Ohio History Journal

265

Book Reviews

 

 

The Loyalist Americans: A Focus on Greater New York. Edited by Robert A.

East and Jacob Judd. (Tarrytown: Sleepy Hollow Restorations, 1975. xiv +

176p.; illustrations, notes, appendix, index. $12.00.)

 

Few aspects of life during the colonial era have failed to be singled out and

judged in terms of their importance to the American Revolution, yet important

phases of that event remain inadequately explored. Although the subject of

several recent investigations, Loyalism is a case in point. For this reason books

which shed light on the half-million Americans who opposed separation are a

welcome addition to the literature of the Revolution. Robert East and Jacob

Judd present a volume composed of six essays about Loyalism, five of which

originate from papers delivered at a conference on Loyalists held in Tarrytown,

New York in 1973.

In the first chapter, John Shy discusses the British perception of Loyalism in

the lower Hudson Valley. Shy ponders two questions. With Loyalism so

widespread, might the British have used that segment of colonial population to

pacify a "bankrupt" rebellion? If, as recent research suggests, the American

Revolution was as violently intolerant as the French, how is the quick disap-

pearance of the Tory issue after the War explained? Shy asserts that the British

did try to use the Loyalists. But Loyalism in New York was too varied for

uniform assessments. Thus, Shy finds that New York did not suffer the extremes

of violence during the Revolution because of the manner in which the British

viewed Loyalism at close range. Shy's observations are amplified by Esmond

Wright's essay which concludes the volume. Offering a cross-section of

Loyalism, Wright observes that New York was the most loyal of all the colonies

and explains New York City's Loyalism as "simply a consequence of its

location." Wright identifies location, an interpretation of Locke which required

allegiance to both parliament and king, and a repugnance to the use of force as the

three major strands of Loyalism in that province. With Loyalists more numerous

in New York than elsewhere, why were they militarily of so little value? Wright

suggests that British statesmanship failed to properly assess Loyalism and

misread "the nature of war in the eighteenth century."

Sandwiched between the chapters by Shy and Wright are four essays that

offer views on the Loyalism of widely differing colonials. Catherine Crary

singles out James De Lancey and his Cowboys and asks if they went beyond the

bounds of conventional warfare; were they mere freebooters? She finds the

evidence conflicting, although De Lancey did operate under British military

authority and probably adhered to the laws of war as recognized at that time. As

a consequence, she concludes that the opprobrium heaped upon the Cowboys

was far too harsh. Jacob Judd is also critical of earlier interpretations. Expres-

sing dissatisfaction with the "behavior theory of patterned Loyalist adherence"

he points to Frederick Philipse III as an example of hazards attending classifica-

tion of New Yorkers. Large land owner and esteemed member of the assembly,

Philipse chose the Loyalists' side only when events outside New York finally

produced a Tory party. Nor is Judd able to explain why the Philipse estate was

singled out for such harsh treatment at the hands of the New York revolutionary

government.

William Benton paints an interesting portrait of Peter Van Schaack. A brilliant

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266                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

young man whose talents were widely recognized, Van Schaack was a willing

patriot as late as 1774. To him, American rights and subordination to Parliament

were mutually exclusive concepts. Yet, in 1775 he refused to sign a pledge to

fight England. Why? His behavior is explained by reason of conscience, indi-

vidualism, and his interpretation of the compact theory of government. Benton

casts Van Schaack among the "Whig-Loyalists" who differed from the patriots

only over the question of separation. For this reason their re-entry into Ameri-

can society was relatively easy.

William Franklin's conservatism is analysed by Willard Randall. Franklin's

arrival on the New Jersey scene is viewed as propitious. Suffering from depres-

sion, debt-ridden New Jerseymen were hardly prepared to cope with the turmoil

of the 1760s. During this crisis, the colony discovered it possessed a shrewd

governor, adept at both compromise and reform, whose legislative ideas were

"years ahead of their time." When and why did Franklin change? Randall points

to 1773 as the critical year when personal reasons caused Franklin to conclude

that peace and public tranquility were preferable to the anarchy and misery of

separation. Forced into his Tory role, Franklin "was a man mistrusted, misun-

derstood, and maligned by both sides."

