The Steamboat

Robert Fulton, who was an American inventor, ordered a steam engine from James Watt and Matthew Boulton who were building them at the time. With this, Fulton built a steamboat. He named it the Clermont and it carried passengers up and down the Hudson River. Water transportation began improving with the creation of a network of canals in England. By the mid 1800s, 4,250 miles of inland channels drastically cut the cost of transporting raw materials.