Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews   Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Govern- ment and the Economy, 1820-1861. By HARRY N. SCHEIBER. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1969. xviii + 430p.; maps, tables, appendices, bibliography, and index. $10.00.)   This book is a study in political, economic, and ideological history, focused at the state level, for the period 1820 to 1861. The author assumes and demonstrates: (1) that in the area of transportation the state government occasionally implemented policy aims by "outright public enterprise"; (2) that these projects, especially in the case of the Ohio canal, made vital contributions to, and inno- vations in, the pre-Civil War economic devel- opment of the United States; and (3) that some of these developments were continued and became part of post-Civil War govern- mental policy toward private enterprise in Ohio and other states. These continuities included the underwriting of western railroad securities by eastern investment banks; the influencing of private banking policy by the deposit of capital funds in local banks; the utilization of private contractors and their labor force for public works; the emergence of a new private business elite in the West; the employment of log-rolling in relation to private railway regulation; and the temporary weakening of liberal and theoretical opposi- tion to monopoly. These considerations attest to the exis- tence, as the Ohio canal era opened, of the doctrine of the activist state and to a "com- monwealth concept," that possessed the qual- ities of state planning. Consequently, the two dominating canal commissioners during the first eight construction and operating years, 1825-1833, Cleveland and Cincinnati busi- nessmen Alfred Kelley and Micajah T. Wil- liams, gave to their work a proprietary sense of dedication that transcended petty local- ism. They maintained efficiency, competence, and profit-making for the state enterprise. They also had a sense of responsibility for the national welfare. For a time these quali- ties prevailed, and Ohio's high credit rating was retained, enabling the state to build the

entire canal system as originally planned. After the retirement of Kelley and Wil- liams, evil days fell upon the project as local egalitarianism ("me-tooism") contributed to stretching the canal money too thinly, debauched the administration, and resulted in the necessity to lower rates and permit competition. Deficits and disillusionment fol- lowed as debts mounted and transference of funds from other accounts, including the school fund, were required to save the canals from bankruptcy. In the confusion railroads began operation, on a private corporation basis, with legislative and public approval. Never before has such a ransacking of all the sources, primary and secondary, been performed. The footnoting, annotations, sta- tistics, tables, maps, appendices and, above all, the bibliographical essay are magnificent. Regional changes, trade shifts, price and land value developments are all statistically han- dled. As the canal became a financial failure, the problem of indirect benefits is splendidly handled, but not settled--because it cannot be. One might regret the lack of consideration of the ability of unballasted, poorly ironed, wood-fueled, accident-prone railroads meet- ing Ohio's transportation needs better than the canals. But all that this would accomplish would be to underline the author's basic theme of the decline of the commonwealth concept in the field of transportation.     RANDOLPH DOWNES Toledo University       Sit-Down: The General Motors Strike of 1936-1937. By SIDNEY FINE. (Ann Arbor: Uni- versity of Michigan Press, 1969. ix+448p.; illustrations, bibliographical note, and index. $12.50.) No single event in the labor upheaval of the 1930's--perhaps in all of American labor his- tory--was more decisive than the General Motors sit-down strike of 1936-37. All the gathering forces of the union revolution came to focus on this great industrial conflict:

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Book Reviews   General Motors, corporate bastion of the open shop; the militant new industrial union- ism of the CIO; the liberal politics of Presi- dent Roosevelt and Governor Frank Murphy. That the strike utilized the illegal and dan- gerous tactic of the sit-down starkly drama- tized the rock bottom stakes over which the two sides fought. And the outcome of the strike, compromise although it was, had far- reaching and permanent consequences for American labor relations. The agreement by General Motors to recognize and bargain with the UAW, even though hedged about with restrictions, marked the decisive break- through in the struggle to unionize the Amer- ican mass-production industries. General Motors having opened the gate, United States Steel and other corporate giants followed. If the strike only culminated powerful devel- opments in the making for a decade, if a long road had yet to be traveled to bring mass-production unionism to fruition, still it remains true that the General Motors sit- down marked the decisive moment in that chain of events. In Sidney Fine's Sit-Down, we have at last a book that measures up to the dimen- sions of the great strike. Professor Fine's book is a model of detailed historical analy- sis of a single large event. It is based on massive research in almost all the manuscript and oral history materials that have in recent years become available on the subject. It is admirably specific and accurate in rendering the strike in all its complexities, including the twists and turns of the lengthy negotia- tions, and, perhaps what is most original in the book, an account of the experience of sit-down strikers holed up for weeks in the Flint plants. For all his attention to the details, Pro- fessor Fine does not lose sight of the larger significance of his subject. The opening chap- ters on the Corporation, the workers, and the community form an introduction that can be read with great profit by students who may find that Professor Fine tells them more than they want to know about the strike itself. In the closing pages, Professor Fine draws some useful parallels between the sit-down strike and current unrest among students and blacks.

