basmajian talks about the northwest ordinance. it was enacted by congress in to organize and govern the newly acquired territory from the ohio river to the mississippi. it was also applied to the louisiana purchase. his class is 50 minutes. basmajian: today we have a title slide because we are on c-span. this is the title of the lecture. from, i'd like to catch up where we stopped previously and move forward a little and talk about, specifically, the idea of national planning.

he makes a specific argument about how the united states has been intensively planned. this is the theme we have been building. he makes a argument about the intensity of the planning, particularly at the national scale. that is something i will talk about today, specifically, to bring us along this argument. as a rehash of what we talked settlement cities and migration cities, referencing lewis mumford from last week, we are saying there is a group of settlement cities along the eastern seaboard a philadelphia, other cities like new york and boston. then, there are migration cities. we talked about pittsburgh and st. louis. were two groups of cities some of the earliest planned communities, european

communities in the u.s., and how important they were to the process of planning. also, how they reflected each other. grid and howut the it influenced cities, subsequently. today, we will talk about land allocation. we are going to talk about canals and roads. we are going to talk about the mississippi westfor. we will talk about how this process unfolded, not just in washington, but primarily the government in washington laid out a plan ahead of time to determine exactly what would happen in the subsequent century in terms of how states were

developed, how land was divided, how it was sold, all these things that we often take for granted. showed this map, i map, i don't know if we've talked about it a lot. this is an example of what early countries looks like. see the eastern seaboard states, georgia up to massachusetts. this map is from 1783. this is post-revolution but pre-constitution. this is the jefferson-hartley map. this is going to be important factor in this discussion. if you have noticed in fishman's article, he talks about jefferson and his role in all of this. this map was produced in 1783. it is after the revolution, we are in this moment of reorganizing, how will the government look?

it ends up being a relatively unstable institution. at this phase, speaking specifically about what the future would hold in terms of land allocation, we have this map which is an interesting look, in some ways, into jefferson's mind about what she's thinking. he draws this map and identifies , at this point, 14 states in this territory west of the appalachian mountains. run,magine the alleghenies we know where it goes. we have a settlement on the seaboard. people know what this looks like. they know the land. we have the west, which is unknown. the u.s. has gotten this territory from the war. they won the territory. they are laying claim all the way to the mississippi river. this is not correctly rendered at all.

what is out there, and we talked about this, it is unclear. various indian groups in this territory jockeying for control. americans are claiming it, but there is not a clear idea of who owns it. one of the tasks, the issues the government faces early on and the jefferson is particularly interested in is how to allocate this land, how are we going to actually divided up and turn it into something? states, specifically. jefferson, you've heard the ,tory, the jeffersonian idea the idea that small farmers make good democratic citizens, this is one of the myths about jefferson. reality, that a he believes this is a necessary component for american

democracy. -- if are creative map you are creating a map like this to figure out what future developments will look like, he is using this ideal as a way of protecting the future. he imagines this space as a set of states similar to each other in size that are going to be cultivated. he is not taking about cities, per say. he's thinking about the state and how it will look. this is not what the trans-appalachian west ends up looking like. we live in iowa. it does not look like this. there's no illinois on here. you can see the mitten just a tiny bit. of this is different, undefined. the map is useful, because it shows us, in some ways, how

people were processing, at least how jefferson was processing what the future would look like. we have a series of land ordinances passed by congress. it predates the constitution. we have a series of land ordinances passed that are meant plan, fora process, a doing exactly what jefferson wants, more or less, which is sitting out boundaries, political boundaries, community boundaries, for the future. for the territory going forward. sense that we have this land, the federal government has what turns out to be a large amount of land. the government is kind of broke. they have a lot of land, but not a lot of money.

