Suddenly mankind no longer had to depend upon muscle power or animal power. As the microprocessor revolution leverages the human mind, the steam revolution leveraged human arms and legs." In those days change moved more slowly than it does today, but still, within a lifetime, steam power transformed the world (Gordon, 1997).
Thomas Newcomen developed the first practical steam engine in 1712. It was used mainly for pumping water out of mines. In 1769 James Watt added a separate condenser, which increased the fuel efficiency. In 1782 Watt made his second major contribution to the steam engine, a means of converting its up and down motion that could turn a shaft. Once the steam engine was developed the industrial revolution accelerated sharply and other inventions and advances were underway (Gordon, 1997). Railroads helped carry goods to other places faster, and also helped people go on vacation to places of long distance. The first railroad built in The United States was three miles in length, extending from Quincy, Massachusetts, to the Neponset River it was completed in 1827. The second railroad was built in May of the year 1827 it was a distance of nine miles extending from the coalmines in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, to the Lehigh River. In 1828 the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company constructed a railroad from their coalmines to Honesdale, the termination of their canal (Encarta, 2000).
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the U.S. was improving its transportation methods not only were the steamboat and railroads underway so were canals. A major was to link Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes with the Atlantic Coast through a canal. The Erie Canal would connect a port of New York City by beginning at the Hudson River. New York City mayor DeWitt Clinton supported efforts for its construction. On July 4, 1817 construction of the Erie Canal began in Rome, New York.
