Drawing on more than eighty firsthand accounts-ranging from a short letter to a four-volume memoir-he provides a rounded view of the boatmen that reveals the lonely, dangerous nature of their profession. Allen contends that these mythical depictions of the boatmen were a reflection of the yearnings of an industrializing people for what they thought to be a simpler time.Īllen demonstrates, however, that the actual lives of the rivermen little resembled their portrayals in popular culture. Their notions were reinforced by romanticized portrayals of the boatmen in songs, paintings, newspaper humor, and literature. Americans of the Jacksonian and pre-Civil War period perceived the rivermen as hard-drinking, straight-shooting adventurers on the frontier. Michael Allen explores the rigorous lives of professional boatmen who plied non-steam vessels-flatboats, keelboats, and rafts-on the Ohio and lower Mississippi rivers from 1763-1861.Īllen first considers the mythical “half horse, half alligator” boatmen who were an integral part of the folklore of the time. Western Rivermen, the first documented sociocultural history of its subject, is a fascinating book.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |