they would bring cows from the isle of jersey off the coast of brit. They would bring horses from france. They have this improvement notion that you could bring the best of everything to california and make it even better. This is what Leland Stanford was doing at the palo alto stockroom. And then of course, we have the tragic death of their only son. Leland stanford junior. I had to have something that had a train in it as i know that is why you are all here. They owned the railroad and they had a private rail car. Leland junior came home across the continent to his funeral on a train car. This is the turning point really in the stanford lives. So, they conceive of this project which is all part of their great colonial civilizing of the west project which is improve the people of california, improve the children of california for education. So, they found the university. This is one of my favorite early ground pictures of the university. I particularly love it because it shows you how huge the museum was. It was considered to be a parallel institution to the university. They were building a university and the museum as coinstitutions of civilization and progress in california. They got started on that wheatfield and chose a form of architecture of blending romanesque with California Mission style that they considered to be the blending of those two worlds of european and east coast sophistication with the beauty of california. They brought that sandstone in with the steam engine of course. Heres the engine in the guadalcanal and the stone quarry and brought in on specially laid rail. The rail was laid by Chinese Workers into the guadalcanal to bring the sandstone forward. It was quintessentially university of the early industrial steam age. So, it had enormous steam boilers. Up until about five years ago, most of our campus was run by steam. We all remember the clanging radiators in the guadalcanal. It was the university that Leland Stanford built with his