Jolly Flatboatmen in Port, George Caleb Bingham, 1857

The painting depicts a flatboat docked at a wharf in Saint Louis, where boatmen amuse themselves with homespun entertainment. The revelry is so lively that another flatboat has pulled alongside to observe it. George Caleb Bingham has organized the crowd in a pyramid, with the smiling dancer waving his red handkerchief at its apex. Through early 19th-century writers described flatboat men as violent, rambunctious individuals living on the margins of society, Bingham’s rosy-cheeked river workers appear more mischievous than threatening.