land is an important resource, it is valuable at this point. the ordinances are designed to set up a process for settling this land with europeans, with americans now, europeans and show up and become americans quickly. selling this land with americans, making sure the u.s. maintains control of it, that it becomes part of the country. it does not remain some undefined territory, but becomes of the politics and political and social life of the country, part of the economic life. people are set up to identify how this will happen. territories are identified like the northwest territory, to the i showns, the sections, you a map of the sections, i

will tell you more about the way they work. does anybody know what the northwest territory was, what states it includes? don't be scared. guesses? where's northwestern university? chicago. northwestern university is named after the old northwest territory. michigan, wisconson, they are all part of this landmass. it is the place where this township model, which we will talk about, is first in fomented. we see it emerged as a pattern for development over the rest of the continent. ok? there's a certain flow to these ordinances.

they don't necessarily replace each other. each offers a building block for doing this process of planning and allocating land going forward. this is from an atlas 1803.783 forward to boundaries the state on the eastern seaboard are more or less set. the west, and this is the northwest territory appear, you can see the outlines of what will become the states. illinois, this territory is the part we are talking about. census --rdinance the put a census up and they said if

they will use this planning , for the firste time, they will make an example of what the rest of the country will look like. this is important. this is a sub map of ohio. this is the southeastern corner of ohio. if you've ever been down there, it's the part of ohio that is along the ohio river. was the part of ohio that really the first to get a new amend of -- new american settlement, a new american community. you can see the little grid over ohio. that is important piece we will talk about, and how this unfolds. you've heard me talk about this stuff, right, the power of the grid, the importance of the grid over time. i've talked about this in relation to philadelphia. it is important in relation to the national grid, too.

the grid is ancient. we talked about this a bit. it is an old concept, the americans borrow it, it is not an american invention, even though it might seem like it is. it is something we borrow. this is an ancient greek city. we see the grid is sort of implemented as a system of town planning. philadelphia is the model city. we have this established. this is where jefferson and these guys are coming from. they're using these models when they come up with their plan for divvying up the landscape. this is the theoretical township. this is an orderly way of dividing the land. what ends up happening is this is implemented.

the shape of this thing is important. notice, i don't know if you can miles, andis is six six-by-sixt of grids. tommy square miles is six by six? -- how many square miles is six by six? that's right, 36 square miles. territorys the new would be identified as 36 mile squares. a grid. six by six. out, andld be surveyed they would survey the land in a certain order along the lines of this grid. ofy would establish, ahead time, before people started living on it, or at least before american started living on it.

there might be people here, but that did not matter. ahead of time, they would create a kind of way of disturbing and selling land, turning it into property, moving from land to property that people would own. people will cultivate and build communities on it, all this stuff. there's an intellectual piece here. just about squares, it's about creating a system for distributing land. has anyone taken a surveying class? what the chain? that's what is a chain? 66. chain. is a 66, headded 480 times ,et 30 something thousand feet

which is a mile. air using a 17th-- they are using a 17th century device to make sure these are all the same size. this is how we get these. actually one of the squares. square, and these are sections. important, is really and how many of you, are you from rule farmland -- rural farmland? what a sectione sectio is? no? we need old farmers here. sections are little building blocks. each section was supposed to be

40 acres. the idea is you can take them and subdivide them into, basically, smaller squares and smaller squares. the notion is that different uses, different people, different groups of people investing in land, they would get different sized sections, so depending on what you would end up doing, you might get a full someon, a half section, small sub piece depending on where you are in the chain of buying land. dividea is they would easily, and you can see here, it could be very easily divided into tinier and tinier pieces. what is the advantage of being a will do this -- being able to do this? what is the advantage?

