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

by Gordon H. Chang

A history of the Chinese workers who built the Transcontinental Railroad, helping to forge modern America only to disappear into the shadows of history until now.

From across the sea, they came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes in America. Converging on the enormous western worksite of the Transcontinental Railroad, the migrants spent years dynamiting tunnels through the snow-packed cliffs of the Sierra Nevada and laying tracks across the burning Utah desert. Their sweat and blood fueled the ascent of an interlinked, industrial United States. But those of them who survived this perilous effort would suffer a different kind of death—a historical one, as they were pushed first to the margins of American life and then to the fringes of public memory. 

In this account, Gordon H. Chang draws on unprecedented research to recover the Chinese railroad workers’ stories and celebrate their role in remaking America.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Audiobook, China, American, Asian American

320 pages, Hardcover

First published May 7, 2019

Reviews

[Woman Reading (is away exploring) · Rating 4 out of 5]

almost 4 ☆

On May 10, 1869 - 153 years ago - the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad was celebrated by the placement of the Golden Spike fusing its two separate segments built by the Central Pacific Railroad Company ("CPRR") and Union Pacific. The Transcontinental Railroad symbolized the unity of the country, which was vital shortly after the divisive wounds of the Civil War. And the transformation achieved in intracontinental trade was substantial. Within ten years of its completion, the railroad shipped $50 million worth of freight coast to coast every year. Read more about the benefits here -
▪︎ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexpe....
▪︎ https://www.history.com/news/transcon...

Such a magnificent accomplishment made the railroad magnates extremely wealthy. Indeed, by the end of the 19th century, the riches amassed by the four directors of the CPRR catapulted them into the ranks of the uber wealthy, thus securing them the pejorative "Robber Barons." Much has already been documented about these industrialist tycoons. But little is known about the approximately 20,000 Chinese who were employed by CPRR as laborers, foremen, contractors, masons, cooks, carpenters, interpreters, medical practitioners, and teamsters.

In Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, author Gordon H. Chang attempted to bring these forgotten people and their achievements and contributions to American history out of the ghostly twilight. In one of life's little ironies, Chang is a professor of history at Stanford University, the legacy of one of the four CPRR's directors, Leland Stanford. While Governor of California, Stanford wanted measures to address the "Chinese question" and declared in 1862,

"The settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged ... Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population."

But by 1865, Stanford's stance had dramatically changed. The CPRR was responsible for constructing 690 miles of track stretching from Sacramento, California, to Promontory Summit, Utah. It was significantly shorter than Union Pacific's portion because the CPRR had to deal with elevation change of about 7,000 feet due to the Sierra Nevada mountain range. A key labor strategy - to recruit and import workers from China - had become crucial to CPRR's success. Stanford claimed that Chinese workers had become "indispensable" to the project's progress; and that the Chinese laborers were just as efficient as, if not more than, white workers in their performance. Their 20,000 Chinese workers constituted 90 percent of CPRR's workforce, helped in part because whites refused to work for the CPRR given the dangers and the physical difficulties of the project. In addition, the CPRR had a two-tier wage system based on skin color, for the net pay to the Chinese could be as low as 35 percent of that paid to whites ("Robber Barons" indeed!)

A CPRR director had become so confident in their labor force that he wagered to Union Pacific's executive that CPRR could lay ten miles of track in one day. Previously, the longest length of track laid in a single day was six miles. On April 28, 1869, according to reporters:

... several thousand Railroad Chinese and eight Irish rail handlers, "with military precision and organization," had laid ten miles and fifty-six feet of track in less than twelve hours, a stunning performance that had never been seen before.

A San Francisco newspaper declared the feat "the greatest work in tracklaying ever accomplished or conceived by railroad men," and a railroad historian later described the Chinese effort as "the most stirring event in the building of the railroad."

Celebratory accounts both then and since, however, included the names of the eight Irish iron movers but not one of the Chinese.

Active racist sentiment ensured that the Chinese workers would become the "silent spikes" of railroad history. They weren't just quietly ignored, however, but violently chased off and prohibited from attaining citizenship as rising anti-Chinese sentiment was expressed in mass lynching and the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

I had listened to the audiobook, which smoothed out what otherwise would have been a few dry and slow-paced spots. But overall, I'm glad to have spent the time to fill in the void of American history. In these recent years of yet again resurging anti-Chinese sentiment, it is good to commemorate just how significant a role Chinese immigrants had in shaping history and contributing to America's development and prosperity.

[Bob H · Rating 5 out of 5]

May 2019 is the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike ceremony, so it's fitting for this groundbreaking new book, one which tells the story of the Railroad Chinese, as the author calls them, in detail for the first time. To build the transcontinental railroad, to bind the nation east and west after a war dividing it north and south, the Pacific end of the venture -- the Central Pacific RR, building eastward from Sacramento -- needed workers. The nearest source of labor was China.

This is the first railroad history that tells of the roughly 20,000 Chinese workers who built the Central Pacific RR. The author is a Stanford history professor who presided over the project to research these workers, using English and Chinese-language materials, both in the US and in China. He tells of the workers' origins in the Guangdong region of southeast China, near Hong Kong, their ways of life and their culture -- and their striving. Their voyages to California, their early construction work, their economic and contractual infrastructure in San Francisco, all this is in rich detail, researched through ship manifests, immigration and business records of the Chinese community, as well as the farm and provisioning economy they built to feed their workers. We now have at least a few names of the people who did this, people nameless in history till now.

