A shantyboat is a small crude houseboat (also called a flatboat, broadhorn, barge, scow, or ark). There is a long forgotten history in America of people living in homemade shantyboats, a reasonable and cost-free solution for displaced people in rural areas and workers in urban areas.

Shantyboat
Shantyboat

During the 19th century into the 1930s, itinerant workers lived in shantyboats along the canals and rivers of industrial American towns. Now, not only the shantyboats are gone, but the wild river banks, the river-based industry, and even the towns and neighborhoods adjacent to the river.

Working-class people living on the water is tied to economic conditions, the boom and bust cycles of capitalism, the 1890s, the Great Depression, the 70s, and the early 2000s.

In the fallout from the U.S. economic collapse in 1893, thousands of families left their homes in the upper Mississippi Valley in home-built shantyboats to look for work along the more industrialized lower Mississippi River and Ohio River Valleys. In the 1930s, displaced and jobless people took to the waters, to live or to travel to look for work. Dozens of published chronicles of these family sojourns are still available.

Family on front porch of houseboat on river in Charleston, West Virginia-1938
Family on front porch of houseboat on river in Charleston, West Virginia-1938

During the 1960s and 70s, a water-based analogue of the Back To The Land movement blossomed in leftover houseboat communities. People looked to the relative freedom of rivers, lakes, and seas, especially in floating communities in Sausalito, California, Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. Largely class-based conflicts between these houseboat communities and land-based home owners decimated these communities, and still flare up occasionally in the remnants of these communities today.

More recently, young middle-class men and women, principally from punk and anarchist communities, have taken to the river in homemade houseboats to float the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Missouri and other rivers. Despite the maze of regulation and prohibition against it, some of these itinerant communities of boat people still exist here and there.

Shanyboat
Shanyboat
William Glasier Crop
William Glasier Crop
Des Arc Bayou, 1912
Des Arc Bayou, 1912
Family on Houseboat
Family on Houseboat
Bohemian Flats Along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, MN
Bohemian Flats Along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, MN
Bohemian Flats, Minneapolis, MN, 1910
Bohemian Flats, Minneapolis, MN, 1910

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Family on Houseboat
Family on Houseboat
Kentucky River
Kentucky River
Boathouse
Boathouse
Loading the Lewis and Clark Keelboat_robertgriffing590x387
Loading the Lewis and Clark Keelboat_robertgriffing590x387
Shantyboat in Winter
Shantyboat in Winter
shantyboat at iron bridge
shantyboat at iron bridge
Houseboat
Houseboat
Houseboat washed high and dry amid debris. Maunie, Illinois-1930
Houseboat washed high and dry amid debris. Maunie, Illinois-1930
Houseboat along Ohio River at Rochester, Pennsylvania-1940
Houseboat along Ohio River at Rochester, Pennsylvania-1940
Houseboat on the Ohio River at Rochester, Pennsylvania-1940
Houseboat on the Ohio River at Rochester, Pennsylvania-1940
The Deserted house boat-1905
The Deserted house boat-1905
Steel bridge over Illinois River at Pearl, Ill-1905
Steel bridge over Illinois River at Pearl, Ill-1905
Anna Hubbard at outdoor kitchen
Anna Hubbard at outdoor kitchen
Harlan Hubbard on deck of his shantyboat
Harlan Hubbard on deck of his shantyboat
A visit to Harlan Hubbard's shantyboat
A visit to Harlan Hubbard’s shantyboat
L&N Railroad Bridge between Newport and Cincinnati
L&N Railroad Bridge between Newport and Cincinnati
Harlan and Anna Hubbard's shantyboat at Fort Thomas, Ky
Harlan and Anna Hubbard’s shantyboat at Fort Thomas, Ky
Harlan Hubbard building his shanty boat
Harlan Hubbard building his shanty boat
Anna Hubbard hangs laundry on the line to dry
Anna Hubbard hangs laundry on the line to dry
Anna Hubbard at shanty boat (with bicycle)
Anna Hubbard at shanty boat (with bicycle)
Men loading tobacco onto a shantyboat barge
Men loading tobacco onto a shantyboat barge

 


Comments

5 responses to “History”

  1. Steven classon Avatar
    Steven classon

    Wes good luck on yor journey,I met u in auburn , when your truck broke. You parked in front of our building on locksley lane. I’m looking forward to following your journey. Good luck. Talk to you later. Steve.

  2. […] collected some historical photos around this earlier at the start of this […]

  3. I lived on the Arkansas River for 2 yrs in a 28 ft offshore fishing boat small space but I loved it now have a 46ft houseboat and if I wasn’t raising children I’d be living on it that 2yrs made me realize I don’t need a big house anymore nor do I want one I hate yard work too many allergies and coming home to the boat and just looking at the water relaxes u not to mention all the wildlife u wouldn’t normally see as for me there’s nothing better

  4. H. C. Erik Midelfort Avatar
    H. C. Erik Midelfort

    I remember from the late 1940s or early 1950s loving a children’s story book series about a family that lived on a houseboat on the Ohio (or Mississippi?) River. The kids on the boat had adventures, while Ma and Pa were pretty uninvolved. Pa had a saying that he regularly repeated: “Well, fry me for a catfish.” Does anyone remember the name of the author or the series?

  5. Greenville McCoy’s death certificate reads, ” died on a river shanty”.