Transportation,+Communication,+and+Technology

The Canal Age The Early Railroads
 * Steamboats became a new way of transporting goods up and down rivers
 * Canals were an alternative to turnpikes
 * Horses could carry more for a farther distance
 * The job of digging canals were mostly in the hands of the state governments
 * Northeast took the lead
 * The Erie Canal was the greatest construction process that the US ever undertaken
 * Financial success
 * New York could now compete with New Orleans as a destination for agricultural goods because now New York had access to Chicago and the west
 * Due to these new transportation routes, white settlement in the northwest was increased
 * Many cities on the Atlantic seaboard wanted to contend with New York, by building canals, but they were unsuccessful
 * Railroads were invented through the technological advances and breakthroughs
 * Invention of tracks
 * The creation of steam-powered locomotives
 * The development of railroad cars that could serve as public carriers of passengers and freight
 * The first company to begin actual operations was the Baltimore and Ohio
 * The Railroads and Canals were soon competing bitterly
 * New York prohibited railroads from hauling freight in competition with the Erie Canal and its branches

The Triumph of the Rails
 * The Northeast had the most comprehensive and efficient railroad system
 * A change in railroad development was the trend toward the consolidation of short lines into longer lines
 * Chicago became the rail center of the west
 * Capital from the railroads was provided by state governments, private investors, and loans taken abroad
 * Many politicians got Congress to issue land grants to railroad companies

Innovations in Communications and Journalism Commerce and Industry
 * The magnetic telegraph helped to facilitate the operation of railroads
 * The telegraph helped to tie the country together
 * Permitted instant communication between distant cities
 * Helped to reinforce the schism between the north and the south
 * Found more in the north
 * Samuel F.B. Morse created Morse code
 * The Western Union company was formed by all the independent lines
 * Richard Hoe created the steam cylinder rotary press
 * The Associated Press was created by the newspaper publishers around the country
 * New Journalism helped to create sectional discord between the north and south
 * North had more of the major magazines
 * South had a smaller budget and more local news
 * The New transportation, communication, and journalism ways showed the differences between the North and South
 * US was beginning to create a modern capitalist economy
 * Some classes and regions benefited from this, but not all

The Expansion of Business, 1820-1840
 * The distribution of goods was changed
 * The rise of corporation made possible the accumulation of much greater amounts of capital and hence made possible much larger manufacturing and business enterprises
 * Many banks issued out inadequate credit which resulted in a impediment to economic growth

The Emergence of the Factory
 * The factory was first introduced in the textile industry in New England
 * Shoes were usually handmade, but now they were beginning to be made in factories
 * The Northeast was the powerhouse of manufacturing in the US

Advances in Technology
 * Machine tools were the most important manufactured good
 * Interchangeable parts was a principle of better machine tools
 * Coal replaced water and wood as fuel for factories
 * Charles Goodyear (rubber)
 * Elias Howe (sewing machine)

Innovations in Corporate Organization
 * There was a decline of merchant capitalism
 * British competitors were stealing much of America's export trade
 * Merchants began to think that there was greater opportunity for profit in manufacturing then trade
 * This is why the northeast developed a industrial class first