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Reviews
| Canal History and Technology Proceedings, vol. 23. Ed. by Lance E. Metz. Easton, Penn.: Canal History and Technology Press, 2004. 264 pp., illus., tables, maps, notes. $20.00 pb (ISSN 0892-3515).
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The eight papers printed in this volume were presented at the 2004 Canal History and Technology Symposium. The articles take up 257 pages with only 7 pages used for contents, bios, introduction, and similar matter.
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The opening piece by Robert J. Kapsch, "Conewago Canal: First Canal of Pennsylvania," is a detailed recounting of the construction of one of America's first artificial waterways. Built between 1792 and 1797, the canal skirted the rapids of the Susquehanna for about a mile and included three locks (two lift, one guard). Additional excavation in the river provided channels leading into the canal.
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Kapsch begins with a description of the opening-day ceremonies in 1797 and puts the Conewago Canal in the context of the commercial rivalry between Baltimore and Philadelphia for shipping flour down the Susquehanna. After considering alternate routes, eventually the state granted a charter to a group of Philadelphia businessmen. They obtained the services of James Brindley, allegedly the nephew of the Duke of Bridgewater, founder of the first canals in Britain in 1760. The article is an excellent case study of the establishment of civil engineering as a profession in the U.S.
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The bulk of the article recounts the construction of the canal, with all the usual problems. Labor was drawn away by higher wages, safer work (especially avoiding the sickly summers on the canal), and the annual shad run. Financial problems were rampant, with shareholders delinquent in providing funding, and many laborers and contractors never receiving their pay. Cost overruns were routine, although the businessmen never expected the modest appropriation from the state to actually cover the cost; they undertook the project to divert traffic for their own profit.
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The canal enjoyed only modest success as a transportation artery, partially because of the limited size of the locks. Larger boats simply ran the rapids. The canal succeeded as a power canal (an extension was added expressly to power mills). Most of the canal today is buried under railroads and a hydroelectric plant. It had long since been superseded by another still-water canal on the opposite shore.
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"The Pennsylvania Coal Company: New Insights from the James Archbald Papers, 1852–1853" by Michael Knies, the volume's second paper, is a continuation of articles published in the 2001 and 2003 Proceedings. It provides detailed information on the operations of the company and the Delaware & Hudson canal in their formative years. Archbald worked for both, with the usual problems of trying to serve two masters.
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The Archbald papers include a wealth of technical details, such as the needs of particular customers for particular sizes of coal, quality control problems (too much dust, slate, streaked coal), and loading problems. The papers also cover canal rates, labor issues, railroads, and other topics. This is an excellent piece of research in primary sources and could be of great use from many perspectives: business, labor, economic, and technical.
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Harley Collins's account of hydroelectricity in Monroe and Northampton counties of Pennsylvania provides an overview of 12 commercial power sites dating from the late-19th century through the 20th century. It is nicely illustrated with plans and sections of some of the stations, a couple of cuts of typical turbine innards, and a postcard view. It serves as a representative overview of the development of hydroelectric facilities, from Fitz waterwheels and direct current to turbines, alternating current, and big-business utilities.
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"The Western Division of the Sandy and Beaver Canal" by Terry K. Woods is well written, researched, and illustrated, with several vintage photos as well as a plan and elevation of the route. Construction began in 1834, but, with all the usual problems, the through route was not completed until 1850. The boom time lasted only a couple of years until bankruptcy and railroad competition caught up with the company. The article serves as a useful case study of the construction, operation, and demise of a bridge route (connecting the Ohio and Pennsylvania canal systems) and provides much information on traffic, such as flour shipments to Cleveland and Philadelphia. The interplay of dams, water rights, and power for mills is interesting. The canal itself included slack-water navigation (calling for guard locks, sometimes combined with lift locks) and tunnels. This is a worthy piece by a renowned scholar.
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John Thompson focuses on canal maintenance in his piece, "Addressing the Elemental Challenges to Navigation on Ohio's Towpath Canals." It is good scholarship, drawing on the Board of Public Works as well as libraries, archives, historical societies, and the Historical Construction Equipment Association. Thompson discusses the early "bottoming out" procedure whereby a section of canal was drained, and the prism was restored by hand (using shovels, wheelbarrows, and animal-drawn scrapers). He then turns to the replacement of this method with dredges, describing their evolution from chain-equipped, hand-operated ones in the mid-19th century to several generations of steam-powered ones later in the century (until the canals were abandoned about 1913).
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"Searching for the Insignificant: Thirty-Eight Years of Successful Historical Research in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Elsewhere: 1957–1995" by Charles D. Wrege and Beulah M. Wrege is a long but delightful article laying out their particular, alternative research methodology. The piece includes several gems on steel mill operations and some revisionist history on Frederick Winslow Taylor. It seems that many of Taylor's new ideas on scientific management at the turn of the century were not so new nor his own ideas. The Wreges maintain "examination of records typically ignored by management-business historians can play an important role in uncovering primary source material" (p. 161). They also note: "our experience in gaining previously unknown insights into a famous business study convinced us of the value of personal contact with individuals not generally regarded as playing an important role in a particular set of events" (p. 180). The Wreges use many techniques of genealogists (court records, censuses, Sanborn maps, necrology, etc.) and are often rewarded with collections of papers that they rescue and donate to universities.
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Much of John Weinhold's "Pennsylvania's Early Transportation Infrastructure and Some of the Efforts to Improve It: Part I—Prior to 1824" consists of lengthy quotes and some rather pedantic "comments" on them. The quotes are taken from the American Philosophical Society, the American State Papers, the Bedford Gazette, and several other contemporary sources. Some of the comments are not too well thought out. Comment 5 (p. 221) seems to take issue with the statement that the persons laying out the Conewago Canal finished their work in July 1792, whereas the company was not incorporated until 10 April 1793. Page 14 of this very volume, however, provides the explanation: Articles of agreement were signed with the governor in July 1792 (after the survey), although permission to incorporate was granted in April 1793.
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The final piece, "Visualizing the B&O Railroad Main Stem" by Dan Bonenberger focuses on archival images and their synthesis into databases, virtual reality, and geographic information systems. The chapter derives from a project at the Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology at West Virginia University. It draws on recent scholarship such as James D. Dilts's Great Road and Michael Caplinger's Bridges over Time, as well as company archives, HABS/HAER, Sanborn maps, aerial photographs, postcards, and other sources. It is a solid piece of scholarship and a nice overview of modern research and presentation methods.
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Proceedings XXIII is interesting, well done, and a good value for the price.
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