125   Reviewers perhaps too readily identify solid works of scholarship as "definitive." In this case, there can be no danger in the use of the term. Sit-Down will not be superceded in our time as the standard account of the great General Motors strike of 1936-37.     DAVID BRODY University of California, Davis       Pictorial History of Michigan: Volume I, The Early Years. By GEORGE S. MAY. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967. 239 p.; illustrations and index. $15.00.) Volume II, The Later Years. By GEORGE S. MAY. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969. 303p.; illustrations and index. $20.00.)   For sophisticated students of the past it is generally evident that the complexities of history can only be expressed in carefully chosen words which convey some of the ambiguities of human affairs. Yet, there is much truth in the old Chinese proverb, "One picture is worth more than ten thousand words," as is confirmed by the volumes here reviewed, even though the illustrations are accompanied by extensive explanatory com- ments. Both time and money have been lavishly expended to insure the success of the endeavor. In 1955 Dr. Philip Mason, Archivist for the Michigan Historical Commission and now head of Labor History Archives at Wayne State University, began the work. It was later carried to completion by Dr. George S. May, another staff member of the Historical Commission who continued to work on the project after joining the faculty of Eastern Michigan University at Ypsilanti in 1966. The problem of the tremendous expense involved in the reproduction of hun- dreds of costly illustrations on high quality paper which would do justice to them was minimized by the availability of a large trust fund provided by Dr. John M. Munson, who for years was president of the state institution of higher education at Marquette and later at Ypsilanti.

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126   All phases of Michigan life from the time of the prehistoric Indian through the French and English periods and the decades of ter- ritorial and state government have been cov- ered. Rare items from the Clements Library in Ann Arbor and from other depositories in Michigan and other states have been uti- lized. The beautiful homes erected by pros- perous citizens in the years of the Greek Revival and subsequently, the careers of men and women (some of whom have been almost forgotten), recreational pursuits of many generations, war time activities, and political leadership (both that of partisans like Zachariah Chandler and reformers like Hazen Pingree), all receive adequate atten- tion. Quite properly the decline of the lum- ber and mining industries, activities on the Great Lakes, the development of the auto- mobile industry with its phenomenal effect on Detroit and other cities, the flamboyant prosperity of the 1920's, the cruel aspects of the Great Depression, and the building of the many superhighways are presented in vivid fashion. The resulting "Visual Aids" should be a boon not only to armchair readers but to alert Americans of every age bracket.   FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER The Ohio State University         All Aboard! A History of Railroads in Michi- gan. By WILLIS FREDERICK DUNBAR. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969. 308p.; Illustrations, maps, and index. $7.95.)   Dr. Dunbar has done an admirable job of describing railroad activities in Michigan from 1832 to the present. In twelve chapters and an epilogue he tells of the various stages of development from small beginnings financed by local capital to state control and finance, back to private capital, on to Fed- eral and state aid, ultimately reaching a peak of growth early in this century. Since then there has been retrenchment, consolidation and stabilization. Whole chapters are devoted to electric interurbans, "little fellows," and railroad tales; and considerable attention is

OHIO HISTORY   given to car ferries. Hence, no aspect of rail- roading in Michigan has been ignored. There are a few frustrating aspects about the book, however. First and foremost is the absence of a bibliography. This is particu- larly critical in view of the brevity of most footnote citations. Secondly, the book is illus- trated with several maps, in fact almost every chapter is preceded by one or two, and a great many charming photographs. Unfortu- nately, there is no list of the illustrative material. While the maps appear at first glance to be a tremendous asset, so few locations are given on some of them that their use is extremely limited. Unless the reader is quite familiar with Michigan geog- raphy, a general highway map will probably prove more useful than the maps in the book. A few discrepancies seem to have crept into the footnotes. Michigan first had a Rail- road Commissioner in 1873 and the author cites (p.251) "First Annual Report of the Commissioner of Railroads," apparently pub- lished in 1873 or 1874; however, earlier (p. 190) he cites "Annual Report of the Rail- road Commissioner for the year 1872" and ". . . for the year 1873." Unless there was a report prior to the appointment of a com- missioner and two separate reports were issued in 1873, something is amiss. Elsewhere, (p.286) he cites a periodical article but neglects to give date and page reference. While the index is, on the whole, accu- rate, it is not without errors and inconsis- tencies. Ostensibly, all railroad companies are listed under that heading, but, the Iron Mountain Railroad was omitted. The reader is told under Pere Marquette to "see also Flint & Pere Marquette," but there is no such reference from the latter to the former. The same is true of Canadian National and Grand Trunk. In view of the absence of a list of illustrations, it is unfortunate that generally the pictures are not cited in the index. On the whole, the book is well written, appears to have been based upon a wide assortment of sources and, for some aspects, includes a fair amount of detailed history. One wishes that the author could have included more details and have made more use of the abundant quantities of manuscript material available on the subject (a cursory

