About This Book
The study traces the evolution of river craft from small canoes and pirogues to barges, keels, flatboats, and the later introduction of the steamboat, emphasizing shifts in construction, propulsion, and voyage duration. It profiles boatmen as a rough but indispensable workforce who navigated hazards, defended cargoes, and shaped river life. It describes principal articles of traffic and the river links that connected inland settlements with southern ports, showing how freight rates affected commerce. It examines emigration by families using river transport and how river towns expanded into commercial centers. It contrasts pre-steam limitations with steam navigation’s effects on speed, frequency, and market integration.
About the Author
You May Also Like
6 picks
"'Tis Sixty Years Since" / Address of Charles Francis Adams; Founders' Day, January 16, 1913
by Charles Francis Adams
"1683-1920" / The Fourteen Points and What Became of Them—Foreign Propaganda in the Public Schools—Rewriting the History of the United States—The Espionage Act and How It Worked—"Illegal and Indefensible Blockade" of the Central Powers—1,000,000 Victims of Starvation—Our Debt to France and to Germany—The War Vote in Congress—Truth About the Belgian Atrocities—Our Treaty with Germany and How Observed—The Alien Property Custodianship—Secret Will of Cecil Rhodes—Racial Strains in American Life—Germantown Settlement of 1683 and a Thousand Other Topics
by Frederick Franklin Schrader
"America for Americans!" / The Typical American, Thanksgiving Sermon
by John Philip Newman
"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message / With his own words which have won thousands for Christ
by William T. Ellis
"Boots and Saddles"; Or, Life in Dakota with General Custer
by Elizabeth Bacon Custer
"Broke," The Man Without the Dime
by Edwin A. Brown