When France hoped to follow its the success of the Suez Canal there was only one man to turn to, Ferdinand de Lesseps.
Completing Suez, had made de Lesseps, the man who was to hand-over the Statue of Liberty to the United States, one of the most famous people in France. Who else but de Lesseps could complete the mammoth task of digging out the waterway that would link the Atlantic to the Pacific?
Construction began on 1 January, 1880, but it soon became clear that the French experience of Suez was as much a hindrance as it was a help.
Like Suez, de Lesseps believed that they could excavate a channel without locks – a sea-level waterway – which could provide easy navigation for ships. For a start, at 77km in length it was far shorter than Suez’s 162km.
Work could be supported by the Panama Railroad which bisected the isthmus (the land bridge between North and South America) and was already a vibrant trading route.
However, it soon became clear that the French under de Lesseps had underestimated the task ahead of them. They were ill-prepared and missing much of the equipment needed to make such an enormous excavation in a hot, wet tropical climate.
Heavy rain and landslides wreaked havoc, frequently leaving as much earth in the channel as was being removed.
Most tragically, the workforce was decimated by malaria, a disease which paid no respect to position or privilege and would be better understood in the following decade. By the time work on the canal was abandoned in 1893, over 21,000 workers had been struck down by the disease.
Armed with the benefit of hindsight, better machinery and experience of handling malaria in the recently annexed island of Cuba, the United States entered Panama determined to open the route in 1904.
Under the stewardship of chief engineer John Frank Stevens, the Americans overhauled the plans for Panama, installing a lock system into the canal. They also arrived with a new generation of machinery and equipment much better suited to the task then the equipment that had been left by the French.
Their machinery, such as the giant hydraulic crushers supplied by the Joshua Hendy Iron Works, were designed for a larger scale of work and ensured a quicker pace to construction.
Furthermore, the US, by the turn of the century a world leader in rail building, would involve complement the work with a new railroad that could haul the millions of tons of men, equipment and supplies required.
The canal cuts themselves were created by using explosives and then a succession of steam shovels, mounted on one set of railroad tracks, loaded material onto rail cars which would haul out the earth by locomotive spoils cars.
Matching its progress in rail building, the US had become a world leader in machine building technology by the time it was preparing for Panama.
And most of the steam shovels, enormous steam powered cranes, rock crushers, cement mixers, dredges, and pneumatic power drills used to drill holes for explosives (14,000 tonnes were used) were products of its industrial powerhouses.
A final crucial innovation at Panama was the application of the young science-cum-industry electrical generation which had been pioneered by US visionaries such as Thomas Edison. Indeed, the Panama Canal was one of the first to feature wide-scale uses of large electrical motors and generators.
The Panama Canal was an enormous engineering landmark. It also proved to be a statement of intent by the US, fixing its trade routes, revolutionising its naval potency and pivotal in its casting as the dominant country of the 20th Century.
The embodiment of this newly emboldened nation, President Theodore Roosevelt, fittingly requested that the French machinery (he had sanctioned the purchase of the equipment and excavations for $40 million) was minted into medals for all workers who spent at least two years on the construction of the canal. The shift from old Europe to the new world was underway.
Cutting out a new path
Panama Canal: Cutting out a new path
 When France hoped to follow its the success of the Suez Canal there was only one man to turn to, Ferdinand de Lesseps.
Completing Suez, had made de Lesseps, the man who was to hand-over the Statue of Liberty to the United States, one of the most famous people in France. Who else but de Lesseps could complete the mammoth task of digging out the waterway that would link the Atlantic to the Pacific?
Construction began on 1 January, 1880, but it soon became clear that the French experience of Suez was as much a hindrance as it was a help.
Like Suez, de Lesseps believed that they could excavate a channel without locks – a sea-level waterway – which could provide easy navigation for ships. For a start, at 77km in length it was far shorter than Suez’s 162km.
Work could be supported by the Panama Railroad which bisected the isthmus (the land bridge between North and South America) and was already a vibrant trading route.
However, it soon became clear that the French under de Lesseps had underestimated the task ahead of them. They were ill-prepared and missing much of the equipment needed to make such an enormous excavation in a hot, wet tropical climate.
Heavy rain and landslides wreaked havoc, frequently leaving as much earth in the channel as was being removed.
Most tragically, the workforce was decimated by malaria, a disease which paid no respect to position or privilege and would be better understood in the following decade. By the time work on the canal was abandoned in 1893, over 21,000 workers had been struck down by the disease.
Armed with the benefit of hindsight, better machinery and experience of handling malaria in the recently annexed island of Cuba, the United States entered Panama determined to open the route in 1904.
Under the stewardship of chief engineer John Frank Stevens, the Americans overhauled the plans for Panama, installing a lock system into the canal. They also arrived with a new generation of machinery and equipment much better suited to the task then the equipment that had been left by the French.
Their machinery, such as the giant hydraulic crushers supplied by the Joshua Hendy Iron Works, were designed for a larger scale of work and ensured a quicker pace to construction.
Furthermore, the US, by the turn of the century a world leader in rail building, would involve complement the work with a new railroad that could haul the millions of tons of men, equipment and supplies required.
The canal cuts themselves were created by using explosives and then a succession of steam shovels, mounted on one set of railroad tracks, loaded material onto rail cars which would haul out the earth by locomotive spoils cars.
Matching its progress in rail building, the US had become a world leader in machine building technology by the time it was preparing for Panama.
And most of the steam shovels, enormous steam powered cranes, rock crushers, cement mixers, dredges, and pneumatic power drills used to drill holes for explosives (14,000 tonnes were used) were products of its industrial powerhouses.
A final crucial innovation at Panama was the application of the young science-cum-industry electrical generation which had been pioneered by US visionaries such as Thomas Edison. Indeed, the Panama Canal was one of the first to feature wide-scale uses of large electrical motors and generators.
The Panama Canal was an enormous engineering landmark. It also proved to be a statement of intent by the US, fixing its trade routes, revolutionising its naval potency and pivotal in its casting as the dominant country of the 20th Century.
The embodiment of this newly emboldened nation, President Theodore Roosevelt, fittingly requested that the French machinery (he had sanctioned the purchase of the equipment and excavations for $40 million) was minted into medals for all workers who spent at least two years on the construction of the canal. The shift from old Europe to the new world was underway.