The Erie Canal Marks 200 Years

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "The Erie Canal Marks 200 Years"

Podcast: All Of It with Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Date: October 24, 2025
Guest: Prof. Mark Ferrara (SUNY), author of The Raging Erie: Life and Labor Along the Erie Canal

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Overview

This episode commemorates the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal, a monumental feat in early American engineering that transformed New York State and the nation. Host Alison Stewart and guest Professor Mark Ferrara explore the canal's origins, its challenges, its profound social and economic impact, and the often untold stories of those who built and were affected by it.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Historical Context and Construction Challenges

• The idea for the canal arose due to the nation’s need for east-west transportation across the Appalachian Mountains, crucial for trade, westward expansion, and internal unity.
• Building the 363-mile canal (Albany to Buffalo) was daunting, especially with limited technology and no trained engineers in the U.S. at the time:
  • “How do you build a 363 mile canal from Albany to Buffalo with no trained engineers in the country and the most primitive of tools? We're talking shovels, pickaxes…”
    — Prof. Ferrara [01:14]
• The route had to overcome major geographical obstacles, including the Niagara Escarpment.
• Officials feared that without a physical link, westward expansion might fragment the nation.

2. Impact on New York and the Nation

• The canal became “vital to a kind of bond of union to keep the United States together,” enabling easier transport of people and goods, and cementing New York’s status as the “Empire State.”
  — Prof. Ferrara [02:14–03:10]
• Prior to the canal, overland travel was perilous and inefficient.

3. The Human Cost: Native Displacement

• Land for the canal came at a grave cost to the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) nations.
  • “It was nearly complete land disenfranchisement in the decades following the American Revolution... as a result of a series of fraudulent treaties and Indian removal as a policy of the United States.”
    — Prof. Ferrara [03:35]
• By the time DeWitt Clinton surveyed the route in 1810, many Indigenous people had already been driven away.

4. Political and Financial Obstacles

• Debate raged over whether such “internal improvements” should be federally funded. President Jefferson declined to finance the canal, and New York had to issue bonds to fund the project.
• Referencing earlier, less successful efforts like George Washington’s Potomac Canal.

5. The Workforce: Who Built the Canal?

• Early labor: local farmers and contractors managed small sections.
• Later years: influx of Irish immigrants (and also Germans, Welsh).
• Working conditions: harsh, poorly paid, and dangerous.
  • “It was not a good job. Not a job that was, that many people would want.”
    — Prof. Ferrara [07:03]
• At peak, 9,000 workers coordinated along the corridor.

6. Transforming the Landscape and Populations

• Prior to the canal, upstate New York was wilderness; after, towns like Buffalo, Utica, and Rochester exploded in size and industry (the origin of “boomtowns”).
• “People start to settle along the canal corridor, and they start to create farms and transform the landscape in ways that made it impossible for Native Americans to continue their traditional lifestyles as things got fenced off and a lot of land was cleared.”
  — Prof. Ferrara [09:40]

7. Questions from Listeners

a) Was Slave Labor Used? [10:44]

• Records are incomplete, but given slavery was legal in NY until 1827 (the largest slave-holding state in the North), it’s “possible and likely” that slave and free Black labor were used.

b) Why Not Use Lake Ontario Instead? [11:48]

• Surveyors considered a more northern route but settled on the Mohawk Valley, which better connected Albany to Buffalo.

c) How Did the Canal Raise Money? [12:26]

• Through tolls collected at waylock buildings along the route.

8. The Canal as an Escape & Innovation Route: Listener Calls [13:05]

• Listener Stuart shares history of the canal's role in the Underground Railroad:
  • "The canal was also an escape route for people escaping slavery in the South... And there’s a reason why Frederick Douglass made Rochester... his hometown, because it was a hotbed of abolitionist sentiment.”
• The canal also fostered new jobs (canal boaters, aka “canalers” or “hoagies”).

9. Wider Social Effects & Reform

• The canal catalyzed not only commerce but also movements:
  • “The canals also a birthplace of new American religion, so Mormonism and spiritualism, for example... As are all kinds of reform movements.”
    — Prof. Ferrara [14:34]
• Provided a corridor for social change: abolitionism, reform, asylum, and poorhouse movements arose to address problems like poverty, alcoholism, and marginalization (especially of women and children in canal work).

10. Cultural Legacy: “The Erie Canal Song” [16:52]

• The famous song, “15 Miles on the Erie Canal,” reflects romanticized canal life—“hoagies” (young canal workers) and their mule partners.
  • “Fifteen miles would be the average distance that horses and mules could pull before they needed to be changed… It was taught in schools for years and years.”
    — Prof. Ferrara [17:13]
• Bruce Springsteen’s version played on air.

