THE PEOPLE’S BOAT
Presenter: Marika Plater
4PM – 5PM

Steamboats decked out in banners, with music blasting and dancing people twirling on the decks, were a familiar sight on the Hudson by the late 1860s on sunny summer days. Aboard were working-class New Yorkers who had saved their pennies in order to--along with members of their churches, unions, sports clubs, and ethnic associations--rent boats and barges to carry them outside of the city during their rare days off. Called "excursions," these trips allowed people who lived in crowded downtown neighborhoods where the sight of a tree was rare, to explore riverside groves with meadows, forests, and beaches. On the steamboats and at the groves, excursionists enjoyed sights and smells that were very different from their home environments while amusing themselves by dancing, playing sports, and drinking. Marika Plater is a doctoral candidate in history at Rutgers University who will share her research on nineteenth-century steamboat excursions, looking at entrepreneurs of the excursion business, experiences of excursionists, and the reasons why excursions gained a bad reputation in the press.