The Industrial Revolution in the United States did not start with railroads, it started with rivers. As history suggests, rivers are natural highways that crisscrossed the various back country lands of the early states and allowed raw materials such as lumber, fur, food, and other supplies to get to the cities and the main trading hubs of the country–Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. They also forged the cultural identity of the country due to the mythology surrounding people like Lewis and Clark and Mark Twain.
Rivers in the United States are geographic destiny. New Orleans is built in the middle of a swamp and is the absolute worst place you can consider building a city except that it’s at the mouth of the longest river in the US, the Mississippi River. Because of the Mississippi, New Orleans was able to transform from a back water trading post to one of the most important cities in the country.
These are just a few significant rivers that impacted and shaped American history as we know it today.
