Conflicted: A History Podcast
Untangling history’s greatest controversies. Every month, we take a hard look at the historical conflicts that raise difficult questions, stoke controversy, and send our moral compasses spinning.
The Panama Canal – Part 3: Make The Dirt Fly!
In the third and final installment of the series, President Theodore Roosevelt mobilizes the full industrial might of United States to “make the dirt fly” in Panama and succeed where the French Syndicate failed. But many perils await them in “The Zone”. From disease-bearing mosquitos and intractable terrain, to labor problems and lethal accidents, the Panamanian jungle will not be tamed without a fight.
SOURCES:
Burton, Anthony. The Canal Pioneers: Canal Construction from 2500 BC to the Early 20th Century. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Maritime, 2018.
Charles River Editors. The Panama Canal: The Construction and History of the Waterway Between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2013.
Diaz Espino, Ovidio. How Wall Street Created a Nation: J.P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003.
Greene, Julie. The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal. New York: Penguin Press, 2009.
Karabell, Zachary. Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
Keller, Ulrich. The Building of the Panama Canal in Historic Photographs. New York: Dover Publications, 1983.
Lasso, Marixa. Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019.
Lindsay, John. Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama. 2003.
Lopez, Sean J. Chokepoint: The Epic History of the Suez Canal. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2024.
Marlowe, Elias. A History of Panama: Canal, Conquest, and Independence. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012.
McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977.
Morton, Levi P. “No. 105. Mr. Morton to Mr. Frelinghuysen.” Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1884, U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, 5 July 1884,https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1884/d105
Parker, Matthew. Panama Fever: The Epic Story of the Building of the Panama Canal. New York: Doubleday, 2007.
Cohen, Lucy M. “The Chinese of the Panama Railroad: Preliminary Notes on the Migrants of 1854 Who ‘Failed.’” Ethnohistory 18, no. 4 (1971): 309–20. https://doi.org/10.2307/481071.
“The Tragedy of the Chinese.” Panama Railroad Historical Society, www.panamarailroad.org/chinesetragedy.html
“Many Canal Workers Killed,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed May 16, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1085.
https://newsroompanama.com/2026/03/22/clear-rules-and-fair-compensation-indio-river/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://frontera.library.ucla.edu/recordings/coge-el-pandero-que-se-te-va-0
“Wilson Blows Up Last Bar Between Oceans; Canal Becomes Reality.” The Audubon County Journal (Audubon, Iowa), October 17, 1913. Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection.
“Canal Is Opened by Wilson’s Finger.” The New York Times, October 11, 1913.
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