Download or read book Western Rivermen 1763 1861 written by Michael R. Allen and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1994-04-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western Rivermen, the first documented sociocultural history of its subject, is a fascinating book. 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. Allen first considers the mythical “half horse, half alligator” boatmen who were an integral part of the folklore of the time. Americans of the Jacksonian and pre-Civil War period perceived the rivermen as hard-drinking, straight-shooting adventurers on the frontier. Their notions were reinforced by romanticized portrayals of the boatmen in songs, paintings, newspaper humor, and literature. 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. Allen demonstrates, however, that the actual lives of the rivermen little resembled their portrayals in popular culture. 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. He also discusses the social and economic aspects of their lives, such as their cargoes, the river towns they visited, and the impact on their lives of the steamboat and advancing civilization. Allen’s comprehensive, highly informative study sheds new light on a group of men who played an important role in the development of the trans-Appalachian West and the ways in which their lives were transformed into one of the enduring themes of American folk culture.
Download or read book Western Rivermen 1763 1861 written by Michael Allen and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After first considering the romanticized, mythical boatmen who were part of the folklore of the time, Allen (history, U. of Washington at Tacoma) draws on firsthand accounts to reveal the lonely, dangerous nature of the profession as well as the social and economic aspects of the rivermen's lives, such as their cargoes, the river towns they visited, and the impact on their lives of the steamboat and advancing civilization. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Finding a New Midwestern History written by Jon K. Lauck and published by University of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In comparison to such regions as the South, the far West, and New England, the Midwest and its culture have been neglected both by scholars and by the popular press. Historians as well as literary and art critics tend not to examine the Midwest in depth in their academic work. And in the popular imagination, the Midwest has never really ascended to the level of the proud, literary South; the cultured, democratic Northeast; or the hip, innovative West Coast. Finding a New Midwestern History revives and identifies anew the Midwest as a field of study by promoting a diversity of viewpoints and lending legitimacy to a more in-depth, rigorous scholarly assessment of a large region of the United States that has largely been overlooked by scholars. The essays discuss facets of midwestern life worth examining more deeply, including history, religion, geography, art, race, culture, and politics, and are written by well-known scholars in the field such as Michael Allen, Jon Butler, and Nicole Etcheson.
Download or read book River of Dreams written by Thomas Ruys Smith and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2007-06 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even in the decades before Mark Twain enthralled the world with his evocative representations of the Mississippi, the river played an essential role in American culture and consciousness. Throughout the antebellum era, the Mississippi acted as a powerful symbol of America's conception of itself -- and the world's conception of America. As Twain understood, "The Mississippi is well worth reading about." Thomas Ruys Smith's River of Dreams is an examination of the Mississippi's role in the antebellum imagination, exploring its cultural position in literature, art, thought, and national life. Presidents, politicians, authors, poets, painters, and international celebrities of every variety experienced the Mississippi in its Golden Age. They left an extraordinary collection of representations of the river in their wake, images that evolved as America itself changed. From Thomas Jefferson's vision for the Mississippi to Andrew Jackson and the rowdy river culture of the early nineteenth century, Smith charts the Mississippi's shifting importance in the making of the nation. He examines the accounts of European travelers, including Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens, and William Makepeace Thackeray, whose views of the river were heavily influenced by the world of the steamboat and plantation slavery. Smith discusses the growing importance of visual representations of the Mississippi as the antebellum period progressed, exploring the ways in which views of the river, particularly giant moving panoramas that toured the world, echoed notions of manifest destiny and the westward movement. He evokes the river in the late antebellum years as a place of crime and mystery, especially in popular writing, and most notably in Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man. An epilogue discusses the Mississippi during the Civil War, when possession of the river became vital, symbolically as well as militarily. The epilogue also provides an introduction to Mark Twain, a product of the antebellum river world who was to resurrect its imaginative potential for a post-war nation and produce an iconic Mississippi that still flows through a wide and fertile floodplain in American literature. From empire building in the Louisiana Purchase to the trauma of the Civil War, the Mississippi's dominant symbolic meanings tracked the essential forces operating within the nation. As Smith shows in this groundbreaking work, the story of the imagined Mississippi River is the story of antebellum America itself.
