America's First Interstate: The National Road, 1806–1853 by Roger Pickenpaugh

Abstract

Reviewed by: America's First Interstate: The National Road, 1806–1853 by Roger Pickenpaugh Deborah Popper America's First Interstate: The National Road, 1806–1853. By Roger Pickenpaugh. ( Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2020. Pp. xiv, 210. $29.95, ISBN 978-1-60635-397-4.) Infrastructure is one of this year's hot topics, and so America's First Interstate: The National Road, 1806–1853 promises a wide audience. The National Road, stretching from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois, was a project of the early republic. In writing this book, Roger Pickenpaugh [End Page 159] keeps his ambitions in check. In the introduction, he writes, "The goal of this work is to provide a solid narrative history of the National Road's earliest days" (p. xii). It does not, and is not intended to, offer analysis or interpretation. Instead it provides a thorough digging through the archives, tracking the various congressional votes, construction contracts and conditions, technology, usage, and services along the route, to serve as grounding for future study. The book is detailed. The federal government's role in road building was a major point of contention during the early republic, between those wanting a stronger federal role to spur development and knit the nation together and those wanting a smaller national government. Yet nothing then—or now—was so simple. Thomas Jefferson, a supporter of small government, promoted the National Road and commissioned his treasury secretary Albert Gallatin to put together a proposal for national infrastructure. Unlike the Gallatin plan, the National Road had an advantage that allowed its construction to go forward. It was authorized early as a way of connecting the Northwest Territory of Ohio, an area already targeted for settlement and as compensation to soldiers who were owed money. Funding the road to extend beyond Ohio, however, was much chancier. In each chapter, the book provides details and a little discussion but not a full exploration of meaning. That may be for the best since the very notion of a national road could be a subject of its own. As pieces of the road were completed, they were turned over to the states to manage. So was it funding, labeling, or the concept dictating that the road continue from one state to another that made it national? How uniform should the roads be? Congress set the terms of construction, but the states managed much of the implementation, including pacing and ensuring compliance, and were also essential in choosing the exact routes. Pickenpaugh goes through the technological challenges—the road materials and labor, plus their availability (or scarcity). He describes the vehicles and tells what trees were used for the various parts of the Conestoga wagon. As the road was built, he moves on to talk of what buildings lined it and how they served travelers, especially the inns and stables, along the way—their layout, menus, sleeping arrangements. The book's energy seems to peter out toward the end, much as the road's construction did. The early fights to get it funded and built occupy the book's major sections, but as it went along, the urgency was no longer there as alternate roads sprang up and settlers, impatient for ways to get around, made alternatives. Canals and railroads were more important means of transportation for moving goods. The cattle industry, which made heavy use of the roads early on, moved elsewhere. The nation's expanding new settlement was less concentrated along the road's route, making it less a subject of interest. Probably the book's most disappointing chapter is the last, which discusses the road's ongoing history. One gets the road funding details, but there is little examination of how the road affected national considerations of infrastructure. Thus, the book is useful in precisely the way it claims—offering nitty-gritty details to those who want and need them. While its discussion of larger questions is limited, America's First Interstate is still thought provoking since so many of the issues remain with us. [End Page 160] Deborah Popper CUNY College of Staten Island and Graduate Center Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association