Erie Water West: A History of the Erie Canal 1792-1854

ix, 449 pp. "The Erie Canal was both a product and a symbol of that great age of American expansion between 1815 and 1860. The bold plan of its designers to penetrate the frontier and link the eastern seaboard with the Old Northwest, thereby diverting the trade of the West away from the St. Lawrence and British Canada, epitomized the ardent nationalism of that period. In this study Mr. Shaw provides - for the first time in one volume - a comprehensive history of the Erie Canal from its beginning to shortly before the Civil War. Mr. Shaw shows the impact of the canal upon the political, social, economic, and cultural life of the generations which planned, built, and traveled upon it. He recounts, for example, the spirited controversy between the hamlets of Buffalo and Black Rock for the prize of the western terminus of the canal - a sidelight that vividly illuminates the fervor aroused by the construction of the canal."