Edna Ferber. Show Boat. 1926; Gutenberg.org, 7 Jan. 2022.
Show Boat is the novel that inspired the musical by the same name. Show Boat, the musical, is one of the greatest Broadway musicals, and it contains arguably the greatest Broadway show tune of all time, “Ol’ Man River.” Although the musical was and is surprisingly realistic for a popular show, Ferber’s novel is more realistic. While one could argue there is a kind of romantic ending, it is not nearly as saccharine as the ending of the musical.
The musical came out only a year after the book was published. The book itself tells a lively story, and it is easy to see why people might want to adapt it for stage. Nowadays, someone from Hollywood probably would have bought rights to it.
The river is much more of a character in the novel even though the song “Ol’ Man River” characterizes the river as well. The story begins with a lively description of spring flooding at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers with the paddle wheel show boat the Cotton Blossom largely at the mercy of the waters.
There is drama within the boat as well. Magnolia Ravenal, daughter of the vessel’s captain, is giving birth to a daughter. She names her Kim, after the three states which she could have been born in—Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. It is 1889, but from Kim’s birth, we get a flashback for about half the novel of Magnolia’s growing up on the Mississippi steamboat.
The story is Americana in the liveliest sense. Magnolia sees and describes the rivers and the small towns on the rivers. She observes the actors and the crew of the boat, and they really become her family. Her mother Parthenia is a somewhat stereotyped Puritanical Yankee. Her father “Cap’n Andy” is more outgoing and adventurous. Still, Ferber ends up admiring Parthenia for her business acumen and providing some balance to Magnolia’s distinctive upbringing.
Some of the crew members are black, and Magnolia learns from them. She picks up many of the songs and spirituals they sing. A major crisis occurs when it is revealed that the star actress Julie had a black mother. She and her white husband are arrested for miscegenation in Mississippi. Her husband sticks with her, but they have to leave the acting company because of the Jim Crow laws throughout the South. Since the story is told through Magnolia’s eyes, we get a great sense of the injustice of it all.
The Cotton Blossom also navigates the Ohio River, including some of its tributaries like the Kanawha and the Monongahela. In the winter, the family lives in Thebes, Illinois, a small town where Magnolia will attend school for a few months each year. While the boat does stop at cities like St. Louis and New Orleans, it seems that many of the adventures ashore are in small rural communities. The audience from the smaller towns appreciate the shows more. They enjoy the stock melodramas and have nothing to compare the performances to.
Magnolia identifies with the river and the show boat. It is the only life she knows. The man she marries, Gaylord Ravenal, has taken an acting part opposite her on the boat, and they spend about six years on the boat as a married couple, the last three or four years with their daughter Kim. When Cap’n Andy dies, Ravenal sees that it is time to leave the boat. He could not work for Parthenia. So they move to Chicago.
Ferber gives us a panorama of life in the Windy City just as she did with life on the rivers. Ravenal makes a living gambling. At some points they are living in exclusive hotels with Magnolia wearing fine clothes. A sealskin coat becomes a kind of symbol of the family’s relative status. At times she wears it to fancy dinners and theatrical performances. At other times, it has been pawned. Eventually, Magnolia returns to show business in local theaters and achieves some success. Kim, following her, becomes a star and ends up living and working in New York.
So, yes, we get a little bit of the life on Broadway here, too. Show Boat has scope. It has tragedy and triumph. There are natural forces and social forces working. We even get a glimpse into the Chicago criminal underworld: This is in the 1890s and early 1900s, so before Capone and the Mafia. Even the foods seem to play a part. Magnolia learns from the black cooks Joe and Queenie on the boat. Her father purchases most of the groceries for the crew. And then we get a veritable smorgasbord from cheap rolls to restaurant delicacies in Chicago.
The tale could just as easily have been called Magnolia, since Mrs. Ravenal is the main character. She is tough and endearing. She has a sense of love and loyalty. She does “stand by her man” in spite of his unsteady occupation, but she also has integrity. When Gaylord borrows money from someone with criminal connections, she takes the money and returns it. That scene itself is an eye-opener.
Most of all, even though she spends years in Chicago and New York, Magnolia identifies with the river. The river is beautiful and savage at the same time. A sailor on the river has to know all its channels and how to handle storms and changes that constantly occur. So Magnolia learns to stand strong in the storm, to accept changes she cannot control, but to take advantage of the changes the storms create. There is much to admire in her.
I suspect Margaret Mitchell may have been inspired by Show Boat. Scarlett O’Hara has a very different character—she is far more devious and selfish than Magnolia—but one can hear Magnolia saying, “Tomorrow is another day” as Scarlett would a decade later.