This is a record of the skill, courage, tenacity and hard work of these workers. It's a heroic story: they had to dig -- by hand and by explosives -- through the snow-laden and granite mountains over Donner Summit, under terrible winter conditions and dangerous terrain. Prof. Chang's researchers did considerable research of archaeological digs at work camps along the RR route, as well as from ship manifests and business records regarding the Chinese community, the immigrants, and their provisioning the railroad workers. More and more, we see poignant stories of the dead -- at least 1,200 by most accounts -- and the efforts to get their bodies home for proper burial, lest they be "hungry ghosts" wandering a land far from their ancestral homes.

Their efforts are central to American history, and deserve this recognition. The first transcontinental railroad, over Donner Summit and through the Nevada desert, could not have been built without them. Many Railroad Chinese would go on to be indispensable to other major railroad projects soon after: the Northern Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the rail net in California and Oregon, the Canadian Pacific. Their hard work and technical skill -- no accident the Chinese knew about using gunpowder, for instance, they invented it -- would be of the highest quality. It made the U.S. economy rich and well-knit

We also read how cruelly the settlers, newly arrived by new railroad, treated the Railroad Chinese, a reign of terror and murder that would drive them from newly built towns like Auburn and Truckee along the route, and all across the West. That, and the immigration exclusion laws urged by Western representatives, would blunt their numbers and drive many away. Some Chinese did cling to the West, and the book tells of their tribulations and endurance.

This book is based on meticulous research, sensitively written, and enthralling. It is indispensable to histories of the American West, its railroads, its society and racial struggles. Highest recommendation.

(Reviewed from an advance reading copy by Amazon Vine.)

[Jifu · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Note: I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley)

Throughout this work, author Gordon Chang rightfully laments the current lack of firsthand accounts from any of the Chinese migrants who helped construct the Transcontinental Railroad. However, if he hadn't called attention to this issue so plainly, I'm genuinely unsure if it's something that I would have been able to pick up on. That's because through drawing upon a diverse and wide range of resources and research, Chang is still able to construct an incredibly thorough and detailed picture of who the Chinese workers on the Central Pacific Line were, where they came from, and what kind lives that they lived as they help connect America from coast to coast. "Ghosts of Gold Mountain" is nothing less than a fantastic feat of scholarship that not merely shines a spotlight onto a group that have nearly vanished from America's historical memory, but makes them all come alive again.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a look at the contribution of Chinese immigrant laborers in the construction of the western side of the transcontinental railroad. Going through the mountains and deserts, this was the most dangerous and difficult section of the project. Despite their incredible contribution to this historic effort, they were mostly left out of the record.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good book about Chinese immigration to California and building the western end of the transcontinental railroad. My understanding about this subject before reading the book is that the Chinese were virtual slaves and widely despised. Boy, was I wrong.

This book tells of Chinese first coming to the United States to mine gold. They referred to California as Gold Mountain. Chang references conditions in China and speaks a great deal about their strong connection to their homeland. He references contemporary statements that they were strong and fearless workers and unlike many of the European immigrants were not given to drinking and fighting.

Chang paints a clear picture of the hardships face and the stoicism of the 'railroad Chinese'. While there admittedly was some racism during construction this seems no worse than was seen with other ethnic groups. The racism would eventually grow and lead to massacres and some of the stereotypes that we see today about that time period.

This is a great book about a little studied facet of the American West. I recommend it for readers interested in race relations, Chinese American history or the American West.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a non-fic about Chinese laborers, who participated in the construction of the US Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s. I read it as a part of monthly reading for March-April 2022 at Non Fiction Book Club group.

138,000 Chinese had arrived in California in the middle of 19th century. They called this land Gold Mountain for the Goldrush stories of sudden wealth reached across the globe. They were the largest single workforce in American industry in 1864-1869, when the US Transcontinental has been built, the figure surpassed only in the late nineteenth century by other groups. However, according to the author, there is a dearth of direct witness accounts, neither in the US nor in China. This is especially surprising bearing in mind that [1] most Chinese workers were of middle-income class and literate and [2] The Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the main American carrier in the Pacific, reported that in the single year 1876 alone, its ships carried more than 250,000 letters between China, Japan, and the United States. Yet remarkably, not a single message from or to a Railroad Chinese in this vigorous traffic has been located despite the most strenuous research efforts. Today there is nothing extant in their own words about their experiences. Therefore, other methods are used to reconstruct their life – archeology, experiences on other, later railroad constructing sites, pay documents, etc.

The episode of massive Chinese presence was noted at the time by US journalists and politicians, it was assumed that they’ll become the backbone of US labor force:

The newspaper then noted that the Chinese had already established a significant presence in the state: Chinese who had worked in mines and in San Francisco “were rising from extreme penury to comparative wealth.” Though the newspaper described the character of these workers as clearly inferior in every way to the intelligence, morality, and abilities of the “Caucasian race,” it observed nonetheless that the Chinese were becoming a vital element of the population. The “white men are naturally of the dominant race; they are all fitted to be masters,” but who would serve them? There were no “black slaves” in the state, Indians were “fast dying out,” and no white labor from the British dominions was to be had. Who would grow the food and staples and harvest them from the soil? “Roads have to be made, and railroads will soon follow,” but “will the white man, in this country, follow such employments?” “Never,” the paper declared, but Chinese would provide the muscle: they “are such a people.”

