Don Wildman

Bye for now.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, December 1811.

The newly built steamboat New Orleans sits at the waterfront, its twin copper boilers a cacophony of sound.

Pumps thumping, valves shrieking, steam hissing.

On shore, a crowd has gathered to watch if this strange new vessel will actually work, if it can deliver on its bold promise to master the turbulent waters of the mighty Ohio.

Slowly, at first, the New Orleans pulls away.

On board, the passengers, a select group involved in the vessel's construction and finance, begins to sense the voyage.

The slap-slap of the huge paddle wheel striking the water, the deck plates vibrating underfoot.

On the main deck below, firemen fuel the roaring furnace, building speed, moving the vessel past the familiar flotilla of flatboats, barges, rafts, and keelboats.

For men who've spent their working lives at the mercy of the river's cross currents and fickle winds, this mechanical behemoth is a wonder, a sight to behold.

Downriver, the great Ohio will eventually merge with the Mississippi, with every perilous obstacle along the way.

Snags, driftwood, treacherous sandbars, sudden shoals.

But for now, today, cutting a clean line through the wide brown water, it's all just progress being made, faster and more forcefully than ever before, here at the dawn of a new age in the heartland of America.

Welcome to American History Hit, I'm Don Wildman.

In short order, vessels once reliant on fickle winds were now propelled by giant paddle wheels, driving bigger and heavier loads up and down the Hudson River, through the Chesapeake, and out into the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.

And soon enough, an entirely new ship design was created to work America's vast inland river system.

The steamboat reigned supreme along so many rivers, moving cargo and humans dramatically from town to town, creating an economy and a culture all its own.

To explain how the steamboat happened and how it changed America in such fundamental ways is the expertise of Professor Robert Goodmanstead of Colorado State University.

who has authored the books Steamboats and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom and The Devil's Own Purgatory, the United States Mississippi Squadron in the Civil War.

Professor, nice to be with you.