The Panama Canal

1
The Panama Canal

• By Tamara De Hart

2
Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps

• Born on November 19, 1805 in Versailles, France,
  to a family distinguished in the French
  diplomatic service.
• The mastermind behind construction of the Suez
  Canal and a hero presented with many decorations.
  Later his success was not carried on when he took
  up command at Panama.
• On the first day of the new year of 1880, de
  Lesseps young daughter Fernanda dug the first
  shovel of sand into a champagne box, and the
  construction of the Panama Canal had symbolically
  begun.
• Ferdinand de Lesseps died in France in 1894.

3
French Canal Builders

• The French began construction in 1881, but nine
  years and 20,000 lives later they realized their
  plans were flawed, ran out of money, and
  abandoned the project.
• They faced a wilderness that was as dangerous as
  it was beautiful. There was saw grass that could
  shred skin like a razor, smothering heat day
  after endless day, and mud and swamp. Days and
  nights were made a living hell by ticks,
  chiggers, spiders, ants, mosquitoes, and flies.
  The men worked in constant fear of poisonous
  snakes. The comforts of home were precious few.
• French equipment was often too light or
  ill-suited for the rugged inland terrain.
• Men died for many different reasons but most of
  all they died from malaria and yellow fever.

4
Waging War On Mosquitoes

• The picture on the right shows a 1905 fumigation
  car eradicatingthe mosquitoes, the Stegomyia
  fasciata, responsible for Yellow Fever and
  malaria.
• The tropical diseases that killed thousands of
  workers during the French years threatened to
  derail the American effort before it even got
  started.
• To wipe out the probability of a Yellow Fever
  epidemic, thousands of sanitary workers went
  through the Canal Zone and using techniques that
  were developed in Havana by William Gorgas who
  had battled yellow fever after the
  Spanish-American War. Workers fumigated
  buildings, removed standing water, installed door
  and window screens, and cut grass.

5
Theodore Roosevelt

• Theodore Roosevelt was born October 27, 1858 in
  New York.
• With the assassination of President McKinley, he
  became the youngest President in the Nation's
  history.
• Part of Roosevelt's dream of making America a
  world global power was realized through the
  Panama Canal.
• In 1904, the U.S. embarked on the largest civil
  engineering project in history. Roosevelt set the
  work in motion by urging the engineers to start
  digging.

6
The United States
Because of the nineteenth-century developments in
machinery, the construction of the Panama Canal
was now possible. Americans arrived in 1904,
abandoned railroad and excavating equipment
littered the jungles.

• Engineers easily adapted to the equipment that
  had been originally developed for the railroad
  industry.
• Workers used air-driven rock drills to bore holes
  for dynamite charges. After the blasts,
  rail-mounted steam shovels scooped up the spoil
  and dumped it onto nearby railroad cars.

7
The Panama Canal Opened In 1914

• Repeated earth slides, usually after heavy rains,
  plagued the work, burying equipment and
  destroying months of progress.
• However, by August 15, 1914 the Panama Canal was
  officially opened. At that time, no other
  exertion in American history had been so dear a
  price in dollars or in human life. It is
  estimated that over 80,000 persons took part in
  the construction and that over 30,000 lives were
  lost in both French and American efforts.
• The American expenditures from 1904 to 1914
  totaled 352,000,000. The French and American
  costs combined totaled 639,000,000.

8
The Engineering Marvel Of The Age

• The Panama Canal is approximately 80 kilometers
  long between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and
  was cut through the isthmus that joins North and
  South America.
• The Canal uses a system of compartments with
  entrance and exit gates called locks that
  function as water lifts. They raise ships from
  sea level to the level of Gatun Lake ships then
  sail the channel through the Continental Divide.

9
Sources

• http//www.pancanal.com/eng/general/asi-es-el-cana
  l.html
• http//www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Make-the-Dirt-Fl
  y/chooseroute.html
• http//www.canalmuseum.com/photos/panamacanalphoto
  006.htm
• http//www.canalmuseum.com/
• http//www.ared.com/history.htm
• http//www.bartleby.com/51/i1.html
• http//www.bartleby.com/br/51.html
• http//www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tr26.
  html
• http//www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Make-the-Dirt-Fl
  y/dirtfly.html
• http//www.pancanal.com/eng/noticiero/download/his
  toric.html