Roads and Canals Interactive Notes

I Can describe the
movement of people,
products and ideas
that resulted in new
patterns of settlement
and land use.

The American System

Henry Clay
prepared an ambitious

program to improve
transportation and

strengthen the nation’s

economy

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.

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 - 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

Canals

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.