Internal Improvements Posts

The map below features four snapshots of the American population and density from 1790 (Top Left) 1800, 1810, and 1820. This is immediately before the country invested heavily in domestic transportation infrastructure, to connect to their massive te…

When John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay talked about “Internal Improvements” and the “American System” in the 1820s, they were imagining an America that did not really exist yet, and was very difficult for most to conceptualize. The country had enormo…

This gallery of photos, maps, and other images add to our "Internal Improvements" audio series about America's struggles in the first half of the 19th century to give the United States government the power to develop infrastructure and create a stab…