Technology's Impact on the Upper Mississippi River
Since the days of Lewis and Clark men have dreamed of harnessing the "Father of Waters" in the interests of commerce and development. The long struggle which ensued required incredible ingenuity and determination on the part of engineers as well as enormous capital investment. The Mississippi River Commission, established in 1897, was the first federal program designed specifically to meet these requirements, and early systems, instituted by the Army Corps of Engineers, saw much success. Technological advancements in the fields of transportation, flood control, and natural resource management were needed and, eventually, emerged to provide the level of control possible today. This report will discuss the technological transformation of the upper Mississippi river and the motivation behind it from the middle 1800's.
Economics, in the form of cheap transportation, have been the impetus behind most of the development along the Upper Mississippi. In the early 1800's, transportation was limited to keelboats (large rafts made of roughcut lumber) which floated downstream with the current where they changed their cargo and then were poled or warped (pulled from shore with a rope) back upstream. With the development of the steamboat the arduous journey up and down the river, taking up to nine months by keelboat, became a much more reliable route for transporting both products and people. In the late 1800's, the invention of the internal combustion engine led to the powerful towboats seen on the Mississippi today. Towboats move 70 to 85 million tons of cargo annually between Minneapolis and the Missouri River [http://www.emtc.nbs.gov]. Underscoring the economic importance of such ...
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...ing fascinating about science, one gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such trifling investments of fact."
References:
Mairson, Alan, "The Great Flood of '93," National Geographic, vol. 185 (January 1994),pp. 42-81.
National Biological Service, Department of the Interior, "Environmental Management Technical Center," http://www.emtc.nbs.gov (1996).
Twain, Mark, Life on the Mississippi (New York, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1917).
Upper Mississippi River Basin Coordinating Committee, Upper Mississippi River Comprehensive Basin Study, vol. 1 and 5 (1972)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, "Upper Mississippi River--Illinois Waterway System Navigation Study," http://www.usace.army.mil/ncd (1996).
U.S. Geological Survey EROS Data Center, "Upper Mississippi River Basin Flooding," http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/sast (1996).
I have lived in Mississippi all my life and have had the opportunity to travel throughout the state. In doing so, I have observed several things that are important in this discussion. They are the music, the people, and the resources. First, it is important to know a few facts concerning the resources of the state. The state gets its name from the Mississippi River, which flows along the western boundary of the state.
Farmers who lived west of the Appalachian Mountains shipped all their surplus produce by boat down rivers that flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. In a treaty of 1795, Spain agreed to give Americans the "right of deposit" at New Orleans. This right allowed Americans to store in New Orleans, duty-free, goods shipped for export. Arks and flatboats transported a great variety of products, including flour, tobacco, pork bacon, lard, feathers, cider, butter, cheese, hemp, p...
The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), Ser. I, 19 (1).
In the early morning of 19 February 1945, United States Marines assigned to the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Division led the initial assault on the Japanese controlled island of Iwo Jima, with the objective of capturing and securing the island. This was the beginning of one of the fiercest and bloodiest; and more decisively, the most strategically important battles fought during World War II. After the dust had settled, and the smoke had cleared, the causalities and losses were astounding. 6,821 U.S. Marines along with 18,844 members of the Imperial Japanese Army had paid the ultimate sacrifice. A decisive US victory on the island of Iwo Jima later played a pivotal role in the overarching defeat of the Japanese Empire and its Armed Forces (Morison, 1945).
In "Two Views of the River," an excerpt from Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, Twain comes to the realization of the realities of the river. After a life along the river and knowing "every trifling feature that bordered the great river as" well as he knew his alphabet, (Twain 1) Twain sees the reality behind the "beauty" (1) and "poetry" (1) of the river. A comprehensive analysis reveals Twain's argument questions the value of learning a trade, as his images of "the majestic river" (1) and the peril it may cause for the steamboat, show the comparisons of the beauty and the reality of the river.
New technology took off right away! Steamboats were invented in the early 1800's, but it took until the 1820's to make them a common site on U.S. rivers. In the 1840's their popularity kept rising as they continued to increase the amount of trade possible. The reaper, for farming, was also developed in 1831. This allowed more farming in the west on the prairies.
