The History of Transportation Joann Sanchez American History 204 Jill Walsh February 17, 2009 The History of Transportation I have chosen how transportation has evolved over the years. In the early 1800’s America’s most popular transportation were horse wagons, steamboats, trains then to the discovery of cars, subway transportation and airplanes. I will discuss how the discovery has improved productivity in America and all over the world and how it has made it easier for people to travel all over the world or just short distances to work, school and daily errands. Unit I, 1865 - 1876. In the 1865 the Reconstruction period began and in the south the reconstruction of the railroad began. Between 1854 and 1879, 7,000 miles of railroad track was laid, but in the same period 45,000 miles were constructed in the rest of the nation (Davidson,2008). This was an improvement from the old transportation methods of the steam boat or horse carriages to haul the import and export of goods from one distance to another. Using the railroad was a much faster way of transportation especially for the import and export of goods, like foods and construction needs. Unit II, 1877-1920 In 1908, Henry Ford made the first automobile called the T series. This created a new era in transportation. It was easy to operate, maintain, and handle on rough roads, immediately becoming a huge success (Davidson, 2008). You can say Henry Ford started another “Big Business”he created a large factory in Michigan in 1910 where he employed many. In 1913, Ford created a continuous moving assembly line, which improved the production, thus lowering cost for people to be able to afford to buy an automobile. In 1915, Ford’s plants in Dearborn established the “Five '' Dollar Day,” twice the rate in Detroit. He reduced the works from 48 hours to a 40 hour work week (Davidson,2008). Also in 1903, the Wright Brother discovered the invention of the glider. This took off the inventions of the airplanes....