It is indeed remarkable that so many interesting insights are contained within

the covers of a book so small. Certainly these six essays do much to sharpen the

focus on a question long blurred by complexity, and add detail to the emerging

mosaic.

 

Miami University                                 Richard M. Jellison

 

 

Weathering the Storm: Women of the American Revolution. By Elizabeth

Evans. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975. x + 372p.; illustrations,

bibliography, index. $12.50.)

 

Although intended for a popular rather than an academic audience, this

collection of diaries and journals achieves its goal of illustrating how women in a

variety of ways weathered the storm of the American Revolution. The book is a

useful reminder that women as well as men bore the brunt of the military and

political conflict between England and the colonies.

Ms. Evans' introduction describes the historical context in which these

women lived, particularly their limited legal, economic, and political status and

the precariousness of childbirth and health in the eighteenth century. In addi-

tion, each of the eleven primary sources is preceded by a lively description of the

physical setting and the social life of the community of its author.

The impact of the war was far from uniform. Some women were left almost

unscathed. Young Sally Wister, for example, viewed the conflict simply as an

occasion for flirtation with the officers quartered in her home outside Philadel-

phia. Jemima Condict Harrison's diary is preoccupied with disease and death,

and Elizabeth Foote Washington's with the problems of servants, children, and

her husband. Other women's lives, however, underwent dramatic change. Jane

Young Ferguson's family fled from a British-inspired Indian attack, which

wiped out much of their settlement; Grace Growdon Galloway was driven to the

brink of insanity when she lost her inherited property because of the British

sympathies of her husband.

Of most interest is the women's variety of responses to the Revolution. Only

two-Martha I'ans Walker and Deborah Sampson Gannett-were supporters of

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Book Reviews                                                    267

 

 

the Patriot cause. Walker's support was occasioned less by her convictions in

the righteousness of rebellion than by loyalty to her husband, with whom she

was exiled from Canada for his conspiracy with the rebels to overthrow the

British administration there. Gannett's patriotism, on the other hand, was

motivated by a desire to escape the confining female role. Dressed in male garb,

Gannett enrolled in the Continental Army and managed to keep her female

identity a secret for over a year. She received an honorable discharge and later a

pension from the government of the United States for her valiant service.

Although her recollections of life in the military, written some years afterwards,

may be romanticized, they make fascinating reading.

By contrast, most of the women represented in the collection were either

indifferent or opposed to the Revolution. Some were Quaker pacifists, but

one-Mary Gould Almy-simply remarked caustically to her Patriot husband as

she watched Newport invaded and ravaged first by British and then by French

and American troops, "Well may we say, what havoc does ambition make."

The picture of the Patriots which emerges in these diaries is also a useful

corrective to the self-congratulations which surround the celebration of the

Bicentennial. Two of the diaries in particular-those of Elizabeth Sandwith

Drinker and Anna Rawle Clifford-vividly describe the official coercion and

mob violence directed at pacifists and Tories, the arbitrary seizure and destruc-

tion of their property, and the hanging of Quakers suspected of treason. The

general lack of enthusiasm for the Revolution which pervades the collection may

result from the use of the diaries of women whose upper-class status predisposed

them toward the Tory side; only two of the women are from the lower class. The

want of "patriotism" may also be the natural response of a group uninformed,

politically powerless, and left at home to witness the destruction of war without

any of the compensating military glories.

These strong women, however, were far from passive and long-suffering. Yet,

with the exception of Gannett, they did not throw themselves into revolutionary

or military activities. Their central concern in this time of chaos and danger was

the welfare of their children, husbands, families, and neighbors. Their diaries are

testimony either to their limited lives or to their sanity and good sense.

 

John Carroll University                             Marian J. Morton

 

 

Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution. By Samuel

Rezneck. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975. xiv + 299p.; illustrations,

notes, bibliography, index. $19.95.)

