Steamboats and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom

Race and Class in Modern Society

Robert H. Gudmestad

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780807138410
• eBook ISBN: 9780807138427
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Business History
• Index: History

The arrival of the first steamboat, The New Orleans, in early 1812 touched off an economic revolution in the South. In states west of the Appalachian Mountains, the operation of steamboats quickly grew into a booming business that would lead to new cultural practices and a stronger sectional identity.
In Steamboats and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom, Robert Gudmestad examines the wide-ranging influence of steamboats on the southern economy. From carrying cash crops to market to contributing to slave productivity, increasing the flexibility of labor, and connecting southerners to overlapping orbits of regional, national, and international markets, steamboats not only benefited slaveholders and northern industries but also affected cotton production.
This technology literally put people into motion, and travelers developed an array of unique cultural practices, from gambling to boat races. Gudmestad also asserts that the intersection of these riverboats and the environment reveals much about sectional identity in antebellum America. As federal funds backed railroad construction instead of efforts to clear waterways for steamboats, southerners looked to coordinate their own economic development, free of national interests.
Steamboats and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom offers new insights into the remarkable and significant history of transportation and commerce in the prewar South.

INDEX

A. L. Shotwell (steamboat), 100, 102, 104–5, 116

A. T. Lacy (steamboat), 110

accidents, 111–13, 120–21

Aetna (steamboat), 15, 67

African Americans: deaths of, in Vicksburg fire, 147

mobility of, 157

as passengers on steamboats, 76–77

as postwar steamboat workers, 176. See also free blacks; slaves

Alabama: and cotton production, 153

desire for river improvements in, 124

steamboat legislation in, 114

Alabama (steamboat), 24

Alabama Emigrating Company, 78, 84, 91

Alabama River, 140–41, 162

Alpha (steamboat), 155

Alton (steamboat), 55

Anglo Saxon (steamboat), 40

Apalachicola River, 14

appropriations: congressional, for river improvements, 123, 171

Archimedes (snag boat), 129, 134, 136

Arkansas: desire for river improvements in, 124

and internal improvements, 122

Arkansas Post, Ark., 83, 84

Arkansas River: deforestation along, 136

Indian Removal and, 81, 83, 89

pollution in, 138

snag removal, 118, 129

steamboats on, 14, 27

Atchafalaya River, 131, 133

Atlanta, Ga., 171

Attakapas River, 155

Audubon, John James, 65, 133, 161

Autocrat (steamboat), 35, 63

Babcock, Samuel, 127

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 170

Banvard, John, 120

barbers, 40

barges, 175

Barrow, Bennett, 107, 144

bartenders, 40, 71

Baton Rouge, La., 26, 121

Bayou Sara, La., 110, 151, 165

Belle of Clarksville (steamboat), 108

Belle Key (steamboat), 101

Ben Sherrod (steamboat), 105

Big Black River, 164

Bixby, Horace, 34, 174

Black Hawk (steamboat), 78, 88, 93

boatbuilding industry, southern, 23–24, 27–28

boiler deck, 14

boilers: development of, 12

and explosion, 97, 112, 114–15

Bowling Green, Ky., 157, 167

Brandywine (steamboat), 86

Bravo (steamb...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Maps and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The New Orleans
• One: Southern Steamboat Entrepreneurs
• Two: Working on Old Man River
• Three: Floating Palaces and High-Pressure Prisons
• Four: Indian Removal
• Five: Speed and Safety
• Six: The Nature of Improvements
• Seven: The Rise of the Cotton Kingdom
• Eight: Steamboats in Decline
• Epilogue: Mark Twain’s Odyssey
• Appendix A: Estimates of Steamboat Construction, Tonnage, and Longevity on Southern Rivers, 1811–1860
• Appendix B: Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Cherokees Removed by Steamboat, 1830–1843
• Appendix C: Estimates of Accident Rate, 1811–1851, and Fatality Rate from Boiler Explosions, 1816–1848, for Western Steamboats
• Appendix D: Estimates of Wood Consumption by Southern Steamboats, 1811–1860
• Appendix E: Estimated Costs Associated with Southern Steamboats, 1811–1860 . . . 186
• Appendix F: Estimated Ton-Miles, Passenger Miles, and Tonnage Hauled for Southern Steamboats and Southern Railroads in Selected Years
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index