Moreover, during the construction, Chinese outperformed whites:

Once, to satisfy their curiosity and to try to squeeze as much work as possible out of their employees, the company directors arranged a competition between Railroad Chinese and workers from Cornwall, in England, who enjoyed the reputation at the time of being the best miners in the world. The CPRR had recruited them with high wages away from mines in Nevada to tunnel at the summit. Chinese and the Cornish were set to work at opposite ends of the tunnel. After measuring the completed work at the end of the day over several days, the company discovered, to its surprise, that the Chinese had advanced farther than the Cornish team. In public testimony in 1877 before a special United States Senate committee investigating Chinese immigration, Charles Crocker reported that the competition was “hard work, steady pounding on the rock, bone-labor,” but “without fail,” the Chinese “always out-measured the Cornish miners” in the amount of cut and removed rock. Crocker maintained unequivocally that “the Chinese were skilled in using the hammer and the drill,” and in terms of their attitude, they were “very trusty,” “very intelligent,” and they lived up to their contracts. In sum, Crocker conceded that compared to “white men,” the Chinese displayed “greater reliability and steadiness,” and with their tremendous “aptitude and capacity for hard work,” they had “worked themselves into our favor.”

One has to wonder, what the US (and the world) would be like if the initial cooperation continued and hasn’t turned into pogroms and closure of the borders. An interesting pick into less studied subject of the US history.

[James Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a tremendous book! As an historian, I was impressed at the way the author approached material, acknowledging that direct documentation from the railroad workers at the heart of his story is not available.

Ghosts of Gold Mountain uses the "railroad Chinese" to link together Chinese history, American history, the history of science and technology and many other subfields in a deeply humane narrative.

[Kadhir Patchamuthu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read a decent amount about the transcontinental railroad was hopeful for more historical details about the events which I understand is a poor frame to have when considering the serious lack of reliable sources from Chinese workers during the time.

I think it’s a great book if you have the knowledge that it is trying and effectively painting a picture of the Chinese experience from being transported to California and other states, to the work they had to endure, to the difficulty of dealing with anti Chinese sentiment from both American workers and the government.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad was built almost entirely by immigrant Chinese, 20,000 or so of them.  I expect most of us are vaguely aware of that, and I expect most of us are aware this was hard, dangerous work.  Begun in 1864, finished in 1869, this portion stretches from Sacramento across the Sierra Nevadas, to the desert scrub of Promontory Point, Utah, a distance of 690 miles.  This is history we think we learned in eighth grade.  Gordon Chang takes our tiny tidbit and returns a thoroughly human story, extensively researched and rich in detail.

There was an impression then, and I suspect now, that the “Railroad Chinese” were enslaved workers, but California (the Gold Mountain of the title) was a free state, so it was important that incoming Chinese laborers were not being traded as slaves.  Most of these men were contract workers who came willingly, following opportunity.  However, Chinese women were bought in China and sold here as prostitutes, primarily for the “Railroad Chinese” – hmmm, the sex trade, as old as time and still with us today unfortunately.

All the work was done by hand – men with hand tools, wheelbarrows, black powder (a Chinese invention), horse carts and supply trains as the tracks extended.  Teams of three men using an eight-pound sledge hammer and a pole with crude bit-end could tap roughly three blasting holes a day, mile after mile, for roadbeds and tunnels.  Avalanches, explosions and fire, rock slides, entrapment, maiming injuries that would, as likely as not, ultimately kill a man.  We can only estimate the number of deaths, however.  Complete and/or accurate records of workers don’t exist.  The railroad united our country coast to coast, but, except for a scant few, we don’t even know who these men were – the survivors or the fallen.

After the railroad was completed, some of the “Railroad Chinese” went back to China as they’d planned to do.  Some continued as railroad workers here, in Canada, and elsewhere.  Some remained, took jobs or opened businesses, and their descendants live among us.  However, federal law immigration law prohibited anyone born in China from becoming a naturalized citizen, and that law was not changed until 1943.  Nothing brings today into focus as blindingly as history does, and so I offer you Ghosts of Gold Mountain, a thorough, scholarly work and a good read as well.

Available from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on May 7.

Full Disclosure:  A review copy of this book was provided to me by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  I would like to thank the publisher, the author and NetGalley for providing me this opportunity.  All opinions expressed herein are my own.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing look at the building of the American transcontinental railroad from the western side to Utah. Even with a lack of primary resources - few if any of the Chinese workers left any type of diary or journals recording their lives and experiences, the author was able to track several individuals and the overall history of these crews which majorly originated in the Pearl River delta region of China.

Despite the racism these workers were made to deal with, they managed to perform the incredibly difficult work with an organization and skill that impressed the managers and owners of the railroad. Working with explosives in order to bring mountainous terrain level as well as breaking up the granite in order to tunnel through the Sierra Nevada range. Snowfalls in the winter deep enough that tunnels were hidden in the depths that enabled the workers to move from active sites to their tents and eating areas. Avalanches that swept away entire crews whose bodies were not found until the late spring which in turn was countered by the blistering heat of the lowlands in the summer months.

Once the two railroads met at Promontory Summit - there are no verified Chinese in any of the photos from that event - like ghosts, the workers slowly returned to the West Coast, boxing up the bones of those killed and temporarily buried along the way so that their remains could be returned to China. it was shortly afterwards that the U.S. acceptance of the diligent and hard-working Chinese vanished and those who attempted to make a home in America were assaulted and murdered.

Due to Chang's meticulous research, the reader is able to once again connect with the tremendous work done by these immigrants in order to help build a country that eventually turned it's back on them. Sadly, it doesn't seem that the U.S. has matured that much since there are still organizations and social media that provokes and encourages discrimination of anyone who is 'different' or 'foreign'.

