This is America. Гришенкова Е.Г. - 33 стр.

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33
10. What are the environmental concerns that deal with transportation?
A Rolling History of Americans on the Move
In 1800, Americans elected Thomas Jefferson as their third president. Jefferson
had a wish. He wanted to discover a waterway that crossed from the Atlantic Ocean
to the Pacific. He wanted to build a system of trade that connected people throughout
the country. At that time the United States did not stretch all the way across the
continent.
Jefferson proposed that a group of explorers travel across North America in
search of such a waterway. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the exploration
west from 1803 to 1806. They discovered that the Rocky Mountains divided the land.
They also found no coast-to-coast waterway.
So Jefferson decided that a different transportation system would best connect
American communities. This system involved roads, rivers and railroads. It also
included the digging of waterways.
By the middle of the 1800s, dirt roads had been built in parts of the nation. The
use of river steamboats increased. Boats also traveled along man-made canals which
strengthened local economies.
The American railroad system began. Many people did not believe train
technology would work. In time, railroads became the most popular form of land
transportation in the United States.
In 19
th
century American culture, railroads were more than just a way to travel.
Trains also found their way into the works of writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman.
In 1876, the United States celebrated its 100th birthday. By now, there were
new ways to move people and goods between farms, towns and cities. The flow of
business changed. Lives improved.
Within those first one hundred years, transportation links had helped form a
new national economy.
Workers finished the first coast-to-coast railroad in 1869. Towns and cities
could develop farther away from major waterways and the coasts. But, to develop
economically, many small communities had to build links to the railroads.
Railroads helped many industries, including agriculture. Farmers had a new
way to send wheat and grain to ports. From there, ships could carry the goods around
the world.
Trains had special container cars with ice to keep meat, milk and other goods
cold for long distances on their way to market.

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