To the Golden Mountain is a history of the impact of the Chinese in America. While the subtitle refers to their work on the first transcontinental railroad the book is actually an overview of the arrival of Chinese workers in the 1850’s, their trials and tribulations in the California gold fields, their monumental contribution to the construction of the western half of the transcontinental railroad and a summary of the lives of Chinese in America in the post transcontinental railroad construction era. The overview is necessarily grim. It is essentially a story of bigotry and mistreatment by individuals and local, state, and federal governments which culminated in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (only World War II and the U.S. declaration of China as an ally brought about its limited repeal in 1943).

The book is aimed at the young adult audience but it would be of value to anyone seeking a clear, concise outline of the Chinese experience in the 19th and the first half of the 20th Century in America.

I have only three small complaints.
1. The author includes a number of period photographs but does not give an indication of their time of record. As a result one wonders if some of the pictures, such as the water boy on page 51, were taken in the 1865-69 time frame or later.
2. The author’s description of how the locomotives Jupiter and #119 came to be the representative engines at Promontory is incomplete and somewhat garbled.
3. The author provides a good description of the feat of laying 10 miles of track in a single day in 1869 but she fails to note that this record for length of track laid in a single day has never been beaten and, given modern track laying methods, it probably never will be matched or exceeded.

The book includes an excellent list of recommendations for additional reading. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining some understanding of the Chinese experience in 19th and 20th Century America and their contribution to the construction of the first transcontinental railroad.

(Text Length 105 pages, Total Length - 112 pages, includes foreword, 54 illustrations and photographs, bibliography, notes, recommended reading, and index.) (Book Dimensions inches HxWxT – 10 1/4” x 8 1/4” x 1/2”) ( )