This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
Even the most democratic of passengers who boarded a Mississippi steamboat during the golden age of river travel just before the Civil War stepped into a class society. The more affluent tourists—perhaps on a pleasure trip to the Falls of St. Anthony at the head of navigation—were directed to the staterooms of the upper decks. If the beds were too narrow and the rooms a bit too hot or cold, the elite traveler was assured privacy and three sumptuous meals a day on fine china, served by impeccable stewards. At their leisure, they could read or play cards, practice their manners, or even, as Mark Twain reported, occasionally look out at the passing scenery. Removed from the hissing boiler and great engines, they floated up the river.
Down on the open deck, amid machinery and cargo, were the masses who could not afford a cabin. Here were immigrant families and their trunks dreaming of new beginnings on the Minnesota prairie, drifters going nowhere in particular, paupers and pilgrims packed rail to rail, eating what they had brought with them, sleeping fitfully in the open under rain and cinders from the smokestacks, aware that the boiler could blow at any time. A lively perfume it must have been after a week or so.
Yet the crewmen who worked these boats reported strange happenings on the deck. A camaraderie often developed among the masses. Stories were swapped and food was shared. On some trips, the deck passengers pooled their money at steamboat landings, and sent three or four men into town to buy food enough for all: meat for stew, fresh fruits, melons, and vegetables. A grand picnic on the deck, likely served on tin ware rather than china, but served by new friends rather than stewards.
Evenings on the deck, below the fine wines and cigars and games of whist up above, there were stories of adventure, lullabies for restless children, encouragements for the down at heart, memories of the old country, an assortment of very American dreams, and more than a little whiskey.
Don't you imagine that aboard the steamboats, as in life, there were passengers, top and bottom, who envied those on the other deck?
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
