Changing Transportation
Systems in the 1900s &2000s
L E S S O N 2 6
Key Questions
1. What new types of
transportation systems started
during the 1900s?
2. How did new transportation
systems change thewaywe
live in the 1900s and 2000s?
3. What new types of industries
began in the 1900s?
KeyWords
technology
street cars
cable cars
trolley cars
subways
automobile
airplane
gasoline engine
competition
terminals
interstate
pipelines
Key People & Places
Philadelphia
Allentown
Charles Dureya
Reading
Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania Turnpike
Erie
Monongahela River
Chapter 9
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137
Railroads and the
20thCentury
W
ell, wemade it to the 1900s, or
what is called the 20th century,
in our history story. There is
stillmuch interestinghistory for the1900s.
Remember all thenew industries thatmade
Pennsylvania an industrial giant in the late
1800s. Our state did not stop growing in
the 1900s. Thereweremanynew industries
and inventions that changed the way we
lived, worked, and traveled.We still donot
have cars, planes, radios, and many other
inventions at this stage in our history. The
development of these new ideas for goods
and services is called
technology
. The
20th and 21st centuries have become the
age of technology
.
Transportation systems continued to be
improved in the 1900s. Because of this,
transportation systems became (and still
are) big business in our state. Let us look at
how transportation technology changed
our way of life.
Someone had the idea of placing a
network of rails over city streets. This
would be a good way tomove people and
goods. At first,
street cars
were pulled by
horses. Then, in the late 1800s, someone
thought that cables could be placed just
below the steel rails. The cable was
