Date sent: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 19:49:39 -0800 (PST)
From: James Williams <jcw1@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Erie Canal?

In support of Cooter's comment about twentieth century canals and their environmental impact, the person who initially raised this topic must read Jeffrey K. Stine, _Mixing the Waters: Environment, Politics, and the Building of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway_ (Akron: The University of Akron Press, 1993).

James C. Williams Mailing address, phone, & email:
California History Center 1130 Delynn Way
De Anza College San Jose CA 95125-3619
21250 Stevens Creek Boulevard (408) 269-4837
Cupertino CA 95014 <jcw1@netcom.com>

Date sent: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 09:30:55 -0500 (EST)
From: Maria Elaine Montoya <mmontoya@umich.edu>
Subject: Erie Canal

Carol Sheriff at William and Mary will have a book coming out on the canal probably sometime next year from, I believe, Hill and Wang. But you might contact her at the history department there.

Date sent: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 11:15:52 -0800 (PST)
From: mafren <biagini@rohan.sdsu.edu>br> Subject: Re: Canals
Subject: Erie Canal?
Date sent: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 15:31:45 -0600 (CST)
From: Kenn Hermann <khermann@dordt.edu>

Colleagues,
Does anyone know of any good studies of the environmental effects of any of the major canals that were built in the 19th century? I am surprised that nothing on that topic comes up in the RLIN bib.

A few years ago, preliminary research on rivers in early North America left me with some good starting places for this subject.

For the legal changes that allowed this expansion in the use of rivers, see Morton J. Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (Cambridge, 1977) and Gary Kulik's excellent article, "Dams, Fish, and Farmers: Defense of Public Rights in Eighteenth-Century Rhode Island," in Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude, eds., The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation (Chapel Hill, 1985).

Important environmental histories are Theodore Steinberg, Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England (Cambridge, 1991) and, for its section on the transformation of rice culture in the Tidewater, Joyce E. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 1730-1815 (Chapel Hill, 1993).

Finally, for culture studies see, John D. Seelye, Prophetic Waters: The River in Early American Life and Literature, 1977 and Beautiful Machine: Rivers and the Republican Plan, 1755-1825, 1991, Oxford University Press.

Oh, one more thing-- for a history of the work environment, see Peter Way, Common Labour: Workers and the Digging of North American Canals, 1780-1860 (Cambridge, 1993).

Mike French
San Diego
biagini@rohan.sdsu.edu

Date sent: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 12:51:03 -0500
From: "PETER M. WHEELWRIGHT" <PWheel@newschool.edu>
Subject: Re: Erie Canal? -Reply

I think Bill Cooter's last point is well taken. From an environmental standpoint, there appears to be little difference between the effects of shipping Canals and many of our rivers whose formative histories are economic. The use of locks, dams, flood diversion structures, levees, miles of concrete-mat revetments, etc. effectively "canalize" many natural waterways. The consequent constraints on the water's flow and ecological interaction w/ adjacent land/urbanscapes (isolated backwaters & habitats, desiccated soils, etc.) are well known. Like canals, these rivers function more as tools than resources. The Ohio and Mississippi are good examples (...with less effective flood control).

PW
Dept. of Architecture & Environmental Design
New School/Parsons

Dennis Williams
Southern Nazarene University
H-ASEH moderator

From: RH4754@cnsvax.albany.edu
Date sent: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 13:50:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: erie canal

William Cronon has a nice short essay on the Erie Canal and its affects on the Great Lakes in Alan Brinkley's _American History: A Survey_; McGraw-Hill : NYC, ninth edition, 1995; pp. 299-302. See especially p. 299.

There is also a book on the Canal published by Norton. I am not sure of the author or title. Nor do I know whether it contains anything on the ecological consequences of the Canal.

Ron Helfrich
Department of History
University at Albany
Albany, NY 12222
rh4754@cnsvax.albany.edu

Date sent: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 14:17:15 -0500 (EST)
From: Joel Tarr <jt03+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Erie Canal?

Kenn Hermann:

See, W.B. Langbein, "Hydrology and Environmental Aspects of Erie Canal (1817-99)," Geological Survey Water-Supply Papewr 2038 (Washington: GPO, 1976)

Joel Tarr

Subject: Erie Thanks
Date sent: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 14:49:02 -0600 (CST)
From: Kenn Hermann <khermann@dordt.edu>

Thanks to all for the fine references they supplied on the Erie and other canals. In the process I discovered the very ambitious and exciting project that Morris Pierce is doing with one of his history classes at the Univ. of Rochester. For more check out his web site at http://www.history.rochester.edu/his295/

Kenn Hermann
History Dept.
Dordt College
khermann@dordt.edu

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