Play One-Night Stands With No Railroad Jumps
Steamer Theatres On Western Rivers Give Actors
a Summer Cruise With Vacation Comforts
[Boston Globe 3 July 1921]
ST LOUIS:
Which would you prefer, ladies?
Would you like to be an actress, playing every night to 1200 admiring, applauding theatre-goers?
Or would you like to take a six months' vacation?
Or would you like to go for a 2000-mile steamer cruise with your own cozy stateroom, lounge around, swim or do anything you choose?
Or would you prefer to stay at home?
How would you like to have them all together?
That is the enviable lot of the actresses on the floating theatres that ply during the Summer months up and down the Ohio, Mississippi, and Illinois Rivers and their tributaries.
"Showboat's Come"
Maybe you have never been in a river town to be awakened at 7 o'clock in the morning by a steam calliope tooting the latest popular song and upon inquiry being told that "It's a showboat, I guess"
Nor maybe you were never down on Main St. at about 10 o'clock when a natty band marched up the street and stopping at the principal corner gave a concert. Nor noted that the banners which were carried by half a dozen smudgy small boys in red coats three sizes too big for them announced that "The Girl Who Had No Chance" would be shown on the Water Queen Floating Theater at the landing tonight.
If you have seen this much and have not allowed your curiosity to carry you further, you have missed a delightful experience. Upon inquiry you would have been told that there are several of these floating theaters. And they will give you the names of several past and present—the Water Queen, the Golden Rod, Cotton Blossoms, Columbia, Superior and others.
Furthermore, they will tell you that in the afternoon visitors are permitted to look over the boat.
Whole Theatre Afloat
In the afternoon you will pick your way down to the landing and see a small steamer and a barge about 175 feet long. The front of the barge will be hollowed out like the shell-like front of a movie theatre and studded with colored electric lights.
This barge is the theatre proper and the steamer is for pushing it up and down the different rivers.
You find that the interior of the theatre is just about like the auditorium of any good theatre, seating about 1200 persons—orchestra, balcony, boxes, fans, carpets, orchestra pit, scenery and a stage about 25 feet wide at one end.
But you are more interested in life aboard the boat. You are taken about and see the dining room, the kitchen, the barber shop, the print shop, the carpenter shop, the scene-painter's working room (for they make their own scenery), and you are told that everything possible is done on the boat.
The men even have their own baseball team which plays the local nines at the different landings, thereby giving the men recreation as well as advertising the show.
"Like Heaven After Vaudeville"
You see the show-folk taking life easy. The women are sitting around on the shaded deck sewing. Some men are playing cards. Others are glimpsed far back on the stern of the steamer diving from the rail into the water.
One of the women volunteers to show you her stateroom. She is more than willing, for she is comparatively new to showboat life and wants to talk about it.
She opens the door to a cozy little bedroom. Rugs on the floor. White spread on the bed. Pictures tastily hung about. A table with writing materials and a portable typewriter. Clothes hung up out of the way.
"It's like Heaven after coming off a vaudeville circuit." she tells you. "My husband and I have been in vaudeville 10 years — playing clear across the country and most of the time only half a week at a time.
"Maybe you don't know what that life is. It's hurrying your packing after a show to catch a train. Or getting up at some unearthly hour and carrying your grips down a dark street, through the mud and waiting two or three hours in a cold depot for a late train. It wears you out.
"Now here we never have to hurry after a performance—no packing, no trains to catch. We live right on the boat all the time. Why, we don't even have to change to street clothes after the performance. And how I do sleep with the cool breeze coming off the river.
"And we play only six shows a week—one a night. I play Nellie Gray in this show—nearly all our dramas are about alike, generally some out West. Then Bob and I do a song and dance specialty between the second and third acts.
Bob plays Jack Leslie in the piece. Oh, yes, everybody doubles. You see, there are really only six of us who were hired out-and-out as actors. The small parts in the piece are taken by some of the band boys. The rest of the musicians are in the orchestra. One of them is the printer and another the scene painter.
"We get our meals regular and we get good meals, too—they're a godsend after the stuff we got at some of the $3 and $4-a-day hotels across the country.