 

Samuel Rezneck, professor emeritus of history at Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute and author of several books in American economic history, undertook

an ambitious project with Unrecognized Patriots. His intent was "to have

established that the Jews of early America, however few [one-tenth of one

percent], made a subtle and notable contribution to the American Revolution in

several aspects." The "several aspects" of the Jewish experience during the

Revolutionary period, all treated in some depth, are the demographic,

economic, military and political. Moreover, Rezneck discusses the consequ-

ences, after the Revolution, for both patriotic and Loyalist Jews.

The delineation of these areas is supported by two questions which run

throughout the text. What did the Jews do for and during the Revolution? And

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268                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

what did the Revolution do for the Jews? While analysis and synthesis are

subordinated to narrating events and biographies, and while many sources are

naively accepted at face value, the dual questions provide the author with

several opportunities for tying otherwise isolated facts into a work of history.

Unrecognized Patriots is written simply and concisely, and would seem to

have appeal to students of American history as well as interested laypersons.

Rezneck knows the Revolution, as well as the American Jews of the eighteenth

century, and writes in an interesting style about both. He has used extensive

published materials, including articles, papers, documents and books, and his

bibliography is extremely useful. Despite making use of only a limited number of

manuscript collections, the volume demonstrates diligent scholarship.

The major fault with the work, perhaps more the blame of an editor than the

author, is its repetitious narrative. Individuals appear and then re-appear con-

tinually, and we are either reminded of what was said about them earlier or some

part of their story is retold. For example, David Franks (not to be confused with

David S. Franks) is the subject of an economic biography on pp. 103-07, and part

of this narrative is repeated on pp. 143-44. Despite this flaw, Unrecognized

Patriots is a sympathetic and even scholarly history of a fascinating and signifi-

cant aspect of the American experience.

The Ohio State University                         Marc Lee Raphael

 

 

The American Heritage History of the Congress of the United States. By Alvin

M. Josephy, Jr. (New York: American Heritage Publishing Company, 1975.

416p.; illustrations, bibliography, index. $27.50.)

 

This is a very ambitious book that in presenting a history of Congress actually

provides a history of the United States. To accomplish this in four hundred pages

obviously requires careful selection of materials as well as concise reporting and

interpretation of events. Josephy has generally managed to cover this broad

ground without overly simplifying or distorting key issues, although of necessity

certain events and persons are given less coverage than one might desire. The

book has three major aims: to portray the range of personalities that have

inhabited Congress since its inception; to describe Congress as a basic unit of

government with emphasis on how its structures have evolved over time; and to

illustrate the varying relationships between Congress and the President in the

past two hundred years.

The book is eminently successful with respect to its first aim. The reader gets a

full sense of the personalities and behaviors of key legislative actors. Josephy

presents many amusing and fascinating anecdotes about the foibles of various

personages, yet these anecdotes also serve to illustrate more general points

about congressional politics. One shortcoming of the book in this area is that

insufficient attention is given to recent congressional leadership. For example,

the leadership style of Lyndon Johnson as Senate Majority Leader certainly

merits more attention.

The book is not as successful in presenting the mechanics and workings of

Congress. If the reader is looking for a nuts-and-bolts description of congres-

sional operations, he or she would do better to consult a standard introductory

American government textbook. This is not to say that information about

committee systems, voting procedures, legislative maneuvering, and the like is

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Book Reviews                                                    269

 

entirely omitted; rather, such topics are not given high priority and their cover-

age is not very thorough or systematic.

The book is more successful in presenting the various executive-legislative

relationships that have existed since the colonial era. What is most impressive

about Josephy's efforts in this highly controversial area is his relatively dispas-

sionate and balanced presentation of contending positions. The major weakness

of this section is the limited attention given to contemporary developments in the

relationship between the President and the Congress in both domestic and

foreign affairs. For example, the reassertion of congressional prerogatives in the

realm of foreign policy-making in the Vietnam and post-Vietnam era is given

short shrift. Likewise, the attempts by Congress to regain control over the

national budget via new budget committees and procedures are virtually ig-

nored.

