Everybody loves the big city of Chicago, and knows that our drinking water comes from Lake Michigan. Well, imagine that water being filled with sewage and chemicals. That's the way that Lake Michigan used to be, and thanks to reversing the river, we will never have that problem again. A closer study of this historical event will illustrate how the workers completed this impossible sounding task, what impact this had on the Chicago people, and how reversing the river may have created more problems for Chicagoans.
To begin, the text states, “The Canal took 8,500 workers eight years to construct: it was 25 feet deep, ranged from 160 to 300 feet in width and cost $31 million (at the turn of the century) to build” (Gang 19). It was a long and exhausting …show more content…
The text reports, “With unemployment high and men clamoring for work, the district made a special arrangement with contractors to hire thirty-five hundred men, who would apply for jobs at booths set up in downtown Lakefront Park” (Cahn 30). As a text stated unemployment was high, but by them reversing the river, they created jobs within their own city. So not only would they get a clean water supply, more men got jobs and were being a working member of society. They also were helping the families, by bringing in more money. In addition to those men hired, men from all different departments also received more work. It took trains, trucks, and a bunch of other machinery to make this project happen. That same book states, “Running those machines was a workforce that numbered as many as eighty-seven hundred men” (Cahn 28). Many people came into a job, by this project …show more content…
The Canal connects to the Des Plaines river and then to the Mississippi which leads all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. The canal is significantly bigger than the I&M Canal which it replaced, which allows for bigger ships to pass through it. So now it is considered a navigable waterway. The text writes, “Waterborne commerce totaled more than 116 million tons of commodities shipped on Illinois inland waterways in 2001. The value of those commodities totaled more than $23 billion” (Grossman). As you can see, the waterways have been profitable for Illinois, and overall had a good impact on the Chicago
To begin, the text states, “The Canal took 8,500 workers eight years to construct: it was 25 feet deep, ranged from 160 to 300 feet in width and cost $31 million (at the turn of the century) to build” (Gang 19). It was a long and exhausting …show more content…
The text reports, “With unemployment high and men clamoring for work, the district made a special arrangement with contractors to hire thirty-five hundred men, who would apply for jobs at booths set up in downtown Lakefront Park” (Cahn 30). As a text stated unemployment was high, but by them reversing the river, they created jobs within their own city. So not only would they get a clean water supply, more men got jobs and were being a working member of society. They also were helping the families, by bringing in more money. In addition to those men hired, men from all different departments also received more work. It took trains, trucks, and a bunch of other machinery to make this project happen. That same book states, “Running those machines was a workforce that numbered as many as eighty-seven hundred men” (Cahn 28). Many people came into a job, by this project …show more content…
The Canal connects to the Des Plaines river and then to the Mississippi which leads all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. The canal is significantly bigger than the I&M Canal which it replaced, which allows for bigger ships to pass through it. So now it is considered a navigable waterway. The text writes, “Waterborne commerce totaled more than 116 million tons of commodities shipped on Illinois inland waterways in 2001. The value of those commodities totaled more than $23 billion” (Grossman). As you can see, the waterways have been profitable for Illinois, and overall had a good impact on the Chicago