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Book Reviews   examination of the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections reveals at least a dozen collections containing important material on Michigan railroads), but given the scope of the project and the confines of a single volume, it is probably unreasonable to expect more than the author has given. Hopefully, this pioneering survey will entice students of the future to turn their attention to some of the many developments which were only briefly touched upon by Dr. Dunbar. CHARLES R. SCHULTZ The Marine Historical Association, Inc.       Taverns and Travelers: Inns of the Early Mid- west. By PATON YODER. (Bloomington: Indi- ana University Press, 1969. x + 246p.; bib- liographical essay and index. $6.95.)   The tavern was closely associated with the advance of the frontier from eastern United States to the West since its initial purpose was to supply food and shelter to migrants and travelers in relatively unsettled areas. Because the tavern, however rude, was often the only common meeting ground for a rather sparse and diverse frontier society, its importance in the sociological history of the United States is quite high. Mr. Yoder's book deals with the tavern as it developed in the midwestern states during the period between 1775 and 1850. Taverns and Travelers is, in effect, a compilation of hundreds of references taken from contem- porary sources and arranged by general sub- jects. The author has provided generous and valuable footnotes to his text and has included a short chapter entitled "Biblio- graphical Essay" on the sources used. It is this reviewer's opinion that the value of this book to the practicing historian con- sists in its usefulness as an "index" of eighteenth and nineteenth century publica- tions which include references to "taverns and travelers." That it is termed a "sociologi- cal history" is somewhat misleading; the sub- ject is certain sociological, but few specific conclusions have been drawn from the mate- rial presented--and it is highly doubtful that

127   any but the most generalized conclusions could be made from sources so diverse in time and locale. To make a sociological interpretation the sources themselves would have to come under question to determine each writer's personal prejudices in regard to frontier life. This is certainly true of for- eign travelers' accounts. Also, a profusion of taverns and travelers did exist in the Mid- west between 1775-1850, but the specific locale, the specific date, the specific tavern, and the specific traveler, multiplied a thou- sandfold, form such a sociological complex- ity that interpretation becomes extremely difficult. A tendency exists in historical writ- ing to generalize "frontier society," while in fact society could vary enormously from set- tlement to nearby settlement at the same moment in time. Taverns and Travelers is an impressive research effort on the part of Mr. Yoder, and should be regarded as an important guide to publications of the period as well as a read- able synopsis of the era of the tavern.     DONALD A. HUTSLAR The Ohio Historical Society         Some Pathways in Twentieth-Century His- tory: Essays in Honor of Reginald Charles McGrane. Edited by DANIEL R. BEAVER. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1969. 313p.; notes and index. $11.95.)   Reginald McGrane served the University of Cincinnati for nearly half a century. In 1915 upon completion of his Ph.D. at the Univer- sity of Chicago, he returned to the city of his birth and began teaching history at the urban university where he had earned both his bachelors and masters degrees. An active researcher and publisher, most of his teach- ing years were given to undergraduate engi- neering students. After his retirement from the classroom in 1959, he continued to pur- sue scholarly interests. The result was the official history of his alma mater, The Uni- versity of Cincinnati: A Success Story in Urban Education, which was published in 1963, four years before his death.

