The Story of Steamships: From Paddle Wheels to Titanic | Steam Culture

In this week's Steam Culture, we delve into the world of steamships, their history, the significant roles they played, and how they evolved from practical transportation to luxury liners. Plus, get some exciting trivia about the Titanic.

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[davy]

I grew up just above the ohio river bank in a little town called utica indiana and the bell of louisville would turn around right in front of my childhood home halfway thru its cruise on its way back to louisville....seeing the bell of louisville at night with all its lights on is a sight to be hold...i was poor growing up but i was blessed in many other ways....there is nothing like waking up in the middle of a cold winter night and looking out your window to see a lonely tow boat pushing its load of barges thru the fog rising off the water...those tow boats big deisel engine would make a comforting droning noise that you could feel as a light vibration thru our entire home. Those were the happiest days of my life.

[jameshall]

Really enjoy all of the material you cover - Would you consider creating a video about an airship using super-heated steam as the lifting gas (with a focus on safety/cost of steam, the potential for surface supported per-launch steam fill and the use of a small steam generator for inflight range extension).

[jkbrown]

Thomas Sowell has a few quotes in 'Black Rednecks & White Liberals' illustrating how steamboats were run on Southern rivers. He uses them to show the competitive and often reckless culture that dominated. Of course, steam boilers were blowing up all over as safe operation was developed.

'The Stoker's Catechism' by J.W. Conner, 1906 gives good insight into all the aspect of what it took to keep a coal boiler firing safely. Movies often show stokers as just men at hard labor, but there was real skill carried along with each shovel full of coal to keep the boiler running at top efficiency.

Related by Sowell:
"On board one boat “was an old lady, who, having bought a winter stock of bacon, pork, &c., was returning to her home on the banks of the Mississippi. Fun lovers on board both boats insisted upon a race; cheers and drawn pistols obliged the captains to cooperate. As the boats struggled to outdistance each other, excited passengers demanded more speed. Despite every effort, the boats raced evenly until the old lady directed her slaves to throw all her casks of bacon into the boilers. Her boat then moved ahead of the other vessel, which suddenly exploded: “clouds of splinters and human limbs darken[ed] the sky.” On the undamaged boat passengers shouted their victory. But above their cheers could “be heard the shrill voice of the old lady, crying, ‘I did it, I did it—it’s all my bacon!’ ”47"