Guide to the Chinese Railroad Work Company Payroll Document MC311
Liz Phillips
University of California, Davis Library,
Dept. of Special Collections
2021
1st Floor, Shields Library, University of
California
100 North West Quad
Davis, CA 95616-5292
speccoll@ucdavis.edu
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
University of California, Davis Library,
Dept. of Special Collections
Title: Chinese Railroad Work Company Payroll
Document
Creator:
Virginia & Truckee
Railroad
Identifier/Call Number: MC311
Physical Description:
1 item
Broadside, folded. Completed in
manuscript.
14 x 8.5 inches
Date: circa 1878
Abstract: Payroll document for
a Chinese work company on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad,
signed in Chinese characters.
Physical Location: Researchers should
contact Archives and Special Collections to request collections,
as many are stored offsite.
Documentation of Chinese labor on the Virginia and Truckee
Railroad, comprising a large payroll receipt for work completed
by workers of a Chinese camp in January. The upper portion of the
document, signed by the foreman George Uttley, states that,
"Chinese Camp No. 8, The men belonging to this camp, and known as
the Ah Kee Company, have worked 101 days in the month of January
1878." The lower portion acknowledges the receipt of $108.77 by
the camp leader in payment for the labor, "at the rate of $28.00
per month of 26 days," and is signed in Chinese by the camp
leader, for whom the camp was likely named by the railroad. The
numbers suggest a camp that likely consisted of four or five
Chinese laborers. The area around Truckee, California, and
Virginia City, Nevada, during this period maintained a high
population of Chinese who had remained after the construction of
the Central Pacific:
"Truckee became the center of life for many Railroad Chinese
during the construction of the High Sierra line and then for
years after the line was completed. From the mid-1860s until the
1880s, when hostile whites drove almost all of them out of town
in what became the infamous 'Truckee method' of expulsion,
Truckee had one of the largest Chinese populations in the
country.... In 1870, Chinese constituted at least 30 percent of
the town's total resident population of 1,580, and 45 percent of
its workforce. Other sources estimated the Chinese population as
exceeding one thousand" - Gordon Chang, "Ghosts of Gold Mountain"
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2019), p.168.
[Description provided by McBride Rare Books]
Collection is open for research.
Liz Phillips created this finding aid with information
supplied by McBride Rare Books.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from McBride Rare Books, 2020.
[Identification of item], Chinese Railroad Work Company
Payroll Document, MC311, Archives and Special Collections, UC
Davis Library, University of California, Davis.
All applicable copyrights for the collection are protected
under chapter 17 of the U.S. Copyright Code. Requests for
permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted
in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for
publication is given on behalf of the Regents of the University
of California as the owner of the physical items. It is not
intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder,
which must also be obtained by the researcher.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Railroad construction workers -- West
(U.S.) -- History -- 19th century
Foreign workers, Chinese -- West (U.S.) --
History -- 19th century
Chinese -- West (U.S.) -- History -- 19th
century
Virginia & Truckee Railroad --
Employees -- History
Michael and Margaret B. Harrison
Western Research Center