you guys are silent today. youthe camera making a nervous nervous? you can sell it. ohio.s sandusky a beautiful plan. just as an use it example. infinity ofthis this grid. you can go from this to this to this easily. you don't have to be a designer, a trained, you don't know how to -- don't have to know how to survey land. anyone can show you how to use a ropertyhe survey p

and survey oa town. this was no stroke of genius. someone came in and surveyed the lots. with these sections, you can easily move from a kind of grand , continental scale, down to a city lot. this is the basic piece of real estate in the market. it is critical. most of you will buy and sell real estate at some point your life. this piece becomes important for that. this is how that whole process happened. it is not random. way back in the 18th century, they were sort of envisioning how this might unfold. they wrote this up, past these ordinances, and low and behold, over time, this process

happened. it happened and happened and happened. this is another map of ohio. you can see, closely, how this grid starts to look when it is imposed over a relatively large amount of space. you don't have to pay attention to topography when you do this. you just have to think, this is a grid. i don't care if there's a mountain or river, you can put a grid down. are a few spots where we make special arrangements for topography, but for the most part, we ignored it. look at san francisco. this is a held by the ocean, so people put a grid on it and made streets the go up at 25 degrees angles. pittsburgh is a different.

you superimpose this on something as big as ohio, and it ends up on the whole country. this is a cartoon, basically, but it up on the whole country -- ends up on a whole country. so here's a gridiron pattern, which sounds a good football field. .- like a football field texas, i mean really, and a mexico andinto new the california coast, there are places where it does not exist, but not many. said,d of used this and ipe this thiwill clean.the great easy out there

in the world is the grid conceived at this moment. you've heard of the homestead act, the whole homes that thing. great or have grandparents that homesteaded. this uses the same concept laid out in the 1780's for allocating land. when americans started to homestead in places like iowa and nebraska and oklahoma and those places, they did it along the same survey lines that they were doing it a generation earlier. this is one piece of what i was talking about. the second piece, and this is the piece fishman talks specifically about, is gallatin. he is the secretary of the treasury under jefferson. jefferson starts, he is a delegate from virginia, he works drafting of the

constitution. he becomes president. a little later. he appoints gallatin as secretary of treasury. back then, the secretary probably did less stuff and they are responsible for now. with an comes up strategy, as part of his duties. fishman identifies this as a national planning strategy. the idea is that it is an infrastructure plan. gallatin, remember, this is happening in the early 1800s. this was written in 1808. the country is very new. the whole great thing is just being passed, implemented a little bit. we still don't have these western states. there is an undefined nature to

what becomes the u.s. west of the mountains. one of the concerns jefferson has, in terms of how are we going to turn this into states, townships, farms, is how we connect these? the appalachian mountains were formidable. you can walk it now. back then, not so much. it was not clear how you would move goods. this was a big concern. he writes this report to jefferson, and this very dry, remarkably dry. but, it is critical. it lays out, in its dryness, a strategy, much like the ordinance, which says we will make these key investments, and we are going to bring the country together. we will find a way to unite the east and west through a set of

federal expenditures. that was his original idea. they will build canals and roads. his article also has a map. this is another version of it. it shows what he's envisioning. aboutlly, he is talking both north-south and east west connections. he is imagining, how do we connect georgia to massachusetts , which is a problem. there's a thousand miles between them. connectinggoing to to the ohio valley and these other places weekly data grid for? there's the idea of roads, they will build roads that will allow people to move south on wagons. they will build canals going east and west, which will allow us to get across the mountains.

why canals? boats. that's the way you move stuff. is more efficient to put it on boats that on your back and walk. they are the transportation of the day. it is like jet planes now. envisioning the canals will really be the way to go. this is the way we bring the country together. he proposes this plan, and remember, i said that the u.s. -- and it goes almost nowhere initially. the government says we can't afford this. estimates of what everything will cost to build, so they look and say no way. this is too expensive. it flounders for a while.

the interestingly enough, state of new york, as a state, not as its own power, it takes this plan, a piece of it, up. the identify one of the projects that he had identified, a key canal, he had shown. the money, to raise publicly and privately, to build it. is? anyone know what this it's the erie canal. exactly. what does it connect? well, the great lakes and the hudson river valley. by the effort of new york, we get the canal. we get the ear he canal, which is built over a short time

rapidly. it connects, suddenly, via water, the east coast, northeast in new york specifically, and the interior lakes. this is important for a lot of reasons. this is a beautiful image. i don't know if you've noticed, but not only do you have a map, like a fairly detailed map of the route of the canal, you actually have a map of elevation change from new york up to buffalo. these points lineup with the elevation changes. it,canal had locks on because the terrain is not even. what is important is a couple of things that stand out. brings -- it bridges the allegheny gap. it allows people to travel by boat into the interior of the great lakes system.