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Notable Quotes

• On the canal’s ambition:
  “Why would somebody want to build a ditch that is 40ft wide and 4ft deep from Albany to Buffalo? ... It radically transformed New York State, turned it into the Empire State, made New York City a leading city and contributed to national prosperity in an unprecedented way.”
  — Prof. Mark Ferrara [02:09–03:10]
• On native displacement:
  “It was nearly complete land disenfranchisement... so much so that Governor DeWitt Clinton... notes the absence of Haudenosaunee people as he moves west from Rome.”
  — Prof. Mark Ferrara [03:35]
• On labor:
  “A lot of these jobs like digging the canal, $10 a month. The hoagies are small children who led the horses and mules... A lot of these children are kind of orphaned or semi-orphaned working along the canal.”
  — Prof. Mark Ferrara [15:33]
• On social change:
  “The canal corridor meant a lot of itinerant people moving through upstate New York... a variety of reform movements popped up along the canal that were aimed at addressing some of the ills that came with marginalized scut work and labor.”
  — Prof. Mark Ferrara [15:54]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening & historical context: 00:09–03:25
• Native displacement: 03:25–04:32
• Engineering feat in global context: 04:32–05:04
• Political & financing challenges: 05:04–06:20
• Labor: who built the canal: 07:03–08:41
• Urban transformation & landscape change: 08:41–10:44
• Listener Q&A: slavery, route, tolls: 10:44–12:57
• Listener call: Underground Railroad: 13:05–14:22
• Wider economic, religious, and social impact: 14:22–16:52
• Cultural legacy: Erie Canal Song: 16:52–18:20

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Memorable Moments

• Listener Stuart’s call sharing the canal’s role in the Underground Railroad and the “hoagie” nickname for canal workers. [13:05–14:22]
• Prof. Ferrara demystifying “The Erie Canal Song” and its enduring presence in American classrooms. [17:13]

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Conclusion

This episode offers a nuanced, compelling look at the Erie Canal—an American engineering triumph deeply intertwined with economic ambition, migration, land dispossession, labor struggle, community-building, and cultural memory. Listeners learn not just about a canal, but about the interconnected histories of a young nation.

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Transcript

[A]

This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal opening for business. It was an important for marking New York State and New York City as the powerhouses of industry they'd eventually become. Back in 1825, it was a major feat of engineering. It was the second largest canal ever built at the time. It gave New York ports access to resources from the middle of the continent and was one of the key developments that let our young country grow in population and settle the West. Joining us now to celebrate the Erie Canal's 200th birthday, please welcome SUNY English Professor Mark Ferrara, author of the Raging Life and Labor along the Erie Canal. It's nice to speak with you, Mark.

[B]

Thank you. Pleasure to be with you.

[A]

So the Canal was completed 200 years ago this year, but let's start going back a little further.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

What were some of the risks and some of the opportunities officials would have been weighing around 1817 when the construction was first authorized?

[B]

Many of the challenges are geographical. How do you build a 363 mile canal from Albany to Buffalo with no trained engineers in the country and the most primitive of tools. We're talking shovels, pickaxes and being able to organize crews to construct sections of the canal as we move towards from Rome to Albany where we have to deal with a series of lock building. And as we move west, we've got to deal with the Niagara escarpment as we approach Rochester and the Lockport area. Why would somebody want to build a ditch that is 40ft wide and 4ft deep from Albany to Buffalo? There are many benefits to it. Many people had been looking for a passage across the Appalachian Mountains to connect the eastern seaboard with the new expanding western territories. And so this was seen as vital to a kind of bond of union to keep the United States together. There was a worry that westward expansion could fragment the country. And then there's the the issue of if we're talking about 1817. Trying to send goods across the United States in wagons on roads that were pitted and unpassable at times made a water route that could go east to west very attractive. And it allowed the movement of people and commodities. Even though it was a very slow pace by our standards today, 4 to miles an hour, 24 hours a day during the canal season. It radically transformed New York State, turned it into the Empire State, made New York City a leading city and contributed to national prosperity in an unprecedented way.

[A]

We should note though that the building of the canal meant displacing people of the Iroquois nations. What was the cost to the Native people in the area?

[B]

Devastating. It was nearly complete land disenfranchisement in the decades following the American Revolution. So much so that Governor DeWitt Clinton, as he's taking a trip in 1810 to survey the possible route of the canal, even notes the absence of Haudenosaunee people as he moves west from Rome. And that disenfranchisement. Disenfranchisement took place over decades and was the result of a series of fraudulent treaties and Indian removal as a policy of the United States. So I actually start my book with a chapter on the Haudenosaunee and the land dispossession that made the Erie Canal possible.