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128   The essays in this memorial volume were written by nine of McGrane's former stu- dents and associates under the editorship of Daniel R. Beaver. The book is attractively bound, the essays are well documented, and the editor is to be commended for including an index. The value of such a volume, how- ever, must be questioned; the only unifying theme is a loose identification with twentieth century history. Thus, one essay is a bio- graphical sketch of McGrane's life, another is a study of Ohio politics, two deal with American military history, three others dis- cuss American foreign policy while the remaining two are concerned with British history. Chronologically, the essays range from the turn of the century through post- World War II. The first essay is an interesting descrip- tion of the career of a conscientious scholar and dedicated teacher. Harry R. Stevens brings together incidents from McGrane's personal life with an assessment of the man's scholarship. In the next article, "A Fair Field and No Favor: The Structure of Informal Empire," Thomas McCormick reviews the formulation of the Open Door notes and the international negotiations which followed. He concludes that for the moment--"the Open Door policy was the most realistic one at hand." (p.49) This essay is another con- tribution to the growing body of historical interpretation which views the Open Door policy as an expression of American expan- sionism through informal empire. Alfred D. Sumberg's "William Howard Taft and the Endorsement Issue, 1906-1908," is a meticulously detailed account of the vic- tory of the Taft forces in the struggle for control of party leadership in Ohio. The vic- tory paved the way for Taft's nomination and subsequent election in the presidential contest of 1908. An aspect of the American military effort in World War I--the contri- butions of George W. Goethals as chief of supply to the development of a logistical support system--is the theme of the essay contributed by the editor of the volume. The selections by Henry Winkler and C. William Vogel consider topics in British his- tory. The first analyzes the attitudes of the Labour party to the Paris Peace Conference and the resultant Versailles Treaty. The other

OHIO HISTORY   essay, "Leopold Amery--Man Against the Stars in Their Courses," reviews the career of a member of the opposition Conservative party. As a spokesman for the unity of Empire during the 1920's, Amery was des- tined for political failure. The final three contributions reconsider aspects of World War II. Francis Loewen- heim discusses the history and historiography of American peace efforts before Munich. Richard Leighton's essay on the American arsenal policy is a useful compendium of information. Had the war continued or had the threat been greater, the author concludes "the United States could have mustered even larger armed forces and supported even greater industrial expansion." (p.252) The final piece by William Franklin reviews the decisions made at Yalta in the perspective of earlier discussions of the Big Three at Tehran. The above summation suggests the diver- sity of topics included in this volume. Even though each essay is interesting in its own right, the lack of a unifying theme severely weakens the book. Such imprecision serves to lessen the enthusiasm of the general reader and also tends to obscure individual articles which may be of interest to the specialist.     ROBERT L. REID Miami University, Oxford       A Hero in Spite of Himself: Brand Whitlock in Art, Politics, and War. By ROBERT M. CRUN- DEN. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1969. xi+479p.; bibliography and index. $10.00.)   Brand Whitlock has received much attention lately, even more than his mentor Samuel M. "Golden Rule" Jones or Cleveland's Tom Johnson. Whitlock is easier to study because he left voluminous papers, as well as a dozen or more published books. Professor Crun- den's new biography of the Toledo mayor, diplomat, and novelist is well documented and written in a most readable style. The undeniably romantic vein in Whitlock encourages a romantic bias in his biographer,

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Book Reviews   illustrated by the use of a contemporary label. Crunden calls the humanitarian mayor the "father of all." He has some sharp insights into the activities of the Toledo progressives, but admirers of Whitlock may be more inter- ested in the chapters describing his role in German occupied Belgium during the First World War. Crunden goes on to attribute Whitlock's subsequent disenchantment with America to a loss of idealism engendered by his abhorrence of the war's brutality. Fre- quent illnesses and acute disappointment at the poor reception accorded his postwar novels compounded his unhappiness. "Toledo politics in practice," Crunden insists, had "more to do with the love of one man than anything else." (p.149) Historians looking for consistency in the progressive era may be startled at statements that "viewed from Toledo, the progressive era is but the political phase of the social gospel" (p.94), or that "personal popularity and a popular issue [the Rail-Light franchise battle] brought reform to Toledo; little else did." (p.233) Such judgments are provocative, but they disregard several prevailing interpretations. It is only by taking into account the diverse ideas of Richard Hofstadter, J. Joseph Huth- macher, or Samuel P. Hays, to mention only three, that any historian can hope to inter- pret this complex era of reform, as Jack Tager's recent study of Whitlock suggests. Toledo is not as unique as Crunden would have us believe. This book does capture the close relation- ship between Whitlock's life and his art. Crunden's stimulating criticism reveals the lasting merit in two novels. The Turn of the Balance (1907) and J. Hardin and Son (1923), both of which illustrate their author's gift for translating his experience into fiction, using the realistic technique made famous by William Dean Howells. The spirit of another Whitlock idol, the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, infuses every chapter of The Turn of the Balance, often betraying Whitlock's tendency to model his work too closely on that of writers he admired. In fact, everything in Whitlock's career demonstrates a decided lack of originality that cannot help but have detracted from the heroic image in this book's title. His deriva- tive nature also explains how Whitlock could