In addition to the generally informative and insightful text, the book contains

more than three hundred illustrations that make it a visual delight. There are

beautiful pictorial spreads of Washington, D. C. and the Capitol over time,

portraits of leading personages, and sketches and cartoons portraying various

aspects of congressional life. In summary, Josephy's book will appeal to those

seeking a broad and personality-oriented history of the Congress; it will prove

less satisfying to those seeking a systematic understanding of the contemporary

Congress.

 

The Ohio State University                           Herbert B. Asher

 

 

Levi Coffin and the Underground Railroad. By Charles Ludwig. (Scottdale,

Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1975. 184p.; $4.95.)

 

This light and brief historical biography and novel is the life story of Levi

Coffin, abolitionist and prominent operator in the Underground Railroad. Fol-

lowing a chronological pattern, much of the content is devoted to those adult

years when Levi and his wife Katie were involved in the movement at Newport,

Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio. During the 1840s and 1850s the Coffins aided

nearly 3000 black fugitives to escape from the South. Such extensive participa-

tion earned Levi the nickname and unofficial title of president of the Under-

ground Railroad.

Levi was born and reared in a Quaker community in Guilford County, North

Carolina, where his Quaker parents instilled in him the evils of slavery. At an

early age he witnessed whippings and kidnappings; Ludwig notes that "Levi

began to adopt abolitionist principles long before he had shed his last baby

:eeth." He befriended the blacks on numerous occasions. In 1821, at the age of

23, he established a "slave school" to teach them to read and write.

Sensing a calling from God to further his crusade against slavery and desiring

o escape from a pro-slavery environment, a year later he, with several other

nembers of the church, migrated to a Quaker community in Newport, Wayne

bounty, Indiana. In 1824 Levi married Catherine "Katie" White, also a Quaker.

Both in Newport and later in Cincinnati, where they moved in 1847, the Coffins

owned and operated a successful dry goods store which served as "cover" for

heir activities in the Underground Railroad.

Active as a teacher, lecturer, minister and member of abolitionist societies.

'offin's crusades brought personal torment, hardship and suffering. The store

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270                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

 

was boycotted, division split his church, friends shunned him and violations of

the Fugitive Slave Laws forced him into court.

Through Levi's experiences, the book gives insight into Quakerism, as well as

many aspects of slavery and facets of the Underground Railroad. It is generally

recognized that there is a tie-in between the Coffins and Harriet Beecher

Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Ludwig relates this connection; thus a highlight of

the study is a chapter on the fugitive slave, Eliza Harris, who became "Eliza" in

Uncle Tom's Cabin. The author also reminds us that Rachael and Simeon

Halliday, characters in Stowe's book, are supposedly Levi and Katie Coffin.

In Levi Coffin, Levi is depicted as a man of destiny and determination.

Ludwig's Coffin is heroic, pious, flawless in character and messianic. He ap-

pears too saintly.

The volume has no index, no illustrations, four short explanatory footnotes

and no bibliography, except for a few sources cited in the Preface. The author

relied primarily upon Coffin's autobiography, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, a

factor which could account for the book's subjectivity.

The biography addresses itself to the young, especially the junior-senior high

school student, and the general reader. The study would be of little value to the

serious scholar, researcher or specialist. In spite of its limitations, it is pleasant

and entertaining reading. Not to be overlooked is that such books do supply a

genuine need for sizeable segments of the reading public.

 

Ashland College                                    John L. Nethers

 

 

A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction,

1863-1869. By Michael Les Benedict. (New York: W. W. Norton & Com-

pany, 1974. 493p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $18.95.)

 

The debate over the motivation behind Radical Reconstruction has centered

on genuine racial liberalism versus political expediency. Professor Benedict, of

Ohio State University, emphasizes the different factions which divided the

Republican party. He demonstrates that radicals were genuinely committed to

black equality, even when it was politically damaging, while the moderates and

conservatives were ready to compromise with the racist policies of Presiden

Andrew Johnson. Because of Johnson's tactlessness in vetoing moderate mea

sures, conservatives were forced to turn to more radical ideas, but Benedic

emphasizes that the radicals never were in control of Reconstruction. The

radicals emerge as nationalists who realized that the Constitution did not giv

directions on how to handle the emergency of civil war, but whose centralizin

tendencies were opposed by constitutionally-conservative Republicans wh

wanted to preserve federalism and state rights.

