The Rivers of America: A Descriptive Bibliography

The Rivers of America was a series of 65 books published between 1937 and 1974 in which authors from a literary, rather than historical background wrote about the folk life and folk history of America. Each account was woven around a particular river. The idea was conceived by Constance Lindsay Skinner, who wrote an essay, “Rivers and American folk” (reprinted in this work). This starts “When American folk have troubles which do not end swiftly, they begin presently to examine their own source as a nation, and their own history as a people”. This was the mid‐thirties, and the idea...