How Did Transportation Change In The 1800s

Learning Objectives

Past the end of this section, you will be able to:

Describe the development of improved methods of nineteenth-century domestic transportation
Place the ways in which roads, canals, and railroads impacted Americans' lives in the nineteenth century

Americans in the early 1800s were a people on the motion, as thousands left the eastern coastal states for opportunities in the West. Unlike their predecessors, who traveled by pes or wagon railroad train, these settlers had new transport options. Their trek was made possible by the construction of roads, canals, and railroads, projects that required the funding of the federal government and the states.

New technologies, similar the steamship and railroad lines, had brought about what historians call the transportation revolution. States competed for the honour of having the near advanced transport systems. People historic the transformation of the wilderness into an orderly world of improvement demonstrating the steady march of progress and the greatness of the republic. In 1817, John C. Calhoun of Due south Carolina looked to a future of rapid internal improvements, declaring, "Let us . . . bind the Democracy together with a perfect system of roads and canals." Americans agreed that internal transportation routes would promote progress. Past the eve of the Ceremonious War, the United states had moved beyond roads and canals to a well-established and extensive arrangement of railroads.

ROADS AND CANALS

One key part of the transportation revolution was the widespread building of roads and turnpikes. In 1811, construction began on the Cumberland Road, a national highway that provided thousands with a route from Maryland to Illinois. The federal government funded this important artery to the West, starting time the creation of a transportation infrastructure for the benefit of settlers and farmers. Other entities built turnpikes, which (as today) charged fees for use. New York State, for instance, chartered turnpike companies that dramatically increased the miles of state roads from one thousand in 1810 to four thousand by 1820. New York led the way in building turnpikes.

Culvert mania swept the U.s. in the first one-half of the nineteenth century. Promoters knew these artificial rivers could save travelers immense amounts of time and money. Even short waterways, such as the two-and-a-half-mile canal going around the rapids of the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky, proved a huge bound forward, in this example past opening a h2o route from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. The preeminent case was the Erie Canal, which linked the Hudson River, and thus New York City and the Atlantic seaboard, to the Swell Lakes and the Mississippi River Valley.

A painting presents a bucolic, romantic depiction of the Erie Canal and its environs. A single vessel is present on the water, and a man conducts several horses alongside the canal. A city is barely visible in the background.

Although the Erie Canal was primarily used for commerce and trade, in Pittsford on the Erie Culvert (1837), George Harvey portrays it in a pastoral, natural setting. Why practise y'all call back the painter chose to portray the canal this way?

With its fundamental location, big harbor, and access to the hinterland via the Hudson River, New York Urban center already commanded the king of beasts'southward share of commerce. Still, the metropolis's merchants worried virtually losing ground to their competitors in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Their search for commercial advantage led to the dream of creating a h2o highway connecting the city's Hudson River to Lake Erie and markets in the Westward. The outcome was the Erie Canal. Chartered in 1817 past the country of New York, the canal took vii years to consummate. When it opened in 1825, it dramatically decreased the cost of shipping while reducing the time to travel to the West. Soon $15 1000000 worth of goods (more than than $200 million in today'south coin) was being transported on the 363-mile waterway every yr.

Explore the Erie Canal on ErieCanal.org via an interactive map. Click throughout the map for images of and artifacts from this historic waterway.

The success of the Erie Canal led to other, similar projects. The Wabash and Erie Canal, which opened in the early 1840s, stretched over 450 miles, making it the longest canal in North America. Canals added immensely to the country's sense of progress. Indeed, they appeared to be the logical next step in the process of transforming wilderness into civilization.

Map (a) shows the route taken by the Wabash and Erie Canal through the state of Indiana. Photograph (b) shows a portion of the Erie Canal in 2007.

Visit Southern Indiana Trails to encounter historic photographs of the Wabash and Erie Canal:

Equally with highway projects such every bit the Cumberland Road, many canals were federally sponsored, particularly during the presidency of John Quincy Adams in the tardily 1820s. Adams, forth with Secretary of State Henry Clay, championed what was known equally the American System, part of which included plans for a broad range of internal transportation improvements. Adams endorsed the cosmos of roads and canals to facilitate commerce and develop markets for agriculture likewise equally to advance settlement in the West.

RAILROADS

Starting in the tardily 1820s, steam locomotives began to compete with equus caballus-drawn locomotives. The railroads with steam locomotives offered a new mode of transportation that fascinated citizens, buoying their optimistic view of the possibilities of technological progress. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was the first to begin service with a steam locomotive. Its countdown train ran in 1831 on a rails outside Albany and covered twelve miles in twenty-five minutes. Presently it was traveling regularly between Albany and Schenectady.

Toward the center of the century, railroad construction kicked into high gear, and eager investors quickly formed a number of railroad companies. Equally a railroad grid began to take shape, it stimulated a greater demand for coal, iron, and steel. Soon, both railroads and canals crisscrossed usa, providing a transportation infrastructure that fueled the growth of American commerce. Indeed, the transportation revolution led to development in the coal, iron, and steel industries, providing many Americans with new chore opportunities.

An 1853 map of New York State shows its extensive networks of railroads and canals.

AMERICANS ON THE Motion

The expansion of roads, canals, and railroads changed people'southward lives. In 1786, information technology had taken a minimum of four days to travel from Boston, Massachusetts, to Providence, Rhode Island. By 1840, the trip took half a day on a train. In the 20-first century, this may seem intolerably slow, only people at the fourth dimension were amazed past the railroad's speed. Its average of 20 miles per hr was twice as fast as other available modes of transportation.

By 1840, more than three thousand miles of canals had been dug in the U.s., and 30 thousand miles of railroad track had been laid by the beginning of the Civil War. Together with the hundreds of steamboats that plied American rivers, these advances in transportation fabricated it easier and less expensive to send agricultural products from the W to feed people in eastern cities, and to ship manufactured goods from the East to people in the W. Without this power to transport appurtenances, the marketplace revolution would non have been possible. Rural families also became less isolated as a upshot of the transportation revolution. Traveling circuses, menageries, peddlers, and itinerant painters could at present more than easily make their way into rural districts, and people in search of work found cities and manufactory towns within their accomplish.

Department Summary

A transportation infrastructure rapidly took shape in the 1800s as American investors and the government began building roads, turnpikes, canals, and railroads. The fourth dimension required to travel shrank vastly, and people marveled at their ability to conquer keen distances, enhancing their sense of the steady advance of progress. The transportation revolution also made information technology possible to transport agricultural and manufactured goods throughout the state and enabled rural people to travel to towns and cities for employment opportunities.

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Review Question

What were the benefits of the transportation revolution?

Answer to Review Question

The Cumberland Route fabricated transportation to the West easier for new settlers. The Erie Canal facilitated trade with the West past connecting the Hudson River to Lake Erie. Railroads shortened transportation times throughout the state, making it easier and less expensive to motion people and appurtenances.