Transportation
Revolution
United States I
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After 1815, Dramatic improvements in
transportation
Roads
 Steamboats
 Canals
 Railroads
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Create interregional linkages, previously not in
existance
Condition in 1815
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Rural nation—highly fragmented
Transportation ranged from primitive to nonexistent
West of Appalachians—almost totally
undeveloped
Western transportation
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Most settlers lived near shores of
Ohio/Mississippi River System
Float products down river—from Pittsburgh
about 30 days
At New Orleans—shipped to Eastern ports
Boats then torn apart for lumber and boatsmen
walked home on Natchez Trace
Upstream Transport
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Difficult and Expensive
Poling up river—15 miles per day
Results
Limited goods
 Expensive prices
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East-West
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Natural flow
Hauling goods over mountains expensive
Roads
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National Road
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Lancaster Turnpike
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Baltimore to Wheeling, Virginia by 1818
Linked Philadelphia, Lancaster and Pittsburgh
New York
Major road from Albany to Lake Erie by 1812
 By 1821—4,000 miles of road
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Problems with roads
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Expensive
Especially for bulky items
 Oats example
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Hard to maintain
Often not linked together
Privately owned
 No common plan
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Steamboats
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Key to western development
John Fitch and Robert Fulton
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Flatbottom boat development
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Clermont 1807
1st riverboat by 1815
Booms
New Orleans as major port
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Massive flow of good—up and down river
Freight charges reduced
Interior opened to development
Dangers of Steamboats
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Very unsafe
Short life span of boats
Boiler explosions
 Fires
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High loss of life
Canals
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Steamboats conquer western rivers
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N-S flow to Gulf of Mexico
Still looking for effective way to reach eastern
seaboard
Canal was option
Engineering
 Costs
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New York looked promising
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Good geography—Lake Ontario Shoreline
Erie Canal
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DeWitt Clinton—key figure
Believed possible—only 570 foot rise
 Convinces NYS legislature to build 364 mile canal
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Longest to this point 28 miles
Begun in 1819 Finished 1825
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Most was handdug through forest lands
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New immigrant labor
Success
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Immediate success
Dramatically lowers transportation costs
$100 to $15 per ton
 Cuts travel time to 8 days
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Urban Development
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Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse
Agricultural Development
Canal Boom
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Encouraged other states to develop comparable
projects
Set off 20 year canal boom
Some effective, other much less so
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Pennsylvania Canal—Pittsburgh and Philadelphia
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Combined canal and railroad tracking
Most went bust because of overbuilding
Railroads
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First railroads connected cities to rivers and
canals
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B & O Railroad linked Baltimore to the rivers of the
west
Approx. 3,000 miles built between 1820 and
1840
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Did not constitute a national or regional network
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Not until 1850’s did this emerge
Impact
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Threatened to make other forms of
transportation obsolete.
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New York Central vs. Erie Canal
Speed and low overall cost
Ability to go almost anywhere
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Geography not a serious barrier.
Overall impact
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Reduced time and money it took to move heavy
goods
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Improvements in speed
Allowed for a national market to emerge
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Overall costs of moving goods dropped 95%
between 1815 and 1860.
Self-sustaining domestic markets
Facilitates foreign trade