Thomas Ruys Smith, _River of Dreams: Imagnining the Mississippi before Mark Twain_ (Baton Rouge: LSUP, 2007 might be helpful.  I'm not convinced by Smith's conclusions, but he cites and disucsses a huge list of sources about river culture up to about 1860.
Gregg

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin. Mac Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 3:17 pm
Subject: Re: River culture questions

> > >2.  I am wondering if there are any works or scholars
> > >interested in how the
> > >river  served specifically as a mean of transmitting culture
> > >and change
> > >among the communities served by it?  Did Twain write about the
> > >river in
> > >these kinds of terms?
> >
> > >Dr. Harold K. Bush, Jr., Associate Professor
> > >Dept. of English
> > >Saint Louis University
> > >St. Louis, MO  63108
> > >[log in to unmask]
> > >314-977-3616 (w);  314-771-6795 (h)  314-495-4094 (cell)
> > ><www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/ENG/faculty/hbush.html>
> 
> 
> Two early books come to mind that touch on this theme in a way. 
> Glazier'sDOWN THE GREAT RIVER  (1887) is one, and Clifton 
> Johnson's book on the
> Mississippi River Valley from his Highway and Byways series at the
> turn-of-the-century is the other, nicely illustrated with photos, 
> with some
> focus on black culture and river towns, and even an account of 
> Twain's visit
> to Hannibal and his encounter with a black family living in the 
> old Tom
> Blankenship home. But these are not books by scholars, nor 
> literary, but of
> possible interest because they appeared in Twain's lifetime.
> 
> Kevin
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