Consequently, Benedict concludes, the Reconstruction program that resulte

was a halfhearted patchwork that was doomed to failure. By ignoring radic:

appeals for land redistribution, education, and permanent disenfranchisement (

rebels, Reconstruction failed to provide lasting economic and political securit

for the freed slaves and white unionists in the South. This book coincides wi

other recent studies which show that the result of this failure was continuin

sectional hatred and grinding proverty for the Southern masses.

Benedict's study demonstrates that Ohio played a prominent role in Reco

struction. Ohio Congressmen participated in each faction, with consistent radi-

cals represented by Benjamin Wade, James Ashley and Robert Schenck; cons

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Book Reviews                                                  271

 

 

tent centrists by John Sherman, Reader Clarke, Benjamin Eggleston, and Martin

Welker; and consistent conservatives by John Bingham and Ralph Buckland. As

in most states, the centrists and conservatives outnumbered the radicals. A

Democratic victory in the Ohio state election of 1867 had national significance

not only because a provision for black voting was defeated in a racist scare

campaign, but because Republican defeat weakened radical Senator Benjamin

Wade's chances for the presidential nomination.

As he pointed out in his earlier book, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew

Johnson, Benedict emphasizes that a major reason why Johnson was not re-

moved from office was that he would have been replaced by the president pro

tempore of the Senate, Benjamin Wade. Not only was Wade a radical, but his

high-tariff and inflationary financial views alienated many Republicans. The

picture was complicated by intra-party factional infighting within Ohio politics.

While Benedict's book is in many ways a synthesis, it also makes original

contributions. By extensive quantitative analysis of Congressional voting pat-

terns, it provides the best listing of the shifting alliances of the era. At last we can

know who the radicals were, so that collective biographical studies can be done.

The bibliography is also quite good. While the book is well written, at times its

detailing of intricate parliamentary maneuvers, combined with a mass of politi-

cians' names, becomes confusing. The fact that footnotes are not placed at the

bottom of each page is distracting. Some of the lists are unclear, because at times

only last names are given, and an examination of The Biographical Directory of

the American Congress reveals a few discrepancies. Nevertheless, Benedict has

written a well-researched and important study that will add much to Congres-

sional and Reconstruction historiography.

 

University of Cincinnati                         Walter L. Williams

 

 

Stranger and Traveler: The Story of Dorothea Dix, American Reformer. By

Dorothy Clarke Wilson. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975. xxiii +

360p.; illustrations, bibliography, index. $8.95.)

The Lady and the President: The Letters of Dorothea Dix & Millard Fillmore.

By Charles M. Snyder. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1975.

400p.; chronologies, notes, bibliography, index. $9.50.)

 

Books about Dorothea Dix are disappointingly similar. Generally speaking,

Biographers have simplistically and even woodenly described the heroic charac-

er and tireless efforts of this Antebellum reformer who dedicated her life to

leading for a more humane treatment of the insane. Unfortunately, Dorothy

Clarke Wilson has not strayed from biographical tradition. Her study of Dix

iffers very little from those by Helen Marshall in 1937 and Francis Tiffany in

890. (In fact, one of the chapters in the Wilson book has almost the same title as

similar chapter in the Tiffany version.) Charles Snyder, on the other hand, has

dded to historical knowledge by gathering together Dix's correspondence with

[illard Fillmore, which reveals her to be, in Snyder's words, "a warm and

,metimes tender and lonely woman with a longing to share in the lives of

hers."

Mrs. Wilson is an amateur historian and popular writer, and her book will

tisfy the general reader, if not the professional historian. Many vignettes

istrate poignantly Dix's unhappy childhood and personal life, her concern for

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272                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

the neglected insane in prisons, barns, and sheds, and her polite but determined

persuasiveness in urging tight-fisted legislators to appropriate money for insane

asylums. Between 1841 and 1887 she personally inspected the living conditions

of the legally insane in practically every state, and this biography has many

descriptive and informative accounts which serve to publicize the physical

suffering of the mentally handicapped. But professional historians will find that

Mrs. Wilson did not document her text with footnotes.

