A short introductory history of the origins of powered vessels in America, the UK and France from early thoughts to the successes of Fulton in 1807 and Bell in 1812. It covers the boats, machinery, propulsive methods used, people and places involved. The text with illustrations and appendices of source material provide a sound basis for further study of any single aspect of the subject area.
Richly detailed definitive account covers every aspect of steamboat's development — from construction, equipment, and operation to races, collisions, rise of competition, and ultimate decline of steamboat transportation.
The steamboat evokes images of leisurely travel, genteel gambling, and lively commerce, but behind the romanticized view is an engineering marvel that led the way for the steam locomotive. From the steamboat's development by Robert Fulton to the dawn of the Civil War, the new mode of transportation opened up America's frontiers and created new trade routes and economic centers. Firsthand accounts of steamboat accidents, races, business records and river improvements are collected here to reveal the culture and economy of the early to mid-1800s, as well as the daily routines of crew and passengers. A glossary of steamboat terms and a collection of contemporary accounts of accidents round out this history of the riverboat era.
In an extraordinary feat of research and intrepid historical navigation, Carl A. Brasseaux and Keith P. Fontenot serve as guides through the labyrinthian and often harrowing world of Louisiana bayou steamboat journeys of the mid to late nineteenth century. The bayou country's steamboat saga mirrors in microcosm the tale of America's most colorful -- and most highly romanticized -- transportation era. But Brasseaux and Fontenot brace readers with a boldly revisionist picture of the opulent Mississippi River floating palaces: stripped-down, utilitarian freight-haulers belching smoke from twin stacks, churning through shallow swamps and narrow tributary streams, and encountering such hazards as shoals, sawyers, stumps, highwater and dry-bed seasons, and the remains of vessels claimed by those treacheries. For decades, steamboats transported goods, passengers, and mail between New Orleans and south Louisiana's vibrant interior agricultural region, bearing testimony to the resourcefulness, ingenuity, and tenacity of crews in conquering the challenges posed by a forbidding environment. Brasseaux and Fontenot marshaled a monumental array of information, including sources long-buried in courthouses, private collections, and the records of the Army Corps of Engineers. They offer data on some five hundred steamboats, keelboats, and barges known to have operated in the bayou country. This book is the first major study of a fascinating slice of the steamboat industry, showcasing a trade critically important to New Orleans's prosperity but largely forgotten in southern historiography until now. Encompassing economic, social, transportation, and environmental history, it captures the period just before the iron horse emerged as America's undisputed master of inland conveyance.
Steamboats and Sailors of the Great Lakestraces the evolution of the Great Lakes shipping industry over the last three centuries. The Great Lakes shipping industry can trace its lineage to 1679 with the launching on Lake Erie of the Griffon, a sixty-foot galley weighing nearly fifty tons. Built by LaSalle, a French explorer who had been commissioned to search for a passage through North America to China, it was the first sailing ship to operate on the upper lakes, signaling the dawn of the Great Lakes shipping industry as we know it today. Steamboats and Sailors of the Great Lakes is the most thorough and factual study of the Great Lakes shipping industry written this century. Author Mark L. Thompson tells the fascinating story of the world's most efficient bulk transportation system, describing the Great Lakes freighters, the cargoes of the great ships ,and the men and women who have served as crew. He documents the dramatic changes that have taken places in the industry and looks at the critical role that Great Lakes shipping plays in the economic well-being of the U.S. and Canada, despite the fact tat the size of the fleet and the amount of cargo carried have declined dramatically in recent years. Spanning more than three centuries, from LaSalle's voyage in 1679, through 1975 with the mysterious sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, to life aboard today's thousand-foot behemoths, this important volume documents the evolution of the industry through its "Golden Age" at the end of the nineteenth century to the present, with a downsized U.S. fleet that numbers fewer than seventy vessels.
The book, "When Substance Abuse Attacks Your Home," is written with great pain and many regrets. It shares more than facts and realities about drug addiction. The book also conveys the hard realities that accompany chemical dependency. These details are not appealing, but never the less, brutally honest. The book is filled with up-to-date research on this critical subject. Invaluable information and resources are made easy to retrieve, and practical to use. Among the many special features of this book, is the clear explanation of why it is so difficult for a drug addict to break away from his/her bondage. The relational aspect of substance abuse is uniquely put side by side the union between a husband and wife, "until death do us part" This book offers the reader facts easy to comprehend and numerous experimental insights. Since this book is written from a family's viewpoint into substance abuse, the reader cannot help~ but feel the pain and see the tears a family lives through when one of their loved ones is chemical dependent. While the main focus is on the drug addict, another touching and helpful feature, is the unmasking of the torments of the addict's parents and siblings.
