2004-4-25
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VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA, in VOA Special English. I'm Phoebe
Zimmermann.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Doug Johnson. This week, travel back in time to explore
the history of transportation in the United States.
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VOICE ONE:
In eighteen-hundred, 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 eighteen-oh-three to
eighteen-oh-six. 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.
VOICE TWO:
By the middle of the eighteen-hundreds, dirt roads had been built
in parts of the nation. The use of river steamboats increased. Boat
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 nineteenth-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.
VOICE ONE:
In eighteen-seventy-six, the United States celebrated its
one-hundredth 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.
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VOICE TWO:
Workers finished the first coast-to-coast railroad in
eighteen-sixty-nine. 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.
People could now get fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the
year. Locally grown crops could be sold nationally. Farmers often
hired immigrant workers from Asia and Mexico to plant, harvest and
pack these foods.
VOICE ONE:
By the early nineteen-hundreds, American cities had grown. So,
too, had public transportation. The electric streetcar became a
common form of transportation. These trolleys ran on metal tracks
built into streets.
Soon, however, people began to
drive their own cars. Nelson Jackson and his friend, Sewall Crocker,
were honored as the first to cross the United States in an
automobile. Their trip in nineteen-oh-three lasted sixty-three days.
And it was difficult. Mainly that was because few good roads for
driving existed.
But the two men, and their dog Bud, also had trouble with their
car and with the weather. Yet, they proved that long-distance travel
across the United States was possible. The trip also helped fuel
interest in the American automobile industry.
VOICE TWO:
By nineteen-thirty, more than half the families in America owned
an automobile. For many, a car became a need, not simply an
expensive toy. To deal with the changes, lawmakers had to pass new
traffic laws and rebuild roads.
Cars also needed businesses to service them. Gas stations, tire
stores and repair centers began to appear.
Many people took to the road for personal travel or to find work.
The open highway came to represent independence and freedom. During
the nineteen-twenties and thirties, the most traveled road in the
United States was Route Sixty-Six. It stretched from Chicago,
Illinois, to the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, California. It was
considered the "people's highway."
VOICE ONE:
The writer John Steinbeck called Route Sixty-Six the "Mother
Road" in his book "The Grapes of Wrath." Hundreds of thousands of
people traveled this Mother Road during the Great Depression of the
nineteen-thirties. They came from the middle of the country. They
moved West in search of work and a better life.
In nineteen-forty-six, Nat King Cole came out with this song,
called "Route Sixty-Six."
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VOICE TWO:
World War Two ended in
nineteen-forty-five. Soldiers came home and started families.
Businesses started to move out to the edges of cities where suburbs
were developing. Most families in these growing communities had
cars, bicycles or motorcycles to get around. Buses also became
popular.
The movement of businesses and people away from city centers led
to the economic weakening of many downtown areas. City leaders
reacted with transportation projects designed to support downtown
development.
Underground train systems also became popular in the
nineteen-fifties. Some people had enough money to ride on the newest
form of transportation: the airplane.
VOICE ONE:
But for most automobile drivers, long-distance travel remained
somewhat difficult. There was no state-to-state highway system. In
nineteen-fifty-six Congress passed a law called the Federal-Aid
Highway Act. Engineers designed a sixty-five-thousand kilometer
system of roads. They designed highways to reach every city with a
population over one-hundred-thousand.
The major work on the Interstate Highway System was completed
around nineteen-ninety. It cost more than
one-hundred-thousand-million dollars. It has done more than simply
make a trip to see family in another state easier. It has also led
to the rise of the container trucking industry.
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VOICE TWO:
The American transportation system started with horses and boats.
It now includes everything from container trucks to airplanes to
motorcycles. Yet, in some ways, the system has been a victim of its
own success.
Many places struggle with traffic problems as more and more cars
fill the roads. And a lot of people do not just drive cars anymore.
They drive big sport utility vehicles and minivans and personal
trucks.
For others, hybrid cars are the answer. Hybrids use both gas and
electricity. They save fuel and reduce pollution. But pollution is
not the only environmental concern with transportation. Ease of
travel means development can spread farther and farther. And that
means the loss of natural areas.
Yet, every day, Americans depend on their transportation system
to keep them, and the largest economy in the world, on the move.
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VOICE ONE
The National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. has a
new transportation exhibition. "America on the Move" explores the
connection to the economic, social and cultural development of the
United States. And you can experience it all on the Internet at
americanhistory.si.edu. Again, the address is
americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition
VOICE TWO:
Our program was written by Jill Moss and produced by Caty Weaver.
I'm Phoebe Zimmermann.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Doug Johnson. Join us again next week for the VOA Special
English program, THIS IS AMERICA.