How the Erie Canal Helped Create Modern America

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The Erie Canal, which often evokes songs of a mule dragging a barge through the boomtowns of yesteryear, is now thought of as a tourist attraction, kept afloat by the 21st service industry.

And while the newly-widened Panama Canal is the story of megaboats and globalization, back in 1825, the Erie Canal marked a new age in American religion, economics, and politics. 

A new book, "Heaven's Ditch: God, Gold and Murder on the Erie Canal," looks back at the Canal's influence in its early years. Author Jack Kelly says that the visionary energy along the Erie Canal helped create modern America.