Industrial Revolution: The Building Of The Erie Canal

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The Erie Canal is located in New York, and ran from Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany on the Hudson River. It provided a navigable water link from New York City to the Atlantic Coast. This great invention leads to a historic explosion in the market of commerce, ideas and technology. It marked the beginning of what later became known as the Industrial Revolution. The building of the canal, was completed in October of the year 1825. Governor De Witt Clinton celebrated by pouring a keg of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean. The celebration was widespread among the nation. It provided a connection between the east and west. It revolutionized the production and supply of food. Goods were to be transported within half the time it took from …show more content…

The reason behind the building of the canal, was to improve the transportation system between the east and the west. There was lack of certain good in each part of the United States, and this canal was the key to all solutions. There was similar ideas proposed by Washington’s Patowmack Company and other privately financed companies; however, those were proven to be nothing but failures.The construction of the canal began in 1817, but the idea was proposed way before. By 1805, two members of the state legislature was pushing for the construction of the canal; but for most, people tended to agree with Thomas Jefferson’s viewpoint on the financial cost being too high for governments budget. This issue lingered on for about five years more until the powerful De Witt Clinton decides to join in on this idea, thus placing his career on the line. Clinton was a power intellectual leader, so gaining support was not much trouble. After a consuming congressional battle, there it was decided, the Erie Canal construction was to begin. The canal was indeed a great inventions, but the inventors remain anonymous. There was a tremendous amount of work to be done and issues were apparent throughout the long process of construction. The natural geography of the area and weather were main source of difficulties. A young engineer known as Canvass White joined the party of construction and had a great deal of achievement with his conducting an experiment with the Chittenango cement, making it water proof thus being able be use it under all all types of conditions. It was a very time consuming labor; however, there were other great inventions that were used in order to reduce the time, example of which is the lever, whom we can thank the ancient Greek