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Steam on the Erie Canal

About This Item

  • Title: Steam on the Erie Canal
  • Date: 13 August 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01235
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 13 August 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Thara Michaelis Brandi Faulkner Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Steam on the Erie Canal." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01235.xml (TEI)
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STEAM ON THE ERIE CANAL.—

As we have said before, it is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the application of steam in propelling boats on the Erie Canal. This has been, from the beginning, a cherished hope of all the friends of Internal Improvement. We have never doubted its ultimate realization. It was this great triumph which has made us always struggle, early and late for the enlargement of the Erie Canal. That done we felt assured that steam would come in as a propelling element and complete the proudest achievement of the age.

The practicability of applying steam to the canal is now being fairly tested. When it shall have been ascertained that a Steam Tug can take her fleet of canal boats in tow, dispensing with the labor of hundreds of horses, the Erie Canal will be all that its most sanguine friends anticipated. Then we shall recover the business that has been lost by delays. Then the city of New York will enjoy the commercial superiority which is disputed by other cities. Then our State, now standing still, will spring up, renewed and invigorated, and move onward in its career of enterprise and improvement, prosperity and greatness. Assured of the success of an enlarged canal, the people will cheerfully provide the means necessary to complete it.

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