Don Wildman

Yeah.

And no wonder.

It's an incredible ability that totally lacked before.

Let's talk about the impacts of this technology.

By the 1850s, we've entered into what is called the golden age of steamboats.

It's hard to conceive how many.

I mean, there were a thousand steamboats working on those western rivers, weren't they?

There were.

And there were steamboats of all sizes.

The railroad, of course, gets so much credit for opening up the West before that, the stagecoaches.

But we rarely talk about the power and importance of the steamboat and really unlocking this.

And the reasons were economic, of course, because so much more product could be moved, both in load size, but also, you know, without spoiling, if you're talking about food products and so forth.

I mean, what used to take a journey of three to four months to move through this interior now became a matter of a month.

I mean, 25 to 30 days, right?

I mean, and this is what supercharges the cotton economy.

The economic engine of the middle of the country in this period becomes the steamboat.

The flip side of that economics is that much of that was done with forced labor.

I mean, there's a story to be told about steamboats having to do with slavery, correct?

Very visible there.

It's important, you know, we're going to talk about the romance of this in a moment, and yet important to keep it all in balance with what was not romantic at all.