How Trains Became People: Southern Pacific Railroad Co.’s Networked Rhetorical Culture and the Dawn of Corporate Personhood

This essay analyzes how a rhetorical culture emerged in which the Supreme Court of the United States assumed corporations were constitutional persons under the Fourteenth Amendment. Approaching rhetorical culture from a networked standpoint, I argue that corporate personhood emerged from Southern Pacific Railroad Co.’s networks and alliances with environmental preservationists, politicians, publics, lawyers, judges, and immigrants in the late 19th century. Contributing to literatures on rhetorical culture and agency, this study shows how Southern Pacific Railroad Co., through networks of influence and force, was a rhetorical subject that shaped a networked rhetorical culture that expanded the boundaries of the Fourteenth Amendment even though the Supreme Court of the United States had not worked out the philosophical underpinnings of corporate personhood. Corporate personhood remains theoretically restrained by legal discourses that reduce subjectivity to a singular, speaking, human subject.

Empresas de extranjeros oficialmente mexicanas en la frontera. Significado e implicaciones en torno a la cuenca internacional río Colorado

El artículo analiza la forma en que empresas tanto de México como de Estados Unidos se articularon para negociar con los gobiernos de ambos países y aprovechar las coyunturas legales para abrir tierras al cultivo en los valles de Imperial y Mexicali. En él, se afirma y se demuestra que es falso que la Colorado River Land Company fuera la empresa que dominara el valle de Mexicali y se ubica su participación en un contexto más amplio. También se explica la situación de la empresa del ferrocarril Southern Pacific en ambos lados de la frontera. Y, sobre todo, se analiza cómo, por qué y para qué se organizaron empresas mexicanas integradas por estadounidenses. This article analyzes the way in which companies in both Mexico and the United States were assembled to negotiate with the governments of both countries and to take advantage of legal situations in order to open land for cultivation in the Imperial and Mexicali valleys. The article affirms and demonstrates that it is false that the Colorado River Land Company was the business that dominated the Mexicali Valley and its participation is placed in a broader context. Additionally, the article explains the situation of the Southern Pacific Railroad company on both sides of the border. Above all, it analyzes how, why, and for what purpose Mexican companies were organized and incorporated by U.S. companies.