-HISTORICAL RESEARCH REPORT ON EDNA FERBER ' S VISIT TO BATR, NORTH CAROLINA by Michelle F. Lawing HISTORICAL RESEARCH REPORT

ON

EDNA FERBER ' S VISIT TO BATH, NORTH CAROLINA

By Michelle F. Lawing June 29, 1979 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

I. Edna Ferber's visit to Bath, North Carolina

II . Illustrations A. Julie Neumann and Jacob Charles Ferber, ca. 1880 B. Louis and Harriet Neumann C. Edna Ferber as a reporter on the Appleton Crescent and as a high school senior D. Illustration of Emma McChesney E. Edna Ferber and Winthrop Ames F. Bath~ North Carolina, ca. 1924 G. Palmer-Marsh House H. Palmer-Marsh Cemetery I. Interior and exterior views of the James Adams Floating Theatre; Charles Hunter and Beulah Adams J. James Adams grounded in Dismal Swamp Canal; Beulah Adams in later life; James Adams being towed down the Dismal Swamp Canal K. Newspaper advertisements for the James Adams L. James Adams Floating Theatre Broadside 1. 1928 2 . 1931 M. Florenz Ziegfeld N. Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern

III. Bibliography PREFACE

For several days in 1925, Edna Ferber, a popular American novelist,

was a guest in the small town of Bath, North Carolina. She was waiting

for the arrival of the James Adams Floating Theatre, a North Carolina show

boat. Information Miss Ferber acquired during her brief visit to North

Carol ina was incorporated into her novel, Show Boat. The book, a best-seller,

eventually evolved into a Broadway play and several motion pictures . This

report, and the background information it contains, explains the influence

Bath and the James Adams Floating Theatre had on Edna Ferber and her novel, Show Boat . •

. . Edna Ferber was considered the greatest American woman novelist of her 1 day by the critics of the 1920s and 1930s. She published twelve nove ls,

twelve volumes of short stories,and numerous plays during her lifetime .

Her early years as a newspaper reporter sharpened her keen powers of obser- vation and provided her retentive mind with a kaleidoscope of images, per- sonalities, and experiences which were later interwoven into the fabric of her writing. Rudyard Kipling, in a 1931 letter to Nelson Doubleday, referred 2 to Edna Ferber as "a historical painter." Her canvas was the printed page on which she captured the color and vibrancy of the American working class.

Her best known works include the popular Emma McChesney short stories, Come and Get It, Cimmarron, Giant, Show Boat, and the 1925 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, So Big. 3 Miss Ferber was born August 15, 1885 . Her father, Jacob Charles Ferber, was a native of Oyslo, Hungary. He emigrated to the United States when he was seventeen and worked for a number of years on a large farm owned by his family. The " gentle and irascible" Hungarian married the "high-spirited .. 4 and self-willed" Julia Neumann of Chicago, Illinois, around 1880. · The young

Jewish couple set up housekeeping in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where Jacob opened a dry-goods store. Their first child was a daughter named Fannie. Julia Neumann

Ferber, anxious for a son, prematurely named their second baby Edward Victor

Ferber, She changed the name to Edna when the child, a girl, was born.

The family left Kalamazoo around 1889. Jacob sold his prosperous store

~n order to invest his money in Chicago. He hoped to profit from the increase of business during the 1893 World's Fair held in that city. While in Ch icago the Ferbers lived with Edna ' s grandparents, Louis and Harriet Neumann. 2

Edna was very fond of her grandparents, especially her grandfather, whom 5 she described as "stage struck." After the evening dinner, Grandpa Neumann

would entertain the children with a large box he had made into a miniature

theater, complete with moving cardboard scenery and characters. He would,

sometimes, enact a play; but, the performace more often would be an opera. He

knew and sang entire scores in French, German, and Italian. Grandpa Neumann's

characterizations fostered in Edna a life-long excitement and love for the

theater.

Jacob Ferber was unsuccessful 1n finding a business location in Chicago.

After a year of looking he gave up and invested his money in a store in Ottumwa,

Iowa. The small town, flanked by the muddy Des Moines River, was situated in

a farming and coal mining district. Edna described the co~unity as "a sordid, 6 clay and gully town . .. unpaved, bigoted, anti-Semitic, and undernourished."

The Ferbers lived in Ottumwa from 1890 to 1897. Edna remembered those seven • years with a great deal of bitterness; yet, through it all, she and her family attended the theater. It was their escape from the unfriendly Iowa town.

Edna exhibited a talent and enthusiasm for public speaking in Ottumwa.

She eagerly participated in her school's Friday afternoon recitations and for

a short while took elocution lessons . Her favorite pastime was "playing show" 7 in the Ferber woodshed theater. She was a voracious reader, unconsciously

accumulating a vocabulary she would draw upon during her literary career.

Oddly enough, as a child, Edna never wrote anything beyond her assigned school

lessons.

The impoverished, anti-Semitic Ottumwa community had little to offer a

Jewish businessman. Jacob Ferber had difficulty making ends meet, even with

his wife, Julia, helping him. His business problems were compounded by an eye

disorder, atropy of the optic nerve. He spent many years and a considerable

amount of money traveling to specialists 1n an attempt to stave off the in- 3

evitable blindness . Feeling they were on a sinking ship, the Ferbers sold

their Ottumwa store and returned, briefly, to the Neumann household in Chicago.

Their next home, in Appleton, \~isconsin, was the antithesis of Ottumwa,

Iowa. Edna and her family felt welcome in the friendly, prosperous community.

She remembered it fondly in later years and wrote:

If Ottumwa had seemed like some foreign provincial town in its narrowness and bigotry, Appleton represented the American small town at its best. A sense of well-being prevaded it. It was curiously modern and free in the best sense of the words. Cliques, ma l ice, gossip, snobbishness-­ all the insular meannesses--were strangely lacking in this thriving community. Trouble, illness and death were to come upon us there in the next few years, but sympathy and friend­ ship leavened them and made them bearable.B

In Appleton, Edna took advantage of any opportunity to demonstrate her elocution skills. Her greatest triumph came during her senior year of high school when she won the Wisconsin State Declamatory Contest. Her recitation was Richard Harding Davis ' s "The Littlest Girl," a story about a stage child.

Edna returned from the contest to find "the entire high school and most of the town at the depot, together with the two complete fire ~ engine companies who had been called to control the gigantic blaze of the bonfire which had been 9 lighted in the school athletic field" in celebration of her victory.

Edna considered attending the Northwestern University School of Elocution at Evanston, Illinois, after she graduated from high school. She wanted to be- come a stage actress; however, she did not have any money of her own and her family could not afford to send her to school . Jacob Ferber was almost blind and very dependent on his family. His wife, Julia, was managing their Appleton store completely on her own . A family argument over the lack of pocket money sent Edna in a rage to the office of the Appleton Daily Crescent where she talked Sam Ryan, the editor, into hiring her for three dollars a week.

In 1902, seventeen year old Edna Ferber began her professional career ~n writing as the first woman reporter on the Appleton Crescent. She covered a 4

regular news beat in this placid ~isconsin community for a year and a half. Her Crescent experience taught her "to r ead what lay behind the look that veiled peoples faces . how to sketch in human beings with a few rapid words, ... Lho~7 to see, to observe , to remember; Lsh~/learned, in short, 10 the first rules of writing. ••

The Crescent's city editor left Appleton to return to his home and pre- vious job in Milwaukee, \~isconsin. He turned his job as the Appleton corres­

pondent for the Milwaukee Journal over to Edna. However, her new responsibility did not last long. The new city editor did not like Edna and fired her while she was on vacation. She spent the summer unemployed and unhappy until Henry Campbell, the managing editor of the Milwaukee Journal, called and offered her fifteen dol­ lars a week as a reporter on the Journal. Edna accepted and spent the next four years in Milwaukee. The job was very demanding and had a debilitating effect on her health, forcing her to return to her family in Appleton. While she was regaining her strength, she ~egan her first novel, Dawn O'Hara, a story of a Milwaukee newspaper woman. Unlike Edna, the heroine was romantic, beautiful and Irish, with an insane husband, a lover, and a New York past. Edna sent the book to numerous women's magazines, but it was always returned looking more dog-eared than when it had left. Undaunted by Dawn O' Hara ' s repeated rejections, the young author began her first short story, "The Homely Heroine." After her father's death 1.n 1909, she completed the story and sent it to "Everybody's Magazine" where it was immediately accepted.