2022-069

[zoey ❀ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5 stars
- really interesting and very cool to learn about a forgotten part of the past!
- but when this part is forgotten, a lot of the writing is just "we don't know what happened but this probably happened" which is to be expected but still disappointing
- didn't enjoy it as much as i would have liked because of this
- "The living continue to grapple with the past" (Chang 246).

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stanford University Sinologist Gordon H. Chang has taken a bit of history that most of us probably never learned and made it come alive.

Chinese immigrants to the United States were the major construction force of the Central Pacific Railroad, which connected with the Union Pacific at Promontory Summit. Hired at sub-market wages, which were still more than they might have imagined earning at home, thousands of Chinese men risked their lives to make the Transcontinental Railroad a reality.

Chang gives us a look at the region in China from which most of the men hailed, as well as a look at the racism that they faced upon arrival ... and even after their triumphant accomplishments. While there are few primary source documents available from the Railway Chinese themselves, the archaeological record and letters from Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, et al., provide the gateway to learn more about the struggles and celebrations experienced by the men who worked so hard.

This was not a leisurely beach read, by any stretch of the imagination. The lengthy bibliography and endnotes bear testimony that this is a scholarly work. Still, I think it's an important read that teaches a lot about prejudice ... and demonstrates to today's reader how much work there remains to be done.

[John Yingling · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only slightly knew of the Chinese contributions to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. This enlightening book opened my eyes, so to speak, to the enormous part played by these men, and to their sacrifices and dedication in doing so. Without their efforts, the western half of the railroad would not have been completed, certainly not in any reasonable time frame. This is history at its finest. And, it helps me fill in some gaps in my knowledge of American history, as well as to make me appreciate and have respect for people from a foreign country who made our country a better place by their hard work and the example they set.

[Randall Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps my expectations were a little too high for this book. I thought this would provide more specific detail than I've received in reading other books about the construction of the intercontinental railroad, like Stephen Ambrose's, Nothing Like It In The World. The detail here is extensive; however, the addition of detail about the Chinese doesn't make the narrative flow or the book any more enjoyable to read. It would have made a better long read in a magazine or journal, but to me doesn't hold up in book length.

The detail is extensive; the reader can tell that Mr. Chang has done meticulous research to investigate this topic which if close to his heart. Implied is that perhaps some of his relatives were railroad workers during this period. There just wasn't enough meat on the bone for me. It seemed like there was a good story here which he told, just not to the length and with the repetition Chang provided.

[Perri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy NF books that open a history to which I have little to no knowledge, especially those in the United States. What you never learned in school and all that. The Chinese immigrants who labored in extraordinarily dangerous places with mind blowing skill and tenacity to build the Transcontinental RR fits my bill. Just the tension from that cover showing two men perched precariously on the side of the mountain in mid swing gives me goose bumps.Unfortunately, so much is not known about the workers, leaving the author to insert a a lot of guess work/conjecture into the book. I also found some parts rather dry. But, I'm glad these men are getting some much delayed recognition for their essential work.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

How much do you know about the Chinese workers who built the American Transcontinental Railroad? The author Gordon H. Chang gives us an account of this 19th Century subject as hinted with the book’s subtitle “The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad.” The author is a Stanford professor who is multidisciplinary in his focus, his expertise ranging from American foreign policy, America-China relations, the Chinese diaspora and Asian American history. (Note: The Author’s middle name is “H” and is not to be confused with columnist and lawyer Gordan G. Chang). This work is both fascinating and informative.
Besides an introduction and conclusion the book has ten main chapters. Chang proves himself a capable historian and I also appreciate his knowledge of China being brought to bear with the first chapter looking at Guangdong, the province in China where the bulk of those who worked the railroads were from. Chapter two examines how the Chinese migrants viewed California and also the experience of what it was like first landing in the US and chapter three onwards looks at the Chinese with the railroads. There’s also a fascinating chapter on Chinese strike that I thought showed well done critical historical work of examining what really happened and the economic condition and Gordon Chang argued persuasively that though railroad owners have spoken about it like they won the strike it was more likely that the Chinese workers had more of the leverage with the negotiations for better pay and condition. This is a good historical analysis that is a model for critical evaluation of the primary sources and other data.
I learned a lot of things from the book. The book’s intention to be historically accurate I suspect would be more important in the years to come as there’s a lot of ignorance and misunderstandings of this chapter in American Western history. Also there’s some who want to use this history to fit a political narrative and agenda in ways that doesn’t account for the reality of what really happened (I’ve heard them back in 2020). For example I’ve seen some confused the railroad work as slavery or the coolie phenomena. There was the coolie system in other place in the New Hemisphere but it was not the case with Central Pacific Railroad in the United States. At the same time the book does talk about unequal pay and racism and racists attacks on the Chinese. Those who are politically ideological and want to weaponize narratives without historical nuances would probably run into the historical facts and scholarship presented in this book.
One example of what I learned from the book is how Asa Whitney was influential in promoting the idea of intercontinental migration of Chinese workers to the US to build an intercontinental railroad. This was during the 1840s and Asa’s idea was ambitious. Part of the reason why he saw the importance of Chinese labor was from his two years merchant experience where he made so much money from trade and commerce he can retired. Looking forward he promoted the idea that future prosperity can be gained with future ties in Asia and specifically China and one person who was impacted by Leland Stanford who later would be an important figure in the intercontinental railroad. In one of those interesting facts of history Asa Whitney is a distant cousin of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton jin. I suppose both Whitney have made an important impact in American history when it comes to work, labor and commerce.
The book also talked about Chinese attempt in assimilation and also looked at primary sources of Chinese contribution with quality work, industry and ability. I thought it was interesting how there’s primary source that mentioned Chinese as a group were faster in language acquisition than even European foreigners. This is quite surprising. In talking about assimilation the book also talk about the more difficult story of racism and the US’ unfortunate history of banning Chinese immigration and pursuit of citizenship, the only time in US history a ban is based upon race or ethnicity. And the ban was for decades.
Overall a good book. I appreciate this work a lot.