[A]

It's interesting to think that the United States was just about 30 years old right when they decided to go to go ahead with this. It would have been the second longest canal in the country. I think China was number one.

[B]

China. Yep. The Grand Canal in China is 1, 100 miles long. That's correct.

[A]

So how did this project square up with the other ambitions of this young 30 year old country?

[B]

You were just talking about the nation being so young, 30 years old. And so there's a question at this time about what the role of the federal government is in what was called internal improvements, we would call them infrastructure development. So you have a young nation that in order to prosper, needs transportation routes. But the question of who's going to finance such projects was still an open question. And it ended up that New Yorkers issued bonds and financed the canal. When President Thomas Jefferson refused to fund what, what he thought was, you know, a crazy project to try to dig a canal 363 miles long. There had been other attempts to build canals across the Appalachian Mountains, most notably George Washington's Potomac Canal, which ended up opening but not being very effective. It was really a series of skirting canals, more than a canal than we would think of. So the importance of building roads and canals was essential to the development of the United States.

[A]

We're speaking with SUNY English professor Mark Ferrara, author of the Raging Erie Life and Labor along the Erie Canal. The canal opened for business 200 years ago this year. Listeners, do you have a question about the Erie Canal? We want to hear from you. 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc. Maybe you have a connection to it being built. Maybe you have a relative who used to haul barges, or maybe you make use of the modern canal for recreational boating. Our number is 24339-692-212433 wnyc. Who built the canal? Who are the people who signed up? Was it a good job? Was it a tough job?

[B]

It was not a good job. Not a job that was, that many people would want. So that's a, that's an interesting story. So in the first couple years of canal building, this would be 1817 to 1819, a decision was made to start in the middle of the state around. And that's because there were 70 miles or so of flat terrain. And so mostly local contractors, people in the area, farmers, people who, you know, had experience kind of digging and doing this kind of work, were employed to do small sections of it at a time. And then a engineer would come by and apply, approve it. And in this way, small sections were made contiguous so that by 1819, 1820, you could go from Syracuse to Utica, for example, in the canal, even though it wasn't finished until 1825. So in the first couple of years you have local labor being hired. By 1819 and 1820, you start to see an influx of Irish immigrants working on the canal. And they're probably most closely associated with construction on the canal. Although there were Germans, Welsh and other groups who were also working on the canal. It was a big challenge to get that much labor upstate. You're talking about 9,000 or so workers that needed to be coordinated.

[A]

The canal is a big factor in the growth of cities along the route like Buffalo and Utica and Rochester. What did the transformations in those place look like after the canal was completed? Completed?

[B]

It's enormous difference because upstate New York in around 1820, 1825, these were small towns of hundreds of people in, in the, you know, that weren't connected to the city or to, to other areas except by natural waterway. So the transformation that was wrought in these boomtowns was amazing. I mean, you had all kinds of industry springing up. You had, you had dock work, you had houses going in, and then you had all of the businesses that you would need as population started to grow. So the, the term boomtown comes from cities like you just, you just mentioned Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Albany to some degree, although it was, you know, at the end of the Hudson river there. So it was settled earlier and was a larger area. So you really want to imagine upstate New York as in, in 1820 as still wilderness west of Rome and full of old growth forests. And, you know, that's another story. Another interesting part of the canal is, you know, what happens to the natural landscape. As the canal comes through, you start to, you know, clear the old growth forest around the canal. But then people start to settle along the canal corridor, and they start to create farms and transform the landscape in ways that made it impossible for Native Americans to continue their traditional lifestyles as things got fenced off and a lot of land was cleared. So there's, there's, there's quite a few transformations that happen as a result of building the canal. And as you go ahead, I was.

[A]

Saying there's a text here, a question that, what that asks was slave labor used to build the canal?

[B]

What an excellent question. And that's one I've been researching, actually. It's very hard to know because these early, these early records are incomplete, and so we don't have accurate lists of who was working on the canal. Slavery is legal in New York State until 1827. New York is the largest slave holding state in the north. It's possible and likely that some slave labor was used to build the canal and probably some free black labor as well. But it's very difficult from the lack of records to determine exactly the scope of the use of slave labor and indentured labor and free, free black labor.

[A]

Here's another question. I don't know if you can answer, but we'll try. It says Erie canal parallels Lake Ontario. So I'm curious, why not just use the lake?

[B]

That's a good question. There were alternate routes, and there was a northern route that was contemplated. But when the surveyors got out there and started looking for a place that turned out to be the Mohawk valley, where one could cross the Appalachians, it just made sense to keep the route a little more southerly. That way you could end in Buffalo.