Julia Ferber and her daughters spent the year following Jacob's death preparing to leave Appleto9, Wisconsin. They sold their store and all their household furnishings . Edna continued to write short stories during the con­ fusion of the move from Appleton to Chicago. Her novel. Dawn O' Hara, was finally accepted for publication soon after they were settled in Chicago 5

and her first volume of short stories, Buttered Side Down, came out a year later, in 191 2.

Edna's next literary success was the much-heralded Emma McChesney short stories. Emma, a traveling saleswoman with a son in college, sold petticoats. She was a new character 1n American fiction, and the early twentieth century public, unaccustomed to the idea of women in business, found her adventures both novel and entertaining. Emma HcChesney was the first of a series of fie- tional characters, created by Edna, depicting hard working , independent women. Their hardships. and triumphs would help label Edna Ferber as "a precursor of the Women ' s Liberation Movement ... Lwhos~7 heroines as progressive originals doggedly paved large inroads for themselves. . . . Her male characters, on the other hand, were usually felled by their colorful but ultimately ineffectual 11 machismo." .

The s lightest stimulus sent her imagination racing. She described Chicago ' s "Gauguin scarlet" stockyards, New York's "swaying Fifth Avenue elephants Lopen - air buse~/, and the "dictator-slick" 12 villages of pre-World War I Italy. What emerged from her writing was ~lways a precise portraiture of the "working people, of the Littl e People, of those 13 who got the tough end of life." The author claimed she was not interested in writing stories about the rich and famous people.

Miss Ferber's novel, So Big, was written over a pe~iod of a year. It is the story of a "middle-aged woman in a calico dress, and with wispy hair and bad teeth grubbing on a little truck 14 farm south of Chicago." The underlying theme of triumph over failure tugged the heartstrings of many people. When the book was completed in 1923 Edna did not feel she had written a best seller, but rather "theworld's worst seller ... 15 a complete Non-Seller." So Big sold over three hundred and twenty-three thousand copies, was made into two motion pic- tures, and was published in Germany, England, Holland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, 6

Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Denmark. The novel fulfilled the criteria estab- lished for the Pulitzer Prize by presenting "the wholesome atmosphere of American life and the highest standards of American manners and manhood."16 While So Big was going to press, Edna began writing, "Minick," one of her many Broadway plays. The play was written in collaboration with George Kaufman, a well-known playwright and drama editor of the New York Times. "Minick" was based on what Miss Ferber regarded as one of her finest short stories, "Old Man Minick." Set on the south side of Chicago in an apartment overlooking Washing- ton Park , "Old Man Hinick" was the tale of an elderly man who meddled in the affairs of his son and daughter-in-law. The short story had been published 17 1n 1922.

The play, produced by Winthrop Ames, previewed the summer of 1924 in sev- eral small New England theaters. Edna attended the August opening at the long vacant Lyceum Theatre in New London, Connectic ut. When the house lights were dimmed, hordes • of bats swooped down from the ceiling, frightened the audience and disrupted the performance. 18 Winthrop Ames tried to console his despondent troupe after the show. "Never mind, boys and girls ! Next time I'll tell you what we 1 11 do. We won't bother with tryouts . We'll all charter a show boat a~d we'll just drift down the rivers, playing the towns as we come to them, and we'll never get off the boat. It '11 be wonderfulll"19 At Edna's r equest, Ames explained that a show boat wa~ a floating theater that played up and down the southern rivers; the actors living and working on the boat. Miss Ferber, who "had been slumped, a disconsolate heap on a cushion on the floor, sat up and up and up like a cobra uncoiling, forgetting all about New London and 'Minick' and bats. Here was news of a romantic aqd dramatic aspect of America of which - - Lsh~/ had never heard or dreamed." 20 7

Soon she was involved deeply in a quest for show boat lore, and had little time to revel in ''Minick'~'successful Broadway run. For over a year she re- searched all available information on floating theaters, and discovered there were several boats still in operation. One such vessel was the James Adams F 'l oating Theatre, which plied the coastal waters of North Carolina and Vir­ . . g1.n1.a. 21

Miss Ferber, anxious for first hand knowledge of show boats, headed south to visit the James Adams in October of 1924. She had decided to write a novel centered around .life on a show boat. \-lhen she arrived in \.Jashington, North Carolina, she hired a young black man to drive her in his decrepit Ford to the landing where the floating theater was tied. The thirty mile trip on the dusty country road was a memorable experience; one the author recorded in her autobiography.

Certain glittering and gorgeous memories may slip mind as the years from my go by, but I'll never forget that original structure Ford. Its probably derived from the well-known after which it brand was named. But its owner had, perforce, mented it with bits supple­ and pieces of old metal, wire, canvas wood, held together, seemingly, and by chewing gum, spit and faith. Every bolt, joint, hinge and curtain shook, rattled, squeaked and f l apped. I, in the back seat, was busy trying to hold thing together. As a the door swung spectrally open and I sprang to shut it a curtain would strain and threaten to tear loose from the cotton thread that held it to the body of the car.22 Unknown. to Miss Ferber, the show boat season had just endep, and the James Adams was preparing to depart for winter berth in Elizabet~ City,. North Caro- lina. She arrived, however, in time to be cordially welcomed aboard the show boat by Charles Hunter, the stage manager, who recognized her as the author of the Emma McChesney short stories. She explained her intent to write a book on show boats and her desire to spend some t i me on one. Arrangements were made for Edna to join the James Adams the following April 23 at Bath, North Carolina. Miss Ferber spent that winter in New York City relaxing with friends and enjoying the good reviews her novel, So Big, was receiving.

\. 8

Bath was incorporated as North Ca 24 r olina's first town in 1705. Over the next two hundred years the bustling colonial community, once the seat of Beaufort County and a major port for the state, settled i nto a napping, weather-beaten village lulled by the salt-sodden breezes of Bath Creek and the Pamlico River. From 1900 to 1920 her population declined from 400 to 274 citizens. 25 When Edna Ferber visited Bath 1n 1925 many people in the community were farmers. Cotton was t he ma1n crop 1n the mid 1920s, but corn and tobacco also were grown. A Boll Weevil Conference was held in January 1924 at the Beaufort County Courthouse in Washington, North Carolina. The aim of the conference was "to bring the most practical information on weevil control yet devised by the Government and other agencies working 26 on this great problem. " The boll weevil was not the only thing to damage the cotton grown that year. There was a bad storm in July that caused heavy flooding. Half of the cotton crop was destroyed and 27 the tobacco and corn also were damaged . Fishing was another • important occupation in Bath. In 1920, Beaufort County ranked fourth in the state in value of fishing material including boats, nets, seines, and other related equipment. The county ranked fifth in revenue from fisheries. Shad and herring were netted out of the P~lico River and Pamlico Sound. 28

There were several businesses incorporated in Bath during the late nine ~ teenth and early twentieth centuries. There were lumber mills, mercantile busi­ nesses, transporation companies that carried freight and passengers on the Pamlico River, and a company that bought and sold horses, mules, carriages, wagons, and other horse drawn vehicles. 29

The mayor and town commissioners of Bath were all women in 1921. They may have been the first all female town administration in the United States. Mrs. Mary Brooks, wife of T. A. Brooks was acting mayor. Mr. Brooks, the elected 9

mayor, relinquished his office so he would have more time to manage his store

and lumber mill. Mrs. Vonnie Marsh was secretary and Mrs. Annie B. Crawly was

council member. The ladies collected delinquent town taxes and used the money

to hire someone to clean the streets. They campaigned for a paved road from

Bath to Washington. The Foster Construction Company of Wilkesboro, North Caro- lina was given the contract for the road in August 1924. 30

The most publicized accomplishment of the lady commissioners was the marker

they obtained commemorating Bath's incorporation as a town in 1705. The Beau-

fort County Board of Commissioners appropriated three hundred dollars for the

monument, the Society of the Colonial Dames contributed one hundred dollars, 31 and the Bath school children collected forty-six dollars . The monument was

unveiled at Bath on June 19, 1924. A number of prominent North Carolinians

spoke to the large crowd assembled for the day-long event. The main address

was given by Lindsay C. Warren, state legislator from Beaufort County. Mrs .

• A. M. Waddell, President of the North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames was another speaker. Her address was described as ··~ perfect gem of historic 32 topics in well chosen words."

