Shantyboats and roustabouts the river poor of St. Louis, 1875-1930 Andrews, Gregg creator author. text bibliography History. lau 2023 monographic eng print x, 323 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm "Shantyboat dwellers and steamboat roustabouts formed an organic part of the cultural landscape of the Mississippi River bottoms during the rise of industrial America and the twilight of steamboat packets from 1875 to 1930. Nevertheless, both groups remain understudied by scholars of the era. Most of what we know about these laborers on the river comes not from the work of historians but from travel accounts, novelists, songwriters, and early film producers. As a result, images of these men and women are laden with nostalgia and minstrelsy. Gregg Andrews's Shantyboats and Roustabouts uses the waterfront squatter settlements and Black entertainment district near the levee in St. Louis as a window into the world of the river poor in the Mississippi Valley, exploring their daily struggles and experiences and vividly describing people heretofore obscured by classist and racist caricatures"-- Introduction: A Peculiar Phase of American Character -- A Tranquil and Unhurried Life: The River People -- Wealth Is Not His God: Origins of St. Louis's Wharf Settlements -- The Roughest Life There Is: Roustabouts on the Levee -- The River Gives Up Its Dead Slowly: Seasons, Cycles, and the River's Fury -- The Pride of St. Louis: King of Little Oklahoma -- Ain't Got No Place to Lay My Haid: River Fiddlers, Raggers, and Roustabouts in Ragged -- Time -- The American Fondness for Humbug: Medicine Boats, Swamp Healers, and Showboats -- In the High Waters of Sin: Mission Boats and River Preachers -- Neither Pumpkin nor Paw-paw: Little Oklahoma's Sculling Champion of the World -- The Ruthless Advance of Civilization: Waterfront Evictions -- Gone Are the Old River Days: Floating Palaces, Steel Barges, and Vanishing Roustabouts -- Epilogue: In Some Far-Off Valhalla Gregg Andrews. Includes bibliographical references and index. n-us-mo n-usm-- Shantyboaters Missouri Saint Louis Steamboat workers Missouri Saint Louis Poor Missouri Saint Louis Waterfronts Missouri Saint Louis Mississippi River Valley History 1865- Saint Louis (Mo.) History Poor Shantyboaters Steamboat workers Waterfronts Mississippi River Valley Missouri Saint Louis Since 1865 fast F474.S257 A57 2023 977.8/660086942 Shantyboats and roustabouts Andrews, Gregg. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2022 (DLC) 2022017756 9780807178478 0807178470 9780807179079 9780807179062 2022017755 pda,print LBSOR/DLC 221001 20250318223728.8 in00004651614 eng