The most important and successful building project of the canal era was the construction of the Erie Canal. With the rapid increase of settlement in New York State after the American Revolution, businessmen and politicians began to discuss the possibility of constructing a waterway to facilitate trade and transportation between Lake Erie and the Hudson River, thereby connecting the port of New York City with the developing Northwest. As early as 1792, the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company began to build dams, locks, and canals, but never managed to construct more than a few miles of waterway. In the 1800s, new proposals for a canal system began to appear. In 1807, Jesse Hawley wrote a series of essays arguing that an east-west route was indeed possible. He thought that the route of an “artificial river” had already been laid out by God and only needed to be finished by humans. The following year, the New York legislature passed a bill authorizing surveyors to search for possible routes. In 1810, a canal commission was created to begin searching for ways to finance this project. The commission asked for federal funding, but President James Madison eventually vetoed their proposal in 1817. That same year, DeWitt Clinton, one of the canal project’s main promoters, was elected governor of New York. He decided to proceed with the proposed canal plan using state funding. He persuaded the legislature to authorize construction of the Erie Canal as well as the Champlain Canal, which would connect Albany to Lake Champlain in the northeastern corner of the state. On July 4, 1817, with much fanfare, Clinton and his supporters broke the ground for the beginning of canal construction.
Construction of the canal began in the middle section, 98 miles of which were completed by 1819. By 1820, the western and middle portions of the canal were already in use. In 1823 the canal finally reached the Hudson. Two years later, the enormous project was complete from Buffalo to Albany. This unprecedented engineering accomplishment was celebrated across the region, as farmers, merchants, and artisans looked forward to an expanded market for their goods. The Erie Canal was an instant financial and public relations success; tolls paid for its construction costs in only a short time. Almost immediately, the legislature authorized the creation of 17 lateral canals that would connect even more towns to the new trade artery. The Canal Board, which would manage the new waterway, was established in 1826. Only 10 years later, the Erie Canal Enlargement project began, to ease the traffic congestion which was by then a common feature of canal travel. This major expansion was not completed until 1862. Because of the Erie Canal’s stunning success, the demand for canal construction intensified throughout the United States. Unlike the Erie, most of the later canals were federally or privately funded, not state-funded.
An engraving depicting the first barges en route from Buffalo to New York City via the newly opened Erie Canal (Hulton/Archive)
But none of these projects proved as successful or culturally significant.
The original canal was four feet deep, 40 feet wide, and 363 miles long. It cost $7 million to build and contained 83 locks and 18 aqueducts. Benjamin Wright and his associates (later referred to as the “Erie School” of engineers) oversaw the construction. In the process, Wright and his workers developed new machines to help remove roots and stumps and invented a new watertight mortar to line the canal bottom. They built aqueducts across valleys and rivers and locks to level out less-dramatic changes in elevation.
Canal-digging was backbreaking, dangerous work. Laborers were hired not by the state but by private contractors who placed bids for constructing certain sections of the canal. Many of the diggers were local farmers, hired by these contractors to work on the stretch of canal near their towns. Many other diggers were recent immigrants, mostly from Ireland. The presence of these immigrant wage-laborers concerned some of the canal’s proponents. Often uneducated and without a permanent home, these men symbolized the kind of wage slavery that, according to popular ideology in the early republic, was not supposed to exist in the United States. The Erie Canal was supposed to embody the proposition that all men could become independent landowners, prospering through the democracy of property ownership and trade. The fact that this canal of progress was built by the seemingly un-American was unimportant. Once the canal was completed, some of these same workers became part of the huge workforce required to operate the canal and canal boats.
The new canal revolutionized travel and trade in the region as transporting goods became quicker and cheaper. Farmers who previously had no accessible market for their produce were now able make the transition from subsistence farming to commercial AGRICULTURE. Land near the canal rose in value, and new cities grew up seemingly overnight, ready to take advantage of the commerce the canal would create. The ease with which goods could be transported to New York City gave it an economic advantage over other American coastal cities. Always an important port, New York became the center of American and trans-
Atlantic commerce—a preeminent position that would endure for more than a century.
The canal also promoted travel and tourism in the region. Sightseers reveled in the wild scenery and bustling towns. While canal travel could sometimes be uncomfortable, most people found it exciting at first. New kinds of travel boats were created, providing meals, foldout sleeping cots, and entertainment. Previously isolated from the outside world, families were able to visit commercial centers and keep in touch with relatives through the rapid transit of canal boats (and the increasingly speedy mail service). For the first time, big-city luxury goods could be easily shipped to the developing West, rapidly transforming the quality of life in the hinterland. Journeys that used to take weeks could now be completed in a few days.
But with the canal’s triumphs came troubles. The canal cut across private property, and many landowners complained that they were never adequately reimbursed for losing their property. Farmers whose land had been bisected by the canal lobbied the Canal Board for the right to construct bridges over the canal. Without bridges, some landowners were unable to travel to the towns to sell their goods without trespassing on neighbors’ property. In turn, shipping companies lobbied against these bridges, which created increased navigation obstacles and safety hazards.
The culture that developed among canal workers was troubling to merchants and civic leaders. These workers were mostly unmarried, often recent immigrants, and sometimes young boys. The mobile nature of boat life seemed to promote vice; saloons multiplied in port towns, and prostitutes became a visible presence along the route. The canal operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, creating noisy nightlife and increased crime. In the 1830s, the Canal area became known as the “burned-over district” because of an explosion of evangelical fervor and reform campaigns. The reformers were especially concerned about the behavior of the canal workers and tried to force the Canal Board to close operations on Sundays, so that drivers and longshoremen could attend church. Others argued that, given idle time, vice among the workers would increase. Another serious problem was what to do with the canal workers during the winter months, when canal operations completely shut down. Port towns were forced to deal with groups of unemployed or marginally employed men for months at a time.
Of course, not all canal workers were dangerous and immoral; many boating operations were run by families, and not all single men were a threat to civilized life. However, troublemakers loomed large in the imaginations of local farmers, worried again that their vision of ordered, moral progress was being undermined by the seemingly alien values of canal culture.
The Erie Canal became too successful for its own good as swarms of boats crowded in, slowing down what was supposed to be the most rapid form of transit. The increased congestion and numerous locks in the eastern part of the canal proved so tedious that many shipping companies were forced to circumvent these sections in order to save time, transporting their goods by road during these sections of the journey.
Many observers worried that the progress created by the canal was made at too high a cost, morally and economically. The “canal mania” that accompanied its completion caused wild speculation among bankers and merchants that often resulted in ruin. Fortunes could be made and lost very quickly in this new environment, causing many to question whether the canal really was a financial boon. The structure that was supposed to stabilize and improve their lives was proving to be a volatile force beyond their control. Small farmers began to suspect that, while the state had originally built the canal to benefit everyone, the parties who ended up gaining the most were big corporations. More and more people in the canal region felt that the state government was more interested in protecting powerful companies than ordinary voters.
The Erie Canal permanently altered the landscape and economy of New York. It was one of the first INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS designed to expand American mobility and trade during the early 19th century. Although it continued to prosper for many years, it was eventually eclipsed by railroads, which were much faster and could operate year round. The canal survived well into the 20th century as an important auxiliary method for transporting freight. It remains an important exemplar of American ambition, engineering, and resourcefulness. For historians, the Erie Canal provides a revealing case study about the complexities of labor, property, and ideas about progress in American culture.
See also CANAL ERA.
Further reading: Peter Bernstein, Wedding the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005); Ronald E. Shaw, Canals for a Nation: The Canal Era in the United States, 1790-1860 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990); Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996).
—Eleanor H. McConnell
World History
