1. Innovations in transportation and technology

2. Transportation Technologies
Steamboats
-Change in travel of freight.
Reliability
Canals
-Erie Canal(1825)
Linked western farmers with
eastern manufactures
Railroad
-Thousands of miles laid by
1850
Turnpikes
-Development of land based
infrastructure
Telegraphs
-Long distance communication
Transatlantic Cable 1858

3. Developments in Transportation
Transportation was essential to economic development, and the need became more critical with westward. There was no doubt that you needed roads, waterways, and communication lines to unify the 13 colonies into a nation.  
Concentration of populations in sparse, far cities.
Because of advances in the agriculture industry (cotton) there was a higher pressure on what little infrastructure there was in place.

4. Agricultural technologies
The Cotton Gin -First major innovation in agriculture (1793) The Steel Plow -Replaced out-of-date oxen driven wooden plows Mechanical Mower-Reaper -Huge gains (quintupled) in wheat harvests in the west

5. Developments in Agriculture
Western farmers began experiencing surpluses , and sold the extra to the manufacturing northeast.
Southern planters abandoned almost all other crops in favor of the newly profitable cotton. In addition, planters required enormous increases in slave labor to plant enough cotton to take advantage of their new production capacity. As a result, thousands more slaves from Africa and the West Indies were purchased before the slave trade was banned in 1808

6. North vs. South
Few canals or means of transportation were built in the south (food).
Relied on Atlantic shipping for to send raw products to the north.
Isolation in the south prevented it from advancing its standard of living on par with the north and west.
Far better transportation in the north would mean a heavy advantage in the upcoming Civil War

7. Regional Specializations
Over time, regional specialization emerged: the West farmed to feed the Northeast, the South grew cotton to ship to the Northeast, and the Northeast produced manufactured goods to sell in the West and South.

8. Government Involvement
Before 1824, government played little roles in transportation development.
After the court case Gibbons vs. Ogden in 1824, the government was allowed a bigger part.
Later on, federal government ended up aiding the revolution by subsidizing the railway and giving companies huge plots of land grants that the government had already surveyed.
Also reduced tariffs on construction materials…such as iron and lumber.

9. Bibliography A History of Us -Joy Harkim The American Economy
A Historical Encyclopedia
-Cynthia L. Clark
Give Me Liberty
-Eric Foner
The Industrial Revolution in America
-Corona Brezina