Before the US entered to build the canal, it was partially built by a company that went bankrupt. In 1903, the US wanted to purchase the rights and materials owned by the company for $40 million, while giving $10 million to Columbia, the country it was in. This sparked outrage in Columbia, which eventually led to the Panamanian Revolution and the independent Panama we know today. After Panama declared its independence from Columbia, the US paid the $40 million to the company and the $10 million to the country.
Taking the project over, the United States jumped into action to create the canal. President Roosevelt appointed John Findley Wallace to oversee the project in its entirety, but he resigned in 1905 after conflicting views with the team. Something that quickly came up was the issue of sanitation and health in the construction zone. William C. Gorgas was appointed to chief sanitation officer of the project to help keep the sanitation levels healthy and minimize the spread of yellow fever and malaria, as well as other diseases.
It is critical to note that the Panama Canal and its surrounding areas (roughly 5 miles on each side) was technically US territory until 1979, when it was given to the Panama Canal Commission, and later to Panama itself. Overall, this project was one of the greatest projects that was undertaken during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency - Roosevelt himself visited the site during its construction, shook hands with the workers, and personally oversaw that day's work.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/panama-declares-independence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Panama-Canal/Locks
I think your post is a good overview of the Panama Canal. It's very straight forward and concise. Something that might've been cool to add was what happened in between the events that you described. I did find it interesting how you talked about the workers' conditions and what they experienced.
ReplyDeleteI thought your post was really informative, the Panama Canal is such an interesting project/development. I wanted to do more research about the different sanitation issues that the workers had while constructing it. Apparently, most of the diseases, such as yellow fever, typhoid fever, and malaria, in the canal zone were transmitted by mosquitoes. Dr. William Gorgas implemented a complex sanitation plan to prevent the spread of disease. This included developing sick camps, systems of quarantine, and different methods to exterminate mosquitoes. Gorgas is credited with saving the lives of 71,000 workers in the zone.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/panama-canal-sanitation.htm
http://www.kumc.edu/school-of-medicine/history-and-philosophy-of-medicine/clendening-history-of-medicine-library/special-collections/panama-canal/sanitation-of-panama.html
I enjoyed reading your blog post and how it built upon some aspects of the Panama Canal that we weren't able to learn in class. I did some further research into the construction of it, and it turns out (not surprisingly) that the project was a rather deadly task. Huge amounts of material had to be moved (3.4 million cubic meters of concrete and 240 million cubic yards of dirt and rock) to be able to build the canal. Due to this labor intensive project, out of the about 56,000 workers employed (after 1904), at least 5,600 were killed. Along with that, it was the United States' most expensive project at that point (valued at $350 million). Even with these drawbacks, the addition to the global economy was still worth it in the eyes of the US government.
ReplyDeleteSource:
https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/panama-canal
I really like your post about the Panama Canal. It is interesting how you described that a previous French company had tried to build the canal but failed, so I looked up why they went bankrupt. Along with diseases, there were also heavy landslides that interrupted their work that was done on sea level. John Stevens, one of the chief engineers on the American team, realized this problem and convinced the president to let them build a lock canal instead. Really interesting post.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/panama-canal