Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Walt Whitman’s poem, “I Hear America Singing,” from Leaves of Grass (1855)
The Treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the American Revolution and set the Mississippi River as the new nation’s western border. With the signing of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States acquired an additional eight hundred thousand square miles of land from the Mississippi River west to the Rocky Mountains and from New Orleans north to Canada. The way was open for settlers to move even farther west.
George Caleb Bingham,Jolly Flatboatmen (1846)
In 1819 artist George Caleb Bingham’s family, like many others, moved west of the Mississippi. They settled in the wilderness town of Franklin in the Missouri Territory, which would become a state two years later. Farmers in the area shipped crops and animals in flatboats down the nearby Missouri River to the Mississippi, and on to the port of New Orleans. From there goods were shipped to markets on the east coast of the United States.
Bingham was a self-trained painter who lived most of his life in Missouri. Working before America’s vastness was made accessible by roads and railways, Bingham found his subjects in the boatmen and trappers who populated his state’s great rivers, the Missouri and the Mississippi. Through these subjects he captured a taste of life in the West. Bingham may well have witnessed a scene such as the one he recorded in the Jolly Flatboatmen as a child sitting on the banks of the Missouri River.
Flatboats, used to haul freight in the sometimes shallow inland waterways, were a dying breed when Bingham painted this one in 1846. By then, the Industrial Revolution was well underway, necessitating faster, bigger, and more powerful modes of transportation. Steamboats were seen with increased frequency on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers after the 1820s. Trips that once took months by flatboat now took only a few days. By the 1840s, manpowered flatboats had all but disappeared in favor of technologically advanced, steam-powered boats. Pictured here are eight men taking a break from the labor of navigating their flatboat on the river.
The boat is empty of freight; only a caged fowl, bedrolls, and a raccoon skin are visible. By most accounts, nineteenth-century Missouri boatmen were boisterous and vulgar. This group plays music, dances, and relaxes while their laundry dries. This genre painting, or scene from everyday life, celebrates the common men who lived their lives on the river. Like Bingham, the poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) took as his subjects laborers and people performing daily routines. He was intrigued by the humblest and most ordinary of moments. The poem, “I Hear America Singing,” was first published in 1855 in Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman’s great tribute to America. Whitman was born and worked in New York, then took a job in New Orleans, returning home by way of St. Louis, Chicago, the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls, Albany, and the Hudson. His travels provided great inspiration for his poetry.
Discussion Questions:
Like other nineteenth-century explorers, Walt Whitman traveled around America studying the world around him. In “I Hear America Singing” he wrote about the jobs he saw performed everyday. What nineteenth-century occupations are mentioned in the poem? Use a dictionary to look up any jobs that are unfamiliar. What jobs could you write a poem about that Walt Whitman and George Caleb Bingham could never dream existed?
Both “I Hear America Singing” and the Jolly Flatboatmen depict sounds. The poem speaks of various people singing. In what ways is a poem like a song? (Rhyme, rhythm, arrangement in verses, stanzas.) The painting illustrates men playing music and dancing. What sounds might you hear if you were one of the boatmen in the painting? (Boy beating on a tin plate, country fiddle, snap of dancer’s fingers and tapping of his shoes.)
The genre painting illustrates a flatboat that was used to transport goods in the nineteenth century. What does the need for a shallow flat-bottomed boat tell you about the geography of the Missouri River?
Flatboats were man-powered, so journeys were slow and long. Why were steamboats a better means of transportation? What means of transportation are used today to move goods? (Planes, trains, trucks, ships, barges.)
Is there something new this painting and poem have taught you about the nineteenth century?
George Caleb Bingham,The Jolly Flatboatmen, 1846, oil on canvas, The Manoogian Collection
