19.

6 Transportation in the North

• National Road stretched from the East, over
the Appalachians, to the West.
• 1807, Robert Fulton invents the steamboat.
• 1817, The Erie Canal spans from the Hudson
River to Lake Erie, connecting farms in the
west to cities in the East.
• The cheapest and fastest way to move goods
was by railroad.
Robert Fulton’s Clermont
Freight on the Erie Canal
Erie Canal; From Lake Erie to the Hudson
River
Northern and Southern Railroads
 19.7 Transportation in the South
• Most people and goods in the South traveled
by rivers.
• The South had less than half of the amount of
railroad track than the North had.
 19.8 Society of the South
• 3 distinct classes of people: rich plantation owners at the
top; then white farmers and workers; slaves on the bottom.
• This rigid social class system was the result of a slave-
based agricultural system
• Small group of plantation owners dominated the economy
and politics.
• 1 in 4 whites owned a slave.
 19.9 Society of the North
• 7 in 10 northerners still lived on farms, but cities were
growing fast.
• Blacks in the North were free, but they weren’t
treated equally.
• Between 1845 and 1860, 4 million immigrants came to
the North. Most were German and Irish. A potato
famine was responsible for the Irish, and a failed
revolution was responsible for the Germans.
• Intense discrimination towards these new immigrants.
Irish and German Immigration