Download or read book A Companion to the American West written by William Deverell and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to the American West is a rigorous, illuminating introduction to the history of the American West. Twenty-five essays by expert scholars synthesize the best and most provocative work in the field and provide a comprehensive overview of themes and historiography. Covers the culture, politics, and environment of the American West through periods of migration, settlement, and modernization Discusses Native Americans and their conflicts and integration with American settlers
Download or read book The American West written by Robert V. Hine and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two historians, Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher, present the American West as both frontier and region, real and imagined, old and new, and they show how men and women of all ethnic groups were affected when different cultures met and clashed. Their concise and engaging survey of frontier history traces the story from the first Columbian contacts between Indians and Europeans to the multicultural encounters of the modern Southwest. Profusely illustrated with contemporary drawings, posters, and photographs and written in lively and accessible prose, the book not only presents a panoramic view of historical events and characters but also provides fascinating details about such topics as western landscapes, environmental movements, literature, visual arts, and film.
Download or read book Overland Explorations of the Trans Mississippi West written by Hunt Janin and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-04-09 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1528, the Spanish explorer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions were shipwrecked and, looking for help, began an eight-year trek through the deserts of the American West. Over three centuries later, the four "Great Surveys" in the United States were consolidated into the U.S. Geological Survey. The frontiers were the lands near or beyond the recognized international, national, regional, or tribal borders. Over the centuries, they hosted a complicated series of international explorations of lands inhabited by American Indians, Spanish, French-Canadians, British, and Americans. These explorations were undertaken for wide-ranging reasons including geographical, scientific, artistic-literary, and for the growth of the railroad. This history covers over 350 years of exploration of the West.
Download or read book Steamboats and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom written by Robert H. Gudmestad and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Reader s Guide to American History written by Peter J. Parish and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 930 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are so many books on so many aspects of the history of the United States, offering such a wide variety of interpretations, that students, teachers, scholars, and librarians often need help and advice on how to find what they want. The Reader's Guide to American History is designed to meet that need by adopting a new and constructive approach to the appreciation of this rich historiography. Each of the 600 entries on topics in political, social and economic history describes and evaluates some 6 to 12 books on the topic, providing guidance to the reader on everything from broad surveys and interpretive works to specialized monographs. The entries are devoted to events and individuals, as well as broader themes, and are written by a team of well over 200 contributors, all scholars of American history.
Download or read book Working the Mississippi written by Bonnie Stepenoff and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mississippi River occupies a sacred place in American culture and mythology. Often called The Father of Rivers, it winds through American life in equal measure as a symbol and as a topographic feature. To the people who know it best, the river is life and a livelihood. River boatmen working the wide Mississippi are never far from land. Even in the dark, they can smell plants and animals and hear people on the banks and wharves. Bonnie Stepenoff takes readers on a cruise through history, showing how workers from St. Louis to Memphis changed the river and were in turn changed by it. Each chapter of this fast-moving narrative focuses on representative workers: captains and pilots, gamblers and musicians, cooks and craftsmen. Readers will find workers who are themselves part of the country’s mythology from Mark Twain and anti-slavery crusader William Wells Brown to musicians Fate Marable and Louis Armstrong.
Download or read book Frontier Illinois written by James E. Davis and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2000-08-22 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this major new history of the making of the state, Davis tells a sweeping story of Illinois, from the Ice Age to the eve of the Civil War.
Download or read book Black Life on the Mississippi written by Thomas C. Buchanan and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2006-03-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All along the Mississippi--on country plantation landings, urban levees and quays, and the decks of steamboats--nineteenth-century African Americans worked and fought for their liberty amid the slave trade and the growth of the cotton South. Offering a counternarrative to Twain's well-known tale from the perspective of the pilothouse, Thomas C. Buchanan paints a more complete picture of the Mississippi, documenting the rich variety of experiences among slaves and free blacks who lived and worked on the lower decks and along the river during slavery, through the Civil War, and into emancipation. Buchanan explores the creative efforts of steamboat workers to link riverside African American communities in the North and South. The networks African Americans created allowed them to keep in touch with family members, help slaves escape, transfer stolen goods, and provide forms of income that were important to the survival of their communities. The author also details the struggles that took place within the steamboat work culture. Although the realities of white supremacy were still potent on the river, Buchanan shows how slaves, free blacks, and postemancipation freedpeople fought for better wages and treatment. By exploring the complex relationship between slavery and freedom, Buchanan sheds new light on the ways African Americans resisted slavery and developed a vibrant culture and economy up and down America's greatest river.
