Page 271 - US History
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Chapter 9 | Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850 261
was being transported on the 363-mile waterway every year.
Figure 9.13 Although the Erie Canal was primarily used for commerce and trade, in Pittsford on the Erie Canal (1837), George Harvey portrays it in a pastoral, natural setting. Why do you think the painter chose to portray the canal this way?
Click and Explore
Explore the Erie Canal on ErieCanal.org (http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15ErieCanal) via an interactive map. Click throughout the map for images of and artifacts from this historic waterway.
The success of the Erie Canal led to other, similar projects. The Wabash and Erie Canal, which opened in the early 1840s, stretched over 450 miles, making it the longest canal in North America (Figure 9.14). Canals added immensely to the country’s sense of progress. Indeed, they appeared to be the logical next step in the process of transforming wilderness into civilization.