Dorothy Clarke Wilson's book will especially disappoint historians interested

in the origins of insane asylums. Her research did not make use of recent and

controversial literature in the field, particularly David Rothman's The Discovery

of the Asylum and Gerald Grob's Mental Institutions in America. There is no

evaluation of Rothman's thesis that insane asylums developed out of a wide-

spread fear that the instability and competitiveness of Antebellum America

increased the numbers of insane and that asylums, with strict regulations and

paternal discipline, would cure the afflicted by stabilizing their environment.

Dorothea Dix's views on the origins of insanity are not even presented. Nor will

the reader find Dix's opinions on the proper way to manage asylums, even

though the author notes that she often acted as a mediator in administrative

disputes. Thus, Grob's insights into the day-to-day difficulties of asylum

superintendents-the overcrowding, the unexpected presence of a permanent

inmate population, and the inability of White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant superin-

tendents to understand Black and Irish Catholic patients-are not discussed.

Mrs. Wilson's book is also flawed as a biography. She never effectively

integrates the private life of Dorothea Dix with her public life, even though the

facts suggest a comprehensive interpretation. Dix grew up in a family setting

troubled by an absent father, an invalid mother, and a general uncertainty about

feelings for family members and their ability to deal with the world around them.

So unhappy was family life that at the age of twelve she ran away from Maine to

live in Boston with her grandmother. The daily routine in her grandmother's

home emphasized discipline and regularity, and Dorothea herself soon took up a

life of energetic self-discipline to the point of exhaustion. Her involvement it

reform began shortly after her grandmother died. Was Dix's enthusiasm fo

asylums the outcome of a special sensitivity to family life, the importance o

stability, and the belief that mental unrest could be cured by restricting the socia

environment to emphasize discipline and regularity, much as her own life ha

been so altered? In the end, a biographer of Dorothea Dix should explain wh

she became involved with the care of the insane rather than with other benevo

lent concerns.

Professor Snyder has put together an interesting collection of the Dorothe

Dix-Millard Fillmore correspondence during the 1850-1869 period. His bo(

includes brief but adequate sketches of Fillmore and Dix, and the selections a

excellently annotated. Particularly interesting are letters about Fillmore's al

Dix's dislike of Northern and Southern extremists, Dix's efforts at pressi

Congressmen to vote for a bill to finance asylums with land grants, her despa

when President Pierce vetoed the bill, Fillmore's mourning for his wife a

daughter, and Dix's shock at hearing false rumors of Fillmore's indecorou'

hasty remarriage.

Snyder suggests that Dix had a romantic interest in Fillmore. They met in 18

when Fillmore was Vice President, and Dix was lobbying for her land b

Thereafter, they continued to correspond regularly, and Snyder concludes t

the style and regularity of the correspondence evidence a romantic interest

not entanglement. Actually, the letters in large part are filled with roul

• 8
 

Book Reviews                                                  273

 

announcements of travel plans or interesting books and are phrased in the

Victorian style of good friends who enjoy writing to each other, not lovers

seeking a rendezvous. Dix did write the majority of letters, and perhaps she

hoped to enlist the former President, who praised her crusade, more actively in

her campaigns. In any case. Snyder's book is a worthwhile addition to the

literature about Dorothea Dix.

 

Case Western Reserve University                 Raimund E. Goerler

 

 

Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840-1914. Edited by H.

Arnold Barton. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975. vi +

344p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $16.50.)

 

H. Arnold Barton has made a valuable documentary resource available to

those interested in American social history, one rich with the experiences of

numerous individuals and groups and organized around the three "main

[chronological] phases" of Swedish immigration to the United States: 1840-

1864, 1865-1889, and 1890-1914.

An edited collection of personal correspondence (largely "America Letters")

and reminiscences, the book does not attempt to explore new issues in Swedish

immigration history or to challenge contemporary wisdom. Rather, Barton's

purpose is solely to "let the Swedish immigrants tell their own story ... (p.4)."