Chapter 2 narrows the scope from the entire pan-Mississippi world to the confines of the steamboat itself. By the 1830s, steamboats had begun to take their classic "wedding cake" form. To navigate the rivers, steamboats had only a shallow hold where cargo was stored.
The first battle of Fredericksburg marked a new low point in the civil war for the Union. With over 200,000 soldiers on the field, it was the largest battle in the war. Notwithstanding his overwhelming superiority in numbers, Major General Ambrose E. Burnside’s frontal assault, conducted from disadvantaged terrain, against Lieutenant General “Stonewall” Jackson’s soldiers proved disastrous. The lack of speed in the attack and the inability to synchronize efforts when the attack was made allowed the numerically inferior force to defeat Union generals piecemeal. However, through the darkness of defeat there shined a promising light—the leadership of Major General Meade and the heroic actions his division.
The battle of Iwo Jima was fought between the United States and the Empire of Japan. The invasion of the U.S, otherwise known as "Operation Detachment", happened because of the U.S. wanting to take over the airfield in Iwo Jima. With this airfield the Japanese provided a base for escort planes on their raids with the B29s. Iwo Jima's location was crucial to the United States because it was between Tokyo and the American bomber bases in the Marianas. This was yet another reason why they sparked the battle of Iwo Jima.
Roads, steamboats, canals, and railroads lowered the cost and shortened the time of travel. By making these improvements, products could be shipped into other areas for profit (Roark, 260). Steamboats set off a huge industry and by 1830, more than 700 steamboats were operating up and down the Ohio and Mississippi River (Roark, 261). Steamboats also had some flaws, due to the fact of deforesting the paths along the rivers. Wood was needed to refuel the power to the boat.
Travel by land and water was both tedious and expensive. Transporting one ton of goods across states would cost around 100 dollars or 1,265 dollars in today’s money. In the 1790s, land routes connecting the east coast and the farther western regions of the United States were undeveloped. Along with this, when weather conditions were poor land routes could not support any sort of dependable shipping by wagon, or even travel by horseback. Natural waterways provided the most dependable method of transport west of Albany. Even travel by waterway in this time period was inconvenient because these water routes were unreliable due to shallow water and raging rapids.
The current size, inherent values, and economic status of the United States owes greatly to the paramount figures and events that took place during the Early National Period of the country. However, while there is no doubt that such events- and the figures behind them- were of great importance and have molded the country into the pristine product that it is today, the various construction projects of that time have gone largely unnoticed. Canals, being one of the most prominent advances in transportation, are prime examples of forgotten catalysts of the American nation. The construction of canals- particularly the Erie Canal- during the 19th century played a key role in the geographic, economic, and cultural development of the country by allowing an easier and faster mode of transport, and contributing greatly to the preservation of the Union during the Civil War.
Immigration is the reason for the foundation of our country. The colonists first fled to America in search of freedom from religious oppression. As a consequence, white men wiped out large numbers of natives from the land through disease and battle. The debate over who has the absolute right to this land will never cease – natives or immigrants. Over many, many years the immigrants have controlled America. The original immigrants have founded a nation on this land and paved a way for opportunities for all other men except the natives who they drove out to the worst pieces of real-estate. After forming a nation, the immigrants have one thing to fear, history repeating itself. This uneasiness is seen as far long ago as Benjamin Franklin who worried that the growing population of German...
This essay consists of two separate parts but the intention is that both these parts will prove to be relevant from the point of view of what this essay sets out to study. The first part will present Joseph Conrad's life and some of his works and the latter part will consist of a comparison of two of Conrad's works, Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent. In this essay I will begin from two assumptions, namely, that both the works mentioned above include clearly identifiable similarities in their narration, theme and method, and, that Conrad's own experiences and views have had great effect on both works.
To implement a recycling program requires a collection process that includes the containers to gather the materials, the trucks to transport them to the processing site, and the manpower to manage the program. Unfortunately, recycling is more of a business than an attempt to save the environment. The value of the material being recycled overshadows the negative impact of dumping items into the landfill. At a point in time, the demand for recycled paper declined, so recyclers stored the material in hopes that values would increase. “The hope is that eventually the markets turn around and that the materials is sold, but I have heard of instances where it gets landfilled, because a community doesn’t have the demand or the space or the company to deal with it, “ says Gene Jones, the executive director of Southern Waste Information Exchange (Westervelt,