The One Minute Geographer: The Amazing Importance of the Erie Canal, Part 5

The 94-foot Upper Falls on the Genesee River in Rochester that had to be by-passed by the Genesee Canal. Within a mile or so were the 20-foot Middle Falls and the 78-foot Lower Falls. The Genesee connects to the Erie Canal a few miles south from these falls. Photo from theurbanphoenix.com

We’re continuing our discussion of important aspects of the Erie Canal — how it helped shape US geography and history.

8. The Erie Canal institutionalized the model for low-paid immigrant labor. In those days we’re talking picks, shovels, sledgehammers, wheelbarrows, horses and mules. (Things like a mechanical stump puller were innovations.) Undoubtedly earlier canals had also used such labor, but after the Erie Canal this was the way all big construction jobs like this were done.

Irish immigrants did most of the digging, and this was even before the great wave of Irish immigration during the potato famine. Germans were the stone masons and some Italian immigrants were recruited as masons as well. Later, with railroads, the Irish continued to supply most of such labor in the eastern US while Chinese immigrants did so in the western half. In the South, slave labor did the back-breaking work, often digging through swampland, as was the case with Charleston’s Santee Canal and the Dismal Swamp Canal near Norfolk VA and adjoining North Carolina.

9. The Erie Canal accelerated the economic ascendancy of New York City and New York State. It’s probably correct to flatly say that the Erie Canal caused New York to become the largest city. New York City went from being the…