[A]

The canal actually paid for itself pretty much within the first year. What can you tell us about how this piece of infrastructure raised money?

[B]

Tolls.

[A]

Tolls, yeah.

[B]

So there were waylock. There were waylock buildings along the canal where boats would, would be weighed and, and there would be tolls that were. That were assigned based on, you know, the weight of the ship and what they were carrying.

[A]

Let's talk to Stuart from Malvern, Long Island. Hi, Stuart, thank you so much for calling all of it. You're on the air.

[C]

Thank you. Well, I actually did a project. I'm a musician, and I was given a commission by an organization called Long island traditions to do an audio video project in elementary schools in 2017, when we were celebrating the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the canal's construction, and one thing interesting to note is that the canal was also an escape route for people escaping slavery in the South. You know, it was much easier to hide someone on a riverboat going up the Hudson and then a canal boat going across the canal, across the state, that way to Canada. And there's a reason why Frederick Douglass made Rochester, my hometown, his hometown, because it was a hotel bed of, of abolitionist sentiment. And if you go to the Rochester Museum and Science center, There's a huge 3D map that includes all the safe houses that were around Rochester at the time that were stations on the Underground Railroad.

[B]

Excellent.

[C]

And it also became. It also became a way for people to, to make a living that couldn't. You know, there was a whole demand for canal boaters. You know, canalers they were called, or hoggies was the slang term for them.

[A]

Thank you for your call. We really appreciate it. Yeah. What other kind of opportunities came out of the canal being built once it was up running and running a profit?

[B]

Yeah, one might think of it as a early 19th century information highway superhighway, but moving at four or five miles an hour. So yes, it was an important route for the Underground Railroad and the anti abolition movement. The canals also a birthplace of new American religion, so Mormonism and spiritualism, for example, or are born along the canal corridor, as are all kinds of reform movements. So the canal corridor met a lot of itinerant people moving through upstate New York. And there was a lot of drinking that went on, a lot on the job, there was a lot of alcoholism, there was a lot of poverty. A lot of these jobs like digging the canal, $10 a month. The hoagies are small children who led the horses and mules that pulled the boats. So a lot of these children are kind of orphaned or semi orphaned working along the canal. Women are marginalized in many ways along the canal corridor and relegated to certain kinds of work. So a variety of reform movements popped up along the canal that were aimed at addressing some of the ills that came with marginalized scut work and labor that wasn't particularly valued and was looked down upon. And we're also talking about a time when we're moving from family farms to industrialization. And so we're moving from self sustenance and being able, you know, families being able to sustain themselves, to wage labor and wage labor that usually didn't pay a primary breadwinner enough to support a family. So the idea of asylums, poor houses, work farms, and other kinds of social services, I think is an important part of the story of the Erie Canal.

[A]

We've been waiting to ask you this because we've gotten a lot of text about says I want to hear the Erie Canal song. Please explain. I remember singing this with a community church singing group. Explain the Erie Canal song.

[B]

I assume they're referring to the 15 miles on the Erie Canal. Fifteen miles would be the average distance that horses and mules could pull before they needed to be changed. I think that's where that comes from. And that is a kind of romane sized version of the canal where the hoagies and the mules are best friends. But it's lovely and it was taught in schools for years and years. And one of my former professors, when I told him I was working on a book on the Erie Canal, he remembers being a young person in Long island in school and learning the Erie Canal song. So it's a wonderful connection.

[A]

The name of the book is the Raging Erie Life and labor along the Erie Canal. My guest has been SUNY English professor Mark Ferrara. Mark, thanks for spending some time with us.

[B]

It's a great pleasure. Thank you very much for the invitation.

[A]

Do you want to hear the Erie Canal song?

[B]

I love it.

[A]

Let's listen to it by Bruce Springsteen.

[D]

I got a mule and her name is Sal 15 miles on the Erica now she's a good old worker and a good old pal 15 miles on the Erika now we hold some badges in our day filled with lumber cold and hay we know we ridge of the way from underneath to Buffalo Love breach everybody down love bridge Ever coming to a town you always know your neighbor and you'll always know your power forever navigated on the rig of now bellow around for a job or gown 15 miles on the Erie canal you bet your life I'll never part with sound 15 miles on the Eric Canal get up mute here comes the lock we'll make room by six o' clock One more trip and back we'll go right back home to Buffalo Long bridge Everybody down long bridge we're coming to a town you always know your neighbor and you'll always know your town. River navigated on the American house and.

[A]

We'Re remind you that we'll speak with Warren Zanes, the author of Deliver Me from Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. That is going to happen on Monday.

[B]

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