Bath was the nucleus of a small closely knit community 1n 1925. The members

were mainly hard working farmers and fishermen. There was a new brick school

building, T. A. Broqks's lumber mill, and several stores in town. It was not a bustling community except on Saturdays, when the peopl e came. . into. town to trade with the local merchants. Their social life revolved around community events,

family and church gatherings . Outside entertainment, such as the James Adams

Floating Theatre, was rare, thus all the more popular. Evangelists ' meetings,

similar to t~e Ham-Ramsey Revival in 1924, and traveling carnivals, like Sells

Floto Circus and Milt Tolbe~s Big Tent Theatre, were occasions for a trip to . Was h1.ngton. 33

The Washington Progress printed a description of Bath in June of 1924. 10

It is ideally located on a bluff overlooking Bath Creek and in full vie'~ of Pamlico River, with its almost never ceasing breezes and its many towering shade trees, adjacent fertile farms and in whose waters the angler finds his haven of delight catching the finny tribe.34 Less than a year l ater Edna Ferber arrived in the town t o meet the James Adams Float ing Theatre. Bath appeared to her to be "a lovely decayed hamlet .

L;hos~7 ancient houses, built by men who knew dignity of architectural design and purity 35 of line, were now moldering into the dust from which they had come." The hamlet' s only boarding house was located on Water Street. The structure, now known as the Palmer-Marsh House, is a historic site under the administra- tion of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History.

The impressive two-story frame house, built between 1740 and 1758 by Michael Coutanch, a merchant and commissioner of Bath, incorporates several characteristics unique to the colonial period. There are two English bond

chimneys joined by a two-story pent closet on the east end of the house. This double chimney is seventeen feet wide and four feet thick at its base. A double-shouldered Flemish bond chimney containing a massive basement kitchen fireplace is on the north side of the house. The home has an unusual number of windows despite the expense and scarcity of glass in colonial North Carolina. 36

Michael Coutanch ' s daughter, Susannah, and her husband, Richard Evans, sold the house to Lillington and James Lockhart in 1763. A year l ater the prop- erty was deeded to Robert Palmer, Surveyor- General of North Carolina and Col- lector for the Port of Bath. Governor William Tryon was a frequent guest of Palmer and his wife, Margaret . Robert Palmer transferred the home to his son, William, in 1771 . It stayed in the Palmer family until 1802 when it was pur- chased by Jonathan and Daniel Marsh, prominent Beaufort County merchants. Marsh family descendants maintained ownership for 120 years, reluctantly selling their home in 1915 to J. D. Eborn. Three years later Eborn sold the property to Henry Ormond who turned part of the private residence into a boarding house. In 1958 11

Ormond's heirs sold the house to the Beaufort County Historical Society, which

repaired the dilapidated building to its original colonial grandeur. 37 When Edna arrived in Bath in 1925 she found a message waiting for her at Ormond's boarding house. The James Adams had been delayed and would not ar- rive for one or two more days. Disappointed, Miss Ferber reluctantly t ook a room for the night. She followed her "large and puffing landlady" up the "broken stairway."38

She opened the door of my room. In contrast with the fresh April air outside the room smelled of mice, mold, and mankind. My eye leaped to the bed. Then, boldly, I crossed to it and turned down the dingy covers . My worst fears realized, I turned an accusing glare upon my landlady. 11 What's the matter"? she demanded. "The sheets." 11 D'ye mean you want them changed"? she asked, with that touch of irritation one might show if a guest were to demand why her own monogram did not appear on the hotel linen. "I do," I replied with dignity and finality. "It is, I believe, customary." Grudgingly she began to strip the bed under my stern • eye. She muttered as she worked. "Only been slept in by my own daughter, and she only used 'em once. She teaches school and comes home, sometimes. Saturdays. Only slept 1n 'em last Saturday night, fresh." "Nevertheless--" I said, firmly. That night I slept practically suspended in midair, defying the law of gravity . .. Little icy-footed mice skipped back and forth and chattered vixenishly in the wainscotings 39

Miss Ferber found breakfast the next morning of questionable origin and unacceptable to her discriminating, cosmopolitan palate. She left the meal untouched and headed for a little crossroads store she had noticed the day before . Upon entering the "musty little shop," Miss Ferber's delicate olfactory nerves sensed "the mingled odors of kerosene, mice, broomstraw, tobacco juice, and dampness. ,,40 After critically surveying the merchandise, she bought some milk chocolate, crackers, and a bag of apples. She dined on this meager fare

until the following day's arrival of the James Adams Floating Theatre. 41 12

N. H. Roper, Bath's postmaster, gave Edna a tour of the town. At Ormond's boarding house, he cleared a path through the underbrush so she could view the Palmer and Marsh family graveyard. He also took her to visit St . Thomas Episcopal Church where she signed the church register. Built in 1734, St. Thomas is the oldest church ~n North Car olina and once contained the 42 state I s f"~rst bl"~c l"b pu ~ rary. Miss Fer ber was impressed with the old tomb- stone inscriptions in the churchyard. She later wrote, "All the hardships and tears and hopes and fears of the struggling American Colonies could be pieced together from the reading of those weather-worn annals."43 The next day, Mr. Roper's son took the author across Back Creek to Plum Point, once the home of Edward Teach, the notorious Blackbeard the Pirate. Miss Ferber paid the young Roper fifty cents for his time and trouble.44

Edna also talked to some of the town's residents. A 1929 newspaper article • claims one elderly man in particular eagerly shared his knowledge of Bath's history. At the end of the long conversation, Miss Ferber, wanting to pay him for his time and information, thrust into the bewildered gentleman's hand a hundred dollar bill!~S

The story seems a bit incredible. Mrs. Nancy Roper, a life-time resident of Bath, was asked in June of 1979, what she ~new of the one hundred dollar bill incident. Mrs. Roper related that soon after the show boat l eft Bath ~n 1925, a man came into the postoffice to see her husband, H. N. Roper. The man wanted to know how Mr. Roper felt about the hundred dollar bill Edna Ferber gave him. Mr. Roper replied that he had not seen any hundred dollar bill and that Edna Ferber had not even made a donation to the church! According to Mrs. Roper, the money was given to Charles Hunter, not to her husband. The author ' s

stay ~n. B h b . f b at was r~e , ut not soon f b f I 46 orgotten y some o t h e town s c~t~ze• • n s. Edna watched the James Adams float down the Pamlico River and Bath Creek 13

to the rickety dock the morning of her third day in Bath. She lived as a

member of the show boat troupe during the next four days. She attended re-

hearsals, watched performances, played a walk- on, sold tickets, chatted with

the audience, dined and relaxed with the cast and crew. She slept comfortably

in the bright, a~ry bedroom usually occupied by Charles and Beulah Hunter.

The large room contained a wooden bed, wash bowl and pitcher, a low rocking

chair, and a little black iron woodstove. Crisp dimity curtains framed the . d 47 f our w~n ows.

Miss Ferber's novel, Show Boat, was greatly influenced by her visit on

the James Adams. Charles Hunter sat down to tell her all he knew about show

boats the morning of her fourth day on the floating theater. For most of the

day Edna took notes of the "incidents, characters, absurdities, drama, trag-

edies, river lore and theatrical wisdom" that poured forth from Hunter' s 48 memory. Many of Charles Hunter's recollections and Miss Ferber' s observa- • tions during those few days were incorporated into the novel. James Adams, for whom the floating theater was named, had been a showman

most of his life. A native of Saginaw, Michigan, Adams and his wife, Gertrude,

once performed in an aerial act and were partners with carnival king, Joh~ny J.

