Transportation Revolution

UNIT 8: Changing Nation

Lesson: Transportation Revolution

Tennessee State Standard:

8.40 Analyze the development of roads & railroads throughout the U.S., including the National Road.

The Transportation Revolution

THE NATIONAL ROAD

America’s transportation system underwent dramatic changes in the early 1800's. Before this time, there were very few roads, and the roads that did exist were muddy, covered in rocks and subject to flooding. Not exactly conducive to travel!

Then in 1817, Congress authorized the building of the National Road to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Mississippi River. By 1838, the "National Road" was complete.

The national road was a transportation project built to promote settlement to the west and it was very successful!

The new National Road influenced the movement of people, products, and ideas across the west expanding nation by making it faster and easier to move west. It also helped with the development of new businesses along the route of the highway, and allowed easier, faster, and cheaper movement of products. It also allowed for newspapers and mail to get to settlers in the west.

CANALS

Roads were not the only things built to improve travel. In the early 1800's, canals were introduced in Great Britain. Canals were man made waterways. They provided an inexpensive way to move people and products. Horses and mules pulled boats along the first canals at a speed of about 5 mph. The animals were tied to a boat in the canal, and as the animals walked on land along the edge of the canal, they pulled the boat upstream. Canals helped develop the country by making new faster ways to move west.

STEAMBOATS

Traveling down rivers was still the fastest form of transportation in the early 1800's. But boats only traveled downstream, not upstream. At least until the steamboat was developed. The steamboat allowed boats to travel both upstream and downstream. The first commercial steamboats provided a fast and inexpensive way for people and goods to travel. With a steamboat, any place connected with a waterway was within reach.

RAILROADS

Better roads for wagons, canals, and steamboats all revolutionized the way people traveled in America. But the most important invention that changed America in the 1800's was the development of the railroads. The railroad changed the entire culture of the country.

After the invention of the railroad, the United States seemed smaller. People could travel long distances in much less time. Goods, packages, and letters could also be transported more quickly.

The first railroads began to develop in the late 1820's and by the 1830's the railroad industry was born.

Most of the early railroad tracks were laid in the northern states to connect the large cities with factories in the north. By the end of the 1800's, the railroad was the primary source of transportation in the United States.

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