Pros And Cons Of The Erie Canal

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

The Erie Canal provided an extremely fast source of transportation compared to other ones of that time. A lot of the land that the Canal went through was uninhabited and therefore people weren’t able to move through these areas. Once the Canal was built it served as that pathway through these areas. The Canal also was a much cheaper source of transportation that was used by residents, tourists, emigrants, and workers during this time. Evangelical preachers used the artificial

Railroads were faster and cheaper than canals to construct, and they did not freeze over in the winter. Steamboats played a vital role in the United States economy as well. They stimulated the agricultural economy of the west by providing better access to markets at a lower cost. Farmers quickly bought land near navigable rivers, because they could ship their products out to other countries. Due to the foreign trade it helped strengthen the trade relationship between New England and the Northwest. The transportation development had many positive economic changes in the United States.

Business growth on both sides of the country was expedited by a new form of cheap distribution into profitable, expanding markets. Easy transportation facilitated the concept of business travel and expansion on an unprecedented scale. However, some of the largest impacts of the Transcontinental Railroad can be seen through the cross­country exchange of ideas. Before the railroad existed, the only fast exchange of information was written through the pony express. The Transcontinental Railroad created an outlet of communicating new ideas and information in person. A smooth and swift cross­country exchange of people and ideas not only made America more infrastructurally sophisticated ­­ it acted as a foundation for the Western United States to grow from very little to the political, social, economic, and technological center that it is today.

In The Artificial River, Carol Sheriff describes how when the digging of the Erie Canal began on July 4, 1817, no one would have been able to predict that the canal would even be considered a paradox of progress. One of the major contradictions of progress was whether or not triumphing art over nature was even considered progress. People were not sure during the nineteenth century if changing the environment for industrialization was necessarily a good thing. Another contradiction to progress that resulted from the Erie Canal was when people started holding the state government responsible for all their financial misfortunes. An additional contradiction to progress that the Erie Canal displayed was how many of its workers were either

The Erie canal was very important to the United States. It was designed to link our nation through transportation and trade and was the fastest way to transport goods. It also linked many parts of the country. The Erie Canal was a vital part of Henry Clay’s plan known as the American System, which was designed to link our nation through trade and transportation.

Numerous factors brought unity to an adolescent nation which prevailed the confidence Americans needed for self-identity. As rapid mass-communication and transportation became easily available, any individual had the luxury of pursuing a life with personal freedoms just a grasp away. Moving west was made attractive for numerous reasons. For example, shipping products such as beaver fur enable a fashionable trend which sparked a demand in garments. The construction of the Erie Canal in 1825 that connected the Great Lakes with the Hudson River boomed the motivation, whether it was cost effective or not, completing miles into small distances, according to a journalist, “In thirty-six minutes we had passed near three miles, and reached the east of an embankment about 136 chains long across the valley of the Sedaqueda creek”. This economic process boomed with new opportunities for average Americans during the Era of Good Feeling. The early republic also had more busted effects from internal

There are two disadvantages of Erie Canal. First, with the sharp increasing of the population, more and more workers assembled in factories of eastern area, but the cities could not provide enough resources for those low-wage workers, like the accommodation. Besides, over crowding led to the emergence and spread of some kinds of disease, for instance, the cholera. Another disadvantage is the increase of crime in many cities, especially in New York. Because the lack of police, the occurrence of crimes became hard to control. Moreover, although Cumberland road was the main road to connect Potomac and Ohio, and for people to move to west coast, it still had a disadvantage. Cumberland road was not economical for people to deliver vast crops and goods so that most factories preferred using water shipping. Both two developments had brought negative effects to United States. The construction of canals and roads in the western and northern territory accelerated the development of western and northern cities, but at the same time, south was isolated from other areas. Because of the improved transportation in north, the eastern manufactory could get materials from west and north instead of south; afterwards, the differences of economic development between north and south became the one of the cause of Civil

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 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.

“If any act symbolized the taming of the Northwest frontier, it was the driving of the final spike to complete the nation’s first transcontinental railroad.”1 The first railroad west of the Mississippi River was opened on December 23, 1852. Five miles long, the track ran from St. Louis to Cheltanham, Missouri. Twenty-five years prior, there were no railroads in the United States; twenty-five years later, railroads joined the east and west coasts from New York to San Francisco.2

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

In 1860, the United States had more railroad track than the rest of the world combined. Shipping freight by rail became much more practical and affordable, easily beating out the use of steamboats. The railroad directly led to the increase of urban centers. Chicago, for example, virtually quadrupled its population during the 1850’s. By the 1880’s, there were at least 93, 267 miles of rail that stretched across the plains and just ten years later, there were 163,597 miles of rail. By 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act, which gave the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroads responsibility for building the transcontinental railroad. Congress also granted both railroads lands and millions of dollars of government loans. May 10, 1869, after six long years of hard intensive labor, the tracks of the two railroads finally met at

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 Transcontinental Railroad was one of the most ambitious engineering projects, economic stimulants, and efficient methods of transportation in the early United States. If completed, the United States would be truly be united from east to west. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Transcontinental Railroad helped develop new opportunities for many aspects of American life.