Jones. Adams left Jones and ~tarted his own circu~ . When that ~nterprise

proved financially unsuccessful he sold out and formed a two car, · ~en cent

vaudeville show that traveled through the South, includ~ngeastern Nort~ Ca ro-

lina. The show was so popular that some of the members of the troupe formed

their own companies. The new competition, cutting deepl y into his p~ofits, propelled Adams into a new venture. 49

Impressed with a show boat he had seen ~n Huntington, West Virginia, Adams

spent two years talking with boat experts and drawing plans for a saltwater 50 version of that craft. The boat was built in 1913 in Washington, North Caro-

l ina, by Bill Chauncey. The shipyard, located at the foot of Bonner Street, was known as the old Farrow shipyard. 51 14

The town of Washington had been active 1n shipbuilding since the eighteenth century. The shipowners and merchants that lived there and in Bath contributed to the growth of Beaufort County. The Raleigh Star recorded in May 1836 the arrival in Tarboro, North Ca rolina, of a steamboat from Washington. Regular steamship lines were established up the Pamlico and Tar rivers by the late 1840s. Steamers, also, ran to other North Carolina ports and to Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore , Maryland. The port of Washington handled over one 52 half of North Carolina' s water-borne commerce by the 1850s. The Amidas was one of the first steamers built in Washington. It was constructed in 1849 and served the ports of Washington, Tarboro, and Greenville. The Governor Morehead was another steamship working out of Washington before the Civil War . The steamer Sophie Wood ran between Washington and Bat h during the late nineteenth century. Steamships continued to be important carriers of freight and passengers despite the increased dependency on railroad trans- portation. The last freight line to Tarboro was discontinued in 1923. There was still a lot of water borne traffic on the Pamlico when the James Adams Floating Theatre was launched in 1914; however, steam power was soon replaced . 1 b b y h t e 1nterna com ustton. engtne. . 54 The James Adams Floating Theatre was specially constructed to withstand the rigors of saltwater, high winds, and choppy seas. Standing timber bought in South Carolina was cut into 16 inch square beams long eno9gh to run the length of the 55 hull without splicing. Planking four inches thick and thirty- two feet long was drift bolted every two feet with twenty-seven inch bolts . The finished craft was 132 feet long, 34 feet wide and drew 14 inches of water. 56 The James Adams looking like a barge with a two-story frame house on it, was built and outfitted for $8,941.42. 57

The austere exterior of the James Adams Floating Theatre, devoid of the gilt and wooden gingerbread typical of show boats on the Mississippi and 15

Missouri rivers, was painted white with a dark contrasting trim ~ The craft was boarded by a gangplank placed at the bow of the boat . Tickets were pur- chased at the booth l ocat ed at the center front entrance to the auditorium. Directly above the entrance, on the second story, were two living suites for the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, and themanagers, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter. In later years a small third story was added and was reputed to have been used for private gambling parties during prohibition. 58 Measuring 30 feet by 80 feet, the auditorium seated 700 people. There were private boxes for the more affluent patrons and a balcony for the black population. The ceiling beneath the balcony was covered with cast iron squares, 59 typical of the Victorian era.

The stage, at the stern of the boat, was 19 feet wide and 15 feet deep. There were, at the back of the stage, eight dressing rooms which doubled as . s 1 eep1ng quarters. 60 The stage served as a living room after the evening per- formance. Every spring an artist would spend a month on the James Adams painting new scenery for that season's plays. The sets and drops were all reversible. The props were stored on elevated platforms at the back of the stage when not in use. There were, also, cubby holes around the stage walls and a storage room below deck in the stern of the boat. The curtain was covered with painted advertisements flanking a pastoral scene. 61 The dining room, kitchen, and cook's quarters, located beneath the stage, were entered 62 through a door in the orchestra pit. The dining ~oom ceiling was only five feet, 63 six inches high. Edna Ferber remembered the food on the James Adams being 64 "abundant, well cooked, and clean . " Everyone, cast and crew alike, ate together. Late comers had to be satisfied with whatever was left. The floating theater, not being self-propelled, was maneuvered through the coastal waterways by two tugboats. One of them, the fifty foot Elk, had a 90 horse power marine engine and drew five and a half feet of water. Another, the 16

Trouper, was a smaller, less powerful boat. Both tugs would sometimes find

themselves aground while the more shallow drafted show boat floated free.

The Elk and the Trouper, built for James Adams during Wor ld War I, replaced 65 b oats d h d A ams a prev~ous. 1 b 1 .y een eas~ng.

Each year, from April through October, the Elk and the Tro~pe r guided the

James Adams · through the waterways up to the rickety docks and weathered landings

of the isolated coastal communities . Sometimes the show boat would have to lie

directly against a riverbank, her lines secured around trees and fence posts.

The floating theater would usually remain a week and would only return the

next season to those communities where attendance had been high.

The arrival of the James Adams was not heralded by the loud steam calliope and pageantry of the Mississippi show boats. The North Carolina show boat usually arrived under the cover of darkness; her bright lights a silent bar- . . . h . h 66 b ~nger p~erc~ng t e n~g t. There was little advance advertisement. In the early years James Adams used an unique gimmick of sending a comp limentary ticket to all automobile owners. He knew they would want to attend and would bring paying patrons with them. In later years there were sma ll announcements placed in the local newspapers. Handbills announcing the week's program would be 67 distributed after the boat's arriva1.

The season's premier usually was held ~n El izabeth City, the winter berth of the James Adams Floating Theatre. Afterwards, the show boat floated south to towns like Hertford, Edenton, Plymouth, and Columbia, North Carolina, stopping 68 along the way in such communities as Colerain, Winton, and Murfreesboro. Bath 69 was the first stop during the 1925 season. After playing the North Carol ina sounds and rivers, the show boat would head north through the Dismal Swamp Canal into the Chesapeake Bay, entertaining audiences on the eastern and western shores. 70 Orancock, Virginia, was one of the season ' s final engagements. 17

General admission was twenty cents and thirty-five cents in 1925. Reserved 71 seating was fifty cents. There was a different play each night except Sunday, when there was no performance . The plays were popular melodramas and comedies.

A short vaudeville show followed the play. The cast was responsible for pro-

viding their own costumes for the plays and any props they needed for their spec1.a. 1 ty acts. 72

The playbill for 1925 was as follows:

Monday -- "The Balloon Girl " Tuesday -- "Pollyanna" Wednesday -- "Tempest and Sunshine" Thursday -- "A Thief in the Night" Friday -- "Sooey-San" Saturday - - "Mystic Isle"73

Edna Ferber recalled that the firs t night she spent on the James Adams the play was "a bastard resulting from the combination of 'East is West' and 74 'The Shanghai Gesture,' pleasingly mated by /_Charle!!_7 Hunter. The "bastard" was probably Friday night's "Sooey-San."

The show boat troupe usually numbered twenty-~ix to thirty persons.

There were actors, musicians, cook, captain, and tug boat crew. Show boat actors were often professionals seeking temporary employment during the off season mont hs of city theater. Some of them would be with the show boat only one season; others would return each spring. There were also those actors dependent solely on the floating theater for their livelihood.

Theatrical publications advertised available positions on show boats .

Western and midwestern actors were preferred, though regional talent was some- . d 75 t1.mes use . The free room and board was not always enough compensation for the lower wages. One young actor, disillusioned with his salary, warned a friend against employment on a show boat.

Of all the jobs you better never take this one. Remember, twenty is the limit and no banners or candy to help. Another thing , you don' t dare chase (escort local belles to th e ir homes after the show) any, as they are very particular about that.76 18

Male cast members sometimes joined the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks in Elizabeth City. They wanted to be eligible for the national bene- fits of what was then a soc ial and beneficial fraternity for actors. James Adams would recommend prospective members when the cast arrived for preseason

rehearsals. The local Elks would rush through the applications eliminating the usual 77 red tape. Charles Hunter and the show boat troupe provided the musical 78 entertainment for the Elks ' 1928 officers ' installation. The

fraternal order is open to men of all occupations today.

The star leads on the James Adams were Charles M. Hunter and his wife, Beulah Adams. Beulah had left her home in Saginaw, Michigan, at the age of thirteen, to be with her older brother, James, owner of the floating theater. 79 She and Charles Hunter, a showman from Ohio, were married in Goldsboro, North Carolina, on April 20, 1911. Beulah was eighteen years old; Charles was twenty­ four. SO Charles Hunter, in addition to playing the leading man, acted as stage . • manager and d 1rector. 81 The lovely and charming Miss Adams, popular with show boat audiences, was known as the "Mary Pickford of the Chesapeake" and the "Mary Pickford of the rivers."82

Show boat audiences were usually hard working country folk, and the James Adams was one of their few social outlets. For a few hours they would for~et the drudgery of everyday life and lose themselves in the magic of theater. It

was not unusual for them to become personally involved with the characters on the stage.

One evening a Hertford, North Carolina, audience was attentively watching the play "The Little Lost Sister." The heroine, played by Beulah Adams, was lured from her home into a bar where the villain convinced her to take a drink. She did not know he had drugged the beverage.

