A Rafting on the Mississip' (Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage) [Paperback]

Charles Edward Russell (Author)

Book Description

Series: Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage | Publication Date: September 4, 2001

During the nineteenth century, pine logs were lashed together to form easily floatable rafts that traveled from Minnesota and Wisconsin down the Mississippi River to build the farms and towns of the virtually treeless lower Midwest. These huge log rafts were steered down the river by steamboat pilots whose skill and intimate knowledge of the river's many hazards were legendary. Charles Edward Russell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, chronicles the history and river lore of seventy years of lumber rafting.

"Russell deals with those decades during which the lumber business and the rafting of lumber grew and reached enormous proportions. But his story covers also the splendid phase of the river steamboat. Russell writes with a lively pen, and he has made a colorful and entertaining account." New York Times Book Review

"Not a dull page in the book. Russell writes frontier history as it should be written." New York Herald Tribune

Charles Edward Russell (1860-1941) grew up on the shores of the Mississippi River during the days of lumber rafting. Best known as a journalist during the muckraking era for his exposés on the beef and tobacco trusts, Russell was also a cofounder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage Series

Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press (September 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816639426
• ISBN-13: 978-0816639427
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #549,229 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Outdoor Recreation > Rafting

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Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars Writing to rival Mark Twain, November 3, 2004

By 

J. OBRIANT (Gilroy, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Rafting on the Mississip' (Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage) (Paperback)

Charles Edward Russell's time on the river occurred decades after the four short years when Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) was in the pilothouse. Like Twain (and like George B. Merrick, too), Russell began working for a newspaper in a river town, later went on the river as a steamboatman, and finally settled on a career as a writer.

Amazon has already provided a professional review that highlights other aspects of Russell's activist career. But two of his books stand separately from his political and muckraking writings. One, "Theodore Thomas and the American Orchestra," a biography of the great conductor and founder of orchestras, won the Pulitzer Prize.

The other is "A-Rafting on the Mississip." Here, Russell brings to life the era when great lumber and log rafts, acres in size, came down out of the Great North Woods of Minnesota and Wisconsin, to build the towns and cities along the Mississippi. From the early days when rafts of cut lumber floated with the current, through the decades when steam towboats pushed and maneuvered even larger rafts of logs, Russell describes the industry and the men who made it, some of whom were personal acquaintances and others of whom were on the boats with him.

And on top of all this thoroughly researched and well-written history, Russell's powers of description rival and at times exceed those of Mark Twain. Twain could describe a sunrise or sunset on the river such that the reader's eye pictures it easily. Russell's powers go beyond the visual to capture the rivermen's reverence, respect and devotion to the great and mysterious Mississippi, constantly flowing (in his words), "out of the mystery above the point, into the mystery below the bend."

If you're a devotee of river history and steamboats, you must have this book.