Lesson Goals:

❖

Discuss how transportation improvements
helped settlers to move west.

❖

Describe the Erie Canal and its impact on
the nation.

❖

Outline changes in western settlement in
the early 1800s.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead: In the last section, you learned how the
Industrial Revolution changed the American economy. In this section,
you will learn how changes in transportation helped the nation expand.

The American System

Henry Clay
prepared an ambitious

program to improve
transportation and

strengthen the nation’s

economy called the
American System.

Canals

Roads

Strengthen

the

nation’s
economy

Clay believed that linking the
South, Northeast, and West
together would bring the United
States “to that height to which God
and nature and destined it.”

A Program introduced to Congress in the 1820s

MAIN IDEA: Transportation routes such as roads improved as settlers moved
west, and steamboats greatly improved the transport of goods along rivers.

Growth and Movement

1790

4 million people

Most Americans lived EAST of
the Appalachian Mountains

1820

10 million people

Nearly 2 million living WEST of
the Appalachian Mountains

The nation was growing and the population was expanding westward.

Growth and Movement

Traveling west was not easy in the late 1790s and early 1800s. The
363-mile trip from New York City to Buffalo could take as long as
three weeks. A pioneer family heading west with a wagonload of
household goods faced hardship and danger along the way.

Roads and Turnpikes

The nation need good inland roads for travel and for
the shipment of goods. Private companies built
many turnpikes. The fees travelers paid to use those
roads helped pay for construction.

turnpikes = toll roads

toll = fee ($)

Modern Turnpikes

The National Road

The National Road will eventually stretch from
Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois.

Congress viewed the National Road as a military necessity,
but it did NOT undertake other road-building projects.

River Travel - Advantages

Advantages:
• More comfortable than travel over bumpy roads
• Goods could be loaded on river barges and

sailed downstream

River travel had definite advantages over wagon and horse travel.

River Travel - Disadvantages

Disadvantages:
• Major rivers in the Eastern U.S. flowed in a

north-south direction

• Traveling against the current was an extremely

difficult and slow way to travel

The Era of the Steamboat

Robert Livingston, a political leader and
businessman, hired RobertFulton to develop a
steamboat with a powerful engine.

Steam engines were already being used in the
1780s and 1790s to power boats in quiet
waters. Inventor James Rumsey equipped a
small boat on the Potomac River with a steam
engine. David Fitch, another inventor, built a
steamboat that navigated the Delaware River.
Neither boat, however, had enough power to
withstand the strong currents and winds
found in large rivers or open bodies of water.

Steamboat, cont’d

Livingston wanted the steamboat to
carry cargo and passengers up the
Hudson River from NYC to Albany.

In 1807, Fulton’s steamboat, the
Clermont, made the 150-mile trip
in the unheard of time of 32 hours
(this trip would have taken 4 days
using only sails).

RESULTS:

✧ More comfortable
✧ Shipping goods became cheaper
✧ Shipping goods became faster
✧ Growth of river cities (St. Louis

and Cincinnati)

Canals

Problems With River Travel

Although steamboats represented a great improvement
in transportation, their routes depended on the existing
river system. Steamboats could not effectively tie the
eastern and western parts of the country together.

Locks

locks = separate compartments where water

levels are raised or lowered

Reading Summary

Reviewing the Main Ideas

❖ Settlers used new roads and turnpikes

to move west of the Appalachians, and
steamboats opened a new era of river
travel.

❖ The success of the Erie Canal led to the

building of other canals to link the East
and Midwest.

❖ Although life west of the Appalachian

Mountains was often difficult, the
population there grew tremendously in
the early 1800s.

Use pgs 336 - 341 to answer the following questions.

​9.2

"Moving West"