[Juhyundred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chang's text has definite value as a trove of contemporaneous historical sources, much of it long ignored and some of it engaged in a scholarly context for the first time. However, the book overall is undermined by the author's dedication to a liberal multiculturalist narrative—wherein the degradation and systematized death of Chinese in 19th century America is presented as indicative of the unfulfilled promises of a democratic project rather than indicative of the character of that project itself. By failing to situate Chinese labor, white settler violence, and US transpacific capital in the context of the settler colonial mode of production (Day), Chang limits the implications of his own findings to the liberal logic of persecution and suffering as prerequisites to national belonging and racial recognition, and racial recognition and national belonging as procedural to the redemption of past persecution and suffering. The result is a sometimes absurd and occasionally unethical approach to investigation and analysis, detailed below:

1. When faced with 19th century claims that the Chinese were a "servile," "coolie," "slavelike" people unfit for a "free" country, Chang makes an effort to demonstrate that accusations of Chinese workers' coercion were unrepresentative of the experience of all 19th century Chinese Americans. This flies in the face of much of what Chang details elsewhere, such as worker conscription and kidnapping, the effects of colonialism on labor in Guangdong, workplace endangerment and punitive violence, settler expropriation, murder and mob violence, and the organized neglect of Chinese communities. In his effort to debunk racist narratives, Chang momentarily obscures the many coercive forces acting upon Chinese workers and transnational Chinese more generally. Lisa Lowe's assertion that Chinese laborers operated as transitory figures between slavery and freedom in the making of liberalism as an imperial mode of governance post-emancipation would have provided a better frame for engaging these past narratives. It is clear from the sources Chang cites that the Chinese simultaneously figured as unfree racial contaminants whose rejection constituted the rejection of slavery by which the postbellum liberal state presumed to govern, and putative imperial subjects who could be rehabilitated through integration into bourgeois institutions of labor and marriage. Rather than taking the opportunity to critique the very notion of liberal "freedom" itself, Chang contradicts himself in order to make Chinese labor live up to the arbitrary criteria liberalism imposes, thereby inadvertently exemplifying its continued potency as an imperial discourse.

2. On the topic of Chinese sex workers, Chang's impulse to decry the exploitation and abasement of Chinese women to the status of "prostitution" results in unscrupulous scholarship. In his condemnation, he actually describes the Page Act as a successful legislative effort to end sex trafficking, rather than the first racially restrictive immigration law based on racial notions of feminine (im)purity. At this point, Chang crosses the line into unethical knowledge production, and his misrepresentation of and general disinterest in Chinese women's history only makes his previous moralizing somewhat laughable. There is much Chang could have offered in examining the role of Chinese women and their representation in the development of the state's management of migration, population, criminality, and sanitation, but his overall lack of engagement with Chinese women as historical subjects dooms him to an approach that is both inaccurate and out of touch with Asian American feminist scholarship.

3. Chang's gendered biases once again undermine his scholarship when he recounts a record of a Chinese man living with several Chinese women "prostitutes" who also had "prostitute" listed as his profession. Chang supposes that this entry could have simply been made in error, and provides a contemporaneous journal entry from a white person who described the person in question as a "dandy." Chang's reticence to even claim the definitive existence of queer Chinese is presented as a historian's fealty to evidentiary rigor, but it only comes across as ridiculous. "People are gay [and trans], [Gordon]."

4. In his conclusion, Chang opines that the recognition of Chinese "contributions" might soothe the souls of the ghosts of Gold Mountain. Here, the dead are invoked to provide an affective basis to the otherwise unexplained political necessity of "recognition." This gesture not only burdens those sacrificed and slaughtered with legitimizing the redemption of the country that killed them, but also limits our consideration of the dead to their [dis]location on the trajectory from alien to citizen—a process they were legally excluded from as racial aliens whose labor was exploited to expand the regime of white property and whose exclusion expressed the settlers' claims to land which underpinned that regime. Despite producing an exhaustive account of the frequency and extent of Chinese death in the American west (including sources that allege anti-Chinese murders occurred on a daily basis in California during a specific year), Chang does not place his findings in conversation with the genocide of Indigenous peoples which occurred and were occurring in the very same territory. Much of the information he presents raises interesting questions: How do we conceive of settler colonialism in relation to Orientalism when access to trade in China and Asia drove the very conception of the continental railroad? How do we situate the 19th century Chinese in an analysis of settler colonialism considering the relationship between Chinese death and exclusion, settlers' claims to the land, and the construction of the infrastructure that made it possible? These are questions Ghosts of Gold Mountain leaves open, because it doesn't bother to ask them. Chang's text may provide important information for others to approach these questions with, but his fundamental error in locating 19th century Chinese migration as a historical process renders his work more useful for its archival findings than its conclusions.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very awesome and very necessary (yep, I'm a total sophisticate when it comes to writing book reviews).
I grew up in nowhere Nevada, right on the Central RR where many Chinese Railroad workers worked back in the day during this massive undertaking to connect East to West via railroad. The Chinese came over in the thousands, but unfortunately there is (currently) very little primary source material for historians to draw upon to full tell their story. This book is an attempt to fill the gap in knowledge that exists surrounding their experiences. I appreciate that the book is holistic in nature - I am completely interested in what people ate, wore and how they entertained themselves in addition to the journey to/fro the Americas.

