August 20, 2014

Happy Birthday

This month marks the 100th anniversary of when the Panama Canal made its debut, with the U.S. steamship S.S. Ancón becoming the first vessel to officially travel through that waterway as part of the opening ceremonies on August 15, 1914.

The manmade 48-mile canal, cutting across the Isthmus of Panama and linking the Atlantic Ocean via the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean, came into existence only after years of intensive construction work and unparalleled engineering efforts. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) designated the Panama Canal as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World in both 1955 and 1994 and a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1984. In addition, ASCE ranked the canal along with other large-scale civil engineering achievements such as the Interstate Highway System as among the Monuments of the Millennium in 1999.

Over the past century, annual maritime traffic for the Panama Canal has increased from 1,000 during its first year of operation to more than 12,000 today. The canal was administered by the U.S. until 2000 when management of the passageway was handed over to the Republic of Panama in accordance with an agreement ratified by both nations in 1977.

The Panama Canal, which saves vessels sailing between New York City and San Francisco a total of 7,872 miles in travel, remains a major conduit of international commerce and trade. “Anything and everything goes through there,” according to Chris Schrage, a professor at the University of Northern Iowa’s College of Business, in a recent article in the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier. “It’s a much shorter and safer route than going all the way around the Southern Hemisphere.”

The canal is currently undergoing major expansion and upgrades, including a new set of locks, set to be completed next year. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Transportation released a report on those construction efforts. That report and further information on it can be accessed at http://www.dot.gov/fastlane/panama-canal-expansion-future-maritime-commerce

To help commemorate that waterway’s centennial, the Panama Canal Museum and the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries have partnered to make available in electronic format a variety of documents, maps, and other records. Those resources from that joint project, “Panama and the Canal,” can be found at http://ufdc.ufl.edu/pcm

In addition, the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri, is sponsoring a centennial exhibit “The Land Divided, the World United: Building the Panama Canal” through December 31. Information on that exhibit and related library initiatives is available at https://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/index.shtml

Additional resources on the Panama Canal and its first century of existence are available on the U.S. Government Printing Office bookstore website at http://govbooktalk.gpo.gov/2014/08/12/commemorate-the-centennial-of-the-panama-canal/