Foreword / Sue Dewine
Preface / Charles E. Parrish
Acknowledgments / Rita Kohn
Introduction / Rita Kohn
Harbinger of revolution / Leland R. Johnson
Structural evolution of the western rivers steamboat / Captain Alan L. Bates
A synoptic history of towboating and its origins / Jack E. Custer
The era of town building below the falls: whatever will benefit a part will benefit the whole / Rick Bell
Omen of evil: steamboats and the colonization of the Ohio River Valley / Thomas C. Buchanan
The steamboat and black urban life in the Ohio Valley / Joe William Trotter Jr.
Steamboat music / Sandra M. Custer
The steamboat New Orleans and its impact on navigation on Ohio River tributaries / Gerald W. Sutphin
The Ohio River: a world-class inland waterway / Robert Willis
Afterword: The river today and tomorrow / Kenneth A. Wheeler
Appendix 1: Belle of Louisville: sole survivor of the pioneering New Orleans
Linda Harris and Kadie Engstrom
Appendix 2: The Rivers Institute at Hanover College:
A list of materials on river people, steamboats, and the Ohio
Mississippi River system in the Agnes Brown Duggan Library / Douglas Denné and Katherine McCardwell.