As the girl slowly raised the glass a farmer ' s wife rose as suddenly in her seat as if she had been playing in the act and waving her arm commandingly shouted in a loud voice: 19

"Don't drink that stuff, little girl"! The play threatened to break up but Beulah caught the situation and as if it was part of the play. She threw the glass to the floor and said: ''you 're right, I \.,on't drink this stuff"t 83

Charles and Beulah Hunter remained with the James Adams until the late 1930s. They 84 left to tour in a show billed as the "Original Show Boat Players . " The Hunters were not the only people Edna Ferber met in 1925 . The ingenue lead was piayed by Hazel Arnold whose specialty act was impersonations. Eddie Paul, of Boston, Massachusetts, starred opposite her in the juvenile lead. The juvenile lead was known as "a raver," and his acting method was called "spitting scenery." The character team was Tim Lester and his wife, Jackie Mayo. They were known for their song and dance routines. Linden Haverly, billed as "Haverly the Great, International Illusionist," starred in the character role. After the play he entertained the audience with his magic tricks, one of which was "Shooting Thru a Woman." Van 0. Browne, "Wizard of the Piano and Accordion," 85 • handled the general business lead. The band, or orchestra as it was usually called, was an integral part of

the show boat. It provided a musical background for the play and afterwards participated in the vaudeville show. In the early years of the James Adams, the band 86 would give two daily concerts for the public. Its uniforms were 87 usually dark blue. It was not unusual to see some of the band members crewing on the Elk and the Trouper, since most peo~le on the show boat had more than one job.

Harry Masten was the orchestra leader, and Della Masten was the lady cornet soloist in 88 1928. The Ed Faltes ' s ten piece orchestra provided the mus1c 1n 1931; and for a time, Jimmy McCullom of Maxton, North Carolina, was the drummer 89 on the show boat.

The adept management rendered by James Adams and later by his brother,

Selba S. Adams, contributed to the show boat's popularity and success. 90 20

Charles Hunter once was asked to explain the floating theater's popularity. It's simply this, we bring a modern theatre comfortable with scenery, seats, a good orchestra, the latest music, good play without and a a suggestive line in it, to people miles from miles and a railroad, who seldom have the opportunity a show, to see and without a suggestive line in it--all Our audiences for four bits. are the salt of the earth, quick sincerity, to detect in­ sham, and pretense, if we try And to camouflage it. these real, wholesome, genuine 100 per want cent Americans don't anything but a clean show. We wouldn't play. dare risk a sex If we tried a sex title, we'd never again. get our crowds back We give them the old-fashioned hokum, all faithful about mother love, and unfaithful sweethearts, the lamp occasional in the window, an villain, and all in a play full of smiles but mostly hilarious and tears laughter . They go for it strong, not because but it's these people are hicks, or behind the small towns times. Our today, because of good roads, the radio, graph, and plenty the phono­ of literature, are posted on good music shows, and our and genuine wholesome North Carolina audiences hungering for are clean shows, and that ' s why they come.91 James Adams, on the back of a 1931 program, admitted that "the good will, friend­ ship, and confidence of Lth~7 public"92 formed one of the floating theater's greatest assets.

The small amount of competition was another asset. Few people were willing to risk the large amount of capital needed to run a show boat. There was one competitor, a secondhand clothier in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, who launched a show boat in 1917. The boat played the same territory as the James Adams for three years. The clothier was not a businessm~nl nor was he familiar with theater. His show boat was unsuccessful financially, ~fld he was forced ~.o sell it to a logging company which converted the craft into a barge. 93 Motion pictures eventually took away some of the show boat ' s revenue. Adams realized this threat and appealed to the loyalty of his audiences. At the preseqt time the entire amusement industry is dominated by the "talking picture." The public has no choice, the chain controled theatres give them what they want them to have, and force the public to accept it denying them by any other form of entertainment. If the time comes that our judgement tells us that our pub.!_ic .E_refers "mechanical entertainment" we will bring Ltha!/ to you. But until that time comes we shall 21

continue to bring you our company o f thirty people. Flesh and Blood ac tors and mu s icians, which we believe is of more benefit to your community that "five thousand feet of celluloid and phonograph. "94

Adams pointed out that money from mo tion pictures did not remain within the community. His troupe , however, spent a great deal of money trading with local merchants and, because of their widespread popularity, drew large num- bers of people into the towns. He also mentioned the taxes and wharfage fees he had to 95 pay. The James Adams did not play in North Carolina during the 1934 season because of high taxes. There was a $50.00 a week state amusement tax, a $50.00 a week county tax, and a $25.00 to $35.00 weekly municipal tax. 96 The threats of competition and exorbitant taxes often were superseded by the more immediate threat of structural damage to the boat. The James Adams strained at her anchors for f ourteen hours in a s torm off Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay in 1920. Waves broke over the roof of the theater. Only the sturdy construction of the boat prevented the storm from tearing her • 97 apart.

On another occasion, on November 24, 1927, the show boat was being towed down the Chesapeake Bay t o her winter quarters 1n Elizabeth City. She struck a submerged object off Thimble Shoals, not many miles from Hampton Roads, Virginia . . The boat rapidly filled with water, but the air trapped in the large auditorium kept the theater from sinking to the bottom. The boat was raised enough with the help of pontoons to be towed into dry dock at Norfolk, Virginia. En route to the harbor the James Adams dragged bottom and severed the gas mains and long distance telephone wires crossing the Elizabeth River. The city of Norfolk and the suburb of Berkley were cut off from outside com- munications. The show boat was towed to Elizabeth City after her hull was repaired. There the auditorium was completely reconstructed. The cost of the repairs amounted to about $30,000. 98 22

The James Adams sank in the Dismal Swamp Canal November 15, 1929. She

was raised and repaired with the help of the Elizabeth City Iron Works. She 99 sank again in the canal in 1937. A submerged log caused the boat to go

down in the Roanoke River on November 6, 1938, on her way to Wi lliamston, 100 North Carolina. Repairs were made again in Elizabeth City.

The floating theater also suffered damages from hurr icanes and fires.

One fire started in the hold of the boat during the summer of 1928. The

cast rowed safely to shore and watched the show boat sink to the bott om of

the Pamlico River . The boat was salvaged and rebuilt in time for the next season's run. 101

The floating theater was not always the property of James Adams. Mrs.

Nina Howard and Mr. Milford Seymour , of St. Michael ' s, Maryland, bought the

show boat in the 1930s. Charles Hunter continued to be the manager. The

new owners changep the name to the Original Floating Theatre and extended • the vesse 1 • s terr1tory. 1nto. G . eorg1a and 1F or1. d a. 102 However, the show boat had reached the pinnacle of its popularity under

the ownership of James Adams. Audiences gradually .lost interest in "old-

fashioned hokum" and melodrama . There was an announcement in Jul y 1940 that

the floating theater would be beached on the banks of the West River, south

of Annapolis, Maryland, at the e~d of the current season. As James Adams had

feared back in 1931, show boat audiences had come to prefer the "5000 feet of

celluloid" over the "Flesh and Blood actors and musicians." High taxes ~nd

rotting wharves were other factors that contributed t o the retirement of' the fl oat1ng. t h eater. 103

It is not certain the showboat was beached in Maryland in 1940. The

boat apparently continued operation for one more season, because she was

reputed to have burned and sunk in Georgia's Savannah River on November 14, 23

104 1941. The James Adams Floating Theatre was the last active show boat in operation in this country. She brought the magic of theater to many isolated

North Carolina communities during her twenty-seven years of operation. The pleasure and excitement the James Adams generated remained fresh ~n the

memories of her audiences long after she sank to her watery grave.

Edna Ferber returned to New York City after her visit to North Carolina

~n April 1925 . That summer she traveled to Europe and began writing her novel,

Show Boat, in the small Basque village of St. Jean-de-Luz. Miss Ferber claimed that the last page of the novel was written before the first one was begun. The author spent a year writing in St. Jean, in Paris, and in New York. She dedicated the novel to Winthrop Ames, who first mentioned show boats to her. Chapters appeared immediately as installments 1n The Woman's Home Com­ panion. After serial publication it was brought out ~n hardback by Double­ day, Doran Publishing Company in 1926. 105

• Show Boat is the story of Magnolia Ravenal and her show boat fami l y . The

ma~n setting is the Mississippi River during the late 1870s through the mid 1920s. Magnolia's father is the perky Andy Hawkes, owner and captain of the Cotton Blossom Floating Palace Theatre. Andy 'is a descendant of a Basque fisherman. Magnolia ' s mother is Parthenia Ann Hawkes, an indomitable woman with a grim and overbearing personality. Magnolia is raised on the Cotton Blossom and becomes the ingenue lead and starring actr ess, much to her mother's dismay.

Magnolia marrys Gaylord Ravena!, a gambler tur.ned show boat actor, without her mother's consent . They have one child, a daughter named Kim. Gayl ord greatly admires Andy Hawkes and greatly loathes Parthenia. After Captain Hawkes falls overboard and drowns, the Ravenals leave the Cotton Blossom and move to Chicago where Gaylord resumes his gambling habits. Parthe~ia Hawkes continues to 25

importance theater played in her childhood when she wrote that line.

