. The story of American democracy, political and industrial . ons wereby Americans. In 1841 America had its full revenge forearlier British disdain, when a member of the Englishcabinet declared in parliament, I apprehend that a majorityof the really new inventions [lately introduced into England]have originated abroad, especially in America. Pittsburg was already the center of iron manufactures for the West. Nowits neighborhood to both anthracite and iron made it a center of this great industryfor the whole country. THE COMING OF THE RAILWAY 451 The railway The Railway deserves a fuller accoun
. The story of American democracy, political and industrial . ons wereby Americans. In 1841 America had its full revenge forearlier British disdain, when a member of the Englishcabinet declared in parliament, I apprehend that a majorityof the really new inventions [lately introduced into England]have originated abroad, especially in America. Pittsburg was already the center of iron manufactures for the West. Nowits neighborhood to both anthracite and iron made it a center of this great industryfor the whole country. THE COMING OF THE RAILWAY 451 The railway The Railway deserves a fuller account. Tramways (linesof wooden rails for cars drawn by horses, for short distances)came into use in some American cities about early as 1811, John Stevens began twenty yearsof fruitless efforts to interest capital in his dream of a steamrailway. In 1814, in England, George Stephenson com-pleted a locomotive, which found employment in haulingcoal on short tracks; but no railway of consequence forpassenger traffic was opened there until about 1830. After. The De Witt Clinton, the first railroad locomotive that ran in New York. Itmade its first trip, August 9, 1831, from Albany to Schenectady. From a photo-graph of a restoration. 1825, the question was much agitated in America; andJuly 4, 1828, the aged Charles Carroll, signer of theDeclaration of Independence, drove the golden spike thatmarked the beginning of the Baltimore and Ohio. Thesame year witnessed a score of charters to projected lines;but construction was slow, from lack of experience andmaterials, and especially from lack of engineers to surveyand construct roadbeds; and it was still thought commonlythat about the only advantage for railroads over canals wouldlie in the freedom from interruption by ice in 1830 less than thirty miles of track were in use, — and 452 THE AMERICA OF 1830 this only for coaches drawn by horses ; but in 1840 nearlythree thousand miles were in operation, and, for long there-af
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