ABSTRACT
IMPROVED roads, canals, and steamboats made their contribution, but they were not entirely effective in loosening the bonds which fettered the agrarian, merchant-capitalist economy of the early nineteenth century. The United States encompassed vast distances, difficult mountain barriers, virgin forests, and great unsettled plains. Only a method of transportation by land—cheap, fast, and flexible—could meet the pressing needs of agriculture and industry. The steam railroad, surely one of the most revolutionary inventions of all time, provided the solution.