A great deal of the book was based on the author ' s visit to North

Carolina. "Some of it is fic tion, but most of it is based on fact. Incidents,

for instance, that happened to the different troupers /on the James Adams/ 111 have been sometimes put together into the life of one character in the book."

The description of the Hawkes' bedroom in Show Boat is reminiscent of

Charles and Beulah Hunter's room on the James Adams. The Hawkes sleep in two

large square rooms located over the forward section of the show boat. Each room holds a bed, dresser, rocker, and stove; dimity curtains hang at the . d 112 W1n OWS.

The basic layout of the Cotton Blossom was the same as the James Adams; however, the Hawkes' show boat was more ornate. The day to day activities of the cast and crew in the novel ran parallel to the routines of the North Carolina troupe. 113

The character, Gaylord Ravenal, claiming descent from Tennessee aris- tocracy, shows Andy Hawkes and Magnolia the churc~yard where his ancestors are buried. On one tombstone is the following inscription:

Here lies the body of Mrs. Suzanne Ravena!, wife of Jean Baptista Ravena! Esq: one of his Majesty's Council a~d Surveyor General of the tands of this Province, who de- . parted this life Octr 19 1765. Aged 37 Years. After labouring ten of them under the severest Bodilj afflic­ tions brought on by Change of Cli~ate,' and tho' she wen't to her native land received no relief but re'tu~ned and bore them with uncommon Resolution and Res\gnation to the last .114

The inscription is a verbatim transcription of the epitaph of Mrs. Margaret

Palmer, wife of Robert Palmer. Mrs. Palmer was interred to the right of the altar in St . Thomas Episcopal Church. The epitaph was copied during Miss 115 Ferber's stay in Bath in 1925.

There is one direct reference to Bath 1n Show Boat. In a letter to her daughter, Magnolia, Parthenia Hawkes says, "We're ~laying the town of Bath, 26

on the Pamlico 116 River.•• The reader is not told the Pamlico is in North Carolina, states removed from the Cotton Blossom's Mississippi River. One controversial scene in the book deals with the subject of mis- cegenation. Julie Dozier, the character lead, is a mulatto. Her husband, Steve, is the only person who knows her origins. One season the Cotton Blossom stops at Julie's home town . Her parentage is discovered and the sheriff is sent to arrest her . Before he arrives, Steve cuts Julie ' s finger and sucks her blood. He proclaims he is now part Negro, because in the o ld South one drop of Negro blood made one a Negro. Julia is not arrested, but she and Steve are forced to leave the Cotton Blossom. 117 The miscegenation scene is based on a story Charles Hunter told Edna Ferber. Hunter once worked as a musician in the band with a "rag front" carnival. One of the att ractions was an all Negro minstrel show. The owner of the show, Mr. Henry, was living with a mulatto woman named Bessie. Henry • fired one of his employees, so the man turned him in to the authorities. Informed he was going to be arrested, Henry pricked Bessie's thumb with a needle and sucked her blood. He swore on the witness stand he had Negro blood in him, so the judge allowed him to go free. Henry left the carnival and continued to live with Bessie until she deserted him for a b~ack man. . . d' k 1 . Th e ~nc~ ent too p ace ~n Ch ar 1 otte, Nort h Caro 1·1na. llS One of the last scenes in Show Boat is Kim's arrival at the Cotton Blossom. She bas come to persuade Magnolia to give up the show boat. Her husband, Ken Cameron, is with her. The description of the Cameron's drive to the show boat was lifted from Hiss Ferber's own memory of her ride from Washington, North Carolina, in the decrepit Ford.

Kim and Ken arrived unexpectedly together on June second, clattering up to the boat landing in a scarecrow Ford diven by a stout Negro in Khaki pants, puttees, and an army shirt. 27

Kim was breathless , bu t exhilarated. "He says he drove in France in ' 17, and I believe it. Good God ! Every bolt, flapped and opened and fell in and fell out. I 've been wo r king like a Swiss bell-ringer trying to keep things t ogether t here in the back seat."ll9 Show Boat, like So Big, wa s ano ther best seller for Edna Ferber. She thought the book was well received because the public was tired of war and was looking for an escape into happier times . The check for the first six months sales "was the largest single check they £Doubleda~7 had ever made out for a similar period."120 Miss Ferber referred to the novel as her oil we11. 121 Show Boat sold some 320,000 copies in the United States during the first twelve years it was in print. Trans lations were published in Poland, Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, 122 and Finland.

Not everyone was pleased with the novel. Philip Graham, author of the comprehensive book, Showboats, had little praise for Miss Ferber and her work.

Edna Ferber, the most successful of all the literary exploiters £of show boat~/, has also largely followed tradition in her best-seller novel, Showboat (1926). She has sought to paint, not the reality, but rather a symbolic showboat, daubing into her pict~re only the traditional colors. Along with the fami liar legend of moral evil she has emphasized most a flimsy but all-enveloping sentimentality. From the beginning to end her story reeks with melodrama far less convincing . than the worst ever acted on a showboat stage:l23 Other critics accused the author of being condescending.

The things that nove lists or journali~ts write about the Show Boat people rarely please the or iginals . They have to be made to look romantic, oft en at t~e expense of verisimilitude. Even Miss Ferber's novel was held to do the professio~ an injustice. Perhaps it was a little condescending There is little room for drama on a Show Boat, ~nd, in real life, the passions of people who have to work for a living are much more under control than the novelists are willing to admit.l24

A number of individuals felt they had personal grievances against Edna Ferber and Show Boat . River captains and saloon keepers wrote letters accusing her of misrepresenting their professions and slandering their reputations . 28 l Cardinal Mundelein, of Chicago, thought the repre sentation of the convent Kim 125 Ravenal attended was an affront to the Church. Tom Taggart, former United

States Senator, threatened to sue the author for using his name ~n connection

with a gambling casino in the book. The suit was dropped when the name was 126 changed. The book remained a success despite adverse publicity.

Edna Ferber doubted whether her story, which spanned fifty years and

dealt with miscegenation and desertion, could be adapted into a play. How-

ever, she signed a contract in November of 1926, giving Jerome Kern and Oscar

Hammerstein the musical and dramatic rights to Show Boat. Miss Ferber received

a royalty advance of $500 and 1~ percent of the gross weekly box office

receipts from the play's producer, Florenz Ziegfeld. 127

The play was not a typical " Ziegfeld Follies" girlie show with scantily

clad dancers and an even barer script. "'Show Boat' was a tightly written

musical play with devotion to character development, with songs that grew

meaningfully out of the plot, with spectacle and dance only when spectacle 128 and dance seemed appropriate to the story." It was th~ first musical to

move away from the traditional vaudeville style productions .

"Show Boat" previewed on November 15, 1927, at the National Theatre in

Washington, D.C. The audience remained for the entir~ four hour show. The

next morning there was a line of people wound around the block waiting to . k 129 pureh ase t~c ets. A shortened version of "Show Boat" qpened <1lt the new

Ziegfeld Theatre on December 27, 1927 and ran until May 4, 1929. The average

box office gross was $50,000 a week . The op~ratin~ expense was around $31,000 130 and the staff of 110 employees was paid $16,800 per week.

Brooks Atkinson, critic for the New York Times, was very impressed with the Broadway production of "Show Boat."

Faithfully adapted from Edna Ferber's picturesque novel set to an enchanting score by Jerome Kern, staged with the sort of artistry we eulogize in R~inhardt, 29

"Show Boat" becomes one of those epochal works about which garrulous old men gabbl e for twenty-five years after the scenery has rattled off to the storehouse. 131

Another critic, Arthur B. Waters, of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, praised the musical score .

Just where the highest honors are to be bestowed we are not certain, but without doubt, Mr. Kern, as the composer of the score . . . should come in for first mention. Throughout the whole play be has interwoven a magnificent motif number, "Old Man River," which is in itself a most happy inspiration in view of the fact that Miss Ferber in writing the story expressed in words the same idea of the unchanging qualities of the majestic Mississippi that flowed on, i nscrutable and eternally while birth and death and human dramas were being enacted along its banks . l32

The song, "Old Man River," emotionally affected almost everyone who heard

it. Miss Ferber recorded her feelings for the song in her autobiography.

