Panama Canal Rough Draft

Words: 896
Pages: 4

The Panama Canal Rough Draft The Panama Canal is a feat of engineering and truly symbolizes a crucial moment in history, yet the sacrifices made for this accomplishment were dire. Due to the American Civil War, engineering advanced rapidly and producers sought to create new techniques to help their respective side in the war. With this advancement came progress in all aspects of engineering, not just militarism. Showcasing innovation and sacrifice, the Panama Canal stands as a testament to the evolution of engineering and geographical manipulation in not only United States history, but the world. The Canal was marked as an extremely dangerous job as the workers employed for building the canal were exposed to hazardous conditions beyond one's …show more content…
In the environment of the Panama Canal, there lived major outbreaks of Malaria and an entire Yellow Fever Epidemic detailed in historical textbooks “Some of the worst paid and dangerous labor. Workers endured horrors of rock slides, explosions, and a yellow fever epidemic” (Henretta 682). Despite these dangers, officials did not mention these outbreaks amid fears of rising concern about halting the project. Rather, producers forced their workers to push through like French Diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps “De Lesseps did not mention the sanitation problem as he pleaded for funds” (Chidsey 83). Proving that producers had very little care for the health and lives of their workers, especially with over 20,000 lives being lost in the construction. Despite the many hardships found throughout the construction of the Panama Canal, many kept working harder to fulfill the vision of connecting the seas. The French attempted to build the canal in the late 19th century under the direction of Ferdinand de Lesseps with the French Panama Canal Company, yet the funding for the canal was a crucial benefactor to the entire …show more content…
The Port Authority, working in concert with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is the local sponsor of the federally owned ship channel and is responsible for helping to secure funding necessary for its maintenance” (Edmonds 4). To remedy this issue, the United States issued bonds and transferred a significant amount of government resources to the Panama Canal Project. Despite the strong start, financial issues still remained persistent throughout the construction and caused many delays and the many natural disasters of the landscape caused rising costs to the budget to fix the destruction. Financially, the canal was a wonderful employment opportunity for the people of Panama, according to Bussolo’s article on the distributional effects of the Panama Canal. “At the sectoral level, the canal expansion creates additional demand for only two types of activity in Panama: construction and capital goods.” (Bussolo 8).Ultimately proving the sheer amount of effort the workers put into this entire