Secure Your Copy The Artificial River: The Erie Canal And The Paradox Of Progress, 1817-1862 Conceived By Carol Sheriff Available Through Volume

book is about the Erie Canal and when it was being made, Sheriff talks about how the canal was suppose to be a show of America's progress, It ends up not even barely being recognized because of the coming of the railroad and the Civil War,
This book goes over very well what was happening in the time period and how the canal effected many people's lives in the area, I personally just was not that interested in the novel itself.

If you are a history buff, then you will probably enjoy this novel, "The Artificial River uses the Eerie Canal region as a microcosm in which to explore the relationships between some of the antebellum era's important transformations: widespread geographic mobility rapid environmental change government intervention in economic development market expansion the reorganization of work and moral reform.
. The Artificial River recounts, then, a chapter in American perceptions and aspirations, It does not seek to retell the familiar history of the Canal's impact on westward expansion and northeastern industrialization rather, it looks at men and women who visited the Canal's locks, lived along its banks, and steered its boats.
" Carol Sheriff The Artificial River: the Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress,
Carol Sheriff
pages




At the dawn of a new century, the twodecade old American republic stood hemmed in between stormtossed Atlantic ocean and the towering Appalachian mountains.
Beyond them lay the west, sparsely settled but full of potential, stifled only by the dangers and isolation of the wilderness, But then the state of New York summoned the will and resources to create a river where there had been none before, to turn the woods and rolling hills to an avenue for expansion.
The Erie Canal opened the west to development and changed the nations history, but how did it effect the lives of the people who used it and lived along its course Such is the question Carol Sheriff attempts to answer in The Artificial River: the Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress.


The Erie Canal was the first major infrastructure project in the early Republic, and changed the relationship between the state government and the people in a variety of ways.
First, Sheriff demonstrates, it led to a stronger governmental hand in economic affairs, but the Canal Board allowed people a more direct voice in government than the House of Representatives.
“The people” included farmers who were annoyed that access to their land had been limited or the land itself diminished by flooding and the actions of laborers, but the phrase also covered businessmen who were beginning to link their own prosperity with the nations” and eager to enlist government financial support in matters that would quite coincidentally, of course! improve their own business prospect while furthering the nation's interests.
It didnt include so much the laborers who made the canal possible the men who dug the ditch by hand an in era without mechanized tools, and the boys who helped run the boats up and down the canal, seven days a week, finding their pleasures in the taverns and brothels when they could, and constantly under attack by the wealthy as the scourge of society or viewed as a band of sinners who needed to be saved from themselves by the burgeoning Temperance movement.


Aside from the government becoming more involved in the affairs of life, the canal's presence in people's lives drove home the idea of what was possible.
Theth century would be one dominated by the everforward

March of Technology, A century earlier, a given technological triumph might be enjoyed only by a particularly wealthy lord or merchant, but in theth century progress became a democratic institution.
The Erie Canal's swiftness was not limited to the the wealthy: the locks opened and the river flowed for all, and it became an active link to "civilization" for the initial settlers even as it served as the agent of the west's own civilization.
Indeed, so quickly did the area along the canal become civilized that it was soon taken for granted and its annual winter closings were greeted not with stoic understanding, but annoyance like that which cell phone users experience when experiencing choppiness.
The fact that they have their personal phone which is operating by sending signals into space is utterly lost on them in comparison to the impression that they have been inconvenienced.
So when the railroads followed the canal down the paths it blazed through wilderness and rendered the marvelous waterway obsolete within only a few decades, no one thought it strange When Thomas Jefferson first heard the proposal to build the canal, he snorted that it would make a fine project in a century.
He could have never imagined how much change would be wrought before then,

The Artificial River differs from most Erie histories in that its focus is not on the politics and history of the canal's construction and operation but on the people whose lives it touched.
There it demonstrates what a transitional period the United States was in, shifting from an agrarian republic run by a relative elite to a bustling, noisy commercial democracy where property qualifications were increasingly passe, and the future of the country was in the now very noticeable working class.
It's very fine history as far as its focus goes, but for a fuller appreciation of the canal I would probably read it along with other books.


Related:
Bond of Union: Building the Erie Canal and American Empire, Gerared Koeppel This book had some interesting concepts about earlier American reformation and radicalism.
Sheriff tends to illustrate American progress by using the Erie Canal showing readers the difficult struggles that Americans faced, Thus, Sheriff describes the social, economical, cultural, and political issues during this time period although, these struggles were real, Sheriff tends to place the blame all on progress of the Erie Canal.
Regardless, this is an interesting read for it shows how women gained their rights to work outside their homes, describes labor issues of New York during the time of the Erie Canal construction and beyond, and the tensions between North and South.
I recommend this book to any historian that wanted to study a unique system, the Erie Canal and how progression, reformation, and radicalism shaped American politics, economy, society, and cultural.
I enjoyed getting lost in this dive into an arguably underappreciated chapter of westward expansion, The Erie Canal today is diminished, memorialized as an antiquated song and a bike path, a relic confined to just one state.
But for much of theth Century it was the biggest transit engine in the country, a major driver for the port of New York and the growth of New York State, overtaken in consequence by railroads only after multiple generations had already witnessed its terrific influence.
Sheriff's book is less about the engineering feats and more about the social and political motivations and consequences of the canal, This book of history is mostly a book about social forces, and a compelling, if dry, account,