His commitment to be as unobtrusive as possible, however, presents the reader

with difficulties that compromise the book's insights. Translated, but largely

"raw" and disparate, documents in abundance are NOT IN THEMSELVES a

story. For all but the specialist in Swedish immigration history, moreover, they

lack the clarity and effectiveness necessary to make good use of them as

explanatory vehicles. While the author's introductions to each section are

informative, their brevity and generality cannot compensate for his obvious

assumption of historical familiarity.

As an alternative to the book's conventional format, Barton might have

chosen one similar to that used by Charlotte Erickson in her compilation,

Invisible Immigrants (Coral Gables, Fla., 1972). Erickson's work provides all the

background information contained in Letters from the Promised Land and then

adds useful analytical categories, integration and judgments that give her book

the kind of "voice" Barton hoped to achieve. Perceptive, sophisticated historial

narrative will not mute or suffocate data, nor need it detract from the drama and

intimacy of personal documents. Whether Barton had chosen Erickson's study

or another approach to assisting the reader in evaluating, using and learning from

the materials, the addition of such information would have substantively en-

hanced his collection.

The dilemma of abundance and inadequacy extends to the book's supportive

paraphernalia also. The footnotes are good, but the bibliography reflects the

author's assumption of familiarity and is too broad. The photographs, while

sparse, are compelling and more would have been welcome. Barton and his

editor at the University of Minnesota Press have unnecessarily short-changed

both the documents and the book's audience. The potential of the collection was

enormous, but the reader is left at the end with too little new understanding for

uch an expensive investment.

 

Case Western Reserve University                 Daniel E. Weinherg

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274                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

Children of the Raven: The Seven Indian Nations of the Northwest Coast. By H.

R. Hays. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975. xii + ³¹⁶p.; map, illustrations,

bibliography, index. $12.95.)

 

The Raven is the trickster and culture hero who dominated much of the

preliterate mythology of the Indians of the Northwest Coast of North America.

His children are the Tlingit, Tsimshian, Haida, Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, Nootka,

and Coast Salish Indians whose homelands stretch from southern Alaska to

Puget Sound.

The author is concerned that the knowledge of the rich cultural unit which

these people constituted has been obscure from the outside world except for the

studies of specialists. He has written this popular account to correct the conven-

tional sterotyped notion that the totem pole is the only cultural manifestation of

these peoples that has survived or is worthy of preservation.

From a material standpoint these fishermen and hunters were highly success-

ful in a geographic area of natural abundance. In this rich context these peoples

developed an extraordinarily complex and highly sophisticated mythology,

religion, poetry, theatre, music, and social structure. All this was accomplished

with a remarkable adjustment to the natural world. With justification these

attainments can be described in superlative terms as constituting perhaps "the

highest type of culture" in the New World outside of Latin America.

The Russians, Spanish, and English discovered the area as the culture of the

Raven children was in full flower. With the coming of explorers and traders there

was the inevitable friction and adjustment that occurs when different cultures

meet. The missionaries of the latter half of the last century had an even more

devastating effect on the Northwest culture. They seemed bent on replacing the

Indian way of life with the values and culture of the whites. They were so

successful that they virtually destroyed the old culture, but they did not replace

it with anything. Despite these and other serious setbacks there is a cultural

reawakening taking place today in each of the seven nations. Ethnic conscious-

ness is helping to create a continuity with the tradition of the past and to develop

it further.

The author's history of the seven Indian peoples is a repetition of already

published accounts in all their details. He makes little effort to eliminate the

repetitious observations of the explorers and traders. They could well be con

densed. Much of the anthropological data herein could appropriately be put in

the next section. The first thirteen chapters are, therefore, wearisome readin

for a popular account.

