238 Chapter 8 Toward a National Economy
1820 at least sixty vessels were operating between New
Orleans and Louisville, and by the end of the decade
there were more than 200 steamers on the Mississippi.
The day of the steamboat had dawned, and
although the following generation would experience its
high noon, even in the 1820s its major effects were
clear. The great Mississippi Valley, in the full tide of its
development, was immensely enriched. Produce poured
down to New Orleans, which soon ranked with New
York and Liverpool among the world’s great ports.
From 1816–1817, only 80,000 tons of freight was
shipped down the Mississippi to New Orleans; but by
1840–1841, that freight arriving in New Orleans had
increased to 542,000 tons. Upriver traffic was affected
even more spectacularly. Freight charges plum-
meted, in some cases to a tenth of what they
had been after the War of 1812. Around 1818
coffee cost sixteen cents a pound more in
Cincinnati than in New Orleans, a decade later
less than three cents more. The Northwest
emerged from self-sufficiency with a rush and
became part of the national market.
Steamboats were far more comfortable
than any contemporary form of land trans-
portation, and competition soon led builders
to make them positively luxurious. The
General Pike, launched in 1819 and set the
fashion. Marble columns, thick carpets, mir-
rors, and crimson curtains adorned its cabins
and public rooms. Soon the finest steamers
were floating palaces where passengers could
dine, drink, dance, and gamble in luxury as
they sped smoothly to their destinations. Yet
raft and flatboat traffic increased. Farmers,
lumbermen, and others with goods from
upriver floated down in the slack winter sea-
son and returned in comfort by steamer
after selling their produce and their rafts as
well, for lumber was in great demand in
New Orleans. Every January and February
New Orleans teemed with westerners and
Yankee sailors, their pockets jingling, bent
on a fling before going back to work. The
shops displayed everything from the latest
Paris fashions to teething rings made of alli-
gator teeth mounted in silver. During the
carnival season the city became one great
festival, where every human pleasure could
be tasted, every vice indulged.The Canal Boom
While the steamboat was conquering west-
ern rivers, canals were being constructed
that further improved the transportation
network. Since the midwestern rivers all
emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, they did
not provide a direct link with the eastern seaboard. If
an artificial waterway could be cut between the great
central valley and some navigable stream flowing into
the Atlantic, all sections would profit immensely.
Canals were more expensive than roads, but so
long as the motive power used in overland trans-
portation was the humble horse, they offered enor-
mous economic advantages to shippers. Because
there is less friction to overcome, a team plodding
along a towpath could pull a canal barge with a
100-ton load and make better time over long dis-
tances than it could pulling a single ton in a wagon
on the finest road.On August 17, 1807, thousands of New Yorkers gathered along the Hudson River. Many
had come to ridicule the noisy, spark-spuming contraption built by Robert Fulton—a
steam-powered boat. But as the paddle wheels began to churn and the boat moved,
the jeers turned to cheers. The boat made the 150-mile trip to Albany in eight hours.
In this bucolic rendering of the Erie Canal, a barge carries freight along the new
waterway. Freight rates from Buffalo to New York City had been $100 a ton by wagon;
by canal, the cost was only $10.