[Schuyler Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gordon H. Chang has written a fascinating account of the labor and technology involved in building the Transcontinental Railroad. For seven years, two railroad companies raced towards each other across some 1,900 miles of the United States, completing a link between the East and West coasts. It was a monumental task and featured the tireless work of an estimated 20,000 Chinese laborers, 90 percent of Central Pacific’s workforce, who toiled under brutal working conditions, particularly in the Sierra Nevada. Their story is covered extensively in his “Ghosts of Gold Mountain.”

Chang is professor of humanities and history at Stanford University. His work is impeccably researched with extensive notes taken from historical writings, ship manifests, payroll records, and archeological findings. He admits to having little information at his disposal because records were not faithfully maintained which makes his accounting even more remarkable. But it’s all here, the physical and economic struggle of completing over 1900 miles of track between Omaha, Nebraska (the edge of the existing eastern rail network) and San Francisco Bay.

On May 10, 1869, the Central Pacific, and the Union Pacific finally came together at Promontory, Utah. The completed route made the transportation of goods and passengers considerably faster and less expensive. Chang’s book is mainly focused on the efforts of the Chinese workers who, although initially considered unfit for the job due to their small stature and lack of experience, proved to be stalwart builders eventually winning much praise for their attitudes and the splendid results. It’s interesting to note that they were not slave workers but were paid for their labors.

Chang’s efforts here are nearly as herculean as were the Chinese workers and, although somewhat familiar with the conditions under which they struggled, I came away with an even greater sense of admiration for their efforts. Every obstacle they faced was overcome with innovation and determination and it is a fitting tribute to their contribution that the travel time from the east was reduced from about five months to a remarkable single week.

The workers had to blast and dig their way through solid granite, exist in horrendous climatic conditions, endure heat, dirt, choking dust, smoke, fumes, accidental explosions, falling rocks and trees, and freezing snow. Every piece of equipment and all heavy building material had to be manually hauled and installed because of the remote location. At the completion of the remarkable project, the high accolades for their enormous efforts were universal and well deserved.

Be prepared for a couple of weeks to recover after reading this exhausting study of a monumental project.

[Geve_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's rare that I don't give a non-fiction book 4 or 5 stars. The only time they get lower than that is when they are less than accurate or intentionally dishonest, which this book kinda is unfortunately.

The book starts out with an intro that explains that there are ZERO first hand accounts from the Chinese who took part in the building of the transcontinental railroad, either in the US or in China, then he goes on to speculate for a whole ass book without the benefit of any first hand accounts. Ok, that's not totally honest on my part, there are obviously first hand accounts from non-Chinese people involved including from white rail contractors and owners, white residents in the areas, white rail workers, as well as government documentation like death records, ship manifests, census information and newspaper articles. There are also some accounts from a few participants that were given decades later and some statements given by surviving family members, also decades later. All of that information is an amazing resource and it was reported here in great detail.

Here is where my problem comes in: The author is very dishonest in his assessment of the truths and untruths, and apparently he just gets to decide for himself which are which, and tell them to us in a academic manner, hoping we will believe them.
Examples:
1: He states many ugly things Americans said and thought about the Chinese. We can obviously recognize that nasty racist shit is just that, but then to explain to us how what the americans thought of the chinese was false, he uses the positive statements of a few white americans. So I guess we can just throw out the mean and presumably racist statements of dozens or hundreds of white+black americans but the statements made by a select few from that same group are true as long as it agrees with what we want people to think? The way to the truth isn't just picking the things you WANT to be true and deciding the rest are obviously false.
2: There was a household that consisted of two women, listed in census data as prostitutes, and one chinese man, listed as a dandy. The author says it's likely this was just an error, rather than the very obvious conclusion the rest of us are making which is that he was a prostitute, but apparently there weren't any gay chinese.
3: Very little is said about women at all, and I'll say more below, but there was a photo at one of the sites that included a woman in it, and even tho the author went to GREAT lengths to find literally ANY chinese people in ANY other pics in order to justify how much they did on the railroads, he then says that this specific photo is obviously staged BECAUSE A WOMAN IS IN IT. Not that she was visiting, not that she was working there, not that she was a spouse of one of the headmen, nope, it's just a staged pic, women weren't anywhere around the railroads (except for prostitutes ofc). My guy. your prejudice has really clouded your ability to logically evaluate the data before you. You somehow fall in with old stereotypes about gays and women, but literally none of the stereotypes of the Chinese workers in the americas. The literal exact same evidence used to justify his conclusions about the Chinese workers is discarded when it's about women or gays. Come on bro.
4: The labor strike. The author laments that the Chinese workers' labor strike is never talked about when discussing early american labor movement. Then he explains how they went on strike for a week, then concluded the strike by getting literally none of the things they asked for. He says it was still a success because the goal of the strike was the friends they made along the way. THEN the overseers, rail owners etc immediately sent ads to China requesting more rail workers. So: Strike happens, strike ends with the workers getting none of their requests, owners then request even more chinese workers come from china. Seems the owners were happy with their interactions with the Chinese workers enough to want more. I don't know how else I can interpret this, but the author is convinced this was a successful strike and the Chinese workers won. Because that's what he WANTS to have happened.
5: The author insists that the things most americans thought about the chinese workers at the time: that they were slavelike, they would replace the recently freed Black and African enslaved workers, that they were servile and easily controlled, were not true. Then goes into detail about how the Chinese were great workers because culturally that's how they were taught, and that americans took advantage of that (the same way the upper classes of the Chinese did in China). Like, if a bunch of capitalists are super happy about your work and try to recruit more from your country/culture, I wouldn't necessarily take that as a badge of honor myself... Like, it's not racist to acknowledge that culture affects how people work and act, and Chinese culture at the time reinforced contributions to the group over individualism, as well that working hard was a virtue. Like he talks about why the Chinese were great workers, while also saying none of negative side of that was true. Like buddy, you can't just keep all the good points and discard the bad ones. You can't say the Chinese worked so much harder than the Black and white americans for far less pay and worse treatment then say the same observation wasn't really true.
6: There were no Chinese women in america, they didn't contribute to the railroad or america at all. Oh, except for all the sex slaves they brought over to service the men, who absolutely could not continue to exist without having sex. It's impossible. The author did not go into detail about any other contributions women may have played. The book was supposed to be about the railroad workers, so I didn't expect to read anything about women, but the author went off on many tangents about Chinese lives in America outside of rail work and after rail work, and that seems like it could have included women, cause uh, they existed and were in america at the time. In addition, when he was talking about how Chinese workers died in america, including murders, he fails to mention ANY violence against women (who were, according to him, only prostitutes or arranged marriages). I don't understand how, at this point in the book, you can't do even a bit of research or spare a thought for the women who, unlike the men, didn't voluntarily come to the america and were literally forced into sex slavery to service the chinese workers or into arranged marriage. I can image at least some of them ended up dead because of that, but he doesn't bother reporting on any of that, I guess women weren't really part of the Chinese experience in america at the time. He does mention, that when a boatload of sex slaves from china was brought into the harbor, the white police had to beat back the chinese men because they were literally tearing off the womens' clothes in an effort to grab them and take them away sooooooooooo i think I can make some assumptions about their fates based on that real reported information, but the author chooses not to in this one case.


