Text 1: Historian Park argues that the Erie Canal, completed in 1825, was the single most important infrastructure project in early American history. By linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, the canal slashed shipping costs, made New York the country's leading port, and opened the Midwest to settlement.
Text 2: Historian Singh accepts the canal's enormous economic impact but argues that the railroad networks of the following decades quickly eclipsed it. Within a generation, rail had reached further inland, operated year-round (the canal froze in winter), and absorbed most freight that the canal had pioneered. Park's "single most important" overstates the canal's lasting structural role.
Both authors would most likely agree that
- A
the canal had no economic effect.
- Bcheck_circle
the Erie Canal had a major early impact on American transportation.
- C
railroads were never built in the United States.
- D
the canal opened in the eighteenth century.
Explanation
Both accept the canal's major early impact; they differ on its lasting "single most important" status. A is shared. B, C, and D contradict both.