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Economy, Community, and Law: The Turnpike Movement in New York, 1797–1845

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Daniel B. Klein  and
John Majewski
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Abstract

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Turnpikes promised a solution to the problem of bad roads, but private management of highways was a startling innovation. Some people opposed the idea of turnpikes as exemplifying two bêtes noires of the post-Revolutionary period, the “private corporation” and “aristocracy.” Much of the controversy, however, was rooted in local disputes over legislative concessions to turnpike protesters. The legislature both expressed and responded to turnpike protest by writing laws favorable to local users and injurious to the financial viability of the companies. Partly in consequence, the turnpikes were unprofitable. Landowners, merchants, and farmers struggled to finance turnpikes, not so much in hopes of company dividends but in hopes of improved transportation, stimulated commerce, and higher land values. Many turnpike projects failed to be constructed, and those that were constructed carried on in a condition that reflected their precarious financial state.

Type
The Emergence of the Business Corporation
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , 1992 , pp. 469 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

Cartography: Christopher Baer, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.

The authors wish to note that the research contributions of Christopher Baer in producing this article went quite beyond the cartography. For valuable discussion we wish to thank seminar participants at Northwestern University and New York University. We thank Leon J. Bienstock for contacting numerous repositories. We thank librarians and archivists for assistance at the New York State Library, the New York Historical Society, the New York Public Library, the New York State Historical Association, and numerous county and local historical societies. For generous financial assistance we thank the Transportation Center of the University of California, the Arthur H. Cole committee of the Economic History Association, the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, the Earhart Foundation, and the Hagley Museum and Library.

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