Show notes
In this episode we talk about the role of flatboats and keelboats on the American frontier in the 18th and 19th century, as well as the frontier character of the riverboat man, embodied in the semi-legendary figure of Mike Fink.
*Originally released as the November 2021 bonus episode; edited and re-uploaded to Patreon 3/29/22
Sources:
Allen, Michael. "Sired by a Hurricane: Mike Fink, Western Boatmen, and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Arizona and the West, Autumn, 1985, 27:3 , pp. 237 - 252
"Keelboats and Flatboats." Warren County Historical Society
Spradlin, Derrick. "Mike Fink and Frontier Cosmopolitanism in Morgan Neville's The Last of the Boatmen." The Explicator, 2009, 67:4, pp. 243 - 246
Weiser-Alexander, Kathy. "Mike Fink - A Drunken Bully." Legends of America, 2020
Wilhelm, Gene. "Pioneer Boats and Transportation on the Upper James River." Pioneer America, Jan 1971, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 39 - 47.
Further reading:
Allen, Michael. "The Riverman as Jacksonian Man." Western Historical Quarterly, Aug 1990, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 305 - 320.
Bakken, Dawn E. "A Young Hoosier's Adventures on the Mississippi River." Indiana Magazine of History, March 2006, Vol. 102, No. 1, pp. 1 - 7.
Baldwin, Leland D. The Keelboat Age on Western Waters, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1941.
Mak, James and Gary M. Walton. "The Persistence of Old Technologies: The Case of Flatboats." The Journal of Economic History, Jun 1973, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 444 - 451.
Neville, Morgan. "The Last of the Boatmen." 1828.
Nichols, Roger L. "Army Contributions to River Transportation, 1818 - 1825." Military Affairs, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 242 - 249.
McGregor, John R. "Pioneer Industrial Complexes On The Lower Wabash." Material Culture, Fall 1992, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 19 - 34.
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