The Rivers of America Book Series

[One in a River Series which discusses rivers as the were, not as they now are.]

   If you want to read about rivers, the Rivers of America Series is a good place to start. There are over 60 books in the series and the rivers contained in them flow throughout the Americas from the Chagres in Panama to the Yukon in the far north. Books about rivers can vary in content, considering what is under the water or what floats on top, and they can ramble along the banks where regional memories are stored. In this series the books do differ greatly because the authors are different in that they are not historians, but literary types such as Edgar Lee Masters and James Branch Cabell who wrote two of the books listed below.
   The Rivers of America Series began publication in 1937 and continued until 1974 and you have 65 books to choose from. That the series exists and we know so much about it, depends upon the efforts of two women. Constance Lindsay Skinner conceived of the series and edited the first six volumes. Her interest in rivers may have to do with the fact that she was born at the confluence of two of them - the Quesnel and the Fraser in Cariboo country.  Many years later and all the way across the Americas, Carol Fitzgerald read one of the books and became interested in the Series, about which there was little information. There now is, thanks to her two volume annotated bibliography: The Rivers of America; a Descriptive Bibliography including Biographies of the Authors, Illustrators, and Editors, Oak Knoll Press [and] Washington, D.C.: Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, 2001).
   A list of the titles in the series, published by year is found in the Wikipedia entry for Rivers of America Series. Additional sources about the series, and Skinner and Fitzgerald, are provided below the alphabetical list of titles presented here. At least two university libraries have highlighted the Rivers of America Series in their publications (noted below in the sources). This list indicates which titles in the series are currently available in the libraries at Western University. Entries in red indicate that Western (WL) has a copy. [This search was performed in January 2020. Many of the books are in storage and may be, at some point, shipped elsewhere or discarded. For accurate information consult with a staff member in the Western Libraries.]
 

The Allagash, Lew Dietz, 1968.
The Allegheny, Frederick Way, (WL in storage)
New York, Toronto, Farrar & Rinehart, incorporated, [1942].
The American; River of El Dorado, Margaret Sanborn, (WL in storage)
New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, [1974]
The Arkansas, Clyd Brion Davis, (WL copy in storage)
Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1940.
The Brandywine, Henry Seidel Canby, (WL in storage)
Toronto : Farrar & Rinehart, incorporated, [c1941]
The Chagres; River of Westward Passage, John E. Minter, 1948              The Cape Fear, Malcolm H. Ross, 1965.
The Charles, Arthur Benson Tourtellot, 1941.
The Chicago, Harry Hanson, 1942.
The Colorado, Frank Waters, (WL in storage)
Toronto : Rinehart & Co., [1946].
The Columbia, Stewart H. Holbrook, (WL in stacks)
New York, Rinehart, [1956].
The Connecticut, Walter Hard, 1946
The Cumberland, James McCague, 1973.
The Cuyahoga, William Donohue Ellis, 1966.
The Delaware, Harry Emerson Wildes, (WL in storage)
Toronto : Farrar & Rinehart, incorporated, [c1940
The Everglades; River of Grass, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 1947.
The Fraser, Bruce Hutchison, (WL copy in storage and at King's)
New York, Rinehart [1950]
The French Broad, Wilma Dykeman, (WL copy in storage)
New York. Rinehart, 1955.
The Gila; River of the Southwest, Edwin Corle, (WL copy in storage)
University of Nebraska Press, reprint. c1951
The Genesee, Henry Clune, (WL copy in storage)
Syracuse University Press, 1988. reprint.
The Great River...Paul Horgan, (WL in storage)
New York, Rinehart, 1954.
The Hillsborough: River of the Golden Ibis, Gloria Jahoda, 1973.
The Housatonic; Puritan River, Chard Powers Smith, (WL copy in storage)
Toronto : Rinehart & company, incorporated, [1946]
The Hudson, Carl Carmer, (WL copy in storage)
Toronto, Farrar & Rinehart incorporated [c1939]
The Humboldt; Highroad of the West, Dale L. Morgan, (WL copy in storage)
Freeport, N.Y. Books for Libraries Press, 1971, - reprint.
The Illinois, James Gray, (WL copies in storage and in stacks)
Toronto, Farrar & Rinehart, incorporated, [c1940]
The James, Blair Niles, (WL copy in storage)
Toronto, Farrar & Rinehart, incorporated [c1939]
The James; From Iron Gate to the Sea [revised ed.]



The Kaw; The Heart of a Nation, Floyd B. Streeter, (WL copy in storage)
New York : Arno Press, 1975, c1941 - reprint.
Kennebec; Cradle of the Americans,  Robert P. Tristram Coffin, 1937.
The Kentucky, Thomas D. Clark, 1941.
Lower Mississippi, Hodding Carter, 1942.
The Mackenzie, Leslie Roberts, (WL copy at Huron)
Toronto : Rinehart, c1949.

The Merrimack, Raymond P. Holden, 1958.