129   so easily become discouraged by the collapse of Wilsonian idealism implicit in the Senate's decision not to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. Many other progressives lost faith too. But if Whitlock had really been the crusader peo- ple called the "father of all," how could he have so completely rejected their cause? Would he have said the contemptuous things about Americans that spot his letters and journal during the 1920's? One wonders if a reform commitment thus given up can ever have been very genuine. Which was the real Whitlock, the mayor of Toledo in 1909, or the dilettante of twenty years later? Crunden does not say. Perhaps, like any judicious biographer, he just wants the reader to decide for himself. Surely anyone familiar with Ohio history will want to read this book, for we are not likely to have another study that so thoroughly and knowledgeably places Whit- lock in the context of his times.     NEIL THORBURN Russell Sage College       Fort Wayne During the Canal Era, 1828- 1855: A Study of a Western Community in the Middle Period of American History. By CHARLES R. POINSATTE. (Indianapolis: Indi- ana Historical Bureau, 1969. xi + 284p.; illus- trations, maps, appendix, and index. $5.00.)   This biography of Fort Wayne is a case study of how Americans in the second quarter of the nineteenth century confronted the issues of Indian removal, internal improvements, banking, commercial expansion, religious crusades, and cultural development. Professor Poinsatte has set out to complement histories of larger towns and to further our under- standing of national history during the "Mid- dle Period." Of his many areas of study, the author is most successful in comparing the experi- ence in Fort Wayne with that of other mid- western towns. Unlike Richard Wade, Poinsatte asserts that it is only partially true that agrarian-minded legislators restricted urban development by narrow grants of cor- porate and taxing power. The minor restric- tions that were present were caused not by

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130   rural jealousy but by lack of legislative fore- sight and local merchants' desires to main- tain a low tax rate. Fort Wayne, however, did share the typical midwestern town char- acteristics of conservative religious develop- ment and efforts to establish public education. Although Professor Poinsatte touches on various national issues such as Federal land policy, his comparisons in this area are not so specific as those on the local level. Located at the vital portage between the Maumee and St. Mary's rivers, Fort Wayne from the time of Indian removal--desired by speculators and opposed by older inhab- itants engaged in the lucrative Indian trade --to the arrival of the railroad in 1854 was similar to other towns in the Old Northwest. For example, leading citizens, realizing the effect a canal would have on land values and commercial possibilities, strongly pushed for the Wabash and Erie canal. Spectacular growth in the early 1830's was followed by a disastrous economic crisis in 1837 and then by sounder development in the 1840's. Fort Wayne faced the "urban problems" of inadequate fire and police protection, threat of epidemics, and lack of good streets. And in the early '50's, citizens turned from the canal, which had provided impetus for the town's early development, to promotion of railroads. Professor Poinsatte's monograph is typi- cal of that genre of urban history which attempts to discuss all the important activi- ties in a town. As such, it suffers from a lack of close analysis and often verges on chronicle, especially in the discussions of economic and religious development. The author fails to differentiate effectively between Fort Wayne and its hinterland, often lumping together the history of the town and that of Allen County, and he stretches the definition somewhat by refer- ring to a population aggregate of about 4000 as "urban." In spite of these problems, Fort Wayne During the Canal Era adds to our informa- tion on midwestern towns in the early years of their development, and the author has provided a readable narrative.     MICHAEL SPEER Ohio State University

