Focusing on the people who stamped the state with their vision, this book captures the vibrancy and ingenuity of Ohio's inventors, manufacturers, leaders and dreamers, as well as the consequences, for the land and its inhabitants, of unchecked industrial excesses.

Voices on the River relates two centuries of tales of famous steamboats and of the men who piloted them, from the renowned Mark Twain to the trailblazing Captain Henry Shreve. The book portrays roustabouts on the main deck, passengers in plush cabins, pilots at the big steering wheel, and government engineers at work in shifting channels. It shows Native American tribes carried to exile; soldiers transported to army posts; artists, scientists, and adventures on their way to wild country; immigrants thronging river landings where the inland cities rose. Voices on the River follows the frontier...

Historically, Ohio seems to have had everything--great physical beauty; rich resources of coal, oil, gas, and fertile soil; a central location with easy means of transportation by land and water; inventive and dynamic people; and the kind of national political influence that wealth and a large population can give a state. It was no accident that eight of the nation's presidents had an Ohio connection.