"I've never had so much time to myself before. Why, I've done more fancy work in the last two months than all the years I've been married. You'd have thought I had lots of time on the train but there were too many catnaps to make up for lost sleep.
"Oh, it's a wonderful life for the six months—down the Ohio, up and down the Illinois and down the Mississippi and back. Of course, the salaries are small; but when you count traveling and living expenses we're just as well off and it's just like living at home like a family, you know.
"I just eat and sleep and loaf and do whatever I want to. The only thing is, I'm afraid"—and she smiled ruefully—"that I'm going to have to let out all my clothes."
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| 1853 Spalding & Rogers' Floating Palace Source: Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, 1853, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs |
My opening text is from a 1921 article in the Boston Globe which described life on a showboat, a floating theater uniquely suited to the waterways of America. In the age before the development of steam trains and railroads, rivers were the principal arteries that connected America's cities and towns. With the advent of steam-powered boats in the 1830s, travel on rivers became fast and more reliable with shipping capable of going both downstream with the waterflow and upstream against it. Many theatrical companies had purpose built barges made into floating theaters which were towed by steamboats. One of the largest was the Floating Palace of circus entrepreneurs Gilbert Spalding (1812–1880) and Charles Rogers. Built by a Cincinnati boatyard the hull was 200 ft long and 60 ft wide supporting a huge amphitheater with luxurious seating for 3,400 on two decks.
Spalding and Rogers decorated their theatre with ornate mirrors, thick carpets upholstered seats, and hand-carved woodwork. It used 200 gas light fixtures to illuminate a 42 ft diameter circus ring. Its circus show featured a variety of acts that included clowns and equestrian acts, balloon ascents, minstrel shows, and theatrical performances. The Floating Palace was conveyed along the river route by a steam-powered towboat which also provided heat and a gas supply for the lights as well as sleeping quarters for 50 performers and crew. Yet even when fully loaded with crew, circus artists, patrons, and horses too, the Floating Palace only drew 25 inches of draft.
Sadly in 1860 the Civil War interrupted its tour and the Floating Palace was stranded in New Orleans, where in 1862 it was confiscated by Confederate Forces and converted into a hospital ship. The war closed the showboat circuit for several years and it was not revived until the 1870s. Entertainment companies now turned away from circus acts, which were expensive to produce, and instead built showboats for conventional theatrical shows that presented melodrama and vaudeville acts.
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| Showboat Cotton Blossom with towboat Walter Needham, c. 1910 Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison Library |
My opening photo is a small postcard which joined my collection several years ago. It was not posted and the only clue as to the identity of the boat was the large lettering along the lower deck—Cotton Blosso[m]. Several showboats used that name so it was a puzzle to determine when the photo was taken. Then I discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library an archive of Historic Steamboat Photographs. My postcard is identical to Neg. 8212 in their collection. There are 142 more photos related to the history of this celebrated showboat like the one above which gives a different perspective on how a showboat typically tied up to a riverbank. Notice that the Cotton Blossom does not have funnels or a paddlewheel. It was essentially an unpowered barge that depended on a steam towboat, fastened here on the right at the stern of the showboat, to push it along the river.
However the Cotton Blossom first started out under a different name—the "Modern Temple of Amusement"—operated by Eugene E. Eisenbarth and his wife Susan Henderson. According to a feature story on this showboat that I found in a 1956 Evansville, Indiana newspaper, Eugene got his start in show business as a medicine man in a small wild west show that traveled along the Ohio River. After he met his wife Susan, who was from a wealthy family and objected to vaudeville's cheap vulgar acts, the two formed a different entertainment company which would present first-class culture. They began in about 1898 with a tent show of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which by then was a pretty stale melodrama. In 1900 they decided to expand to a proper theater. Except now their troupe would travel in their own "floating" theater.
In late summer of 1902, toward the end of their third season, the Eisenbarth-Henderson floating theatre was on the Mississippi River at Grand Tower, Illinois, about 125 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri. On the evening of September 4th, just after their showboat had opened its auditorium to the public, the towboat Sprague came around the bend at full speed and lost control. It collided into the showboat with such force that it drove the floating theater onto the embankment and nearly snapped it in two. Fortunately the show had not yet started so only about 100 people were seated. Thus a greater tragedy was avoided but nonetheless three women were injured and, of course, the tour of the Eisenbarth-Henderson Co. was instantly discontinued.