this provides an outlet, not just to go into the interior, but to get stuff out of the importr to new york, to to go across the atlantic ocean or down the coast to serve the markets out there. right? the raw material that the u.s. is starting to produce. the only other way to get stuff out of the interior is by boat. where is south? new orleans. no one wants to go to new orleans bu. it is a mess, and no one wants to use new orleans as the major port. part of the reason was because of slavery. new orleans was a major slave market.

it was the largest city in the south. it was a place politically unpalatable to a lot of people in the federal government. not everybody, but a lot of people. people sign new orleans as problematic for those reasons, plus it was too fringe into spanish and to everything else. it had all sorts of issues. that was a key one. can allowed americans who were settling this land, building farms, cultivating timber, whatever, it allows them to send stuff back and avoid new orleans and having to go south. plus, it is shorter. and is shorterm to go this way, and it gives new york centrality. it makes new york the eastern port, the big one. not that new york was not going to become the global city it has become, but this helps kickstart the process.

status andnew york's importance in the national consciousness as a trading port, as a big city on the east coast. this map is from 1840 and is supposed to show railroads and canals. it is hard from the distance to see. lines, you dark can't see them, but they are representations of canals. there are few railroads by 1840. the railroads are still a new technology. it kick starts the boom in some ways. you get lots of canal. chicago.ect across maryland and other places.

this is the beginning of a canal building boom. the ice of up shipping dropped. it's valuable. when you pay a lot to ship he was rough it. point is by winning the south this is what we need to be doing. it does have that effect. the railroads come later. the same process in both. the century after the railroad very similar kind of national

infrastructure. predicated on the same idea. whole use of infrastructure and transportation technology as a way of creating unified planning process. the land toted to be sold. with the infrastructure does is figure out ways you can then you let that land in the products. as tomost think of them pieces the same profit. of course this leads to places detroit since is

the original one of the original plans for the city of detroit. the beautiful rendering. it's based on a set of these stars. it's very reminiscent of washington dc which at the time -- this is about 1820 or so. it also leads to detroit. his flowering and a little bit later. so the third piece. effortnational planning the late 18th early 19. the louisiana purchase. appears kind of our patrons thing planning.

all.ant laws and we only great deal. he thought about this stuff. purchase is a mass purchase of land is treated by jefferson. he buys it from napoleon who is negotiated away from the banished. a huge chunk of land in the west. the first big piece of western land that the nine of state is able to capture. 830,000 square miles is the rasmussen -- slightly less than that. but that's the extent purchase. per acre cost is a penny. the french were hurting they needed the money.

they were able to buy the land. " area of the u.s.. create this massive new chunk of land. maybe even more than double it. the online intensified the issue of mapping and exploration. is the louisiana purchase. -- not just the orange. the orange identified the state. this is a later map. this is the territory. this becomes alabama and to be. and then the rivers. in the huge chunk of yellow land.

to the west of the river. mapcan take a look at this and i don't think of was intentional but if you look at that. was theree problem were some basic outlines for helping the was not precise lines. thise getting getting latitude and longitude moment to moment. there's also spain and mexico. there's the british. you have to watch out for the british area remember in 1812 they come back and try to re-invade. doesn't work.

they get this land and there are also people in it. land.s. by the in 1808.mes he's looking at this going to love land of their we need to deal with. you think about not just the seas also thinking about this but your territory. part of the problem was the fuzziness. what is happening is jefferson and subsequent president jefferson kicks the profits off. patternically starts a of surveying and mapping this vast western land. it's unclear that it's entirely within his constitutional right to do this that he do that anyway.

