Topic starter
14/10/2013 2:53 pm
My question is something of a delicate one. I am writing a dissertation chapter on Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man, which takes place aboard a mythical Mississippi steamboat. At the conclusion of the novel, an old man carries "a brown stool with a curved tin compartment underneath" which he thinks or is rather told is a life preserver. Critical lore would have it that this stool/life preserver is also (or perhaps only) a chamber-pot.
Jeffery Auerbach's book The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display cites a display of a large luxury couch that doubled as a safety device, which also had a sealable airtight chamber pot annexed to it, which could also be used as a life preserver. Neither the photo nor the description resemble the "brown stool" in the least, but this is the only extra-textual evidence that the field has so far come up with that would point to something like the "brown stool" really existing.
I am suspicious of this, and have been unable to find much of anything regarding what was passing for life-preservers on mid-century riverboats, or for that matter, chamber pots. I tend to think that the stool is really just a stool that doubles as a life-preserver, as it does not seem to me that chamber pots would double as passenger stools in a common area. Any information you could possible give me in regards to this or any lead you could suggest I chase down would be greatly appreciated.
14/10/2013 5:22 pm
*Yes & No on Life Preservers/Facilities*
Hi, Daniel & Steamboating colleagues:
Daniel, your inquiry above really jolted me and good with your "question...something of a delicate one." The "question" back in the pre and Victorian era down until not too many years ago with some of us here was far from being a "delicate one." That's the way it was then with a few of us here now remembering it. Indeed, the "brown stool" so mentioned was found on steamboats, steamships, hotels and inns, homes ashore. I tend to believe, having read much of Melville, there's more than a mild spoof with the old man carrying the purported stool/life peserver. Yet, in that time, people were always more than spooked traveling on ships and steamboats of the time. Fires, sinkings were more common than we think. Many strange items were manufactured for vessels more to put the timid mind to rest than actually serve any real purpose.
The Great Exhibition of 1851 in England centered on the then novel 'Crystal Palace' as partly conceived [It is reputed] by Queen Victoria's consort, Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg Gotha. This huge exhibition/trade show had on display the many arts, sciences, craft, engineering items of not only England but of the world then. There were such purported 'foating setees, couches' made for placement on ships/boats of the time with the 'jordan,' 'pot de chambre,' 'gazunder' built in for convenience generally at night. Most steam vessels then and later did have central lavatory facilities for men and women. Toilets usually dumped over the side or in the side or stern wheels. Toilet paper didn't come into vogue until much, much later with the question proposed: How did they wipe or clean?' This usually with pitchers of water, soaps, jugs in cabins or rooms. Again, cleanliness of body and clothes had a different meaning then than today. Cabins on vessels early on had no bathing facilities other than wash stands with basins, water brought by cabin stewards, stewardesses or servants ashore. These materials and chamber pots made of pewter, copper, tin, silver or Spode, Royal Dalton, Ironstone, Wedgewood pottery, porcelain if it could be afforded. On many steamships of the time passengers desiring a full bath had to reserve with the 'Bath Steward' for what day and time. I recall this custom well traveling on European steamships in my much younger years. Others 'bird bathed' from sinks or with wash basins and pitchers of warm water--if they were lucky. The DELTA QUEEN in her night boat days had many cabins with no bathing or toilet facilities. As a night boat, people were on...well...only one night and would leave the vessel in the morning for home or a hotel while traveling. Facilities were a luxury then and you paid the rate.
On the rivers here down to the Str. GORDON C. GREENE and even the DELTA QUEEN from 1948 to the early/mid 1960s, many cabins were provided with chamber pots for passengers as they lacked toilets. The maids emptied, cleaned the pots in the morning and I recall them being a white porcelain with handle and lid. Showers and main toilets were located in central areas on the decks for those in cabins without full facilities. Nobody thought a thing about it then. Obviously this would never fly in today's world where baths in each boat/ship cabin are de regieur. Many Europeans also shocked not finding bidets installed in family residences or in public places. Many hotels, fine homes, ships today installing bidets--but you pay for it. The DELTA QUEEN in her early days here was a far cry from what most of her new fans recall now. And it wasn't always steamboat romance. I well remember the last ISLAND QUEEN having lavatories that dropped directly into the river below. As a kid then I was scared like all dickens looking down to see day light and the river rushing under the pipe outfall below. Well, what do I know?
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
15/10/2013 5:43 pm
The "Confidence Man" just might be swindling people today about the uses of, as my dad would have said, "a thunder mug"!
I don't know when life jackets came into use, but the early ones had balsa wood sewed into canvas jackets. These early PFDs certainly were around at the beginning of the Twentieth Century as they were in use on the TITANIC. Also in the notice posted in each stateroom bulkhead were instructions on how to remove the shutters of the stateroom door to the guard and use them for a floatation device. I still remember the painted wooden floats stored under the texas deck overhang on the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE's hurricane deck into the 1970s.These floats were to be thrown close to the endangered person, but not a direct hit.
15/10/2013 8:31 pm
One wonders how many died from the rain of "floats" from above in the dark??
Cap'n Walnut.