This colossal project : building the Welland Ship Canal, 1913-1932 / Roberta M. Styran and Robert R. Taylor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Styran, Roberta M., 1927-2015, author.

Taylor, Robert R., 1939- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Canals.

History.

Welland Canal (Ont.)--History.

Welland Canal (Ont.).

Canals--Ontario--Niagara Peninsula--Design and construction--History.

Canals--Design and construction.

Ontario--Niagara Peninsula.

Ontario--Welland Canal.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xxviii, 340 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016.

Summary:

This Colossal Project presents an absorbing epic on the building of the fourth Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and allows ships to bypass Niagara Falls. An immense undertaking, the canal is a vital part of North America's infrastructure and still functions as an essential part of the St Lawrence Seaway. Emphasizing the role of vivid personalities including engineers John Laing Weller and Alex Grant, as well as contractors and labourers, in the construction of the canal, Styran and Taylor use archival sources, government documents, newspapers, maps, and original plans to describe a saga of technological, financial, geographical, and social obstacles met and overcome in an accomplishment akin to the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. A story of Canadian skill, courage, vision, and hardship, This Colossal Project details the twenty-year excavation of the giant channel and the creation of huge concrete locks amidst war, the Great Depression, political change, and labour unrest. Building on the work presented in Styran and Taylor's This Great National Object, which told the story of the first three Welland canals built in the nineteenth century, This Colossal Project chronicles an impressive milestone in the history of Canadian technological achievement and nation building. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 This Colossal Project 3

Chapter 2 Challenges Facing the Ship Canal's Builders "on the Ground" 17

Chapter 3 Vision, Skill, and Courage 31

Chapter 4 Excavating the Prism 58

Chapter 5 Creating the Lifts 71

Chapter 6 Managing the Water 104

Chapter 7 Building Bridges 131

Chapter 8 "Facing their own kaisers at home" 150

Chapter 9 Ameliorating Disaster and Squalor 179

Chapter 10 "A settled and established community" 200

Chapter 11 Parks and Publicity 216

Chapter 12 "Surpassing anything of the kind" 237.

Notes:

Successor to the authors' "This great object : building the nineteenth-century Welland Canals", 2012.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Styran, Roberta M, 1927-2015, author. This colossal project.

ISBN:

9780773547902

0773547908

OCLC:

951848086