1. Lecture 15: The Transportation Revolution

2. Key Questions to Consider:  What were internal improvements and why did many Americans support them after the War of 1812?  List a few reasons for why the Erie Canal was historically significant  What were the benefits and drawbacks of railroads?

3. What was travel like in 1800?  The US was overwhelmingly rural  Only 3% of the population lived in cities that had more than 8,000 people  Travel by ship was the fastest  If you lived in Philadelphia, it was easier to get to London than to get to Pittsburgh!  No regular land transportation  You could travel by wagons or stagecoach, but this often meant bumpy roads

4. Transportation improvements accelerated after the War of 1812  Growing population and expanding markets led to calls for better transportation  More people argue that a stronger nation depended on internal improvements:  These included turnpikes, roads, canals, railroads, lighthouses, harbors, river improvements, etc.  Economic nationalism – Henry Clay’s American System – interlocking components of 2BUS, tariffs, land sales, and internal improvements

5. 1. Turnpikes (toll roads)  One of the nation’s earliest corporations  Funded by state, local, and federal gov’t  Example of public-private hybrid financing  Company may operate the turnpike, but state raises the capital by selling stock or bonds  The corporations rarely profited  Travelers found ways to avoid paying tolls

6. 2. Improved Roads  Examples:  Corduroy roads – logs and beams  Macadamized roads – stone and gravel  Travel by ship was still cheaper  Provided construction jobs and revenue for small towns

7. 3. Canals  Connected with the spread of steam travel  Robert Fulton’s steamship, the Clermont, sailed up the Hudson River in 1807  Profound impact on trade  Standardized travel  Regular flow of commerce  What problems were associated with steam travel on canals and rivers?

8. A Test Case: The Erie Canal  What advantages did the state of NY have?  Canal ran 324 miles from Albany to Buffalo  Major transformative effects:  Connected Midwestern farmers to customers in the urban East  Rapid development in Burnt-Over District  Social problems (e.g. crime, drunkenness)  Canal froze over in the winter, leaving a lot of the workers to get into trouble!

9. Map of the Erie Canal

10. Compare the elevation increases for Pennsylvania (top) and New York (bottom) and we can see why New York had the advantage

11. Improved roads, canals, and railroads connected isolated regions of the country and helped create a national market within the United States

12. 4. Railroads  Advantages compared to canals?  Perception of distance changes  The invention of time zones  Why did Americans often prefer to use traditional methods of transportation even after railroads had been invented?  Railroads only become cheaper with long distance shipping (over 1,000 miles)  Was not truly possible until after Civil War

13. Travel times before the RxR

14. Now add the railroad

15. Now add a better railroad

16. Benefits of railroads  Increased property values  Dropped price of shipping goods  Enabled more accessible consumer goods  Allowed shipments during winter and nighttime  Contributed to economic growth in numerous ways:  Forward and backward linkages  Entire towns spring up with railroad  A more unified nation  Urban and rural areas become connected  Greater access to a cash economy  Has benefits compared to a barter or metal-based currency

17. Drawbacks of railroads  Railroad companies assumed a level of wealth concentration and power that the Founding Fathers likely never envisioned  dummy corporations and rampant corruption  Corporate personhood – 14 th Amendment, etc  They took risks that imperiled the economy  Had roles in the panics of 1873 and 1893  “socialism for the rich” – the 19 th century version of bank bailouts and too-big-to-fail  Accelerated environmental damage  State support for Big Business over average worker  Federal troops backed railroads in workers’ strikes

18.  Improved transportation was key to the industrial revolution – a series of transformations in trade, production, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, etc.  Industrialization affected virtually every aspect of peoples’ lives, from gender roles to consumer patterns  Economic growth reached a point of no return  Cities and farms supported one another in symbiosis  Greater consumer demand forced companies to create new forms of organization and occupations  Without transportation improvements lowering the cost of shipping, this growth would not have happened Why was this important?

19.  By 1860, the North had clear advantages in terms of railroads and urbanization  Much of this regional disparity was related to the South’s prioritization on cotton and a slave economy