National Road

Examples of National Road in the following topics:

• The Rise of the West

  • In 1803, Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the nation.
  • In 1811, construction began on the National Road or Cumberland Road, the first major improved highway in the United States to be built by the federal government.
  • Ease of travel on the National Road contributed to the rapid decline of the Wilderness Road.
  • As American expansion continued, Native Americans resisted settlers' encroachment in several regions of the new nation.
  • Throughout the 19th century, Native American nations on the plains in the west continued armed conflicts with the United States in the Indian Wars.

• Transportation: Roads, Canals, and Railroads

  • In the nineteenth century, the construction of roads, rails, and canals dramatically improved national mobility.
  • New and improved transportation technology made it easier and faster to transport goods: first national roads, then canals, and finally the railroad revolution.
  • Following the report, work began on a National Road to connect the west to the eastern seaboard.
  • In 1815, construction on the National Road (also known as the "Cumberland Road") began in Cumberland, Maryland; by 1818, the road had reached Wheeling, West Virginia (then part of Virginia).
  • Other railway initiatives would follow, subsequently creating a network linking all corners of the nation.

• Movement South and Westward

  • Government-created national roads and waterways, such as the Cumberland Pike (1818) and the Erie Canal (1825), helped new settlers migrate west and later helped move western farm produce to market.
  • President Jackson (1829-1837) opposed the successor to Hamilton's National Bank, which he believed favored the entrenched interests of the East against the West.
  • Their actions shook confidence in the nation's financial system, and business panics occurred in both 1834 and 1837.
  • Like canals and roads, railroads received large amounts of government assistance in their early building years in the form of land grants.
  • Nevertheless, a combination of vision and foreign investment, combined with the discovery of gold and a major commitment of America's public and private wealth, enabled the nation to develop a large-scale railroad system, establishing the base for the country's industrialization.

• The Wilderness Road

  • The Wilderness Road was a westward route used by many immigrants that stretched from Virginia through the Appalachian mountains.
  • Hence, for safety reasons, entire communities and church congregations would often travel the road together to found new settlements, taking advantage of the defensive log blockhouses (or stations) built alongside the road for protection.
  • When the National Road was opened in 1818, allowing travel to the Ohio River on level ground from the East, the westward travelers abandoned the the difficult and dangerous Wilderness Road.
  • The era of lengthy foot-travel over the mountains was effectively over; however, the Wilderness Road still remains as a national park and bits of highway that still connect the east to the west.
  • Course of the Wilderness Road, through Tennessee and Kentucky, by 1785.

• Industrialized Countries

  • In countries such as the United States, with well-developed industries, residents have consistent access to electricity, roads, and other infrastructure that improves their standard of living.
  • Consequently, people living in developed countries have greater access to such resources as food, education, roads, and electricity than their counterparts in less developed nations.
  • One measure of a nation's level of development is the Human Development Index (HDI), a statistical measure developed by the United Nations that gauges a country's level of development.
  • Often, national income or gross domestic product (GDP) are used alone to measure how prosperous a nation's economy is.
  • Thus, HDI is often used to predict trends in a nation's development.

• Defining Globalization

  • The Silk Road is a strong example of the evolution and historic significance of global trade, as achieving common and predictable trade routes and practices resulted in large increases in regards to cross-cultural exchange.
  • As cultures such as the Sumerian's realized the advantages of trading, the surrounding regions began a slow transition towards trade with other nations.
  • Europe and Asia, due to the enormous cultural diversity and relative ease of travel, played a substantial role in this development throughout the past 5,000 years. represents what a number of specific trade spheres looked like during the 13th century, highlighting the value in proximity to other nations. is slightly more specific and represents the Silk Road, one of History's most distinct examples of trade development.
  • The Silk Road stretched across Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Coast of China, making it one of history's strongest examples of international trade development.

• Natural Resources, Infrastructure, and Technology of New Markets

  • The natural resources, infrastructure, and technology of a nation will determine the ease and viability of entering that country's market.
  • For example, roads enable the transport of raw materials to a factory.
  • A country's infrastructure will help determine the ease of doing business within that nation.
  • A country's technological capabilities will help determine what types of operations are possible in that nation.
  • Poor road infrastructure such as this can create difficulties for businesses that rely on road transportation.

• The Free-Rider Problem

  • In your everyday life, you benefit from public goods such as roads and bridges even though no transaction occurs when you use them.
  • In the case of roads and bridges, everyone pays taxes to the government, who then uses the taxes to pay for public goods .
  • National security is a public good: it is both non-rivalrous and non-excludable.
  • Free riders are able to use roads without paying their taxes because roads are a non-excludable public good.

• Distribution Modes

  • Most nations own and utilize large numbers of cargo aircraft, such as the C-17 Globemaster III, for their logistical needs.
  • Under the right circumstances, freight transport by rail is more economical and energy efficient than by road, especially when carried in bulk or over long distances.
  • For this reason, rail has lost much of the freight business to road transport.
  • Many firms, such as Parcelforce, FedEx, R+L Carriers, and U-Haul, transport all types of cargo by road.
  • A good example of road cargo is food, as supermarkets require deliveries every day to keep their shelves stocked with goods.

• The New Nation's Economy

  • As an economic charter, it established that the entire nation -- stretching then from Maine to Georgia, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi Valley -- was a unified, or "common," market.
  • The Constitution provided that the federal government could regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states, establish uniform bankruptcy laws, create money and regulate its value, fix standards of weights and measures, establish post offices and roads, and fix rules governing patents and copyrights.
  • Alexander Hamilton, one of the nation's Founding Fathers and its first secretary of the treasury, advocated an economic development strategy in which the federal government would nurture infant industries by providing overt subsidies and imposing protective tariffs on imports.
  • He also urged the federal government to create a national bank and to assume the public debts that the colonies had incurred during the Revolutionary War.
  • Although early American farmers feared that a national bank would serve the rich at the expense of the poor, the first National Bank of the United States was chartered in 1791; it lasted until 1811, after which a successor bank was chartered.