Early 1800s, sea &
river trade center around 6 large East Coast cities - New York, Philly,
Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans & Charleston.
Baltimore third largest
city in country 1820, 62,000 pop’n – clipper ships.
Merchant capitalists - John
Jacob Astor.
Peddlers
1835, over half of all
turnpikes abandoned.
War of 1812
British port blockade;
75 days cotton shipment MA
to SC
regional political
divisions;
question of
constitutionality;
National Road - 1850 Illinois
1812, 100 total miles of
canal; only three over two miles long.
Jefferson, "It is a
splendid project & may be executed a century hence, but now construction on
the Potomac canal has languished for many years because they can't raise
$200,000! And you talk of making a
canal 350 miles long through a wilderness! It is little short of madness."
DeWitt Clinton, 1817 bill
Erie Canal,
"big ditch"
innovations - machines for cutting trees, pulling out
stumps.
Lockport Locks.
1825, Erie opened; 363
miles, then-longest in world;
"mixing of
waters".
over half million
dollars in tolls just in 1825,
repaid construction cost
in seven years.
After ten years,
enlarged;
Rochester
"canal fever".
Erie engineers;
1839 depression.
1840, 3,326 miles of
canal.
John Fitch steam-powered
boat NJ 1790s.
Oliver Evans – high-pressure
steam engines,
Robert Fulton -
mechanical & civil engineer;
Systematic study,
calculations, model-building;
Economic feasibility.
Symbolism –
artist;
politics - influential
friends & wealthy sponsors get monopoly on Hudson.
1807, "North
River" Albany to NY 4 mph - over 150 miles, 5 cents a mile.
profit $16,000, 1808.
1803 Louisiana Purchase,
1815-1860 golden age of
river steamboat;
Eastern steamboats long
& narrow, deep & heavy hull, low-pressure steam engines; floating
palaces, run by big business.
1817, 17 steamboats
operating on western rivers; 1855, 727.
grain, fur, timber to
east; settlers west.
Samuel Clemens (Mark
Twain), 1883 Life on the Mississippi;
Western boats broad & shallow, flat-bottomed, operate
in 22 inches of water, run by individuals/small group; high-pressure steam
engines.
"Western steamboats
should be built so that when river is low, a crew can tap a keg of beer &
run the boat along for four miles on the suds."
1840s boiler explosions.
"Talk about your Northern
steamers, it don't need no spunk to navigate them waters. You ain't bust a boiler for five years.
But I tell you, stranger, it
takes a real man to ride one of these half alligator boats, head on a snag,
high pressure, safety valve soldered down, 600 souls on board & in danger
of going to the devil."
1852 Congress Steam Boat
Act – standards, inspection, regulatory agency.
Steamboats average 15
mph, railroads 30 mph;
1200 miles Pittsburgh to St Louis by river, 612 miles by
rail.
1830 Baltimore &
Ohio RR
Peter Cooper, "Tom
Thumb".
Pennsylvania coal centers;
1839 Philadelphia &
Reading;
NJ political battle.
1840, 3,328 miles RR
built in US,
1850, 8,879 miles,
passed Britain.
1860 over 30,000 miles, connections
to Chicago & St. Louis.
Early US RRs narrow
gauge - four feet, eight inches.
1834, NJ Camden &
Amboy RR, import "John Bull" from Stephenson.
over 100 locomotives
from Britain 1840s.
imitating Britain’s
wooden tracks topped with iron, mounted on stone blocks.
new system, wooden ties on
crushed stone roadbed,
British locomotives too
heavy.
track location - cities
want straight connections.
small towns want stimulus
to local trade.
Farmers ambivalent.
Political wrangling.
Geography.
US RRs sharper curves, steeper
grades than British.
1830s, begin building locomotives,
1840 ten different
companies; only one-quarter of 500 locomotives imported.
1833 John Jervis- swivel
truck, bogie truck;
1838 John Harrison - equalizer
lever,
bigger boiler &
cylinder – raise steam pressure to 130 psi.
1850, standard US 4-4-0
pattern
wood-burning
"cow catcher"
lantern headlight
bell & steam whistle
passenger cars like
stagecoaches;
pioneer modern American
business organization - line & staff system.
logistical problems - stations,
warehouses, repair shops, offices & roundhouses;
1850s, PA RR 4000 people
on payroll;
telegraph;
NJ Camden & Amboy, 1855
killed 24;
seven different widths
of track PA & Ohio alone.
1869 Central Pacific
& Union Pacific RRs join Promontory Point, Utah territory. Golden spikes -first transcontinental RR;
development of national
economy,
RR create demand for
iron, steel & coal.
1858 George Pullman;
train vestibule.