This towboat was no ordinary steamboat. The Sprague was a powerful new sternwheeler that was on it first trial run after the Iowa Iron Works in Dubuque, Iowa had completed its construction. It was 276 ft (84 m) long with a beam of 61 ft (19 m) and a draft of 7.4 ft (2.3 m) which made it the largest steam towboat ever made. In the accident the Sprague was not damaged, nor was the floating theatre's steamer. The next morning, managing 12 miles per hour with her paddlewheel turning at six revolutions per minute, the Sprague continued to Cairo, Illinois where she was turned over to her new owner, who quickly made a generous settlement with the Eisenbarth-Henderson Co.
Eugene and Susan Eisenbarth-Henderson did what any good show biz trouper would do. Within a few days after the accident they ordered a new floating theatre from the boatyard at Parkersburg, West Virginia. Costing $16,000 it would be much bigger than the old barge. The new showboat would measure 42 by 160 ft and with a double-timber hull construction weighed-in at 650 tons. There was seating for 1,200 and cabins for crew and actors. By 25 March 1903 it was ready for inspection and interior fitments in Pittsburg. The next season it would open with a production of "Faust."
The Eisenbarth-Henderson Co. floating theatre was said to be the largest of its kind. They called it the "Modern Temple of Amusement" and expanded its shows with vaudeville acts, silent movies, exhibitions, and spectacle shows in addition to melodramas. Within a few years its success, or novelty, was deemed interesting enough for newspaper readers in England.
An Interesting Craft. A number of floating playhouses may be seen on some of the rivers of Europe and America, but the largest and most novel is that known as the Modern Temple of Amusement, which plies the Ohio and Illinois and Mississippi rivers during the summer months. This unique theatre has a seating capacity for 1,000 persons. It boasts of boxes, stalls, a pit, and an orchestra. In addition, the vessel is sufficiently large to admit of numerous sleeping rooms for the actors, the deck hands, and all those connected with either the show or the boat.
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| Towboat Sprague. 1902–1948 Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison Library |
This towboat was no ordinary steamboat. The Sprague was a powerful new sternwheeler that was on it first trial run after the Iowa Iron Works in Dubuque, Iowa had completed its construction. It was 276 ft (84 m) long with a beam of 61 ft (19 m) and a draft of 7.4 ft (2.3 m) which made it the largest steam towboat ever made. In the accident the Sprague was not damaged, nor was the floating theatre's steamer. The next morning, managing 12 miles per hour with her paddlewheel turning at six revolutions per minute, the Sprague continued to Cairo, Illinois where she was turned over to her new owner, who quickly made a generous settlement with the Eisenbarth-Henderson Co.
{The Sprague earned the nickname "Big Mama" as it worked the Mississippi and Ohio for almost five decades, retiring from service in 1948. In 1907, the Sprague set a world's all-time record for towing: 60 barges of coal, weighing 67,307 tons, covering an area of 6+1⁄2 acres, and measuring 925 feet (282 m) by 312 feet (95 m).}
Eugene and Susan Eisenbarth-Henderson did what any good show biz trouper would do. Within a few days after the accident they ordered a new floating theatre from the boatyard at Parkersburg, West Virginia. Costing $16,000 it would be much bigger than the old barge. The new showboat would measure 42 by 160 ft and with a double-timber hull construction weighed-in at 650 tons. There was seating for 1,200 and cabins for crew and actors. By 25 March 1903 it was ready for inspection and interior fitments in Pittsburg. The next season it would open with a production of "Faust."
The Eisenbarth-Henderson Co. floating theatre was said to be the largest of its kind. They called it the "Modern Temple of Amusement" and expanded its shows with vaudeville acts, silent movies, exhibitions, and spectacle shows in addition to melodramas. Within a few years its success, or novelty, was deemed interesting enough for newspaper readers in England.
