Celebrations Today – August 26

Holidays and observances

Christian feast day:
The Sunday nearest to this date is Go Topless Day (International observance)
Herero Day (Namibia)
Heroes’ Day (Namibia)
Repentance Day (Papua New Guinea)
Women’s Equality Day (United States)

Celebrations Today – USA: August 26

National WebMistress Day
National Dog Day
National Women’s Equality Day
National Cherry Popsicle Day
National Make Your Own Luck Day
National Musical Yoga Day
National Toilet Paper Day
National Women’s Equality Day

Today in US History: August 26

Steaming Along

John Fitch’s Sketch and Description of Piston for Steamboat Propulsion,
ca. 1795.
Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division’s First 100 Years

On August 26, 1791, John Fitch and James Rumsey, rivals battling over claims to the invention, each were granted a federal patent for the steamboat. They devised different systems for their steamboats. Four years earlier, on August 22, 1787, Fitch demonstrated a steamboat—a Watt-type engine with a separate condenser that transmitted power to oars mounted to stroke in a paddle fashion. The forty-five-foot craft launched on the Delaware River in the presence of delegates from the Constitutional Convention. Rumsey’s craft was powered by direct force—jet propulsion. Fitch went on to build a larger steamboat that carried passengers and freight between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey.

In a 1787 letter to Thomas Johnson, George Washington discussed Fitch’s and Rumsey’s claims from his own perspective.

Mr. Rumsey…at that time applying to the Assembly for an exclusive Act…spoke of the effect of Steam and…its application for the purpose of inland Navigation; but I did not conceive…that it was suggested as part of his original plan…It is proper however for me to add, that some time after this Mr. Fitch called upon me on his way to Richmond and explaining his scheme, wanted a letter from me, introductory of it to the Assembly of this State the giving of which I declined; and went so [far] as to inform him that tho’ I was bound not to disclose the principles of Mr. Rumsey’s discovery I would venture to assure him, that the thought of applying steam for the purpose he mentioned was not original but had been mentioned to me by Mr. Rumsey…George Washington to Thomas Johnson, November 22, 1787.
George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799

Ben Campbell, Steamship at Landing,
between 1852 and 1860.
America’s First Look into the Camera: Daguerreotype Portraits and Views, 1839-1864

Nonetheless, Robert Fulton is generally credited as the inventor of the steamboat. In 1814, Fulton and Edward Livingston, the brother of Robert R. Livingston, brought commercial success to steamboating when they began to offer regular steamboat service between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi. The boats traveled at the rates of eight miles per hour downstream and three miles per hour upstream. In 1816, Henry Miller Shreve launched his steamboat Washington, which completed the voyage from New Orleans to Louisville, Kentucky, in twenty-five days. Steamboat design continued to improve, so that by 1853, the trip to Louisville took only four and one-half days.

Between 1814 and 1834, New Orleans steamboat arrivals increased from 20 to 1,200 a year. The boats transported cargoes of cotton, sugar, and passengers. Throughout the East, steamboats contributed greatly to the economy by transporting agricultural and industrial supplies. In a 1938 interview, Iowan Joe Giesler, who was a steamboatman for fifty-four years, tells a story of a calamity that occurred while transporting a load of hogs upriver:

…we put [the hogs] on the boat and had them all penned up; as the boat was going up the river someone pulled the whistle; this scared the hogs and they broke through their pen and jumped over the side of the boat; and swam to shore. It took us two or three days to round them all up.”Joe Giesler,”
Sioux City, Iowa,
Edna B. Pearson, interviewer, November 15, 1938.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940

Steam propulsion and railroads developed separately, but it was not until railroads adopted the technology of steam that they began to flourish. By the 1870s, railroads had begun to supplant steamboats as the major transporter of both goods and passengers.

Launching Party, Str. Rochester,
Wyandotte, Mich., 1910.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920

View the Transportation and Communication section in Map Collections to see maps that document the development and status of transportation and communication systems on the national, state, and local levels. Learn more about the rise of the American railroad in the special presentation History of Railroads and Maps in the American Memory collection Railroad Maps, 1828-1900, part of this collection.
Search on steamboat in the American Memory collections to find more images and stories. One item of note is an 1899 motion picture Pilot Boats in New York Harbor that includes views of steamboats.
Search on steamboat in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) to view hundreds of images of steamboats.
Search on Robert Fulton in Washington as It Was: Photographs by Theodor Horydczak, 1923-1959 to retrieve a series of photos taken of the Fulton statue in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
The Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals contains “Robert Fulton’s Experiments in Submarine Gunnery,” from the August 1881, Scribners Monthly, which says that Fulton was not “the inventor of the steam-boat” and goes on to discuss his other engineering experiments.
The Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress contains correspondence between Jefferson and Robert Fulton—some with drawings.
Use terms such as steamboat or New Orleans to search the collection Westward by Sea: A Maritime Perspective on American Expansion, 1820-1890. You will find, for example, the image “Forest Fire on the Banks of the Red River,” which was published in the December 7, 1878, issue of Harper’s Weekly.
What do steamboats, literature, and Panoramic Maps have in common? To discover the answer, check out the Arts and Humanities section of the Teachers Page’s “Collection Connections” feature on Panoramic Maps.

Today in History – August 26-External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia