SOURCE: [The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, 1896]
Cultural Exchange
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"Not only did the Erie Canal open the American interior to increased trade, commerce, and settlement. It also became an 'information superhighway' for new ideas. Social reforms like abolitionism, women's rights, utopianism, and various religious movements thrived in the canal corridor."
-National Park Service
The Erie Canal was a gateway to the West which, in turn, had access to Atlantic markets. The canal provided a route for settlers to move west, and cities blossomed on the frontier.
During and after construction, immigrants poured into the United States, which would greatly influence future elections.
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"It was so active at times that in a ten year period, back in the 1800s, there were so many people who emigrated across the country, that it was equal to the type of population that came to Ellis Island in ten year periods."
-Thomas Dee, President of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation
"The cultural effects run side-by-side with the economic effects--the ease of transport facilitated spread of lots of different cultures from the east to the west." The early 1800s was a period of religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening. Western New York was active in the movement, where new sects like Mormonism emerged, while Christianity spread.
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A new culture developed around the canal. Men were crew members, while boys worked as "hoggees" driving the drudges on the towpaths. Folklore appeared in songs and stories.
"Hoggee on the towpath, five cents a day, picking up horseballs, to eat along the way" |
Eight years of digging brought new folk culture like songs sung by the workers through the labor.
The canal fostered cultural shifts that catalyzed national progression.