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| Uttoxeter, England New Era & General Advertiser 17 January 1906 |
A FLOATING THEATRE
An Interesting Craft. A number of floating playhouses may be seen on some of the rivers of Europe and America, but the largest and most novel is that known as the Modern Temple of Amusement, which plies the Ohio and Illinois and Mississippi rivers during the summer months. This unique theatre has a seating capacity for 1,000 persons. It boasts of boxes, stalls, a pit, and an orchestra. In addition, the vessel is sufficiently large to admit of numerous sleeping rooms for the actors, the deck hands, and all those connected with either the show or the boat.
This interesting craft makes a journey of 2,500 miles every summer. The boat starts at Pittsburg (sic), and visits the towns of the coal miners and steel workers along the Monongahela river. Next it turns and goes down the Ohio river, and later up the Illinois river, finally making its way to the Mississippi. The boat carries a complete electric plant, and at night the theatre is not only brilliantly illuminated, but a searchlight is made to flash its beams over the surrounding country. The theatre is well patronised.
In this photo from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library the Eisenbarth & Henderson Company's name is stenciled along the lower deck walls of its floating theatre. In profile it looks almost like a military barracks or boarding house. In fact there were several cabins for the premier artists and Mr. and Mrs. Eisenbarth. The band, crew, and other male cast members bunked in the auxiliary steamboat. On top of the roof is a pilot house which would likely be manned for navigation when underway since the steamboat pilot behind did not have as good a view of the river channel.
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| The Eisenbarth-Henderson floating theatre, the Modern Temple of Amusement, circa 1908 Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison Library |
In this photo from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library the Eisenbarth & Henderson Company's name is stenciled along the lower deck walls of its floating theatre. In profile it looks almost like a military barracks or boarding house. In fact there were several cabins for the premier artists and Mr. and Mrs. Eisenbarth. The band, crew, and other male cast members bunked in the auxiliary steamboat. On top of the roof is a pilot house which would likely be manned for navigation when underway since the steamboat pilot behind did not have as good a view of the river channel.
The Star & Stripes are flying at the bow end and below it is a sign reading Mount Vesuvius. This was a picture show, probably projected photos and illustrations using a magic lantern rather than a movie film, that depicted the eruption of Italy's famous volcano and the "Destruction of Pompeii". From around 1875 the volcano had been increasingly active culminating in April 1906 when three weeks of repeated explosions of lava and ash destroyed several towns and killed 500 people.
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| Steubenville, OH Herald 7 October 1907 |
In a previous season the Eisenbarth & Henderson Co. produced a similar picture show on the Great Flood of 1889 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
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| The stage of the Eisenbarth-Henderson floating theatre, the Modern Temple of Amusement, circa 1906 Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison Library |
Photographs of theater stages are rare to find so this photo of the interior of the Eisenbarth-Henderson floating theatre offers a special glimpse at how its entertainment was presented. The simple proscenium stage is about 20 ft high and 28 ft wide with a covered orchestra pit in front. The central seats are in compact rows with two tiers of box seats on either side. The stage curtain depicts a wreckage of a wooden sailing ship so perhaps this was for a play about pirates or a naval battle.
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| The band of the Eisenbarth-Henderson floating theatre, circa 1906 Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison Library |
This photo shows the brass band of the Eisenbarth-Henderson floating theatre, twelve men dressed in white caps and tunics. Their names have been written below their feet. When I found this picture in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library collection I was surprised that I recognized these musicians as just a few months ago I acquired a different postcard of them. The clue was the E & H Band written over the bass drum—the Eisenbarth-Henderson Band.
My postcard shows 12 musicians in the same uniforms but sitting relaxed outdoors with their instruments at hand and five other people. Behind them is a banner that reads: The Eisenbarth-Henderson Floating Theatre Band. The word Band is written in by the photographer. Some of the musicians are clearly the same men seen in the other photo, so this photo likely dates from the same time.
The postcard has extra special value because it was sent by one of the musicians. He writes to a Miss Mary McQuarrie of 232 Notre Dame Avenue in Manchester, New Hampshire. The postmark is obscure, perhaps SEP 3 19?? but the letters RAVENS match Ravenswood, West Virginia which is a town on the Ohio River, about 35 miles south of Parkersburg where the showboat was built.
This is a new postal
one of the band boys
took. Mr. Eisenbarth is on it
with the black hat on with
his two little girls. I
was playing the big drum
for [a] couple of days.
