5594. Wedding of the Waters The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation, by Peter L. Bernstein (read 14 Nov 2018) This book tells in easy reading style of the Erie Canal, which was built in New York State, by New York State, from 1818 to 1825. I remember in grade school history learning of the building of the Erie Canal and this book shows how important the Canal was to growing of this country. I wish there had been in the book a few photographs of the Canal in the present day, since I understand that at least parts of it still exist and are used for recreation. The book says the water in the canal was four feet deep and it is still a mystery how so many ships could use the canal if i that is all the water that was in it. So my quarrel with the book is it simply assumed we knew more about the canal than I,,at least, know. I would greatly like to see the canal even if it is not operational today. The author makes a good case for showing how important the Canal was in its time. ( )

At first this book was a little disappointing. I was expecting something more on the lines McCullogh’s book about the Panama Canal, The Path Between the Seas, with details of the difficulties and methods involved in construction of the Erie Canal. However, the author of Wedding of the Waters is an economist, not an engineer or historian, and it shows. The technical problems involved in building the Erie Canal are either glossed over or explained in a way that shows the author was out of his depth (for example, Mr. Bernstein thinks it’s necessary to explain to his readers what a “lever” is, and his description of a stump-pulling machine leaves out some crucial details necessary to operation that are quickly visible from a contemporary illustration on one of the plates).

However, Mr. Bernstein’s presentation grows on you. His central thesis is that the Erie Canal was vital to the development and unification of the United States, by providing a way for the states and territories west of the Appalachians to get their agricultural produce to the east, and thence across the Atlantic. A telling statistic is that is cost about 21 times as much to move flour by wagon as it did by canal barge; by wagon, flour from Ohio couldn’t make it across the mountains before it cost more to transport than you could sell it for; by barge and then by ship it was profitable to ship it to and sell it in Liverpool. The influence of the Canal on the development of the Midwest was profound; Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland and Chicago went from isolated villages to cities within a few years of the Canal’s completion. Bernstein builds on these numbers to suggest that if the canal hadn’t been built, the trans-Appalachian west might have become as secessionist as the South; with no connection to the eastern seaboard it might have sided with the South (with which it had transport connections by way of the Mississippi and tributaries) or remained neutral. (There were, of course, eventually rail connections but they may have been too little and too late).

Economic, political and social factors are emphasized throughout. The struggles to finance the Canal are presented in detail, which can get heavy if you’re not sympathetic to the general theme. Byzantine New York State politics, especially the career of De Witt Clinton, are also covered at length. (De Witt evoked the same sort of love-him or hate-him dichotomy among his contemporaries as Bill; I wonder if there’s a distant relationship?) The social aspect of canal travel, with descriptions of the less-than-luxurious accommodations, is a nice reminder to people who yearn for the good old days.

I think I have to give this one four and a half stars. I would have liked a little more engineering details, but it’s already a pretty thick book and you can’t have everything. Where would you put it? ( )

Excellent read, a must for those interested in upper and western New York. In building the Erie Canal, the swath of destruction left behind was breathtaking. A huge machine was invented that uprooted large trees which were left just about where they fell (not logged, in other words). The Canal drove out many more settlers than it brought in. My gr(3) grandfather who settled on the Holland Purchase in Niagara County in 1815 fled to Michigan Territory shortly before it opened (1825).

A generally unimpressive account of the creation of the Erie Canal, covering both the political and an engineering aspects. I felt like this story had much more potential than Bernstein was able to execute. Probably safe to give this one a miss. ( )

At the beginning of the 19th century, the United States was just getting its feet wet as a nation. One of the many problems in governing the country was simply its size. Getting news and goods from one side of the colonies to another could take an inordinately long time. At the time, water-based travel was the fastest, but boats could get to only so many cities. But in 1807, an interesting idea came along to cut a waterway from New York all the way across the state to Lake Erie. Barges could travel from the eastern seaboard to the Great Lakes. From there goods to be delivered to inland cities or even taken to the Mississippi River system. Peter Bernstein’s Wedding of the Waters tells the story of the planning, politics, and piloting of the Erie Canal.

Bernstein focuses more on the political and economic context of the Erie Canal than on actual efforts that went into its construction, but even those are interesting. The sheer amount of cooperation requires to literally dig a trench through an entire state is mind-boggling and the machinations of such an effort are captured well here. One of the most amazing things to remember is that at this time in the U.S., there were no civil engineers. Sure, there were folks who apprenticed with surveying equipment, but the concept of civil engineering was not yet formed.

Still, once ground was broken in 1817, it only took eight years to finish the project. Once completed, numerous town formed at lock sites and boat travel along the route more than tripled. The War of 1812 rocked the American economy, but commerce along the Erie Canal helped at least in some way to repair the damage. The historical context and the engineering problems posed make for interesting reading. As always, I would have liked more maps and diagrams to show both the project’s path and the machines used. Other than that, though, the book was interesting, and in places, fun to read. ( )