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Lloyd's Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters
Lloyd's Steamboat Directory cover featuring an illustration of the explosion of the Moselle (digital.library.pitt.edu)
PublisherJohn T. Lloyd & Co.
Publication date
1856
LC ClassF353 .L80
Internet Archive HathiTrust, Library of Congress, University of Michigan, University of Pittsburgh, Yale University

Lloyd's Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters is a book published in 1856 listing steamboat businesses in the United States, along with an illustrated catalog of American maritime disasters. It covers "mainly river material, with a substantial scattering of lake items."[1]

History

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John T. Lloyd heavily advertised the book in 1855, promising "The STEAMBOAT DIRECTORY will contain a complete list and description of all the Steamboats now afloat in the Western and Southern waters. The length, model, speed, power and tonnage of each boat, where and by whom built, the name of the boat, with the trade she is in...The RIVER DIRECTORY will contain a list and description of all the steamboat disasters that have occurred on the Western and Southern waters, beautifully illustrated, with a list of all those who have perished by their burning, sinking and exploding, on the Western and Southern waters. The Directory will contain maps of the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, White, Red, Ouachita, Yazoo and other rivers, with the towns and cities, laid down, with correct distances."[2]

After receiving a copy, the Journal and Messenger, of Macon, Georgia, editorialized:[3]

Horrible Sacrifice of Life on Western Waters in Forty-Four Years.—From Lloyd's forthcoming Steamboat Directory we learn that since the application of steam on the Western waters there have been thirty-nine thousand six hundred and seventy-two [39,672] lives lost by steamboat disasters, three hundred and eighty one [381] boats and cargoes lost, and seventy [70] boats seriously injured amounting in the aggregate to the enormous sum of sixty-seven millions of dollars [US$67,000,000 (equivalent to $2,190,900,000 in 2023)]. It is to be hoped that this forthcoming work will have the effect of arresting the attention of the Government to the importance of western interests so far as our great rivers and lakes are concerned.[3]

Similarly, in 1858 the National Intelligencer newspaper used statistics from Lloyd's Steamboat Directory to support their argument for Congressional action to regulate the steamboat industry.[4] In June 1856, Godey's Lady's Book published an article called "Girls Should Be Taught to Swim" that apparently referenced Lloyd's Steamboat Directory.[5][6]

The unabridged title of the steamboat book varies. The unabridged title of the edition posted online by the Library of Congress is Lloyd's Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters, containing the History of the First Application of Steam as a Motive Power; the Lives of John Fitch and Robert Fulton, Likenesses & Engravings of Their First Steamboats, Early Scenes on the Western Waters, 1798–1812 — History of the Early Navigation on Western Waters — Engravings of the Boats. Full Accounts of all the Steamboat Disasters Since the First Application of Steam Down to Present Date, with Lists of the Killed and Wounded — A Complete List of Steamboats and All Other Vessels Now Afloat on Western Rivers and Lakes — When and Where Built, and Their Tonnage; Maps of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, Towns, Cities, Landings, Population and Distances Correctly Laid Down on the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Cumberland, Kentucky, Green, Illinois, Arkansas, White, Red and Yazoo Rivers. History of All the Railroads in the United States. Daguerrean Views and Sketches of Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Cincinnati, Louisville, Falls of Ohio, Nashville, Cairo, Falls of St. Anthony, Gate of the Rocky Mountains, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Mobile — Sketches of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Their Tributaries, Sources, Length, Area of Country Drained, &c. Names of All the U.S. Licensed Pilots and Engineers — Fast Time of Boats; The Earthquake in 1812, &c., &c., One Hundred Fine Engravings, and Sixty Maps; Being a Valuable Statistical Work, as well as a Guide-Book for the Travelling Public.[7] The title page of the edition in the Internet Archive promises all of this but only "forty-six maps" (not 60), and also claims a "List of All the Plantations on the Mississippi River."[8]

"A Woman Swimming the Mississippi" refers to the Steamboat Directory account of the Ben Sherod disaster (White Cloud Kansas Chief, June 11, 1857)

J. T. Lloyd also published Lloyd's American Railroad Weekly and early maps of the America Civil War.[9] He was a "prolific" publisher during the war, selling material both original and appropriated.[10] In 1861 he advertised that both Millard Fillmore and the library of the U.S. Department of State had ordered copies of his maps.[11] In 1863 his advertisements included a letter from U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles authoring purchase of Lloyd's map of Mississippi for the Mississippi Squadron under Rear Admiral Charles H. Davis.[12]

Influence

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Lloyd's Steamboat Directory remains an object of fascination for its "morbid litany of ships snagged, exploded, burned, and sunk".[13] In 1918 it was described as "an interesting but in many particulars an unreliable book".[14] A 21st-century scholar concurs, writing that Lloyd's Steamboat Directory "gives more room for doubt than it does for study, dwelling as it does on the horrific and lurid catastrophes before 1856".[15] Despite its flaws, the text and illustrations of Lloyd's Steamboat Directory have often been used as a reference when studying the steamboats of antebellum America.[16][17][18][19][20][21]

Detail of "Explosion of the A. N. Johnston" from Lloyd's Steamboat Directory, depicting what historian Rebecca Onion describes as a "repetitive motif" in the illustrations, of bodies being propelled into the air by boiler explosions