The Minnesota; Forgotten River, Evan Jones, 1962.

The Missouri, Stanley Vestal, 1945

The Mohawk, Codman Hislop, 1948

The Monongahela, Richard Bissell, 1952.

The Niagara, Donald Braider, (WL copy in stacks)                                      New York, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston [1972]
The Ohio, R.E. Banta, 1949.
The Potomac, Frederick Gutheim, 1949                                                   Powder River; Let 'er Buck, Maxwell S. Burt, (WL copy in storage)

Toronto, Farrar & Rinehart, incorporated, [c1938]

Rivers of the Eastern Shore; Seventeen Maryland Rivers, H. Footner, 1944

River of the Carolinas; The Santee, Henry Savage, 1956.

The Sacramento; River of Gold, Julian Dana, (WL copy in storage)
Toronto, Farrar & Rinehart, incorporated [c1939].

The Salinas; Upside-down River, Anne B. Fisher, 1945

Salt Rivers of the Massachusetts Shore, Henry Howe, 1951.

The Sangamon, Edward Lee Masters, (WL copy in storage)
N.Y. Farrar & Rinehart, 1942.

The Saskatchewan, Marjorie Wilkins Campbell, (WL copy in storage and at King's)
New York : Rinehart, c1950

The Savannah, Thomas Lunsford Stokes, (WL  2 copies in storage)
Literary Guild of America, c1938.
Athens : University of Georgia Press, 1982 - reprint  c.1951

The Shenandoah, Julia Davis, 1945

Songs of the Rivers of America, Carl Carmer, 1942

The St. Croix; Midwest Border River, James Taylor Dunn, (WL in storage)
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, [1965, 1966]

The St. Johns; A Parade of Diversities, James Branch Cabell, (WL in storage)
New York, Rinehart [1960, c1943]

The St. Lawrence, Henry Beston, (WL copy in stacks, storage and at King's)
Toronto, Farrar& Rinehart, incorporated [1942]

The Susquehanna, Carl Carmer, 1955.

Suwannee River; Strange Green Land, Cecile Hulse Matschat, (WL copy in storage)
Athens : University of Georgia Press, [1980] c1938 - reprint

The Tennessee; Volume I: The Old River, Frontier to Secession, Donald Davidson,
WL copy in storage, Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press, [1978] c1946. reprint

The Tennessee; Volume II: Civil War to TVA

Twin Rivers; The Raritan and the Passaic, Harry Emerson Wildes, 1943

Upper Mississippi; A Wilderness Saga, Walter Havighurst, 1938.

Upper Mississippi; A Wilderness Saga. [revised]
The Wabash, William Edward Wilson, (WL copy in storage)
Toronto : Farrar & Rinehart, incorporated, [c1940]                                      The Winooski; Heartway of Vermont, Ralph Nading Hill, 1949

The Wisconsin; River of a Thousand Isles, August Derleth, 1942.

The Yazoo River, Frank E. Smith, 1954.

The Yukon, Richard Matthews, (WL copy in storage)
New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, [c1968].

Sources:
   The Fitzgerald volumes are not widely found and are rather expensive to purchase.
    For a good account of the series see the guest blog by Fitzgerald found in "Rivers of America at 75 Years," by Nate Pederson, Fine Books & Collections, June 12, 2012. For a fine report about Fitzgerald and her efforts see: Nicholas Basbanes, "An American Rivers Saga," A Splendor of Letters, Vol.2, No.7, July 1997. (I found the very good Basbane's piece in the Internet Archive, but was unable to attach the link). See also The Library of Congress Information Bulletin, June 9, 1997.
   To buy the books go directly to Town's End Books and Bindery which specializes in them and is suitably located in Deep River, CT.
   Constance Lindsay Skinner has a Wikipedia entry and one in the Canadian Encyclopedia and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. For a biography see Barman's Constance Lindsay Skinner: Writing on the Frontier. 
    The Lovejoy Library at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, offers interesting essays about Skinner, the mapmakers, the illustrators and some of the authors of the series as well as sound clips for some river songs. Most are written by Matthew Paris and if the link doesn't work go to the website of the Lovejoy Library and search for him or the series.
   The Charles C. Myers Library at the University of Dubuque received a donation of the collection and Joel Samuels provides a Chronological Bibliography of Rivers of America Series.
   For a piece about the importance of Skinner's work and the Series to environmental historians see:
Nicolaas Mink, "A Narrative for Nature's Nation: Constance Lindsay Skinner and the Making of Rivers of America, Environmental History, Vol.11, No.4, 2006, pp.751-774.

Post Script:
   I became aware of the Rivers of America Series while doing some research on Hulbert Footner who was born in Hamilton, Ontario. He is primarily known as a writer of detective stories. His Rivers of the Eastern Shore is different from most other titles in the series in that he writes about 17 of them. One is the Manokin which flowed under a very small bridge at the bottom of a very short hill in my home town of Princess Anne, MD.