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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 6 page paper discussing this major inland waterway and its influence in American history. The paper covers why it was built, the many roadblocks to its completion, its importance economically, socially, and politically, and how it is used today. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_Erie.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
-- or, in its time, the American economy -- as this 363 mile-long stretch of water spanning upstate New York. Why was the Erie Canal built? What purpose did it
serve? And why did it become such an integral part of our nations heritage? The original idea was to link the growing cities of the Midwest with the shipping ports
of the East. In the days before the Louisiana Purchase, when New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi belonged to France, George Washington (among others) was determined to find
a way to keep the raw materials produced in the fertile areas around the Central Great Lakes and the northern Mississippi and Ohio River valleys from floating downstream into French
territory and out of the American economy. However, Washington never envisioned anything as ambitious as the Erie Canal. His solution was a much shorter canal using the Potomac as a
starting point: "Determined to refamiliarize himself with this route, which he had first explored (to his peril) during the French and Indian Wars, he headed west to the headquarters of
the river. Then he continued over the Alleghenies and down the Monongahela to the frontier settlement of Pittsburgh. From there he went on by boat down the Ohio and finished
the 650 mile expedition by traveling up the Kanawha . . ." (Bourne, 14). Washington saw this route to the Great Lakes as advantageous because, although it was circuitous,
much of it utilized waterways that already existed, and relatively little canal would actually have to be built. A short stretch of this canal was constructed, and this project might
have turned into our nations greatest canal except for one important factor. Washingtons administration ended, and Jefferson was not the least bit interested in incurring such a large federal expense
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