Canal Building before 1840 Essay

Unfortunately, with few exceptions, navigable rivers and lakes did not link up conveniently to form usable transportation networks. Before the war of 1812m some Americans considered canals as a likely solution, but enormous costs and engineering problems had limited canal construction to less than 100 miles. After the war, the entry of development opened the way to an era of canal building. New York State was most successful at canal development. In 1817 the state started work on on a canal that would run over more than 350 miles’ form Lake Erie to the Hudson River. About three thousand workers worked on digging a huge ditch that would eventually form the Erie Canal. The last leg was completed in 1825 and the first freight boat made its way from Buffalo to Albany and then on to New York

When the Canal was built towns all along the route from Buffalo to Albany prospered from the revenue and the attraction the Canal brought with it. Whether the Canal was being used for business people, immigrants, settlers of the region, or tourists, the border-towns all had some appeal to these persons. After some time the state was continually asked to expand the Canal from the original route to include connecting canal routes. However, the same towns along the route from Buffalo to Albany had already been established along the lines of the original canal. These towns would need to be relocated in order to obey these new requests. This presented a major problem because the people in these towns had formed a life around the Canal and many of them made their income based of the Canal. The inhabitants of the towns changed their mentality from not wanting the Canal to invade on their lives, to it being an essential part of their lives they depended upon.

a great financial crisis. This allowed European ships to pass through the canal and cut thousands

One of the most important goals of transportations in the 1800s was the advancement of industrial growth. Henry Clay, a senator for Kentucky had an economic plan called the American System, with plans for a national bank, improved tariffs, and most importantly, a canal system. The canal system was quickly dominated by railroad, however the canals paid for themselves quite quickly. This was due to the canal's ability to connect the midwest and east coast and cut costs for transporting goods across the US. Steamboats not only allowed for the mass transport of goods on the canals, but they also for human transport, as they could travel from Albany to NYC in around thirty-two hours. As rivers and canals became the commonplace and most efficient way to transport goods cities along the rivers prospered and grew in population and power. Cincinnati for example had its population quadruple in size from 10,000 to 40,000 from 1820-1840 and Louisville's population grew from 10,000 to 60,000 from 1830-1850. Eventually though, canals were made obsolete by development of railroads.

In Document 1A, it explains that the Erie Canal was a canal built in 1825, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Erie. It caused a huge increase in the industry along the Hudson River and made the economy of New York more important than ever. As stated in Document 1B, New York City became the busiest port in America. As stated in Document

In the early 19th century the transportation of goods between the east and west was expensive and time consuming. The normal way of transportation before the canal, was by horse drawn carriages. Then the bold idea of the Erie Canal was proposed to ease the tiring commute. The Erie canal was intentionally built to open the country west of the Appalachian Mountains to settlers. The canal would also provide a safe, cheaper way for produce to be carried to various markets. The canal then became the fastest way

In 19th century, Henry Clay proposed three terms to improve United States, as we called “American System”: establishing the Bank of the United States, protecting American manufacturers, and building canals and roads. For internal improvements, the construction of Erie Canal and Cumberland road played an important role in the development of the market in West and Northeast. First, Erie Canal linked the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and it helped western farmers to transport crops to the east much faster and more convenient. Second, Cumberland Road was the first road built by the United States government, and it accelerated the development of Ohio and Northwest area. Both of these two constructions dramatically promoted the Market Revolution

The Erie Canal was set in the state of New York which would be built to connect Albany and Buffalo. The concept of the Erie Canal began fifty years before actually starting construction in 1817. However, completion of the Erie Canal did not end until 1825 which resulted in a water route 364-miles long that connected the Hudson River in Albany and the Great lakes in Buffalo. Industrialization was sped up by the Erie Canal decades after it was completed because it improved transportation, trade, commerce and settlement in the United States.

Transportation began to fuel the American economy during the Market Revolution by adding many different ways to transport goods and to get around the country. These roads were made of mud, which happened to be quite an issue during the different seasons. In the spring,all roads turned to mud, in the summer all roads were dust and in the winter these roads were snow and ice which made it difficult to travel on. The national road was made and was the only road funded by the national government, all of the other roads were funded by private investors. The national road opened up travel through the East and the West, which began to help foster a national community. Canals were starting to expand from not only running North and South, but creating ways to get East and West as well.The farmers began an eight year long project, which was taken over by Irish immigrants and they created the Erie

Novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote that "Its water (served as a miraculous) fertilizer, (for) it causes towns with their masses of brick and stone, their churches and theatres, their business...to spring up." In its financing by the state government, the Erie Canal epitomized the developing transportation infrastructure. The vast expanse of the Erie Canal created a network that linked the Atlantic states with the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys that drastically reduced the cost of transportation. While canals connected waterways, the railroad opened vast new areas of the American interior to settlement, while stimulating the mining of coal for fuel and the manufacture of iron for locomotives and rails. By 1860, the railroad network had grown to 30,000 miles, a total more than the rest of the world 's railroads combined. The United States was able to grow following the War of 1812 due to innovations in transportation which allowed for cheaper, faster, and more efficient trading of goods within the United States.

This made it very hard for the individual states to come up with the money. Usually private investors took care of this issue (Roark, 260). Canals were another way for an increase in transportation. They would connect cities, such as the Erie Canal, which covered the area between Albany and Buffalo and connecting New York City to the area of the Great Lakes (Roark, 261). Railroads also came into the picture with the first railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio in 1829 (Roark, 262).

The canal and railroad systems, which grew up in the North, facilitated a much larger volume of trade and manufacturing while reducing costs a great deal. Great cities sprang up throughout the North and Northwest, bolstered by the improvement in transportation.

Canals were a significant development in human history because they allowed societies to more freely transport goods by ship if natural rivers were not present and to provide irrigation for crops growing in drier soil. The most well-known example of a canal dramatically improving human productivity is the Panama Canal, opened officially in 1914 in the country of Panama in Central America. The canal joined the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and allowed ships to transport goods across the world much more quickly and efficiently.

The Erie Canal was built in 1825. It is 363-miles long and connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, hence the name, Erie Canal. The Erie canal changed America in many ways. It made New York city the center of economy/the biggest city, boosted economy, transportation, religion, and population; But, it also had, and still has, many problems.

Back then the land in which the canal was to be built was owned by Columbia. Theodore Roosevelt asked the Columbians for permission to build the canal, but they refused.