Ok, so that's the rant portion done with, what was good? This book was obviously extensively researched and though I didn't always appreciate the extremely biased spin the author put on some of it, it was still incredibly informative. The contributions of the Chinese workers in connecting Atlantic America to Pacific America were vital, and cost them much. The discrimination they faced was terrible, and they should be recognized as a major part of American history of that era. As always, learning about the undertold stories is worth sorting through some bs, and I'm happy to make my own conclusions based on the information not the opinions. In this case, it's particularly interesting to have someone be so blinded by their bias, that while they insist some people have never been given their due respect (which they haven't), he manages to leave a whole swath of other, even more untold stories out, all the while making only positive conclusions about his preferred heroes.

Recommend going into this one with a healthy skepticism for the information (drawn from secondhand and old accounts) and the interpretation (highly biased), but it is still very well researched and full of a lot of otherwise difficult to find details.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

At issue in the controversy over the deaths of Chinese who perished during and after the construction of the Pacific Railroad is the deep anguish and anger many felt about the suffering Chinese endured in nineteenth-century America, which has yet to be fully acknowledged. The grief continues long after the moments of tragedy. Numbers can suggest dimensions; the deeper question is the meaning of historical experience to the living. For many, especially Chinese-Americans, the history of the Railroad Chinese requires contending with a painful, aggrieved, and unsettled past. Many today who sympathize with the Railroad Chinese say that low-end estimates of violent deaths of Chinese during and after the building of the railroads demean them and the blood contribution Chinese have made to America. Gordon H. Chang, Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, pg. 233 (hardcover edition)

While I initially picked this up for the 'book by a Asian-American author' square of my local library's summer reading challenge, this turned out to be a fascinating and enlightening look at a mostly forgotten part of American history. I think Chang did an excellent job of hunting down what history readers might consider to be non-standard evidence (oral histories, family stories, etcetera as there appears to be no surviving firsthand documentation - such as letters or diaries - from the railroad workers themselves) and weaving that into a compelling account of what life was probably like during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. My one complaint was that the text was a bit dry in places, but it is an excellent book nonetheless. I'm happy to have stumbled across it while browsing and I'm happy to have read it.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is part of the Amazon Vine program.

I had known before that a lot of Chinese Immigrants came over to work on the railroads back in the 19th century. What I didn't know was the extent, the hardship, and just how integral they were to the effort.

Ghosts of Gold Mountain is a pretty definitive history of the "Railroad Chinese" who built the Transcontinental Railroad. As definitive as it can be considering there are no first-hand accounts themselves from the workers. It would seem that no journals, letters, etc. have yet been found to hear their side of the story. So we are left with historical accounts from newspapers, interviews with white Americans, and other non-first person basis. But despite this lack of information, Chang weaves a compelling narrative.

Imagine how hard it would have been to level out land and lay down track across the mountains. Now imagine doing that without any modern technology and only the strength of your back to do it. It is amazing what was accomplished. But it seems to have come at a high cost. An untold number of Chinese died creating the railroad. And since no records were kept well, the actual number will never be discovered.

Chang's writing is precise, but story-telling enough that you don't get bored with it. I found myself deeply engrossed and had a lot of trouble putting the book down. It was saddening (much like a look of most American history) but important. Why things like this aren't a part of our history classes I'll never fathom.

