We are searching data for your request:
Upon completion, a link will appear to access the found materials.
Great American Railways
According to Randy Houk's "Railroad Timeline", the first American rails are said to have been laid down at Quincy, Mass. in 1826. Since then, numerous railway companies have come and gone, with many mergers occurring along the way.
Grownups and kids alike have had a certain fascination with the railroads, and genealogists have a similar desire to know if any of their ancestors played a role in the development of the American railways. Tracking down employment records from the railroad companies can be a serious challenge.
One of the best resources is the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board. They administer a Federal retirement benefit program covering the nation's railroad workers. However, only those who were employed for over ten years and were employed at the time the Railroad Retirement Board was created (1935) will be found in the Board's records.
In her article, "Railroad Records", Rhonda McClure states, "If you know that your ancestor worked for a railway, but they weren't [included in the Retirement Board's records], then you will need to turn your attention to the actual railroad companies."
We've compiled the following list of railroad employee record repositories, which include records that have been acquired by Genealogy Today (highlighted below) and made available on our web site.
Southern Pacific Co 4-8-82 - History
Copyright © 2003-2008 Brian McCamish, All Rights Reserved
Content not owned by Brian McCamish may be copyrighted by its respective owner
Further information about this website and myself can be found on my Hompage .
Note about the photos, videos & content on this site:
Most photos & videos are owned by me. I usually allow people to use my photos & videos for personal use or websites. Simply Email me for permission and please credit this site.
I may not have authority to grant permission regarding some photos or other content that were only loaned to me by others specifically for this website. Every effort has been made
not to include other's photos without the proper permission and credits, however, if you see any photos which belong to you and that I don't have permission to use, I apologize. If
you send me an Email , I will remove the photos immediately or give proper credit, which ever you wish.
How the 14th Amendment Made Corporations Into 'People'
Originally adopted after the Civil War to protect the rights of freed slaves, the 14th Amendment has exponentially expanded the protection of civil rights for all Americans over the past 150 years. It’s been cited in more litigation than any other amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and has been at the center of many of the most famous Supreme Court decisions, including school desegregation (Brown v. Board of Education), abortion (Roe v. Wade) and same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges).
Under U.S. law, these essential rights belong not only to American citizens, but also corporations—thanks to a few key Supreme Court cases and a controversial legal concept known as corporate personhood.
So, what is the 14th Amendment again?
Ratified in 1868, it was one of three amendments to the U.S. Constitution designed to grant full citizenship rights to former slaves. While the 13th and 15th Amendments were relatively limited in scope—the first abolished slavery and the second granted voting rights to black men—the 14th Amendment exponentially expanded the protection of civil rights for all Americans.
The two most important provisions of the 14th Amendment guarantee that states, like the federal government, cannot �prive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
What is due process and how does it work?
The fundamental principle of due process goes back to the Magna Carta, the 13th century English charter that inspired the framers of the U.S. Constitution. Due process ensures that all levels of government operate within the law and provide fair procedures for everyone. In practice, the Supreme Court has used the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to guarantee some of the most fundamental rights and liberties we enjoy today. It protects individuals (or corporations) from infringement by the states as well as the federal government.
In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that a state ban on the use of contraceptives violated a couple’s right to marital privacy, which according to the Court was an essential liberty protected under the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The ruling famously drew that right to privacy from the “penumbras” (or shadowy zones) cast by other specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights, including free speech (First Amendment), freedom from forced quartering of troops (Third Amendment), unreasonable searches and seizures (Fourth Amendment), forced self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment) and other unenumerated rights (Ninth Amendment).
Later verdicts would expand this right to privacy, including Roe v. Wade (1973), when the Court found that a woman’s right to an abortion fell within the zone of privacy protected under the 14th Amendment.
View of the Fourteenth Amendment as posted on the wall of Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site in Little Rock, Arkansas. (Credit: Paul Natkin/Getty Images)
How 𠇎qual protection” has played a key role in Supreme Court decisions.
Originally aimed at guaranteeing all the rights of citizenship to former slaves, the Equal Protection Clause has played a leading role in many landmark civil rights cases. In perhaps the most famous, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education that segregated school facilities were unconstitutional, as they failed to protect black and white students equally under the law.
