the speed and lowered the expense of commerce. The Erie Canal is the most successful example of the state-funded canals typified funding for internal improvements. The canal was completed in 1825 and made New York City a major trade port. Railroads and the Telegraph were also developed in this time period. Railroads opened the frontier to settlement and linked markets. The telegraph introduced a communications revolution. Improvements in transportation and communication made possible the rise of the West as a powerful, self-conscious region of the new nation. People traveled in groups and cooperated with each other to clear land, build houses and barns, and establish communities. Squatters set up farms on unoccupied land. Many Americans settled without regard to national boundaries (e.g. Florida). Economic expansion fueled a demand for labor which was fueled by increased immigration from abroad. Ireland and Germany contributed major parts of the growth of immigration. Many immigrants settled in northern states. Numerous factors inspired this massive flow of population across the Atlantic. European economic conditions were going down. Introduction of the ocean-going steamship made trans-Atlantic transportation more convenient. American religious and political freedoms attracted many Europeans fleeing from the failed revolutions of 1848. The Irish were refugees from disaster,
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.
One of Roosevelt’s biggest accomplishments was constructing the Panama Canal. A canal meant a huge business boon to the United States, and also meant they could control the flow of goods and services between the hemispheres. The Panama Canal helped the import and export of goods, which in turn created jobs for people. All
Boston, and New York. The increase in land, natural resources, and industry gave the United
New technologies improved agricultural and industrial productivity. Growing cities provided markets and workers for industrial businesses. Products were allowed to reach distant markets because of improved railroad
3) Transcontinental Railroad: One of the first railroads built that would cross the whole country. It also helped
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
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
The Erie canal helped shape America. The Northwest was expanding and needed to get their products to the east coast. However, they seemed to be lacking a water source. Since the Erie canal was connected from the Hudson river to the Great lakes this made it possible for farmers to transport goods to the east coast without a problem. The Erie canal paved the pathway to a more stable America and an economic growth by allowing transportation, trade, exporting and importing goods to be more accessible through the United States. “This great work will immortalize the present authorities of N.Y. will bless their descendants with wealth and prosperity, and prove to mankind the superiority wisdom of employing the resources of industry in works of improvement rather than destruction.” The canal combined trade and transportation allowing for commerce to help speed up the Industrialization in the United States after the Erie canal was
many different ports for trading. This also helped the United States Navy, with all these
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.
Because of New York city’s trade ties to the south, there were numerous southern sympathizers early in the American Civil War. They were very far away from any of the civil war battles but New York sent the most men and money in the battles. New York helped make the Industrial age and as a consequence had some of the first Labor Unions. New York started to become the main point of entry for European immigrants to the US, it started with a wave of Irish during the Great Famine, millions came through Castle Clinton and Battery Park before Ellis Island opened in 1892 to welcome millions more, increasingly from eastern and southern Europe. The Statue of Liberty opened in 1886 and became a symbol of hope. New York boomed during the roaring twenties before the crash of the and Skyscrapers showed the energy of New York, it was the site of the tallest buildings in the world from 1912 through 1974. The build up of Defense industries for WW2 turned around the economy for New York or really the Country from the Great Depression, while hundreds of thousands of people worked to defeat the Axis
Some historians may construe westward expansion as beneficial to the United States, arguing that it reduced tensions within the nascent nation. Westward migration was glorified in the early 19th century as the way in which to achieve true freedom. The West was associated with economic opportunity and basic Republican ideals. Streams of individuals seeking prosperity and liberty flooded into the west after the Louisiana Purchase. With the rapid peopling of the west, new transportation systems arose in an effort to connect the new western territories to the southern and northern regions. Roads, steamboats, and canals such as the Cumberland Road and Erie canal were created to transport people and goods from one end of the United States to the other. The railroad was another invention that promoted unity.