Erie Canal Research Paper

Words: 784
Pages: 4

"Oyster! Oyster! beautiful Oysters," trumpeted a headline in a Batavia, New York, newspaper in 1824. The achievement of oysters so far from the sea symbolized a great achievement that previously seemed impossible. By 1825: the Erie Canal was completed and it is America largest canal. The canal is 363 miles, and its 40 feet wide and only four feet deep. Eric Canal was an waterway that opened the American west to the Atlantic, and, in process made New York City a business enter pot. The Erie Canal brought problems to farms. The canal split many farms causing great problems to many farmers who wanted bridges to get to their farms, the low bridges were hazard to passengers and traffic. The leaks in the canal caused flooding on some farms and created mosquito …show more content…
They agreed that the states had the right to promote the common good, but demanded that it compensate those injured during the process. They reminded the middle class that "religious, social, and commercial progress "could not be separated (page.151). The sheriff argues that the middle class way to "direct market revolution away from the nightmare and toward the dream" (page.167). The sheriff saw the Erie Canal as an improvement. Sheriff saw it was something that increased the value of the land. She also argues that landowners and businessman scrambled for wealth, and were not above the state in subsidizing their efforts. It is a formidable argument, when sheriff links businessmen's participation in the bethel society to the culture of progress. "A moral justification for pushing their commercial benefit at someone else's expense" (page 134). When discussing conflicts over changes in the canal route, she notes, "Although most upstate businessmen would acknowledge that the state could change the Canal route for 'good and substantial reasons,' petitioners invariably failed to recognize the presence of such good reasons in case where their business investments depended on the waterway's original route" (page