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

Written by Gordon H. Chang

Narrated by David Shih

A groundbreaking, breathtaking 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 groundbreaking account, award-winning scholar Gordon H. Chang draws on unprecedented research to recover the Chinese railroad workers' stories and celebrate their role in remaking America. An invaluable correction of a great historical injustice, The Ghosts of Gold Mountain returns these "silent spikes" to their rightful place in our national saga.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: May 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684572915

Gordon H. Chang

GORDON H. CHANG is the Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities and Professor of History at Stanford University, where he also serves as director of the Center for East Asian Studies and codirector of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project. In addition to Ghosts of Gold Mountain, Chang is the author of three other books, including Fateful Ties, and editor of six more. He lives in Stanford, California.

Reviews for Ghosts of Gold Mountain

[Matthew Gibb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful book that highlights the dedicated work of these humble people who were never properly recoginized for their sacrifice, which unified the nation from sea to sea. After construction was completed the Chinese used the trains to spread out all over the country, but by then they were marginalized and jealously regarded as less than American. As a white man with absolutely zero knowledge of what brought my forefathers to America I realize thst Africans, Asians and Latinos have contributed immensely to establishing America as a place that flourished with such duversity. Maybe whites who dont wish to acknowledge their sincere efforts should go back to Europe? Even there the Europeans dont want the North Africans and Middle Easterners to come, but it was ok when they colonized Africa, Asia and South America with the Bible giving them such a right.

[Becky Baumgartner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An eye-opening look at the role of Chinese workers in the success and completion of the transcontinental railroad in the US.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A history of the Chinese workers who built the Western railway, told by reconstructing their world from existing evidence. Of the tens of thousands of letters they sent home, none have been found by historians, but Chang consults other contemporaneous accounts from Chinese workers in the US, stories passed down in families, and even what can be gleaned from records left by suspicious and often confused white people. Among other things, he argues (somewhat optimistically) that the workers’ strike often considered to have been a total failure was actually a success, given that wages began to rise pretty substantially thereafter.

[lauriebrown54 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Most Americans learn in school that there were Chinese workers on the transcontinental railroad project, but that’s usually where it stops. Chang, professor of humanities and of history at Stanford, the director of the Center for East Asian Studies and co-director of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America project, has gone to primary sources to shine a light on the lives of the some 20,000 workers who came from China to work on the tracks.


When the Transcontinental Railroad project was put together, a competition arose between the Union Pacific railroad working from the east and the Central Pacific railroad working from the west. They started in 1864 and finished in 1869. Union Pacific had it fairly easy; they covered a lot of fairly flat states. Central Pacific, on the other hand, started at Sacramento and went right up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There were no machines to do any of the work; it was all done with shovels and picks, moving rocks and soil in buckets. Differences in elevations had to be smoothed into easy slopes, sharp curves had to be made wider. Once the rail beds were done, ties and steel rails had to be laid. They went right on up through the Donner Pass, working night and day, summer and winter. It was dangerous and horribly hard work. They were paid submarket wages and were treated badly by the whites, especially by the settlers they worked around- settlers afraid the Chinese would want to stay there once the railroad was down.

Not all the Chinese in the project were railroad workers; some were vendors, while some made livings farming and providing familiar foods to the RR workers. While there were very few Chinese women involved in the project, what there were tended to be enslaved as sex workers.

Sadly, no first-hand account has ever been found. Chang has had to resort to ship manifests, immigration lists, business records of the Chinese community, old newspapers, family stories, and oral histories. He’s put together a solid history that, while dry, is good and fairly easy to read. There were sections that I found slow and boring, but most held my interest well. Four stars.

[highlander6022 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a very informative book, although clearly difficult for the author to write based on first-hand accounts of the Chinese experience on building the transcontinental railroad, since there are few first-hand accounts that have been preserved. The author presents much of his material from inference based on similar experiences of Chinese in other situations. Nonetheless, there is nothing apparent that would indicate that these inferences cannot be assumed to be correct.

The book clearly presents the case for how vastly important (and for the Central Pacific, highly critical) the individuals from China were to the construction of the railroad. Since the CP’s work force was overwhelmingly Chinese, the RR would either have not been built at all, or the trackage that the CP was able to complete versus the Union Pacific would have been significantly less, and in all likelihood, the transcontinental RR would have taken much, much longer to complete.

The information provided greatly adds to the understanding of the human sacrifice that was necessary for the TCRR to be built. Many deaths and much suffering by the Chinese are discussed, and the author makes it evident how terrifying some of the work was. Work continued 24/7, though the mountains, requiring vast use of explosives. But the discussion of the work necessary to keep the building going, especially the tales of the winter storms in the Sierras and how it was necessary to not only avoid being swept away by avalanches, but to actually have to tunnel thorough huge levels of snowfall to get to the work sites from the residential camps, is harrowing.

The only critique of the book I have is the presentation of the photographs. Granted, you cannot increase the size of the photos in the book without losing clarity – however, it would have been very helpful had the author used some method to point out where in the pictures were the items/people he was trying to point out. In other words, it would have been helpful to perhaps use a line with text next to the picture (although this might not have been permitted by the owners of the photographs). Otherwise, it was very difficult to see some very small details. Doing this would have added to the understanding of the book’s discussions.