It’s great when I pick something to write about in my stories that turns out to be extra interesting to research. The river showboat that is the setting for my new book, In the Shadow of the River, turned out to be that way.
I knew very little about showboats when I decided to take my story on the river. So I went looking for books that would give me a view of the history of showboats. One of the books that turned out to be very helpful was Showboat The History of an American Institution by Philip Graham published in 1951 by the University of Texas Press.
The book was a record of American showboats from the very first one launched in 1831 to the last one that went down the river.
These playbills adorned the front leaf of the book. Or should I say front leaves since there are two in each place? I just looked that up and found that all the pages are leaves and that’s why we say we take a leaf out of someone’s book when we talk about imitating or doing the same as someone else.
But back to showboats.
One of the things that surprised me in my research was how big the theaters on board the showboats were. This one “Swallow & Markle’s Floating Palace” could seat 1200 people. That really astounded me. I started out thinking a seating capacity of two or three hundred would be large on a showboat. You can see that they want to stress how much is invested in their showboat. $50,000 at that time would have seemed a fortune to the people coming to their shows.
I like how they make sure to let people know they aren’t going to be sitting on rough benches but in comfortable seats that are safe. Maybe they had to convince people they weren’t going to sink in the river or no one was going to rob them and no roughhouse would be allowed.
Then the other thing that was surprising was how much the showboat owners stressed that their shows were for family viewing. If you notice, their ad says their shows are MORAL and REFINED. They had cultivated singers and were the high water mark of mirth, melody and minstrelsy. They knew about putting words together that would sound good and get attention. I especially like how they let comers know they have electricity and fans. I didn’t have electricity on my fictional showboat, but if the story had been set a little later, I could have turned on the lights.
Then at the bottom of the second page or leaf, you can see how the competition had gotten ramped up between showboats on the river. This ad wanted to make sure people knew not to spend their money on second best and to wait for their showboat that was the “Largest, Cleanest, Safest Floating Theatre ever presented to the American public.” The competition between the showboat owners was keen. Each year they built bigger and more elaborate showboats to try to outdo one another.
Do you think these ads would have had you heading to the river to sit in one of those safe and comfortable seats?
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