The correct answer to this open question is the following.
Although there are no options attached we can say the following.
The impact that the Homestead Act and the Bessemer process had on the development of American railroads was of the utmost importance to the history of Railroads in the United States.
The Homestead Act was enacted in 1982, during the American Civil War. This act passed by Congress offered 160 acres of land to people who wanted to settle the land and make it work to produce.
The Bessemer process was the creation of Henry Bessemer to produce inexpensive steel, using a process to get steel from molten pig iron. This process allowed the mass production of the steel needed to construct railroads across the North American territory.
Both, the Homestead Act and the Bessemer process served to impulse and support the railroad system and the transportation of goods and people through the American territory and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad that connected the East coast of the US with the Pacific coast.