"Tom"
one of the band boys
took. Mr. Eisenbarth is on it
with the black hat on with
his two little girls. I
was playing the big drum
for [a] couple of days.
"Tom"
{SIDE NOTE: Miss McQuarrie's name stumped me after I went through all the usual letter combinations. Then I stumbled onto McQ names and found her in the 1908 Manchester, NH city directory. Unfortunately, though she was in the city directories from the 1890s to the 1920s, I could not find her in any census records.}
The leader of the band is the man standing center in the first photo, holding a cornet and a baton in the other hand, and in the second photo seated center in front of the man with the campaign hat. He is Harry High from Evansville, Indiana who led the Eisenbarth-Henderson showboat band for the 1907, 08, and maybe 09 seasons. Previously he had been a bandleader for the showboat Water Queen in 1904, and the Emerson in 1905. While on the Eisenbarth-Henderson floating theatre he also appeared on stage in bit parts of their melodramas and comedies.
In the 1950s Harry High was semi-retired working as a private music teacher in Evansville. He was contacted by several academics who were writing books on the forgotten entertainment world of America's showboats. His reputation was one of the best bandleaders of this genre, though he modestly denied it, but he proved such an invaluable resource for stories of show biz life on the river that one professor dedicated his book to Harry. Evansville's newspaper picked up on this and ran feature stories on him in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. He died in Evansville in December 1964 at age 83.
For many decades showboat floating theaters offered entertainment to hundreds of communities scattered along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and their navigable tributaries. In 1914 the Cotton Blossom season scheduled performances along the Monongahela, Ohio, Kanawha, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers, from Pittsburg to New Orleans, even stopping in Hannibal, Missouri the hometown of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910), a.k.a. Mark Twain. Its featured comedy drama was "A Devil in Petticoats". "A dollar show for 25¢."
In March 1908 the Eisenbarth-Henderson Co. was about to open their season and were traveling on the Ohio River down to Point Pleasant for the first show. Just after midnight on 25 March 1908 the showboat, pushed by its towboat Columbia, reached lock #18, near Marietta, Ohio across from Williamstown, West Virginia. The river was running high and turbulence pushed the Columbia onto the lock walls which tore open its hull. It rapidly began to sink as the showboat broke away to drift down the river. There were about 40 members of the Eisenbarth-Henderson troupe and crew on each boat. The Columbia's crew and its passengers scrambled to escape. I'll let Harry High tell the rest of the story.
"It was a miracle that anyone escaped," says Harry High today. "Though this was nearly 50 years ago. I can remember that night all too vividly.
"Men and women leaped from their beds and fought their way to the top deck. In less than a minute all but a half-dozen were there and climbing into the small boats.
"Two or three of the crew went out their windows and into the river to swim for the shore. It wasn't far but the water was cold and the current at the dam was strong. If they hadn't been expert swimmers they'd never have made it."
Harry still remembers the near-panic that spread when it was discovered that one man and two women were missing. He and another musician ran along the roof to a ventilator that was over the women's stateroom. They pried it loose and peered down. There they saw Louis Carroll, the company electrician they called "Nick," standing on a table in water up to his armpits. He had come to the cabin in an attempt to save the two women.
"He didn't say anything," recalls Harry. "We stuck our arms down and told him to grab ahold. But he shook his head and floundered off into the darkness. We thought he was stunned. But in a moment he reappeared, carrying one of the women. We pulled her out through the ventilator and looked back. Nick was gone again. In a few seconds he returned, carrying the other girl. We lifted her to safety and then — just as water was lapping at his chin — we got hold of Nick and pulled him up on the roof.
A few moments later the boat settled to the bottom Of the river. Only the roof and the pilot house were clear."
It a wild night for the showboat people.
This account comes from a feature story on Harry High published in the Evansville Press on 12 August 1956. Harry said that during the following day he and his bandmate returned to the steamer to chop holes in its roof and "fish out" musical instruments and personal gear from the vessel. But as the sun set they found themselves trapped in the dark on top the sunken steamer. Stranded in the middle of the river they had to wait until morning to signal someone on shore for help.
