Name

Richard Brewart Jr.

Date

Class

★

HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY ACTIVITY 12

A Big Ditch or a Grand Canal?
President Thomas Jefferson thought the idea was crazy, and in 1809 he refused to fund the project with federal money. Attempting to carve the Erie Canal through the New York wilderness was “little short of madness,” Jefferson fumed. But New York governor De Witt Clinton refused to let the plan die. He remained determined to construct the canal—making water travel from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean a reality. How would Governor Clinton carry out his plan? Clinton called on his fellow New Yorkers to fund a $7 million canal that would link Buffalo to New York City via Albany and the Hudson River. Engineers who had studied Great Britain’s canals developed the plans, and construction began in 1817. More than 3,000 workers cleared trees, leveled ground, and dug the ditch for the canal, which would cover 350 miles (563 km) and raise and lower boats nearly 600 feet (183 m) during their journey. When construction ended in 1825, the canal was an immediate success. The cost of shipping grain from Lake Erie to the Atlantic dropped from $100 to $20 a ton, and the time in transit was cut from 20 to 8 days. The Erie Canal carried such a volume that it repaid its initial cost within 12 years.

Digging the Big Ditch
“We are digging the Ditch through the mire; Through the mud and the slime and the mire, by heck! And the mud is our principal hire; Up our pants, in our shirts, down our neck, by heck! We are digging the Ditch through the gravel, So the people and freight can travel.”
—Erie Canal work song

Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Erie Canal workers excavate a deep cut. Dug in rough, sparsely settled wilderness, the canal progressed about a mile a week. Since the elevation of Lake Erie was 565 feet (172 m) higher than the Hudson River at Albany, the Erie Canal had 83 locks with lifts that raised and lowered the boats as they traveled the waterway. The locks became the marvels of their day.

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Name Richard Brewart Jr.

Date

Class

HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY ACTIVITY 12 (continued)
It also helped New York City develop into the nation’s financial center. No longer known as Clinton’s “Big Ditch,” the new waterway was soon billed as America’s “Grand Canal.” Through imagination, technology, and hard work, people have been able to alter their environments to suit their needs. Different cultures tend to approach the environment in different ways. Whereas Native Americans felt at one with the environment, European settlers regarded it as something to use or tame. In the United States, Americans have dramatically transformed their environment, tunneling railroad passages through the Sierra Nevada and diverting water from the Colorado River to desert regions. Projects such as the Erie Canal linked waterways, easing transportation and spurring industrial development. The model of the British canal system enabled Americans to envision and build a canal in an area where Native Americans had used the existing waterways for hundreds of years.

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APPLYING GEOGRAPHY TO HISTORY DIRECTIONS: Answer the questions below in the space provided.
1. What approach did European settlers in America often take toward their physical environment? The approach the European Settlers took was through imagination, technology, and hard work. 2. What was the goal of the Erie Canal project? The goal of the Erie Canal project was to lessen the shipping cost of grain. 3. What effect do you think the Erie Canal had on the development of industry in New York State? On other canal projects in the United States? The effect of the Erie Canal to the N.Y. State was it helped it grow to the nation’s financial center.

Critical Thinking

4. Formulating Questions Why would the canal developers have studied the British canal system before they designed the Erie Canal? Write four questions the developers might have asked during their studies. They studied the British Canal to help improve the dig of the Erie Canal. 1. How deep is the canal? 2. What direction does the canal flow? 3. What types of boats are being used on the canal. 4. What is being shipped across the canal?

Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Activity
5. Read the local newspaper and look for an ongoing project in which people are altering their environment. Identify the project’s goal. Does everyone in the area agree with the project and its goals? What are some objections? Do you think the project will be successful? Why or why not? 20