Final answer:
Steamships primarily docked at major ports such as St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans. Steamboats revolutionized river transportation in America, offering faster and more reliable travel. Steamships also facilitated long-distance commerce, opening up global trade routes.
Step-by-step explanation:
The steamships used to dock in America primarily at major ports such as St. Louis, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; and New Orleans. These ports were important hubs for steamship traffic due to their convenient locations along rivers and their connections to the Mississippi River system.
During the early 1800s, steamboats were also widely used for transportation on rivers, including the Hudson River and New York Harbor. They revolutionized water transportation by offering faster, cheaper, and more reliable travel compared to sailing vessels. The invention of the steamship engine, credited to Robert Fulton, played a significant role in the expansion of steamship travel in America.
In addition to rivers, steamships also transformed long-distance commerce. By the 1830s, steamships were traveling across the Atlantic Ocean, making it economically viable to ship goods from the United States to European markets.