. . . Jerome Kern appeared at my apartment late one afternoon with a strange look of quiet exultation in his eyes. He sat down at the piano. He doesn' t play the piano particularly-well and his singing voice, though true, is negligible. He played and sang 01 ' Man River. The music mounted and mounted, and I give you my word my hair stood on end, the tears came to my eyes, I breathed like a heroine in a melodrama. This was great music. This was music that would out­ last Jerome Kern's day and mine. I never have heard it since without that emotional surge. When Show Boat was revived . . . I saw a New York first night audi­ ence, after Paul Robeson's singing of 01 ' Man River, shout and cheer and behave generally as I've never seen an audience in any thea~re in all my years 9£ playgoing.lll

"Can't Help Lovin' Oat Man," "Make Believe," " Why Do I Love You," and "Bill" were other popular songs from the musical.

The original production of "Show Boat" ran for two years on Broadway and then spent a number of months on the road. There were English, French, and . . f h . 1 134 Austra 11an vers1ons o t e mus1ca . A number of Broadway revivals were staged over the years and the musical still, a half century later, is considered stan- dard stock with local theaters and light opera companies. A reviewer for a 30

Philadelphia paper wrote of a 1966 revival of 11 Show Boat. 11

The Edna Ferber book is a classic tear-jerker, but in many ways it contains more brutal reality than seen in many more modern musicals. It considers the plight of the subjected and discriminated against Negro, before it was fas hionable to do so, part of the plot revolves around miscegenati on and the charac­ ters suffer the disillusionment of love and the des­ pair of poverty. You can't get much more meat than that.l35

11 Show 11 Boat's popularity and financial success dispelled any doubts Edna

Ferber had about the adaptation of her novel into a musical. Universal Studios bought the screen rights to Show Boat two months after the book's publication in 1926. The purchase price was $65,000. The studio intended to release a s ilent film version of the story but was forced to add

a sound 11 11 track at the last minute. Talkies were becoming increasingly popular, and the public identified Show Boat with Oscar Hammerstein ' s and Jerome Kern's beautiful 136 Broadway score . The length and poorly edited film was not well reviewed when it was released 1n March of 1929. Richard Watts, Jr., of the

Herald 11 Tribune, described it as a long, tedious and only occasionally attrac-

11 tive exhibit. Watts also thought 11 . the talking sequences were written

without the slightest gift for dramatic dialogue. 11137

Edna Ferber spent the years following Show Boat 's success writing new novels, plays, and short stories. Her last novel was to have been a story of the American Indian. She visited Indian reservations in the western United States collecting information for the book. The author became ill with cancer while researching the novel and died April 16, 1968 at the age of 83. Her obituary in the New York Times quoted her view of life.

Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for l ife itself is a writer's lover until death--fascinating , cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant; the more varied the moods the richer the experience. I 've learned to value every stab of pain and disappointment.l38 31

11 The Times described Miss Ferber as • . among the best-read novelists

:Ln the nation ... a dramatic writer with a keen eye for a story, a whole-

some respect for the color and harmony of words and a precise ability at

portra:Lture.. ..139

Few books have had the exposure and influence of Edna Ferber ' s novel,

Show Boat. The story has been dramatized in countless musical productions

and produced into four motion pictures. A number of radio programs were

built around the novel and popular singers, from Bing Crosby to Frank Sinatra, 140 have recorded the lovely Hammerstein and Kern songs. The internationally

known novel brought fame and fortune to many people associated with it.

Much of the material used in Show Boat was obtained during the author's visit

to Bath, North Carolina and her stay on the James Adams Floating Theatre.

When Edna Ferber launched her nove l, Show Boat, into the literary world she

was standing on the shores of North Carolina. The impact was immediate • and far-reaching. FOOTNOTES

1. The New York Times, April 17, 1968.

2. Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1939), 344-345, hereinafter cited as Ferver, A Peculiar Treasure. Most of the background material on Edna Ferber' s chil dhood and early adulthood, found on pages 1 through 5 of this report, was taken from her autobiography, A Peculiar Treasure. Only direct quotations from that work and information from other sources have been foot­ noted on those pages.

3. Julia Goldsmith Gilbert, Ferber, A Biography (New Yor~~ouhleday & Company, Inc., 1978), 1, hereinafter cited as Gilbert, Ferber, A Biography. 4. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 15, 18.

5. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 26.

6 . Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 31.

7. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 52.

8. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 58 . • 9. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 87. 10. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 103.

11. Gilbert, Ferber, A Biography, 12.

12. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 178, 185, 205 .

13. Ferber, A Peculiar Treas ure, 170.

14. Ferbe~, A Peculiar Treasure, 280.

15. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 279.

16. "The Pulitzer Prizes, " The Outlook, CXL (May 6, 1925), 6.

17. Miles Kreuger, Show Boat, The Story of a Classic American Musical (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977) , 7, hereinafter cited ~s Kreuger, Show Boat . 18. Kreuger, Show Boat, 9.

19 . Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 288.

20 . Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 288-289 .

~ 21. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 289. 33

22. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 290.

23. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 291.

24. Kenneth Frederick Ma rsh and Blanche Marsh, Colonial Bath, Nor t h Carolina's Oldest r~ (Asheville: Biltmore Press, 1966), 6.

25. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Population Schedule (Wash­ ington: Government Printing Office, 1921), 266.

26. Washington Progress, January 24, 1924.

27. Washington Progress, July 17, 1924.

28. Jesse Marvin Ormond, The Country Church ~n North Carolina (Durham: Duke University Press, 1931), 54.

29. Beaufort County Record of Incorporations, 1886- 1906, I, 135, 304, 315, microfilm copy, State Archives, Nor~h Carolina Division of Archives and History; Beaufort County Record of Incorporations, 1906-1920, II, 139, 341, 555- 556, microfilm copy, State Archives, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh . The C. H. Brooks Lumber Company (1898), El liot Lumber Company (1904), James Lane C9mpany (1904), Inland Water Transportation Company (1913), and the Bath Transportation Company (1919) were some of the businesses incorporated in Bath du~ing the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

30. Ursula Fogleman Loy and Pauline Marion Worthy (eds.), Washington and the Pamlico (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, Co., 1976), 435-436, hereinafter cited as Loy and Worthy, Washington and the Pamlico; Washington Progress, August 14, 1924.

31. Beaufort County Minutes of the Board of County Commissioners, 1913-1929, p. 262, microfilm copy , State Archives, Office of Archives and History, Ra~eigh.

32. Washington Progress, June 26, 1924 .

33. Washington Progress, January 10, July 24, and October 16, 1924; Researcher's interview with Mrs . Nancy Roper, life-long ~esid~nt of Bath, North Carolina, June 18, 1979 (notes on interview in possession of researcher'), hereinafter cited as Roper interview.

34. Washington Pro&ress, June 26, 1924.

35 . Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 286 .

36 . Linda Reeves, Bath Towne Guidebook (Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, N.D.), 9.

37. Jerry Cross, "The Palmer-Marsh House," an unpublished manuscript, Archae­ ology and Historic Preservation Section, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh, 1-13.

38. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 296. 34

39. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 296-297.

40. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 297.

41. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 297. 42. Roper interview; C. Wingate Reed, Beaufort Count : Two Centuries of Its History (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, Co., 1962 , 136, herein­ after cited as Reed, Beaufort County .

43. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 300. 44. Roper interview.

45. The News and Observer (Raleigh), February 10, 1929. 46. Roper interview.

47. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 298-299.

48. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 301.

49. The News and Observer (Raleigh), Hay 1, 1927.

50. Philip Graham, Showboats, The History of an American Institution (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1951), 130; hereinafter cited as Graham, Showboats .

• 51. Loy and Worthy, Washington and the Pamlico, 140-141. 52. Loy and Worthy, Washington and the Pamlico, 230; North Carolina Star (Raleigh), May 26, 1836; Reed, Beaufort County, 162-163. 53. Loy and Worthy, Washington and the Pamlico, 233; Bill Sharpe, A New Geography of North Carolina (Raleigh: Sharpe Publishing Company, 1958), II, 578, hereinafter cited as Sharpe, A New Geography of North Carolina. 54. Reed , . Beaufort County, 162-163; Sharpe, A New Geography of North Carolina, 577; 'Steamboating on the Tar," The State, XI (February 5, 1944), l.

55. Loy and Worthy, Washington and the Pamlico, 141. 56. Graham, Showboats, 130. 57 . Lou N. Overman and Edna H. Shannonhouse (eds.), Year Book, Pasquotank Historical Society (Baltimore, Gateway Press, Inc., 1975), III, 71, hereinafter cited as Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book . 58. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 72-73.

59. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 72.

