Portraits of the Riverboats

Whether called a riverboat, paddleboat, sternwheeler, or showboat, the steamboat revolutionized river travel between 1810 and the Civil War. Greatly advancing commerce and travel, these floating mansions provided a romanticism and color which has long since disappeared. This superb volume describes a world in which every boy along the Mississippi yearned to become a river pilot, and every levee was crowded with goods waiting to be loaded onto steamboats, a world in which the elite of society rubbed shoulders with gamblers in the luxury of mighty river cruises.