least hegnores or at walks a fine line. the area, the territory -- the spaniards were not really in giving ground. there were huge numbers of. so jefferson starts to do this profiting from it duration because he needs to know what's out there. he has to know it's going on. this extended process of surveying and landing that goes on for several dozen years. several decades. it's showing the dust the row

there the first expiration party to go out to the countryside laurent map it got it documented. think they can bring back. piece of thisne massive undertaking that goes on from the beginning of the louisiana purchase to the 18th of 70's. it goes on for years and years and years. part of this exercise and one of the americans are now actively seeking to take as much land as they can. it's an effort to control the interior. what they are where they are and how they might. they don't want this plan just having land area they wanted somebody.

an effort to define the boundaries. this is still very much under nine. parties like losing our go out more precisely than we've been able to do for. their quiet region elevation. establishing this kind of multipronged roach to the whole process of planning out the continent. grid the third released in the process all the way ultimately to the pacific ocean.

this is rather heading. unless that there are many of them. it are showing areas that the u.s. now claimed. all throughout the western part of the u.s.. those lines represent the pathways. they went in all sorts of direction in many ways thereafter the same set of issues. territorys unsettled mapping and documenting. almost beinglly some combination of geologist archaeologist and cultural anthropologist. there was a mix of these tactics. what they were after.

the records that the government and impressive. these were not fly-by-night operation. their well-organized. experts in varying suspects. one really interesting piece of this. they also took pictures with. you think about it we did not have photography them. jefferson has negotiated or just about this land wash and on the coast. does not go out there. you can't just get on your car and go.

these places in all of the -- the way the landscape look. creating a really incredible are election of painting painters that will go a long. paint sceneryn and send the painting back to washington so people could actually see the land. so you get these dramatic images. almost as much of the collecting of samples and soil give us the indelible end of what the west looks like.

as by an artist named no caps on. you gets this is also jacob miller. you get three kinds of images which are revealing not land a and also the other thing in this picture? people. there are lots of people. revealing the people who they this is a going fourth. this set of interactions look like -- this was artist assess the documenting this landscape was laying out you know if they are you know who's there and you can start plan and control in a little bit.

something to the limit looks like it's another to their. the service of process. you and up with this incredible documentation landscape. it was not all about the word. some of these guys were there because they wanted to feingold. most of them did not that they were looking. something that's going to make them wealthy. any number of their new wills show up.

folks wereof these part of the distinct western policy and its way of planning structure for intergovernmental all. inl we end up with year this. his 1845. it's an expansion of the u.s. from the louisiana urges. further west eventually claiming the oregon territory. since even the far upper left-hand of the map. you begin to see the outlines of modern date. we still don't have violated this point. but we have a clear path to the west. aside from the southwest remix who is in texas. but the southwestern china still

is not the u.s. yet. it leads us to the weight of having the beginning two thirds of the continental structure. on these pieces come together and layout what it felt like when done. chicago cons in all of this big western metropolis. it is the big western metropolis at the time. all of these prophecies the louisiana purchase land ordinance is the infrastructure all of these in some ways more ingredients that we need to -- it leads to chicago's emergence.

second city in the night date. in the city that most of the americans thought were the biggest thing in the world. it is planning. plans plays. not them but big scale. i should ask this in western? we will do an in class activity on friday area is the either. remember our room has changed we're no longer in the little was it we are now and how all. the last week look at my e-mail.

>> join us each saturday evening in a pm and midnight eastern for classroom lectures from the country. lectures and history are also available on comcast. or downloadb site them from itunes. up next on american history tv a group of authors and historians discussed the latest in the 19 65 part-seller i. celler act. the law resulted in a shift in the makeup of people emigrating to america. this took place at the university of health and is

watching and center area a little over an hour. >> thanks for coming out. i'm really focused what was happening in the guy area varies very. i would like to introduce a really tremendous channel. one of them even as the were distinguished in his title. he nevertheless at my. on the far left matt garcia. is the director of historical and philosophical eddies that there is in the way. he also does the order studies program. he was the recipient of the national endowment 2008. ms. erica lee.