The Globalization Of The Erie Canal

Superior Essays
The Erie Canal has been praised for years as a well-known legendary waterway around the world (Larkin 1998). The canal has been termed as “the greatest public work undertaken by a free society solely for the benefit of its people…the undertaking was a prodigious one” (Edmonds 1960, p. 1). Not only was the forty feet wide, four foot deep and 363 miles canal, which originally contained 77 locks, able to bridge a connection from Lake Erie to the Hudson and a 66 mile link to the Champlain Canal as a form of reliable transportation (as the roads were not the network it is today) which ruptured the boundaries of western and eastern (northeastern) New York and encouraged inward and outward flow (migration) of people, animals, goods, money, trade, …show more content…
It can be argued that the utilization of the Erie Canal by the New Yorkers as well as the rest of the United States could be seen as an event that indicates the start of the New York becoming a globalized state. According to the text, one of the approaches to globalization (which is discussed in chapter 2) is that “one can point to much more specific events that can be seen as the origin of globalization” (Ritzer and Dean 2015, p.33). In other words, events can be origins of globalization. The building of the Erie Canal was a breach to the barriers of economic development in the West as flow weakens boundaries as discussed in lecture. The flow being discussed was the movement of people, animals, goods, money, trade, and illnesses (spread by the people and animals on and near the canal) along the canal. This erosion of boundaries in New York due to migration (flow) on the Erie Canal encouraged New York, as well as the United States (through the success of New York) to become …show more content…
The industrialization of the United States which occurred between the 1820s and 1840s probably wouldn’t have been as successful without the construction of the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal was a successful project which made New York State very successful economically. Julius Rubin wrote that the Erie Canal breached the barrier of economic development in the west (Goodrich et. al 1961). The Erie Canal brought in large amounts of tolls for industrializing New York, which in 1826 amounted to three quarters to a million dollars, reaching the million dollar mark in 1830 (Edmonds 1960). Due to the success of the Erie Canal, towns had “doubled their population almost overnight” (Edmonds 1960). As evidenced by Edmonds, many people migrated to the region, which granted the region more sources of labor which could be used to encourage more economic growth. Due to the economic success of the Erie Canal, businesses were greatly attracted to the region as pre-existing businesses in the region were economically successful as

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