The young nation depicted here will seem very familiar to contemporary Americans, Even New Yorkers who agreed that the canal was an essential economic development disagreed wildly about who should benefit, The staterun, statefunded enterprise tinkered with market forces by necessity, favoring towns on the main line over those just off, creating patronage positions and boards with immense authority, favoring merchants over landowners, and having to make choices about how to handle inequalities that resulted.
Subsequent expansions of the canal, and the occasional rerouting or funding of tributaries, meant that the power battles were drawn out over decades, not just confined to the era of construction.
Jacksonians argued in favor of getting the government out of markets, Populations relied on the state to resolve inequities, or grew distrustful of governing forces, or both, Lives and perspectives both shaped and were shaped by the canal,

But the canal was a huge success, reshaping the fortunes of New York State, creating a whole economy for commercial development, agricultural development, tourism.
Runaway slaves. Confidence men. Religious movements. Nathaniel Hawthorne bemoaned the encroachment of civilization on the wilderness, but the canal really connected east and west in a way that hadn't happened before and wouldn't happen in the rest of the country for several decades.
I believe Sheriff's "paradox" of progress is really about the fact that the canal moved the country into the future, for better or ill, and while it meant that fresh oysters could now reach Buffalo, people both got used to the luxuries of being better connected and had to live with the social and moral consequences of that advancement.
Many proponents wanted to build a commercial and moral utopia but the canal was built on the back of a labor underclass with little consciousness and even less recognition.
The country has been grappling with its complicated relationship with immigrants and manual labor for a long time, "The Boys who Drive the horses I think I may safely say that they these boys are the most profain beings that now exist on the face of this hole erth without exception.
" The personal accounts Sheriff was able to draw from provide the colorful detail for these themes, it seems as if this author took on a bit too large of a subject, this leaves the book feeling a little unfinished and it does not flow all that well, Still, an interesting read for those who want to know more about the Erie Canal, This book provides a very indepth look at life with the Erie Canal, I had to read this book for my Economics class, It wasn't a bad read considering it was for school and not pleasure, Many of us know the story of the Erie Canal and it's role in shaping New York's economy, Sheriff goes at the topic from the aspect of the canal's effect on human condition during the antebellum period, A really good read that combines the canal's history with it's effects on the politicians, the workers and the public, Quick summary of the social and political forces surrounding the creation and use of the Erie Canal, Best to supplement with other material, Betweenandsections of the Erie Canal were completed culminating in the much discussed “marriage” between the waters of Lake Erie and a multitude of other interior lakes, rivers, and smaller canals and the Hudson River.
In the process a great section of the American frontier or wilderness was thus connected with the older and more established American coastal and inlet societies.
Historians have previously detailed the resulting market explosion that such a commercial corridor provided, as well as the economic windfall that results from the new ability for frontier and coastal markets to exchange goods.
Enter Carol Sheriffs work of scholarship on the canal, and her contention that while the emergence of the Eire Canal and all subsequent commercial endeavors certainly meant success or “progress” for a select group of wellinvested merchants and developers, there is no dearth of evidence to suggest the canal caused irreversible destruction to the way of life and property of many citizens.


Ultimately, Sheriffs work revolves around one very essential debate: how was the Canal Board a hybrid State and Local organization to interpret the goal of “common good” in the process of administrating the construction, expansion, maintenance, and operation of the Erie Canal In this brilliant observation, Sheriffs work takes on a much broader meaning than the history of an artificial river in New York, instead seeking to understand “the relationship between the individual, the state, and economic development.
” Sheriff, p.Thus in the study of citizens legally filled complaints about canals that cut through frontier and farmland, Sheriff has uncovered a body of well documented evidence related to Antebellum Americans feelings toward market expansion, class stratification, taxation, moral values, religion, and division of labor.
Ibid, p.,The resulting revolutions in geography, transportation, marketing, and industry created an entirely new Northern infrastructure that leaves this region far from monolithic, but with a certain sectional identity.
Juxtaposing that identity against the Southern counterpart shows not just a difference of opinion on slavery, but drastically different philosophies concerning overcoming natures obstacles.
Ibid, pp.

While Sheriffs work is not a comparative study, the reader cannot help but conjuring up the iconic Northern canals and subsequent industrialism and the iconic Southern plantations and wonder why if Northern governments could use ingenuity to create artificial rivers in effort to overcome natural obstacles could Southern governments not use similar ingenuity to create alternatives to such brutally controversial agricultural slave labor However, Ill leave that counterfactual question for the ghosts of the Confederate dead to ponder.


Overall, Sheriffs work is a compelling study that incorporates a strong body of evidence in the rich Canal Board Papers.
These primary sources conjure up the images of government officials in a nascent organization trying their very best to measure the weight of “progress” in terms of benefit vs.
damage in a case by case process, Yet what the Canal Board was truly wrestling with was nature of government sponsored “internal improvements” and whether or not this interventionwhich Sheriff suggests shifts Northern society away from egalitarianism and towards more socially mobile societywas in the best interest of their constituents.
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