Pioneers on the Early Waterways Dyslexia Series

About this curriculum

The stories in this comprehensive series delve deeply into the various methods of early American water travel, from the first simple flatboats and keelboats to the steamboats that soon dominated the transportation industry. A Special Series of Books for Children Who Struggle to Read The rivers and lakes were the first highways of America. When the country was young, and roads had not yet been cut across the great swaths of wilderness, people could travel over the waterways faster and more efficiently than just about any other way. The first boats to carry people and goods were simple flatboats, but those could only go downstream, for they were too cumbersome to be moved against a current before the advent of the engine. Those were soon joined by keelboats, which were sleeker and could be poled or pulled upriver, although the effort to do so was often substantial. The invention of the steam engine changed utterly the way in which passengers and freight were moved from place to place in this country. Creative and adventurous men began building boats that could be po…