Panama Canal Research Paper
Part I: Evaluation and Identification of sources and background on Panama Canal
Research Question: Was the creation of the Panama Canal attentive to the environmental implications towards the population or was it solely based on naval power?
The Panama Canal is a man-made canal running 48 miles through Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It allows ships to pass through the area with a very complicated system of locks and water-pools. Before the creation of the Panama Canal, the only way to get from the east side of the US to the west by boat was by rounding the very dangerous southern edge of South America, Cape Horn. The creation of the canal cut thousand of miles off of ocean liner trips.
One of the resources used is an …show more content…
“He had all the nerve, persistence, dynamic energy, a talent for propaganda, a capacity for deception, and imagination,” (McCullough 53) but due to multiple complications in the build and workers dying off in droves the U.S. started to help for their own interests, such as “Sowing its oats as a world power” (Wagtendonk 2). The canal was eventually finished in 1914, after nearly 30 years of work. The U.S. then paid “$10 million (Now with inflation: $241,729,000) in gold, and an annual payment of $250,000 thereafter” (McCullough, 332) to the Panama government in order to have control of the canal zone. Construction started on January 1, 1881 and ended August 15, …show more content…
The workers of the Canal deforested and destroyed an area of land that animals, people, and plant life all cohabitated in. The workers on the canal dug a 48 mile long, 110 feet wide "through-cut," (McCullough 44) into the Earth, with very little in the way of power tools. Deaths started piling up as well during the building of the Panama Canal, where “nearly 40 people were dying every day during the year of 1885” (McCullough 172). By the end of building, there were nearly 25,000 worker deaths, 5,000 of which being American workers.A single skyscraper might go up and maybe two or three people will die in tragic accidents. But if 25,000 died in a project today, there would be mass media coverage and protests and unions shutting that place down to an incomprehensible
Research Question: Was the creation of the Panama Canal attentive to the environmental implications towards the population or was it solely based on naval power?
The Panama Canal is a man-made canal running 48 miles through Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It allows ships to pass through the area with a very complicated system of locks and water-pools. Before the creation of the Panama Canal, the only way to get from the east side of the US to the west by boat was by rounding the very dangerous southern edge of South America, Cape Horn. The creation of the canal cut thousand of miles off of ocean liner trips.
One of the resources used is an …show more content…
“He had all the nerve, persistence, dynamic energy, a talent for propaganda, a capacity for deception, and imagination,” (McCullough 53) but due to multiple complications in the build and workers dying off in droves the U.S. started to help for their own interests, such as “Sowing its oats as a world power” (Wagtendonk 2). The canal was eventually finished in 1914, after nearly 30 years of work. The U.S. then paid “$10 million (Now with inflation: $241,729,000) in gold, and an annual payment of $250,000 thereafter” (McCullough, 332) to the Panama government in order to have control of the canal zone. Construction started on January 1, 1881 and ended August 15, …show more content…
The workers of the Canal deforested and destroyed an area of land that animals, people, and plant life all cohabitated in. The workers on the canal dug a 48 mile long, 110 feet wide "through-cut," (McCullough 44) into the Earth, with very little in the way of power tools. Deaths started piling up as well during the building of the Panama Canal, where “nearly 40 people were dying every day during the year of 1885” (McCullough 172). By the end of building, there were nearly 25,000 worker deaths, 5,000 of which being American workers.A single skyscraper might go up and maybe two or three people will die in tragic accidents. But if 25,000 died in a project today, there would be mass media coverage and protests and unions shutting that place down to an incomprehensible