The Yellow Stone Steamboat

Many paddleboats offered its passengers richly furnished accommodations; lavishly decorated staterooms; gambling; dining with fine entertainment and often were referred to as “floating palaces.” (Havighurst, p120) The steam engine paddleboats, canals, and water travel had limitations and could only provide travel as far as the river or tributary allowed; however, railroads did not have these limitations.

Have you ever needed easier access to the essential items to stay alive? This is specifically what the residents of the North-East thought around the year 1817. Carol Sheriff argues in her book, “The Artificial River” that the residents of the canal corridor actively sought after long-distance trade and therefore consumer goods that markets brought to their homes. The fact that people supported the Erie Canal at all "suggests that at least some aspired to engage in broader market exchange" (p. 11). The transformation of this region because of the Erie Canal is organized around six topics, each of which is covered by a chapter. They include the; Visions of Progress, the Triumph of Art over Nature, Reducing Distance and Time, the Politics of Land and Water, the Politics of Business, and the Perils of Progress.

By the late 1830s, the Chattahoochee River was used as an industrial power source for textile

The early development of the of the steamboat was important. It used wheels with paddles to push the boat forward up the river. The first frame that was used was a flour milling frame. The first attempt to use a steamboat was by John Fitch in the 1790’s but it failed. The Clermont went up the Hudson River on August 01, 1802. The steamboat was originally built for the War of 1812. It was used to transport goods and

President Jefferson gave the following instructions to Lewis and Clark: “The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River, and such principle stream of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct

At that time the Mississippi River had become an important transport route for agricultural products west of the Appalachian Mountains in the

1.In 1820, the first steamboat sailed on the Great Lakes, as well as on the Detroit River. What was this vessel called?

It's the 1800s and industrialization is thriving throughout America. People are moving away from an agricultural way of life, moving into cities, developing arts and trades and trying to expand their boundaries of who, where and how they can trade marketable items. In trying to reach more and more customers at further and further distances the ability to travel further in less time creates a demand. In this time period most of the trade routes revolved around rivers as this was the easiest method of transportation and the mighty Mississippi being the largest trade route.  However, the problem with traveling the Mississippi or any riverway at this time is that you are at the mercy of the wind and currents. At this time you travelled by boat with full sail and could not maneuver against tides or a poor wind.  There was a need to create something that could deal with this dilemma.  More and more inventions and machines are being created. With these inventions it becomes effortless to complete painstaking tasks. The effect of this is tade becoming more

In the 19th century, America saw major expansions and technological advances that paved way for the grand expansion of agriculture that boosted the nation’s economy. Regardless of the fact that Great Britain had tried to keep secrets regarding machinery and inventions, most of America’s advances were propelled by inventions such as the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793, steel plow by John Deere, railway, steamboats, telegraph, and canals. In addition, technology’s profound effect on agriculture also led to the rise of the textile industry whereby factories produced materials such as cotton thread and cloth. Many of these initial factories are recognized in historical texts, but the Lowell factory system is one that is famous – precisely the

Businessmen E.J. Wood and Rev Peter W. Gautier started to plan for a way to gain access to the “Apalach”. Lake Wimico, about eight miles away, could access the river by bayous, so the Saints, as the Saint Joseph businessmen began to call themselves, first decided on a canal to bring the cargo from the steamboat to the wharf. The Lake Wimico and St. Joseph Canal Company was chartered by the legislative council of the territory of Florida in 1835 and later renamed to the Lake Wimico and St. Joseph Canal and Railroad company. The canal never made it off the drawing table before a railroad replaced it. In October 1835, Lake Wimico and St. Joseph Canal and Railroad Company broke ground on the first steam railroad in Florida. It ran from Depot Creek on Lake Wimico, to Saint Joseph. In May of 1836, the first steam powered locomotive traveled from Saint Joseph to Depot Creek. Eight miles in twenty-five

In 1804 Eleuthere du Pont improved manufacture of gunpowder. Also in 1804, Richard Trevithick created the locomotive which was a powered rail vehicle used to pull trains. In 1809 Robert Fulton successfully created the steamboat, a boat propelled by a steam engine.

Rayona and her mother Christine grew up in different worlds but they are very similar in many ways. Christine faced various problems as a young child that are now being passed down to Rayona and she is now seeing how they are being affected by them. The novel “A Yellow Raft in Blue Water” walks us through Rayona’s coming of age story and the three perspectives that it is being told in, Rayona’s, Christine’s, and Ida’s. Although Rayona and Christine are very different, they both seem to be facing similar problems; they end up helping one another find their self identity and both are finally able to appreciate and understand one another.

Improvements in communication and transportation became apparent in the nineteenth century due to the expansion of the textile, mining and metallurgy industries. By the middle of the nineteenth century, communication was transformed by the invention of the electronic telegraph and the transatlantic cable, which “Established instant communication between the old and new worlds.” (p. 413) Transportation was also transformed by canal and road building, as well as the introduction of locomotives and steamboats.

There was a need for this invention because of communication, trade, and travel. Ever since the steamboat communication could be sent more than one way out. Most

Next introduced were steamboats. Shipping by steamboats was cheaper and faster. If one used a wagon, there was the cost of lifting the cargo off the ground and keeping it there as well as the cost of moving the vehicle forward. A water vessel had the advantage of only having the cost of moving forward because the water lifted the cargo. The shallow draft steamboat, however, could carry large amounts of cargo even against the flow of a river. Robert Fulton's Clermont proved the practicality of steamboats in 1807. The Enterprise was introduced by Henry Shreve in 1814 and proved to be the answer to transportation across shallow western waters. By 1820, there were 60 steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and countless others elsewhere.