- When RPI was created, there was no civil engineering program in the United States.

It just happened to be here because of two people that had, you know, one with a vision and one with means to do it.

The luck is that Troy was here on the eastern end of the Erie Canal.

(soft music) - So one of the amazing things about the Erie Canal and the Champlain Canal is that the engineers did not have professional training.

These were mostly surveyors.

They had minimal experience in building a canal.

Benjamin Wright, who's considered the father of American civil engineering had a little experience.

They're looking to examples from Europe.

They're, you know, reading on it and they're using trial and error.

There was no civil engineering school in America at the time.

- There was West Point, there was Norwich Academy, but those were both military institutions.

RPI had a program that was a true civil engineering program.

The first degrees that were offered in 1835 were in civil engineering, and those were the first civil engineering degrees that were awarded in the United States from any school.

Stephen Van Rensselaer III was one of the lineage of the Van Rensselaer Patroons.

- The War of 1812 happens.

Stephen Van Rensselaer comes back and he becomes one of the canal commissioners.

They start to say, hey, you know, we couldn't get supplies cheaply and efficiently or troops out to Buffalo or out to the frontier.

That is an extra push toward the canal.

- Amos Eaton has an interesting heritage.

He started out as a lawyer.

He ended up in jail for a number of years for forgery, maintained his innocence, but while he was in jail, he self-studied and took an interest in science.

His approach is much more of a pragmatic hands-on view of science as opposed to a lecture style where people are told what to learn.

- Beyond the Appalachian Mountain chain, there's untapped natural resources, and in order to tap into that, the Erie Canal is seen as an answer.

And starting in 1817 through 1825, they kept adding sections and sections.

The laborers were using shovels, pick axes, scrapers.

The forerunner of the modern wheelbarrow was invented.

The laborers were locals.

Eventually Irish immigrants would fill out some of the labor force, especially in the more difficult areas like the Montezuma Swamp and at Lockport.

- [Brad] Stephen Van Rensselaer was very active in politics, but also very interested in science.

(soft music continues) There was a void, there was a need in Amos Eaton's mind for a school to be able to teach his approach to science.

He wrote to Stephen Van Rensselaer, who, again as a benefactor, was somebody who had the money who could fund an institute that Amos Eaton had envisioned.

The Rensselaer School started in Amos Eaton's house, which was located practically near Lock 1.

He was taking the students to the Erie Canal to see it and observe it and witness the results of science and engineering.

There was a stream that when he would take the students out there, he called it Laboratory Creek or Laboratory Brook.

- The canal was successful right from the start and you had long lines at the locks, and so there were already calls to enlarge it and to have two locks at each spot so you can have eastbound and westbound traffic.

The enlarged canal is mostly dug on the backs of Irish immigrants.

(soft music continues) By the time the Barge Canal is built, starting in 1903, a large portion of the labor on the Barge Canal was done by Italian immigrants.

They were still using shovels, they were still using buckets, and they were still using wheelbarrows, but they now had to pour concrete.

The contractors would hire experienced people to use the steam shovels and the trains.

The main engineers who worked on the Barge Canal were well educated.

They had, for the most part, engineering degrees.

- [Brad] So as we come, you know, forward 200 years, all of the other branches of engineering really are outcrops of what started as civil engineering and what was developed 200 years ago at the Rensselaer School is still carried through in all of those types of engineering today.

And that, I think is the legacy that Amos Eaton and his vision have is that it's carried through, not just at RPI, but at other schools.

Engineering really has built our nation.

The Erie Canal was the start of that.

It still needs to be maintained and that in itself is an engineering achievement.

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