Edna Ferber, Jerome Kern, Roger Hammerstein,
and Paul Robeson
The creators of Showboat and Ol’ Man River
It was seventy-five years ago, in 1926, when Edna Ferber wrote the epic novel Showboat. She was inspired by the floating theaters of the Mississippi River system. Ferber was a newspaper writer, an accomplished playwright, and had won the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for her novel, So Big.

Showboat is considered to be the first American musical, and it was the partnership of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein who created this pivotal work. Kern once worked for $7.00 a week as a “song plugger” for a music publisher, but he became one of the nation’s most popular composers. Hammerstein had partnered with Richard Rogers in one of the most successful theatrical teams in history.

Perhaps no song about rivers is more moving and evocative as Ol’ Man River. Edna Ferber recounted what happened when Kern asked her to listen to a new song he had written for the musical. “When Jerome Kern played and sang Ol’ Man River, the music mounted and mounted, and…my hair stood on end, the tears came to my eyes.”

Of all the singers who performed “Old Man River,” the most memorable was Paul Robeson. He starred in 350 performances of Showboat and was in the 1936 film production of Showboat as well.

Showboat was a national phenomenon and a vehicle for one of America’s best loved songs. The artists who brought us this classic song and musical are legendary, not only in river history, but in American history.

 

 

 

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