OHIO HISTORY   A Union Soldier in the Land of the Van- quished. The Diary of Sergeant Mathew Woodruff, June - December, 1865. Edited and annotated by F. N. BONEY. (University, Ala- bama: University of Alabama Press, 1969. viii + 103p.; bibliography and index. $5.00.)   The outstanding feature of this slim, 175- day chronicle by an Ohio-born, Missouri farmer-boy-soldier in Alabama from June to December 1865 is the exacting, painstak- ing, meticulous, albeit sometimes extraneous footnoting. Each railroad line or riverboat carrying First Sergeant Mathew Woodruff, Company G, Twenty-First Missouri Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment, from Keokuk to Pascagoula to Mobile rates a capsule his- tory. Every individual mentioned in the recurrent accounts of drinking sprees and disciplinary infractions brings forth his com- plete service record, and one wonders whence such extras as "a blond Irishman," "a tall youthful farmer," "a tough veteran," and so forth. The site of the sergeant's one night slum- ber in New Orleans is pinpointed at "only two blocks from the dock area where Gen- eral Benjamin F. ("Beast") Butler and the first Federal occupation troops landed in the spring of 1862"--a pro-Confederate gra- tuity. Fortunes of a trick mule act Wood- ruff once saw are taken from the 1850's to 1900. A red fish he caught is a "Sciaenops ocillata" and what, in his Yankee ignorance, he called a "trout" is actually a "Cynoscion arenarius." It may be well that this is so, for it dem- onstrates a dogged, scholarly effort to com- pensate for the paucity of significant substance in the diary. Young Woodruff's mangled spelling and syntax belabor his boredom with paperwork, his captain's endemic bottle trouble, his contemptuous tolerance of the Negro soldiers he called "Kinkeys" (compare "slants" in Vietnam and "gooks" in Korea in modem GI par- lance), his own bouts at "eating" beer and whiskey, and his resistance to temptations of the flesh. There is a good description of a serious clash between members of his reg- iment and the Fifteenth United States Regu- lar Infantry in December 1865. He carefully sought the facts before he wrote of the event

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Book Reviews   which put him under arms for the first time since combat to help restore order. Several men were fatally injured in the rioting which became, in his words, a "mutiny" when sol- diers refused to obey orders to quit the melee. There is not much unusual in all this. Occupation troops ever since the Victrix VI Legion patrolled Hadrian's Wall have always acted as Woodruff and his comrades. Thrills of campaign and combat give way to dreary tedium of waiting for discharge. Liquor and lust supply scant relief, tempers are volatile, friction and fighting inevitable. To call this semi-literate rustic "an apt symbol of his country's failure to win the peace," which is the editor's thesis, seems extravagant. Even if the Waterford, Ohio, native and wounded combat veteran had felt it desirable for the Union to consolidate its military victory "to avoid the failure of heart and mind whose tragic consequences are even now felt by millions of Americans," as the book suggests, what could he have done to change anything? The word "trooper" throughout is mis- applied to Woodruff and his foot-slogging infantrymen. A "trooper" is always a caval- ryman, as any dictionary will prove.   CHARLES M. CUMMINGS Columbus, Ohio       The Ohio Canals. By FRANK WILCOX and edited by WILLIAM A. MCGILL. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1969. xii + 106p.; illustrations, maps, and bibliography. $15.00.)   It is unfortunate that this book was edited without reference to a definitive work on the subject, such as Scheiber's Ohio Canal Era. No secondary works published since 1947 are cited and only five published since 1940. This is not to say that there is no value in the late Frank N. Wilcox's drawings,

131   paintings, and text. These are technically excellent and contribute much to the under- standing of the canal era. Wilcox knew the canals from having tramped their entire length and made on-the-spot notes and illus- trations. His chapters on canal excavations, locks and lock building, and canal boats are superb. They show an artist's insight into the accuracies and workabilities of equip- ment that must do the job to which it was applied. This means proper dimensions of "canal prisms," the location of spoil banks, waste weirs, culverts, "wide-waters," stone, water line, and wash banks. It means lock construction with relation to tow paths, sluiceways, feeder heads, wickets, stonework, ironwork, gate construction, weirs and spill- ways. It means canal boats with good car- pentry, balance, and stability, tiller decks, wales, "deadeyes," and "snubbers." Good drawings always help to transform techni- calities into understanding for the reader. But the story sags when it takes the reader on trips that Wilcox took along the canal routes: on the Ohio canal from Cleve- land to Portsmouth, on the Miami canal, the Wabash and Lake Erie, the Sandy-Beaver, and the Pennsylvania Cross Cut. The draw- ings are frequently misplaced and there are no maps. This makes Wilcox's excellent specifications a confusion for the general reader. In other words, the editing leaves much to be desired. Maps should be properly located and labeled in relation to the text. The bibliography should be brought up-to- date. References and magazine articles should have the volume, month, and page numbers. Poor proof reading should be avoided. The History of Ohio Canals (1905) should have authors, C. P. McClelland and C. C. Huntington; George Dial White, men- tioned as author of "Construction of the Ohio Canals" (1904), should be George White Dial. There are other unfortunate typographical errors.     RANDOLPH DOWNES Toledo University

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