Roads and Canals Interactive Notes

Day 4.1
Transportation Revolution

ILMS 8th Grade History 2022/23

Match

Match the following

• Manmade waterway between rivers

• Natural waterway

• Built to make travel over land easier for walking and wagons pulled by horses

• Self-propelled engines that pulled lots of "cars" along rails

Canal

River

Road

Railroad

• Canal

• River

• Road

• Railroad

I Can describe the
movement of people,
products and ideas
that resulted in new
patterns of settlement
and land use.

The American System

Henry Clay
prepared an ambitious

program to improve
transportation and

strengthen the nation’s

economy

Canals

Roads

Strengthen

the

nation’s
economy

Clay believed that linking the
South, Northeast, and West
together would bring the United
States “to that height to which God
and nature and destined it.”

A Program introduced to Congress in the 1820s

MAIN IDEA: Transportation routes such as roads improved as settlers moved
west, and steamboats greatly improved the transport of goods along rivers.

Drag and Drop

According to Henry Clay.......

​

Placeholder

​ ​ + ​ ​ ​ canals = economic success

Drag these tiles and drop them in the correct blank above

roads

Railroads

Factories

Farms

the Internet

canals

The National Road

The National Road will eventually stretch from
Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois.

Congress viewed the National Road as a military necessity,
but it did NOT undertake other road-building projects.

Hotspot

Where did the National Road begin?

River Travel - Disadvantages

Disadvantages:
• Major rivers in the Eastern U.S. flowed in a

north-south direction

• Traveling against the current was an extremely

difficult and slow way to travel

Canals

Fill in the Blanks

What was the major problem with traveling West on America's Rivers?

Most rivers flowed North to

Multiple Choice

Which mode of transportation used man-made waterways?

• Roads

• Canals

• Railroads

Reading Summary

Reviewing the Main Ideas

❖ Settlers used new roads and turnpikes

to move west of the Appalachians, and
steamboats opened a new era of river
travel.

❖ The success of the Erie Canal led to the

building of other canals to link the East
and Midwest.

❖ Although life west of the Appalachian

Mountains was often difficult, the
population there grew tremendously in
the early 1800s.

Multiple Choice

Which road connected Ohio with the East?

• East-West Road

• National Road

• Ohio Road

• Vandalia Road

Fill in the Blanks

The

extended from New York City to Buffalo and was 363 miles long.