Mostly Mississippi

the long version

Harold Speakman (1888-1928), a writer and visual artist, journeyed the Mississippi from its Minnesota headwaters to New Orleans by canoe and on a twenty-foot house boat in the company of his wife, Frances "Russell" Lindsay Speakman. The Speakmans made the 2,450-mile trip shortly after their marriage in July 5, 1925. The result was this work, Speakman's only full-scale American travel narrative, though he had earlier written accounts of travel in China, Palestine, and Ireland. Illustrated by Speakman's paintings and sketches and his wife's drawings, the book is an idyllic tour of the American heartland. It features lyrical descriptions of encounters with archetypical characters, landscapes, and experiences reflecting life along the river. The Speakmans met lumberjacks in northern Minnesota and Mormons at Nauvoo, as well as roustabouts, hoboes, farmers, drifters, Southern grandees, Native Americans, collegians thirsting for real life experiences, and convicts. They also encountered Padraic Colum, the Irish poet, then on tour; Laura Frazer, the inspiration for Mark Twain's Becky Thatcher; and a stereotypical "lady from Dubuque"-- a symbol of American provincialism for 1920s New Yorker readers. Historical anecdotes and local legends weave into the narrative, which also explores the deepening emotional bond between the newly married couple.