The History of New Orleans
For the past several weeks I have been stunned by the talking heads who keep talking about how New Orleans shouldn’t be rebuilt. So they know that New Orleans is the fourth largest port in the world. A quarter of our oil passes through the region. So that about a quarter of all our seafood is produced there? I have to believe they are not aware of these issues. Click here for a great article about the history and the importance of New Orleans to our way of life.
The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the
American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the
Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that
funded American industrialization: it permitted the formation of a
class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they
could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the East and in
Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding
capital of American industry.But it was not the extraordinary land or the farmers and ranchers
who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography—the
extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and
allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the
rivers flowed into one —the Mississippi—and the Mississippi flowed to
the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans
that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored,
sold, and reloaded on oceangoing vessels. Until last Sunday, New
Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.
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