Fortunately no lives were lost in the calamity, though other newspapers did falsely report that seven people drowned. But this disaster should have been enough for any theatre company to go bust, except that "Capt. Eisenbarth was not easily discouraged. Within a few days he had re-equipped his troupe, obtained another to and was off on his schedule of carrying culture to the river towns."
In September the company finished out their 1908 season, but the near tragedy convinced Eisenbarth and his wife that the risks were too much and it was time to sell their Modern Temple of Amusement.
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| Clarksville MO Sentinel 12 June 1912 |
In early 1909 the floating theatre was sold to Walter Needham and Harry Steiner who rebuilt the barge, adding that distinctive front shell with the electric lights, and renamed it the "Cotton Blossom." Then a few months later they sold it to Ralph W. Emerson, the so-called "King of Showboats". Over his long career he owned nine showboats and the steamers that propelled them up and down America's wide rivers.
In this notice from the Clarksville, Missouri Sentinel the Cotton Blossom presented the "great New York success – One Girl in a Thousand". There were 5 vaudeville acts including "the European Sensation – Prince Victorina and his Royal Troupe of Hindoo Wonders; the talk of every city, the best and highest salaried Vaudeville act ever seen on the river."
"the Cotton Blossom is the only show boat
that guarantees their performance or money refunded."
that guarantees their performance or money refunded."
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| Hannibal MO Courier and Post 16 June 1914 |
For many decades showboat floating theaters offered entertainment to hundreds of communities scattered along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and their navigable tributaries. In 1914 the Cotton Blossom season scheduled performances along the Monongahela, Ohio, Kanawha, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers, from Pittsburg to New Orleans, even stopping in Hannibal, Missouri the hometown of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910), a.k.a. Mark Twain. Its featured comedy drama was "A Devil in Petticoats". "A dollar show for 25¢."
Most of these towns were quite small and were relatively isolated from the main vaudeville circuits which followed America's railroad networks, or the circus wagon routes which traveled by roads. Theatre troupes on showboats like the Cotton Blossom rehearsed multiple shows each season to have new material to present whenever they returned to a town later in the season. The convenience of having their own theater meant it was unnecessary to daily unpack and repack all their costumes, scenery, props, and stage equipment as they traveled to each town. Likewise having their room and board on the boat saved the troupe of actors and musicians money which was likely a better deal than staying at hotels in big city theatre districts.
But while these floating theatres claimed to offer first-class culture, they were never the origin for much new art. Rather they served as decent seasonal work for actors and musicians like Harry High. He ended his 1956 newspaper interview with this comment:
"I wouldn't want to say the old showboat days were the greatest days in entertainment," he says, "for there is more music in the air now than ever
before. But I will say that today's music-makers can never know what real adventure and fun and work we experienced in that colorful era which can never return."
It seems Capt. Emerson ran the Cotton Blossom successfully for a few years after he took it on in 1910. Like many of the owners of floating theatres, Emerson, and his wife too, regularly took parts in their theatrical productions. And, of course, since it was a showboat, he took on the honorific "Captain". However Capt. Emerson owned several showboats and could hardly be on all of them each season. At some point around 1914 he took on a partner named Capt. D. Otto Hittner to operate the Cotton Blossom.
This was an era when many regular vaudeville theaters were undergoing a lot of consolidation and large theatrical agencies controlled more of the industry. It was also the start of new artistic forces like movies and jazz which would significantly affect American culture in the next decades. And then there was a war.
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| Ohio River ice at Cincinnati in January 1918 Source: WaterwaysJournal.net |
The winter of 1917-18 was especially bitter cold and by early December 1917 the Ohio River was completely frozen above Cincinnati. Then a fierce blizzard hit Louisville, dropping 16 inches of snow in less than 15 hours. Within days an "ice gorge" formed, with some ice measuring 26 inches thick, blocking the Ohio River and making travel on the river impossible farther downstream.
By the new year in January 1918 the lower river was frozen too with ice on the Mississippi down to Vicksburg. Even the giant steamboat Sprague was grounded at Cairo, Illinois where the Ohio joins the Mississippi. It was considered the worst winter in living memory, especially as it stopped all transport of coal which was then the dominant fuel for heating and power.
