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    The document summarizes key points from "The Artificial River" by Carol Sheriff about the construction of the Erie Canal in the late 1810s. It describes the environmental impacts of draining swamps and clearing forests to build the canal. While some viewed this as too far into civilization, others saw the canal as an environmental marvel and symbol of progress. The largest impact was enabling settlement of the western United States by making areas previously only accessible to frontiersmen now open to broader settlement due to the canal.

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    Paper about the eerie canal

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    Eerie Canal

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    The document summarizes key points from "The Artificial River" by Carol Sheriff about the construction of the Erie Canal in the late 1810s. It describes the environmental impacts of draining swamps and clearing forests to build the canal. While some viewed this as too far into civilization, others saw the canal as an environmental marvel and symbol of progress. The largest impact was enabling settlement of the western United States by making areas previously only accessible to frontiersmen now open to broader settlement due to the canal.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    24 views1 page

    The Artificial River Report

    Uploaded by

    Brandon
    The document summarizes key points from "The Artificial River" by Carol Sheriff about the construction of the Erie Canal in the late 1810s. It describes the environmental impacts of draining swamps and clearing forests to build the canal. While some viewed this as too far into civilization, others saw the canal as an environmental marvel and symbol of progress. The largest impact was enabling settlement of the western United States by making areas previously only accessible to frontiersmen now open to broader settlement due to the canal.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    Brandon Johnson

    U.S History

    The Artificial River Report

    Today, the Erie Canal stretches from Lake Erie to the Hudson River in Albany, NY. It’s

    now seen as an essential part of New York and the United States’ economy. However, when it

    was under construction in the late 1810s, there were some who doubted its necessity even

    amongst those who loved the idea at first. Carol Sheriff’s The Artificial River describes this time

    period very well.

    One impact was on the environment. To build the canal, deep trenches had to be dug.

    Swamps were drained and forests were “decayed into ghostlike and disorderly cemeteries” (56),

    and ecosystems were greatly altered. People begun to see the canal as Americans progressing too

    far into civilization and ruining the geography. But in another way, the canal was an

    environmental marvel. Calling the canal an “artificial river”, people saw it as a “symbol of

    progress and a link to the past” (57).

    Probably the largest impact was on settlement. The Eerie Canal practically opened the

    western United States to settlement. Areas previously exclusively accessible to the bravest

    frontiersmen were open to settlement

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