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Reviews
| Canal History and Technology Proceedings, vol. XXI. Ed. by Lance E. Metz. Easton, Pa.: Canal History and Technology Press, 2002. 239 pp., illus., tables, maps, notes. $19.50 pb (ISSN 0892-3515).
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These are papers presented at the annual Canal History and Technology Symposium. Topics are not confined to canals alone but may include early railroads, anthracite coal mining, and the iron and steel industry.
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The opening pages provide biographical information on the contributors and a table of contents. The other 232 pages are devoted to eight papers, including notes. The notes follow the usual academic conventions and occasionally elaborate on the text. Although primarily text, most articles include a few maps or photos.
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"The Muskingum Navigation" by Emory L. Kemp (29 pp.) opens with a general history of canals in Ohio, covering the full range of technical, political, financial, and economic considerations. This sets the scene for his detailed discussion of the lock and dam systems providing slack-water navigation on the Muskingum for Ohio River steamboats all the way to Zanesville. This navigation required larger locks than on towpath canals and innovative technical solutions such as movable dams, drum valves, and winch-operated gates (since the locks were too wide for balance beams). Part of a larger work on the Muskingum watershed, showing intergovernmental cooperation at the state and federal levels, the article is well written and informative.
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"'An Arduous and Novel Undertaking': Lock Navigation on the River Schuylkill" by Stuart W. Wells (29 pp.) reviews a navigation system that used both canals and river pools in covering a route from Philadelphia to Mt. Carbon. The proportions changed several times as the system was rebuilt; by 1834 there were 58 miles of canals (in 27 short segments) and 50 miles of slack water (34 dams and ponds). The system earned its greatest profits in 1839 (Reading Railroad was opened to Mt. Carbon in 1842). Tonnage, however, increased to the end of the 1860s, but tolls were lower. The Reading Railroad ran in direct competition with the Schuylkill Navigation at a time when many railroads only ran feeder lines to canals or served areas not reached by canals. The railroad sometimes rented canal boats just to keep them out of service. In response, the canal had its charter revised to allow it to own boats itself, but the company was still not allowed to own or operate boat yards.
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Wells's article mentions the many problems faced by the system: technical, natural, competitive, political, and financial. Besides droughts, freshets, and freezes, the problems included low water due to Philadelphia drawing off too much for city use. But the system served well for many years, facilitating the development of the mills of Manayunk (waterpower and transportation) and transporting clean-burning anthracite among other materials. The article is a well-written summary of the life of the system, ending with its gradual abandonment from 1902 to 1951.
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"Vindication for America" by Stephen A. Marder (21 pp.) summarizes the British railroad technologies that were the basis for the design of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company's gravity railroad. Four British locomotives were brought to America in 1829, including the Stourbridge Lion and the Pride of Newcastle, also known as the America. All were built heavier than intended and could not be used on the railroad; the canal company blamed the builders. The article includes some nice historical detective work showing that the America ended up as a stationary engine in a Scranton rolling mill by 1847, but its wheels ended up on the Stourbridge Lion in the 1893 Columbian Exposition.
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Marder's article provides a wealth of detail on the Delaware & Hudson Canal as well as the railroad, recounting several projects in the 1840s to increase capacity. The D&H canal was built in 1825–27, and the gravity railroad (to access the anthracite mines) was completed in 1829. The article also provides details of the four Roebling suspension aqueducts built on the D&H between 1847 and 1851. It includes a discussion of the problems of log rafting on the Delaware, where the D&H had built a dam to form a pool in the river at Lackawaxen to allow boats to cross the river from one section of the canal to another. The suspension aqueducts helped solve this and other problems.