60. Graham, Showboats, 130.

61. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 73. 35

62. Graham, Showboats, 131. 63. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 72. 64. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 299. 65 . Graham, Showboats, 131.

66. Loy and Worthy, \.Jashington and the Pamlico, 141. 67. Graham, Showboats, 134. 68. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 74. 69. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 291. 70. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 74. 71. The Independent (Elizabeth City), July 17, 1925. 72. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 75. 73. Graham, Showboats, 132; The Independent (Elizabeth July 17, 1925. City), April 3, 74. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 299 . 75. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 74. 76. Graham, Showboats, 134. 77. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 75. 78. The Daily Advance (Elizabeth City), April 7, 1928. 79. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 75. 80. Wayne County Marriage Regis t e r , 1893-1927, microfilm North. Carolina Division copy, State Archives, of Archives and History, Raleigh. 81. The News and Observer (Raleigh), May 1, 1927. 82. James Adams Floating Theatre Broadside, University 1927, The North Carolina Collection, of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Broadside; hereinafter cited as James Adams Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 291. 83. The News and Observer (Raleigh), May 1, 1927. 84. G. E. Dean, 11 The End of the Show Boat," The State, VIII hereinafter cited as (July 27, 1940), 1, Dean, "The End of the Show Boat." 85. James Adams Broadside; The News and Observer (Raleigh), February Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 298. 10, 1929; 86. The Daily Advance (Elizabeth City), March 26, 1915 . 36

87. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 75.

88 . James Adams Broadside.

89. Kreuger, Show Boat, 13.

90 . The News and Observer (Raleigh), May 1, 1927.

91. The News and Observer (Raleigh), May 1' 1927. 92. Kreuger, Show Boat, 12.

93 . Graham, Showboats, 134-135.

94. Kreuger, Show Boat, 12.

95. Kreuger, Show Boat, 12.

96. The News and Observer (Raleigh), October 27, 1935.

97. W. W. Stout, "Tonight at the River Landing," Saturday Evening Post, CXCVII (October 31, 1925), 44.

98. The News and Observer (Raleigh), February 26, 1928.

99. Overman and Shannonhouse, Year Book, 77.

100 . The News and Observer (Raleigh), November 8, 1938.

101. Kreuger, Show Boat, 70.

102. The News and Observer (Raleigh), November 8, 1938.

103. Dean, 11 The End of the Show Boat, 11 1.

104. Kr euger, Show Boat, 70.

105. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 278, 303.

106. Edna Ferber, Show Boat (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1926), 398 ; hereinafter cited as Ferber, Show Boat.

107 . Ferber, Show Boat, 1- 398.

108 . Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 277.

109. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 46.

110. Ferber, Show Boat, 294.

111. The News and Observer (Raleigh), February 10, 1929.

112. Ferber, Show Boat, 74.

113. The News and Observer (Raleigh), February 10, 1929. 37

114. Ferber, Show Boat, 210.

115. Gertrude Carraway, "The Restoration of Bath," The State, IX (October 18, 1941), 19.

116. Ferber, Show Boat, 260.

117. Ferber, Show Boat, 134-153.

118. Gilbert, Ferber, A Biography, 363.

119. Ferber, Show Boat, 394.

120. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 120.

121. Gilbert, Ferber, A Biography, 363 .

122. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 304.

123. Graham, Showboats, 190.

124. Jan Gordan and Cora J. Gordan, On Wandering Wheels (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1928), 212-213.

125. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 308-309.

126. Gilbert, Ferber, A Biography, 377 .

127. Kreuger, Show Boat, 19-20.

128. Kreuger, Show Boat, 26.

129. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 317.

130. Kreuger, Show Boat, 70.

131. The New York Times, January 8, 1928.

132. Quoted in Kreuger, Show Boat, 54 .

133. Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, 305-306.

134. Kreuger, Show Boat, 74.

135. Quoted in Gilbert, Ferber, A Biography, 69.

136. Kreuger, Show Boat, 76, 83.

137. Quoted in Kreuger, Show Boat, 84, 86.

138. The New York Times, April 17, 1968.

139. The New York Times, April 17, 1968.

140. Kreuger, Show Boat, 236-238. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuscript Sources

North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh

Beaufort County. The Hinutes of the Board of County Commissioners Beaufort County . Record of Incorporations Wayne County. Marriage Register

University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill

North Carolina Collection James Adams Floating Theatre Broadside

Contemporary Newspapers

The Daily Advance (Elizabeth City)

The Independent (Elizabeth City)

The New York Times

The News and Observer (Raleigh)

The North Carolina Star (Raleigh)

The Washington Progress

Printed Primary Sources

Ferber, E~na. A Peculiar Treasure. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1939.

Show Boat. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, 1926.

Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920 . Washington: Government Printing Office, 1921.

Gordan, Jan and Gordan, Cora J . On Wandering Wheels. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1928.

Interviews

Roper, Nancy B. Bath, North Carolina. Telephone interview with researcher, June 18, 1979. 39

Secondary Sources

Carraway, Gertrude. "The Restoration of Bath. 11 The State. IX (October 18, 1941): 18-19.

Dean, G. E. "The End of the Show Boat. " The State. VIII (July 27, 1940): 1, 18.

Gil bert, Julie Goldsmith. Ferber, A Biography. New York : Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978.

Kreuger, Miles. Show Boat, The Story of a Classic Ame rican Musical. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977 .

Loy, Ursula Fogleman and Worthy , Paul ine Harion, eds. Washington and the Pamlico. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, Co., 1976.

Marsh, Kenneth Frederick and Marsh, Blanche. Co l onial Bath, Nor th Carolina' s Oldest Town. Asheville: Biltmore Press, 1966.

Ormond, Jesse Marvin. The Country Church in North Carolina. Durham: Duke University Press, 1931.

Overman, Lou N. and Shannonhouse, Edna t1., eds. Year Book, Pasquotank Historical Society. Volume III. Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc., 1975.

"The Pulitzer Prizes." The Outlook. CXL (May 6, 1925): 6 .

Reed, C. Wingate. Beaufort County: Two Centuries of Its History. Ralei~h: Edwards & Br oughton, Co., 1962.

Reeves, Linda, ed. Bath Towne: Guidebook . ~~~~~~--~~~~~ Raleigh: North Carolina Depart- ment of Cu ltural Resour ces . N.D.

Sharpe, Bill . A New Geography of North Carol ina. Volume II. Ra l eigh: Sharpe Publishing Company, 1958.

" Steamboating on the Tar ." The State. XI (February 5, 1 ~44): 1, 21-22.

Stout, W. W. "Tonight at t he River Landing." Saturday Evening Post. CXCVII (October 31, 1925): 16-17.

Special Studies

Cross, Jerry. "The Palmer-Marsh House, Bath, North Carolina." Unpublished manuscript, Archaeology and Historic Preservation Section, North Caro- lina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh.

r"lporter on thP App1 r.ol,o r, a high school senior

Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure' One of fames Montgomery Flagg's McChesney Drawings. Emma Is Evidently Getting the Best of It Over Her Shrinking Boss, T. A. Buck.

F. Bath, North Caro1ina, ca. 1924 From: The North Carolina Co]Jection Palmer-Marsh tlouse 1. "ront view of house N• fJJ.-2-g"/ Taken rebru&I7, 19f:IJ Photographer unknown From Archives & History files Vi~w of nouhle chimnPy

.- .. ~~,. l N. 58-6---32 ., ~., ' ~ . .,. . Date of original ca. 1890 .. ' ... ~ Copied in 1958 .,,~ ..• From Archives & History files N. 64-3---191-203 Taken March, 1964 Photographer unknown From Archives & History filee L lnt,rior anri fvterjor view·~ o thn .Jam~ r. Aiams F1 oatinr ThPatr"'; Charl P~ >l,mt~'>r anfl t"'.,pnl ah A 1am5 ,J . JaJTP-s Adams groun1ed in Disrna 1 Swamp Cana 1 : Beulah Adams in later life: James Adams heing towed down Disma] Swamp Canal From: PasQuotank Historical Newspaper advertisements for the James Adams From: 1. The Dailv Advance.(Eliaabeth Citv), March 26, 1915 2 . The Independent (Eli~abeth City), April 3, July 17 , 1925 A Thief In The Night -at- Jas. Adams Floating Saturday Night, Apr. 4 JENNETTE WHARF ONE Nl ONLY SEATS ON SALE AT BOX OFF NO SEATS HIGHER THAN SOc: GENERAL ADMISSION 35c ' Saturday, April4

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