The Equal Protection Clause would also play a crucial role in major Supreme Court rulings involving interracial marriage (1967’s Loving v. Virginia), affirmative action (1978’s Regents of the University of California v. Bakke) and same-sex marriage (2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges).
An 1886 headnote forever shifted the meaning of the 14th Amendment.
Corporations aren’t specifically mentioned in the 14th Amendment, or anywhere else in the Constitution. But going back to the earliest years of the republic, when the Bank of the United States brought the first corporate rights case before the Supreme Court, U.S. corporations have sought many of the same rights guaranteed to individuals, including the rights to own property, enter into contracts, and to sue and be sued just like individuals.
But it wasn’t until the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road that the Court appeared to grant a corporation the same rights as an individual under the 14th Amendment. The case is remembered less for the decision itself—the state had improperly assessed taxes to the railroad company—than for a headnote added to it by the court reporter at the time, which quoted Chief Justice Morrison Waite as saying: “The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”
In later cases, this headnote would be treated as an official part of the verdict, and Waite’s conclusion reaffirmed in subsequent decisions by the Court, from an 1888 case involving a steel-mining company to the 1978 Bellotti decision, which granted corporations the right to spend unlimited funds on ballot initiatives as part of their First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
In the 2010 case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), the most sweeping expansion of corporate rights yet, the Supreme Court cited Bellotti in its highly controversial 5-4 ruling that political speech by corporations is a form of free speech that is also covered under the First Amendment. In 2014’s Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, another 5-4 ruling by the Court granted the right of closely-held companies, which aren’t traded on the stock market, to file for exemptions to federal laws on religious grounds.
The legacy of the 14th amendment.
Not everyone agrees with this expanding interpretation of corporate personhood. In his dissent in Bellotti, Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote that corporations were 𠇊rtificial” persons rather than “natural” persons, and that granting them the right to political expression could “pose special dangers in the political sphere.” Along similar lines, Justice John Paul Stevens argued in his dissent to Citizens United that 𠇌orporations𠉪re not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.” And soon after the ruling, then-President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address that the decision would “open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections.”
Southern Pacific Railroad
Founded in 1865 by a group of businessmen in San Francisco, the Southern Pacific was created as a rail line from San Francisco to San Diego. By 1883, the line extended all the way to New Orleans.
In 1885, the Southern Pacific leased the Central Pacific Railroad until eventually merging with it in 1959. Through the years, the line expanded to more than 13,000 miles of rail covering most of the southwestern United States.
In 1876, Southern Pacific assistant chief engineer William Hood devised the ingenious method of 18 tunnels in 28 miles of track climbing down from the Tehachapi Mountains to the San Joaquin Valley below. One of the most difficult was the Great Tehachapi Loop. The switchback literally had the Southern Pacific train curved back on itself as it gained altitude.
Heritage Locomotive
The Southern Pacific merged with Union Pacific on Sept. 11, 1996.
On August 21, 2006, our tribute to the Southern Pacific was introduced during a special employee event in Roseville, Calif. The new locomotive incorporates Southern Pacific&rsquos historic colors and graphic elements to honor the men and women of the SP.
The Southern Pacific was the final unit in UP's Heritage Series of locomotives, and was inspired by the railroad's famous "Daylight" trains, often referred to as "The Most Beautiful Trains in the World."
Southern Pacific Co 4-8-82 - History
Stay cozy and comfortable in one of our embroidered sweatshirt jackets while sporting your favorite railroad logo!
If you wish to see all, do not select a railroad and you will see all in this category.
| Embroidered Logo Pocket T-Shirts |
| Enjoy the casual look in one of these great embroidered railroad logo polo shirts! |
| Embroidered Train Logo Denim Shirts |
| Train Hats |
| Adult Crew Embroidered Sweatshirts |
| Embroidered Nylon Jackets |
| Great Looking Embroidered Hoodies |
| Embroidered Railroad Beanies | |
When it's cold outside keep your head warm with one of our beanies!