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"Seams of Coal, Beams of Steel, Skeins of Silk: The Silk Industry in the Delaware-Lehigh Heritage Corridor" by Martha Capwell Fox (13 pp.) tells of an important industry that employed many miners' daughters. The article is the initial phase of a project to record the history of the silk industry in five eastern Pennsylvania counties and to analyze its effects on social, economic, industrial, and political developments. The silk industrialists of Patterson, New Jersey, sought expansion opportunities in the late-19th century. Eastern Pennsylvania was nearby and had plenty of cheap land, labor, and process water. By 1914 Pennsylvania surpassed New Jersey as the largest silk producer in the United States. This interesting and well-written article recounts the rise and fall of the silk industry there.
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"Bread or Blood and the Hope of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers" by Sonya Tupone (9 pp.) is mercifully the shortest article in the issue. It attempts to recount some of the story of the 1877 railroad strike. I was constantly distracted by the many cases of bad usage, bad grammar, bad spelling, bad punctuation, factual errors, and sentence fragments. Even had it been well written, I am none too sure that it would contribute anything worthwhile to this tome, unless some of the readers are completely unfamiliar with labor history.
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"Commodity Flow on the Pennsylvania Mainline System" by Paul Marr (20 pp.) is a nice analytical piece that succeeds in showing the variety of commodities shipped and the changes over the period studied (1838–51) caused by increasing urbanization and other developments. The chapter suffers from several egregious calculation errors, a rather serious defect for a statistical/analytical article. For example, one passage declares, "Glassware had increased 81 percent, rising from around 332,000 pounds to just over 1.8 million pounds." Another asserts that in 1851 the "volume of blooms had dropped by 95 percent of their 1845 levels to roughly 17 million pounds," but the table shows 33,442,129 in 1845 and 17,174,201 in 1851. The tables and diagrams are well done as is most of the analysis.
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"The Carbondale Mine Fire, 1947–1969" by Kathleen P. Munley (16 pp.) is part of a long-range research project and attempts to identify the causes of the fire and the effects it had on the region and residents. It is based largely on 15 oral history interviews, supplemented by contemporary articles and official reports. This well-structured article introduces the theme, the location, and situation, and then recounts the progress of the fire, its effects on the people and region, unsuccessful attempts to control it, and the eventual project of digging up the entire site. It is a nice balance between human interest and technical considerations, and deftly weaves the story from several angles (political, economic, social, and technical) without lapsing into sensationalism.
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"The Potomac Canal: A Construction History" by Robert J. Kapsch (95 pp.) is an excellent detailed account and analysis of this early internal improvement that received so much personal attention from George Washington. Even though I have long lived and worked near Mount Vernon and participated in hands-on events there and at Washington's birthplace and boyhood home, I have never felt so close to Washington as when reading this article. I could almost feel the spray as if I were in the boat with him reconnoitering the river; as a fellow bureaucrat (and sometime executive, board member, supervisor, and contracting officer), I could feel his pain in dealing with incompetent engineers, recalcitrant workers, and politicians.
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Kapsch's study includes much new research based on previously unused records, both in the National Archives and the National Park Service. It includes early proposals, company discussions of alternatives, and evaluation of different approaches: sluice navigation, dams and locks, and towpath canals. George Washington and the board personally performed a reconnaissance of the river and opted for sluice navigation at some sites. They even considered installing a chain on buoys in mid-channel to assist hands pulling boats upstream.
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The meticulous research dispels some long-held ideas, such as the illiteracy and volatility of the workforce. Payroll records show that more than two-thirds of the free white males in the workforce were literate; many workers served the company for years. The payrolls show payments to some individuals for very brief periods (even one day), which in modern accounts would not be shown as direct labor but as procurement of supplies or services. A farmer was paid to deliver a cord of wood; a wagon and driver were hired to "go and pick up drunk laborers."
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| There were a few typos even in this well-written article: "Erie canal (completed in 1817)" [no, it was begun in 1817, completed in 1825]. Overall, the article provides a wealth of information on the river and the company, including insightful analytical work. Kapsch evaluates economics, politics, and human foibles, and a close reading will even reveal interesting details of boat handling. The engineering and organizational successes and failures of this pioneering company were instrumental in preparing America for the canal era. Proceedings, vol. XXI is interesting and well done, containing a lot of good information for the price. |
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