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| Nashville TN The Tennessean 8 January 1918 |
The showboat Cotton Blossom and its towboat Jewell were tied to the wharf at Mt. Vernon, Indiana on the Ohio River, about 18 miles west of Evansville, but 35 miles downriver. Capt. Hittner had taken them there in October for repair and storage in anticipation of the 1918 season. On the night of January 6th the ice pack began to shift and the Cotton Blossom and the Jewell were torn free from their mooring, then crushed by the ice and sunk. At the time no crew were on the vessels, but both boats were reckoned to be a total loss, estimated at over $25,000. Considering all the other destruction incurred that terrible winter, the loss of a floating theatre was hardly front page news.
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| City of Cincinnati (1899 steamboat) wrecked by ice, 1918 Source: Wikimedia |
Yet Capt. Hittner, like Capt. Eisenbarth, and Capt. Emerson before him, was an optimistic man who quickly ordered a new floating theatre made from an old barge named the Princess. As it was a smaller hull there was space only for 500 seats, less than half that of the old showboat. Hittner named this new boat the Cotton Blossom Pavillion.
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| Evansville IN Courier and Press 10 April 1921 |
The shows were probably smaller too as I found few newspaper notices in the following few years. According to a 1951 report in The Evansville Press on the death of Harry Steiner, one of the co-owners who took over the first Cotton Blossom in 1908, Hittner's Pavilion did not tour very long and was turned into a floating dance hall in the early 1920s. Hittner built a third showboat which he named Cottom Blossom No. 1, but it was sold for his debts in 1931 and converted back into a freight barge. A fourth Cotton Blossom showboat was built in 1932 by a man from Chicago but it was lost to a fire the following year. In 1939 another man ordered a fifth Cotton Blossom constructed with seating for 700, but it failed as a floating theatre and was sold at auction in 1941, only to be destroyed by fire the next year.
The reason for these pathetic attempts to make money on the Cotton Blossom name was not due to its history from 1900 to 1918. It was because it was the name chosen for the fictional showboat invented by author Edna Ferber (1885–1968) for her bestseller novel "Show Boat", published in 1926. After Ferber published her fourth novel "So Big", which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1925, she began considering ideas for her next book. She decided to visit Bath, North Carolina on the Pamlico River where she spent four days aboard one of the few remaining showboats in the country, the James Adams Floating Theatre, which plied the coastal waterways on the East Coast. Though she had no prior experience of showboats or of life on a river, or in the deep South either, she became inspired to tell a story about a floating theatre troupe.
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| Woman's Home Companion, cover, May 1926 Source: Wikimedia |
Her novel is set on a steam showboat called the Cotton Blossom which travels along the Mississippi River presenting performances at small towns along the way. It follows characters from the 1880s to the 1920s who deal with a mixture of stories of romance and tragedy. Her realistic depiction of racial issues and an unhappy marriage was combined with a nostalgia for a disappearing American past. The book quickly became a best seller.
By the end of the year Ferber signed a contract with composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to adapt her novel into a Broadway musical. Show Boat, the musical, premiered on 27 December 1927 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City and in 1928 was taken to London's West End. Kern and Hammerstein's musical proved such a success with the public that Show Boat was adapted again for cinema with noted motion picture productions in 1929, 1936, 1946, and 1952.
The most memorable song from the musical is "Ol' Man River", made famous by the celebrated Paul Robeson (1898–1976) who plays the part of Joe, a stevedore. Here is his performance from the 1936 film Show Boat.
Edna Ferber's novel and its subsequent spinoffs for stage and motion pictures are invented stories that took liberties with the true history of America's original showboats. The imagery of film created a myth of a grand Disneyesque paddlewheel steamboat, when in fact a real showboat was always a pair of boats, one a barge for the theatre and the other a steam engine for utility and power. A showboat was never an art form so much as just another novel medium for entertainment.
More importantly the history of the Cotton Blossom demonstrated that there was far more danger and risk in this forgotten branch of show business than is remembered. By the late 1920s and 30s radio and sound films began capturing the American public's attention and the age of showboats was finished. By the 1950s riverboat travel in America also came to an end.
Bandleader Harry High had it right. It was a "colorful era which can never return."
This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where everyone is still waiting
for their boat to come in.
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