Building of the Erie Canal
“A lock near Lockport, New York, c. 1825. Crews of Irish and free Black laborers cut a stair of locks through dolomite. Foreground shows men with pickaxes and blasting powder; midground reveals horses on a towpath drawing a packet boat through the new channel; the rolling Genesee country stretches behind under a fresh summer sun on the canal that will create New York's wealth.”
