The Pleasure Boat was a reform journal published inPortland, Maine, during the mid-nineteenth century by theQuaker reformer and journalistJeremiah Hacker.^[1]

Over the first seventeen years of publication (1845–1862), it went by the namesThe Pleasure Boat andThe Portland Pleasure Boat; and some years later was revived under the new titleThe Chariot of Wisdom and Love (1864–1866). Hacker, after moving toNew Jersey in 1866, briefly returned to the "Boat" theme and published the short-lived journalHacker's Pleasure Boat (1867).

In all of his publications, Hacker was an outspoken journalist who promoted anarchist and radical causes.The Pleasure Boat railed against organized religion, government, prisons,slavery, land monopoly, and warfare. It supportedabolition,women’s rights,temperance, andvegetarianism. The newspaper was an early proponent ofanarchism,free thought, and prison reformer. Unhappy with how juvenile offenders were treated in the adult prisons, Hacker was influential in building public support for a Mainereform school which became the third in the country, afterPhiladelphia andBoston.

The Pleasure Boat was the earliest known vegetarian publication in Maine.^[2]

• Pritchard, Rebecca M. (2006).The Life and Times of Jeremiah Hacker, 1801-1895. University of Southern Maine.

• 1845 establishments in Maine
• 1862 disestablishments in Maine
• Defunct political magazines published in the United States
• Magazines established in 1845
• Magazines disestablished in 1862
• Magazines published in Maine
• Mass media in Portland, Maine
• Vegetarian-related mass media

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from March 2025