Print titled Unloading Sand Scows by Alexander J. Van Leshout (1868-1930). Van Leshout documented a wide variety of city scenes in Odd Corners in Louisville. Among them were those representing the river front, an area where many a shantyboater found employment.
Advertising circular for Bryant's Show Boat. One didn’t have to travel to New York to see quality Broadway entertainment! George M. Cohan’s “Broadway Jones” was coming to an Ohio River landing near you.
This “daring, thrilling and frank expose of the activities of the . . . Gestapo” promised to reveal facts that the government had not yet released, and the press had not reported, on the Nazi’s Gestapo – and one could also enjoy vaudeville acts.
Cover and interior page for Roustabout Songs: A Collection of Ohio River Valley Songs by Mary Wheeler and William J. Reddick. The interior page Interior page from the Roustabout Songs sheet music booklet shows some of the African American river workers and musicians connected to the songs.
Engraving from Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion of a scene from Cairo, Illinois. This scene encompasses almost every facet of working on the river. Shantyboats, steamboats, fishing boat, flatboats, and wharf boats all go about their business. But an upcoming mode of transportation and transport included in the image portends the decline of the steamboat – the railroad.
The Towhead Island harbor area transitioned over this approximate forty-year period from a combination of industrial and residential use to one of residential and pleasure craft.
