Don Wildman

And it becomes a way of planners, war planners, to see where this is all going for shipping down the road.

And the advent of steel ships really has a lot to do with the ironclads and, therefore, steamships.

The economy of the South was obviously destroyed by the Civil War.

It had much to do with the fact that they could no longer use these steamships.

efficiently to move their product along, not to mention they weren't growing it as much as possible.

But all of this contributes to the conclusion of the Civil War and the conclusion of the steamboat era.

So you can really chalk it up to both the Civil War and the advent of the railroad.

It also boosted the building, though, for a while of the railroads, and that also contributed to it.

The rise of the railroads

through the Civil War, had as much to do with the demise of the steamship into the Civil War.

And all of this contributes to the reliance more and more on railroads.

And they get killed by the trucks.

So on and on it goes, these cause and effects.

How do we live with this notion of the steamship now in our memories?

I mentioned the romance of it.

Of course, Showboat comes along in the early 20th century, first half of the 20th century, glamorizing that whole era.

The Lost Cause movement has to do with that as well, the sort of rise of this sort of, oh, look what we lost kind of idea.

You've written the books on this.

Where do we stand now on what the steamship meant to America in our memory?

Fundamental is a short way of putting it.