The middle chapters or section are devoted exclusively to culture; and her

the author is at his best. The concluding section is concerned with the contem

porary scene. The author's closing assertion, however, seems to go beyond h

study: "To the writer they mirror countless peoples of the colonial world wh

have been carelessly brushed aside by the arrogance of Western technologic

civilization and, like so many of these peoples, they had built a balanced socie

and succeeded in creating something magnificent from their relation to th

planet, an achievement which we are only just learning to respect, particularly

the light of the threat that technology will impose a universal featureless cultu

upon the whole world"(pp. 296-97).

 

Miami University                                   Dwight L. Sm

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Book Reviews                                                   275

 

 

The Long Thirst, Prohibition in America: 1920-1933. By Thomas M. Coffey.

(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1975. xii + 346p.; notes, bibliog-

raphy, index. $9.95.)

 

One autumn day in 1921 Prohibition agents Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith

posed as cigar salesmen in an upstate New York town and raided the Chicken-

Coop Inn for violating liquor laws. Only the drawn pistols of both agents cooled

twenty lumberjacks, men enraged by this intrusion upon their fun. Much of

Coffey's book, itself well-written but modestly researched, follows this episodic

line. Tales of arrests, payoffs, prosecutions, gangland killings, and lavish parties

in the Great Gatsby mold, all follow one another as part of Coffey's effort to

narrate prohibition "in human terms, through the lives of a number of real

people . . . affected by prohibition." A deft writer, Coffey weaves vignettes of a

diverse group of characters, ranging from president to prosecutor, from re-

former to rum-runner, from bishop to bootlegger. For the casual reader the end

product is enjoyable and lively, full of the anecdotes that captivate amateur

historians and undergraduates. Commercial appeal is appreciably enhanced by

the $9.95 asking price-a real bargain in today's hardcover market.

Serious students of social history, however, will find little to challenge them.

Judging from dust-jacket citations, Coffey has embarked upon a career of

writing popular histories about such events as the fall of Japan in 1945 and the

Irish uprising of 1916. As a result scholars will confront a shop-worn interpreta-

tion of the social bases of Prohibition. Frustrated and frightened fundamen-

talists, as Coffey and many others would have it, attempted to impose their

Puritan ethic upon an unsympathetic populace. Coffey's drys are either power-

hungry, such as Wayne Wheeler, the Anti-Saloon League's "formidable lob-

byist"; or they have feet of clay, such as Bishop James Cannon, Jr., linked to

promiscuous behavior, campaign contribution irregularities, and imprudent

stock market activitities. Even Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Wil-

lebrandt, always tenacious in prosecuting liquor law violators, resigned to seek

federal farm loans on behalf of the depressed California grape and wine industry.

By contrast, wets emerge as tragic figures. One-time night-club owner Larry

Fay, already down on his luck in 1932, was shot by his own club doorman. "Big

Bill" Thompson, the notorious wet mayor of Chicago, suffered a nervous

breakdown between unsuccessful campaigns for office. Jealousy drove con-

victed distiller George Remus to murder his wife after she had deserted him for a

Justice Department investigator. Thus Prohibition tainted all.

Despite use of several dissertations and oral history sources, documentation

will disappoint historians. Coffey's manuscript could certainly have benefited

from the works of K. A. Kerr and of John Burnham on the national "experi-

ment." Kerr includes the philosophic and symbolic nuances, while Burnham

shows a decline in alcoholic consumption through 1925. None of Coffey's

Americans were remotely thirsty except by choice.

Equally unfortunate is the author's failure to expand upon the evidence in his

own data. For instance, the rivalry between Wayne Wheeler and Bishop Cannon

night have represented deep-seated stresses among drys that went beyond

ndividual egos. Internal lines of cleavage within the Prohibition movement

leserve further examination. Moreover, Coffey mentions a number of search-

nd-seizure occurrances. Prohibition must have raised tensions between propo-

ents of competing interpretations of the Fourth Amendment. The potential

-ony of bootleggers' being ultimately responsible for contemporary sensitivities

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276                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

 

to unreasonable search and seizure is too good an opportunity for researchers-

including Coffey-to pass up.

In sum, historians have much to teach the author about historical inquiry; on

the other hand, historians could learn quite a bit about writing from Mr. Coffey.

 

University of Kansas                               Lloyd Sponholtz

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