Review by M. Reynard 2019

[Chris Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chief Left Hand by Margaret Coel is an amazing book that I admire very much, but with difficult sourcing due to a lack of records from the Indian perspective. Gordon H. Chang has raised the difficulty level with Ghosts of Gold Mountain, an excellent history of the "railroad" Chinese that were critical to the completion of the Central Pacific Rail Road end of the transcontinental. Despite the fact that there are no diaries, letters, or memoirs from those who made up over 90% of the labor force for the CPRR, he has tapped into descendent's oral histories, what little is available in company records, and testimony by company officials, and mixed in other immigrant stories that would have been similar, to create a masterful look at a much-maligned and historically overlooked group. Two for examples; the company did not record any of the names because they hired through labor contractors, while, for the most part, being conscientious, dutiful workers, they were discriminated against by bosses, white workers, and the European immigrants. Within 20 years of the completion of the road, blind racism led to the Chinese Exclusion Act and made them third- or fourth-class citizens in the country they had united. A powerful, interesting read.

[Darrin Bronson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I would have learned more about this kind of history in school. It seems like even the historians have a hard time gathering information on it, whether the cover up was on purpose or by accident. I feel like we are all very lucky to live in the world we have now and we are standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. It's unfortunate we don't even know the giants' names.

[Jeanne Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

This country is indebted to the Chinese railroad builders who were recruited to carry out extreme and dangerous work, building the great railroad. They proved to be disciplined, tenacious, ingenuitive, and kept better Heath habits that made them strong and efficient They were admired and feared for doing jobs competitively and they face prejudice and persecution. Their lives were not easy.

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book with never-before-used data from sources in China through remittances and historical detecting. Gives a feel about what it was like to be a Chinese laborer, work organizer, grocer, etc., among those who ultimately built the best and most difficult railroad of its time.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghosts of Gold Mountain covers the history of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Chinese workers who put their lives on the line to build it. As America began to expand westward in the 1800s, the promise of opportunities and riches attracted many immigrants to come over, notably the Chinese. Many of them were young, leaving behind their families in hopes of obtaining the wealth of country to support their own. It is through the efforts of thousands of Chinese that helped build the tracks that would take steam engines to journey to the western point. In which, they gain both amazement and resentment from their fellow countrymen.

Gordon Chang documents the timeline of the railroad business and uncovers the forgotten legacy that Chinese Americans had done so much for a nation that treated them so poorly. Due to poor documentation of the Chinese immigrants and barely any surviving proof of their input, there is no singular focus on specific individuals. But the small pieces of surviving articles allows us a time portal to what life must have been like for a Chinese to be living in America. It appears the stereotypes of Chinese people originated from when mass numbers came to work on the railroad and mines. And Chang greatly does his best to show how big their work effort made to create the pathway that millions use today and of the racial tensions that brought rise to violence and exclusions. It shows both the dark legacy of racism and the best image of what these immigrants experienced and made for themselves when they reached a foreign land. On point, though occasionally dry, but rich in detail, Ghosts of Gold Mountain gives a chance for the wandering spirits who endured so much only to be forgotten by the turn of the century. In honor of the Chinese who left an impact as part of American history.

[Patricia Orner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly informative work about the Railroad Chinese and the role they played in one of mankind’s greatest 19th century achievements. I learned much I didn’t know, and was disavowed of many misconceptions I’d been taught by those lacking in sufficient knowledge themselves. Chang’s research is extensive and his passion for his subject obvious.

Yet, as others have mentioned, the biggest weakness of the book is the fact that there is no known collection of personal reminisces — no diaries, no interviews, no letters, not even more than a handful of names. Without this insight into the thoughts and experiences of these men who chose to venture so far from home in search of financial gain only to battle prejudice and a harsh and unforgiving environment, we are left with only speculation and inferences from outside observers and stories handed down through generations. We crave those personal anecdotes; they bring history alive and imbue those ghostly figures with their humanity.

Honestly, Chang is upfront about the dearth of personal recollections and he did the best he could with the resources at his disposal. While the narrative drags in places, the book is nonetheless enlightening and worth the effort.

I hope someday the world is gifted the stories it needs to give this portion of history and those who sacrificed so much the appreciation and understanding they deserve.

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non Fiction>History>US Transcontinental Railroad
I listened to the audio, 3.5/5 for the narration.

Interesting to immerse yourself in this time from the perspective of the Chinese workers. Unfortunately there's just not a lot of documentation from their perspective. The lists of workers and lists of other things that the author found are reproduced on the main text and some should have probably been end notes instead.
I would recommend this if you want to know more about the people who toiled to build the railroad but don't know much already.

One of the most interesting parts to me was that white workers couldn't really be found in large enough numbers to complete the railroad. There seemed to be a push by some to not employ the Chinese in the 1st place but but it is unlikely this project could have been completed at least in the time frame it was without them. The testimonies and and other information the author presented all point to the idea that the Chinese were very hard working and and other groups in their place would have likely taken longer and possibly been more expensive since the Chinese were willing to do more work for less pay.

[AJ Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook.

Really interesting look at the contributions of the Chinese to the building of the transcontinental railroad - the eastbound portion. This was a subject I knew very little detail of other than that many Chinese were involved in the building, and they were treated poorly for not being white. So needless to say, I learned a ton from this fascinating book.

Unfortunately, for me I found my mind wondering so often and I'm not really sure why I found parts of it so boring. Maybe it was a structure thing. The author tried really hard to make a human narrative of the disparate information by attempting to follow the life of one man, but because the historical record on the Chinese is so broken it was almost impossible to humanize it in that way (the tell a history through one man tactic). I was surprised to learn that no journals or documents exist of the Chinese involved in building the railroad - I figured they were just buried by the typical whitewashing of history. But alas, it appears not, so building a full history is never going to be easy.

Anyway, really important aspect of American history and I learned a lot, and enjoyed the ride.