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The Artificial River Summary

Decent Essays

Have you ever needed easier access to the essential items to stay alive? This is specifically what the residents of the North-East thought around the year 1817. Carol Sheriff argues in her book, “The Artificial River” that the residents of the canal corridor actively sought after long-distance trade and therefore consumer goods that markets brought to their homes. The fact that people supported the Erie Canal at all "suggests that at least some aspired to engage in broader market exchange" (p. 11). The transformation of this region because of the Erie Canal is organized around six topics, each of which is covered by a chapter. They include the; Visions of Progress, the Triumph of Art over Nature, Reducing Distance and Time, the Politics of Land and Water, the Politics of Business, and the Perils of Progress.
. In the first chapter, "Visions of Progress," Sheriff describes the "culture or visions of progress." She notes that the inhabitants of the canal corridor combined an "individualistic, or liberal" pursuit of wealth with a belief that "the goals of individuals should be subordinated to the common good, or the commonwealth" (p. 14). The first details the visions of leading New Yorkers to get the project underway. These individuals were what Sheriff calls “adherents to the practical republicanism” who believed that “the nation’s common good depended on prosperity, individual opportunity and an equal emphasis on rural and urban growth” (p.24). Most prominently, Governor DeWitt Clinton acted in this project. A rather gigantic project such as the Erie Canal would further their visions of progress.
The next chapter, "The Triumph of Art over Nature," explores in greater detail the beliefs of upstate New Yorkers. Accordingly, problems in the construction process of the Canal and a project of immense size and complexity for that era. According to Sheriff, the Canal was “a tribute to republicanism” and a great “American achievement.” Canal supporters saw the project as the product of an unusual American art. "Republican Free Men" built the canal, according to a capstone in Lockport, near Buffalo (p. 35). New Yorkers realized that most of the canal laborers shared no resemblance to republican free men. They were

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