The Steamboat Bertrand and Missouri River Commerce
The Steamboat Bertrand and Missouri River Commerce

Author: Ronald R. Switzer

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2013-10-29

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 0806151307

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On April 1, 1865, the steamboat Bertrand, a sternwheeler bound from St. Louis to Fort Benton in Montana Territory, hit a snag in the Missouri River and sank twenty miles north of Omaha. The crew removed only a few items before the boat was silted over. For more than a century thereafter, the Bertrand remained buried until it was discovered by treasure hunters, its cargo largely intact. This book categorizes some 300,000 artifacts recovered from the Bertrand in 1968, and also describes the invention, manufacture, marketing, distribution, and sale of these products and traces their route to the frontier mining camps of Montana Territory. The ship and its contents are a time capsule of mid-nineteenth-century America, rich with information about the history of industry, technology, and commerce in the Trans-Missouri West. In addition to enumerating the items the boat was transporting to Montana, and offering a photographic sample of the merchandise, Switzer places the Bertrand itself in historical context, examining its intended use and the technology of light-draft steam-driven river craft. His account of steamboat commerce provides multiple insights into the industrial revolution in the East, the nature and importance of Missouri River commerce in the mid-1800s, and the decline in this trade after the Civil War. Switzer also introduces the people associated with the Bertrand. He has unearthed biographical details illuminating the private and social lives of the officers, crew members, and passengers, as well as the consignees to whom the cargo was being shipped. He offers insight into not only the passengers’ reasons for traveling to the frontier mining camps of Montana Territory, but also the careers of some of the entrepreneurs and political movers and shakers of the Upper Missouri in the 1860s. This unique reference for historians of commerce in the American West will also fascinate anyone interested in the technology and history of riverine transport.

Steamboat Disasters of the Lower Missouri River
Steamboat Disasters of the Lower Missouri River

Author: Vicki Berger Erwin

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2020-02-24

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1439669112

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During the nineteenth century, more than three hundred boats met their end in the steamboat graveyard that was the Lower Missouri River, from Omaha to its mouth. Although derided as little more than an "orderly pile of kindling," steamboats were, in fact, technological marvels superbly adapted to the river's conditions. Their light superstructure and long, wide, flat hulls powered by high-pressure engines drew so little water that they could cruise on "a heavy dew" even when fully loaded. But these same characteristics made them susceptible to fires, explosions and snags--tree trunks ripped from the banks, hiding under the water's surface. Authors Vicki and James Erwin detail the perils that steamboats, their passengers and crews faced on every voyage.

Arkansas, Forgotten Land of Plenty
Arkansas, Forgotten Land of Plenty

Author: Ronald R. Switzer

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2019-10-14

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1476636133

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In the first decades of the 1800s, white Americans entered the rugged lands of Arkansas, which they had little explored before. They established new towns and developed commercial enterprises alongside Native Americans indigenous to Arkansas and other tribes and nations that had relocated there from the East. This history is also the story of Arkansas's people, and is told through numerous biographies, highlighting early life in frontier Arkansas over a period of 200 years. The book provides a categorical look at commerce and portrays the social diversity represented by both prominent and common Arkansans--all grappling for success against extraordinary circumstances.

The Archaeology of American Mining
The Archaeology of American Mining

Author: Paul J. White

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2019-12-09

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0813065356

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Mining History Association Clark C. Spence Award The mining industry in North America has a rich and conflicted history. It is associated with the opening of the frontier and the rise of the United States as an industrial power but also with social upheaval, the dispossession of indigenous lands, and extensive environmental impacts. Synthesizing fifty years of research on American mining sites that date from colonial times to the present, Paul White provides an ideal overview of the field for both students and professionals. The Archaeology of American Mining offers a multifaceted look at mining, incorporating findings from an array of subfields, including historical archaeology, industrial archaeology, and maritime archaeology. Case studies are taken from a wide range of contexts, from eastern coal mines to Alaskan gold fields, with special attention paid to the domestic and working lives of miners. Exploring what material artifacts can tell us about the lives of people who left few records, White demonstrates how archaeologists contribute to our understanding of the legacies left by miners and the mining industry. A volume in the series the American Experience in Archaeological Perspective, edited by Michael S. Nassaney

Archaeology in America [4 volumes]
Archaeology in America [4 volumes]

Author: Linda S. Cordell

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2008-12-30

Total Pages: 1477

ISBN-13: 0313021899

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The greatness of America is right under our feet. The American past—the people, battles, industry and homes—can be found not only in libraries and museums, but also in hundreds of archaeological sites that scientists investigate with great care. These sites are not in distant lands, accessible only by research scientists, but nearby—almost every locale possesses a parcel of land worthy of archaeological exploration. Archaeology in America is the first resource that provides students, researchers, and anyone interested in their local history with a survey of the most important archaeological discoveries in North America. Leading scholars, most with an intimate knowledge of the area, have written in-depth essays on over 300 of the most important archaeological sites that explain the importance of the site, the history of the people who left the artifacts, and the nature of the ongoing research. Archaeology in America divides it coverage into 8 regions: the Arctic and Subarctic, the Great Basin and Plateau, the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, the Midwest, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest, and the West Coast. Each entry provides readers with an accessible overview of the archaeological site as well as books and articles for further research.