Download or read book Tennessee Frontiers written by John R. Finger and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2001-11-13 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive history of the Volunteer State’s formation, from the prehistoric era to the closing of the frontier in 1840. This chronicle of the formation of Tennessee from indigenous settlements to the closing of the frontier in 1840 begins with an account of the prehistoric frontiers and a millennia-long habitation by Native Americans. The rest of the book deals with Tennessee’s historic period beginning with the incursion of Hernando de Soto’s Spanish army in 1540. John R. Finger follows two narratives of the creation and closing of the frontier. The first starts with the early interaction of Native Americans and Euro-Americans and ends when the latter effectively gained the upper hand. The last land cession by the Cherokees and the resulting movement of the tribal majority westward along the “Trail of Tears” was the final, decisive event of this story. The second describes the period of Euro-American development that lasts until the emergence of a market economy. Though from the very first Anglo-Americans participated in a worldwide fur and deerskin trade, and farmers and town dwellers were linked with markets in distant cities, during this period most farmers moved beyond subsistence production and became dependent on regional, national, or international markets. Two major themes emerge from Tennessee Frontiers: first, that of opportunity the belief held by frontier people that North America offered unique opportunities for advancement; and second, that of tension between local autonomy and central authority, which was marked by the resistance of frontier people to outside controls, and between and among groups of whites and Indians. Distinctions of class and gender separated frontier elites from lesser whites, and the struggle for control divided the elites themselves. Similarly, native society was riddled by factional disputes over the proper course of action regarding relations with other tribes or with whites. Though the Indians lost in fundamental ways, they proved resilient, adopting a variety of strategies that delayed those losses and enabled them to retain, in modified form, their own identity. Along the way, the author introduces the famous personalities of Tennessee’s frontier history: Attakullakulla, Nancy Ward, Daniel Boone, John Sevier, Davy Crockett, Andrew Jackson, and John Ross, among others. They remind us that this is the story of real people who dealt with real problems and possibilities in often difficult circumstances. “Finger . . . draws on his rich research into the Southern frontier to illuminate not only Tennessee’s three physiographic zones but also their spheres of interaction . . . .. The author skillfully summarizes and illustrates the complexity of Tennessee’s frontier history, addressing issues of leadership (Jackson versus all rivals), land speculation (ever dominant), and Indian affairs (where he is at his best). . . . Like the late Stanley Folmsbee, Finger knows the three Tennessees, linguistically, geographically, politically, socially, and economically; fortunately for the reader, he has constructed a well-balanced account of them all. Maps, charts, illustrations, and 48 pages of sources enhance the volume’s usefulness for collections on the American frontier. All levels and collections.” —J. H. O’Donnell III
Download or read book A Patriot s History of the United States written by Larry Schweikart and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-12-29 with total page 1350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past three decades, many history professors have allowed their biases to distort the way America’s past is taught. These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin. A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.
Download or read book A New History of Kentucky written by Lowell H. Harrison and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 1997-03-27 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " The first comprehensive history of the state since the publication of Thomas D. Clark's landmark History of Kentucky over sixty years ago. A New History of Kentucky brings the Commonwealth to life, from Pikeville to the Purchase, from Covington to Corbin, this account reveals Kentucky's many faces and deep traditions. Lowell Harrison, professor emeritus of history at Western Kentucky University, is the author of many books, including George Rogers Clark and the War in the West, The Civil War in Kentucky, Kentucky's Road to Statehood , Lincoln of Kentucky, and Kentucky's Governors.
Download or read book American Regional Folklore written by Terry Ann Mood-Leopold and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2004-09-24 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An easy-to-use guide to American regional folklore with advice on conducting research, regional essays, and a selective annotated bibliography. American Regional Folklore begins with a chapter on library research, including how to locate a library suitable for folklore research, how to understand a library's resources, and how to construct a research strategy. Mood also gives excellent advice on researching beyond the library: locating and using community resources like historical societies, museums, fairs and festivals, storytelling groups, local colleges, newspapers and magazines, and individuals with knowledge of the field. The rest of the book is divided into eight sections, each one highlighting a separate region (the Northeast, the South and Southern Highlands, the Midwest, the Southwest, the West, the Northwest, Alaska, and Hawaii). Each regional section contains a useful overview essay, written by an expert on the folklore of that particular region, followed by a selective, annotated bibliography of books and a directory of related resources.
Download or read book John James Audubon written by Gregory Nobles and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-03-03 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In John James Audubon: The Nature of the American Woodsman, Gregory Nobles shows that one of Audubon's greatest creations was himself. Nobles explores the central irony of Audubon's true nature: the man who took so much time and trouble to depict birds so carefully left us a bold but deceptive picture of himself.
