Riverboats and Keelboats

Year Published: 1958

Creator: KQED San Francisco Bash Kennett Kathleen Rawlings Richard Moore

Format: 16mm

Description: Early use of rivers is described, form the Indian canoe of hollowed log to the flatboats and keelboats of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Bash tells of the importance of water transportation, of families building flatboats and traveling down the currents with even their cows and chickens aboard, and she shows the ways the keelboats were propelled upstream by sweeps and by men with tow ropes walking along the banks. Cargoes of wheat, corn, animal skins and log rafts are related in their importance to the lives of the people. Songs include “Sewanee River,” “Shenandoah,” and “Old Woman.”

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Indiana University Library Moving Image Archive

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