Chapter 11 Section 2 Notes

Chapter 11 Section 2: Americans Move Westward: Notes

See Vocabulary link on the blog to receive key words and people.

Traveling West

Settlers had been moving westward since the 1600’s. By the 1820’s, so many people had moved west.

·      One well-traveled path was the Great Wagon Road across Pennsylvania.

                             ·      Settlers pushed west to Pittsburgh, loading animals and wagons onto flatboats.

New States

***Some western territories had populations large enough to apply for statehood. Between 1792-1819, eight states joined the union. 

Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois and Alabama.

Improvement to Roads

·     ***Settlers faced difficult journeys to the west.

                           ·     Roads were narrow and often plunged into muddy swamps.

                                                ·    In 1806, for the first time, Congress approved funds for a national road-building project.

                                                  · ***The National Road was to run from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, in West Virginia.

Steam Transport

***Fitch and Fulton

                                        ·   John Fitch showed members of the Constitutional convention how a steam engine could power a boat. He went out of business.

                                ·   ***In 1807 Robert Fulton launched his own steam boat, the Clermont, in Philadelphia  on the Hudson River.

          ·   Steam boat travel was still dangerous, and had many flaws.

The Canal Boom

                                  ·      New ways of transportation still did not give farmers a way to quickly transport their goods east.

             ·      ***The earliest American canals were no more than a few miles long.

·      New Yorkers wanted to build a canal linking the Great Lakes.

                                    ·      *** The Erie Canal would let western farmers ship their goods to the port of New York.

                                   · The cost of shipping dropped and the canal made New York a center of commerce.