The "disasters on the western waters" portion of the book is illustrated with woodcut etchings that "reveal a repetitive motif when looked at in a larger format: bodies thrown in the air, depicted in flight at the moment of explosion."[22] The illustrations of boiler explosions and snag-wrecked steamboats in Lloyd's Steamboat Directory should be presumed to be fanciful representations.[23] For example, the illustration of the New Orleans is considered "obsolete" and at odds with the historical record: "A contemporary description of the vessel exists and does not agree in any particular with this illustration. According to the contemporary description, the New Orleans was not a stern wheeler and had no deckhouse."[23] A review of "the Mississippi River as artistic subject" found some merit in the Steamboat Directory illustrations as artwork in that they were "an example of the crude but vivid illustration of the river...The glory of the book, however, is the series of cuts picturing explosions, sinkings, capsizings and burnings of steamships.  Explosions are most satisfactory and complete; but undoubtedly the lugubrious tone of all of them rightly interprets the horror of disaster."[24]

Fugitive-slave narratives and Lloyd's Steamboat Directory were "some of [19th-century America's] most graphically violent literature."[18] Historian Walter Johnson describes the table of contents of Lloyd's Steamboat Directory as a "nightmare poem of alphabetized Americana: America, explosion of; America South, burning of; Anglo Norman, explosion of; Atlantic and Ogdensburg, collision of..."[18]

Additional images

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Lloyd's Steamboat Directory (1856)
  • Index (page 1 of 2) to Lloyd's steamboat directory, and disasters on the western waters
    Index (page 1 of 2) to Lloyd's steamboat directory, and disasters on the western waters
  • Index (page 2 of 2), and list of illustrations in Lloyd's steamboat directory, and disasters on the western waters
    Index (page 2 of 2), and list of illustrations in Lloyd's steamboat directory, and disasters on the western waters
  • View of the port of New Orleans in the 1850s, etching signed Scattergood
    View of the port of New Orleans in the 1850s, etching signed Scattergood

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Steamboat Bill of Facts. Steamboat Historical Society of America. 1955. p. 60.
  2. ^ "100,000 Copies!!!". The Opelousas Patriot. August 11, 1855. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-09-30 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ a b "Horrible Sacrifice of Life". Georgia Journal and Messenger. October 10, 1855. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-09-30 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "Protection of Steamboat Passengers". Daily Nashville Patriot. October 11, 1858. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-09-30 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "Girls Should Be Taught to Swim. Lloyd's "Steamboat Directory" article", Godey's Lady's Book, June 1856, OCLC 5620155468
  6. ^ Betts, Vicki (2016), "Godeys, 1856, January-June", Godey's Lady's Book, University of Texas at Tyler, hdl:10950/807, Paper 9
  7. ^ "Image 7 of Lloyd's steamboat directory, and disasters on the western waters". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  8. ^ "Lloyd's Steamboat Directory". Internet Archive. 1856.
  9. ^ Stephenson, Richard W. "Commercial Mapping – History of Mapping the Civil War – Articles and Essays". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  10. ^ "Missouri & Virginia – Places in History". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  11. ^ "Agents can make $5 per day". The Courier-Journal. Louisville, Kentucky. December 3, 1861. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-09-30 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Highly important to the world". The Courier-Journal. Louisville, Kentucky. April 28, 1863. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-09-30 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ Eigen, Edward (2004). "Lincoln's Log, or A Tree is Best Measured When it Is Down". Log (2): 39–47. ISSN 1547-4690. JSTOR 41764974.
  14. ^ "Notes and Queries". Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine. 1 (2). Pittsburgh: Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania.: 111 April 1918 – via Google Books.
  15. ^ Kane, Adam I. (2004). The Western River Steamboat. Texas A&M University Press. pp. XIII. ISBN 978-1-58544-322-2.
  16. ^ Meline, Mary M. (1888). "Early Navigation of the Ohio". Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. Frank Leslie Publishing House. pp. 407–414 – via Google Books.
  17. ^ Quick, Herbert; Quick, Edward (1926). Mississippi Steamboatin': A History of Steamboating on the Mississippi and Its Tributaries. H. Holt.
  18. ^ a b c Johnson, Walter (2013). River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. 107, 111. ISBN 9780674074880. LCCN 2012030065. OCLC 827947225. OL 26179618M.
  19. ^ Bausman, Joseph Henderson (1904). History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania: And Its Centennial Celebration. Knickerbocker Press.
  20. ^ Hunter, Louis C. (2012). Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History. Courier Corporation. p. 282. ISBN 978-0-486-15778-8.
  21. ^ Hunter, Louis C. (November 1943). "The Invention of the Western Steamboat". The Journal of Economic History. 3 (2): 201–220. doi:10.1017/S002205070008356X. ISSN 0022-0507. S2CID 153734719.
  22. ^ Onion, Rebecca (March 20, 2015). "Bloody Accounts of Steamboat Disasters, Sold to Tourists on the 19th-Century Mississippi". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2023-09-29.
  23. ^ a b Chapelle, Howard I.; Bathe, Greville (Autumn 1964). "The Rise and Decline of the Paddle-Wheel". Technology and Culture. 5 (4): 611. doi:10.2307/3101231. hdl:2027/mdp.39015006061819. JSTOR 3101231.
  24. ^ Elder, Lucius W. (1937). "The Mississippi River as Artistic Subject". Papers in Illinois History and Transactions for the Year 1937. Springfield, Illinois: Illinois State Historical Society: 40 – via Illinois State Library, Internet Archive.
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