It's hard to understand the point of this book by Mark Ferrara, an English professor at SUNY; while it ostensibly offers an exploration of the building and operation of the Erie Canal in the early 1800s, it instead focuses on everyone who was exploited and harmed. It's important to consider the consequences of building and operating major projects like the Canal, but Ferrara lacks a tight focus on the Erie Canal itself, instead bouncing around in American history to make his inevitably negative points about life in the 1800s.

Where he lost me entirely was on the section on the welfare of horses and mules that were used to both build and then drag boats along the canal. In just a few paragraphs he bounces from the 1817 construction to 1860s boat owners to the 1870s lack of adoption of steam power, to the establishment of the ASPCA in 1866 to their 1884 report on animal welfare, then back to 1833, then 1874, 1890, then back to 1828. 1828 marked the enactment of an anti-cruelty law applying to animals in New York state, a critically important event. However, he ends with the mention of the law, rather than starting with it, never just stating "a law was established but was a failure". To me this suggests this is not an attempt to put all of this information in a balanced and logical context but instead to produce a (hard to read) diatribe against animal (or child) cruelty of the era. But how widespread was it? How many animals were beaten until they died and how many were more humanely treated? How many children were rescued from homelessness rather than being exploited or overworked as Canal workers?

Without an overall context and attempt to balance the good and bad of a project, the book fails to offer a fair contextualization of an important historical construction project and its consequences for the indigenous, the local settlers, orphaned children, animals, the 1800s economy, etc. Offering up "it was good for the rich people and terrible for everyone else" is just lazy history, in my opinion.

I stopped reading at about the 25% mark in the book, so please take my criticism with the proverbial grain of salt. While I was hoping for a book that offered a fair and balanced perspective of "life and labor along the Erie Canal", I just didn't find it in the section of the book I read.

This book was an overview of the hot topics of the 18th and 18th century. It was nice to have a different perspective than the glorifying of capitalists stories that permeate narratives. But it was hard to read.of the troubles encountered by so many with no hope of improvement in their lifetimes. Overall a good history of new York state

I really wanted to enjoy this book, having grown up around the Erie Canal, but I found myself mostly confused by Ferrara's structural choices. The book is not necessarily about the Erie Canal - the sections on its development and construction are quick and, in my opinion, lacking, This is more of a book about a lot of disparate topics related to upstate New York that are vaguely tied to the Erie Canal. The scholarship was sound, however, and I apprecaited the inclusion of individiual stories from the historic record to support the broad claims.

Deeply informative, well researched, and helps the reader understand how this history informs and impacts the current status of the region. Thanks very much to NetGalley and the publisher.

The Raging Erie is a wide ranging social history focusing on the Native Americans, laborers, common folk, African Americans, and underclass whose lives were impacted by the Canal. Their lands were stolen, they built and died working on the Canal, they lived along its route. Cities had population booms, and with growth came crime and poverty as well as riches fueled by the growth of industrialization.

Social movements were born in this area of New York. There were champions of abolition and women’s rights, the founders of new religions, and the pseudoscience of spiritualism.

Ferrara contends that the working class, poor, women, Native Americans, and African Americans were exploited and suffered while the capitalists thrived. The Canal brought growth to the Midwest; many Michigan cities and place names echo New York State’s, and Detroit’s population boomed.

I was surprised to learn that Tonawanda was the center of a Native American religious revival called the Good Message, based on the Iroquois Handsome Lake’s prophetic visions.

The 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal will be celebrated in 2025. You could read about the ‘great men’ who ‘built’ the canal and became rich and famous, or about the men who actually built the canal and gave their health and lives while doing so.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

Everyone who has lived along the Erie Canal should read this book. It doesn't go far beyond what you'll get by visiting every single local historical site, but because normal people don't do that, The Raging Erie is a great substitute and introduction. The only thing missing that I would've liked to see is a discussion of how this history has been portrayed in modern times, because I think we can learn a lot from that.

This book is well researched and written and presents a different spin from other books that focused on the building of the canal. It encompasses the many different groups that lived and worked along the Erie Canal. It starts with the Native Americans who lost the land upon which the canal was built, the immigrants who worked on and around the canal, the use of the canal as part of the Underground Railroad and the wide range of colorful characters who were in some way connected to the canal. A must read for those interested in the history of New York State.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook page.

A great description of life and labor along the Erie Canal. The study is a skillful blend of immigration, labor, and social history that captures the hard lives of toil these workers endured. Ferrara depicts an ecosystem of labor that takes into account the worksite, company infrastructure, and informal social networks that shaped the lives of these laborers. I feel like the canal building projects were the Eastern and Midwestern equivalent of the building of the railroads in the west.