Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

 

 

 

On the Making of Americans: Essays in Honor of David Riesman. Edited by

Herbert J. Gans, Nathan Glazer, Joseph R. Gusfield, and Christopher

Jencks. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979. xiii + 350p.;

bibliography of Riesman's publications, note on contributors. $25.00.)

There is some question to what extent this high-priced volume actually does

honor to David Riesman; the facile generalizations and chatty tone of about

half the essays mar the quality of thefestshrift.

Joseph Gusfield's "The Sociological Reality of America" is a good example.

Pretentiously titled, the essay is pitched at such a high level of abstraction

that it tells us almost nothing. "Whatever else America may be," Gusfield

says at one point, "in the imagery of the sociologist, it is" (p. 50). Here and

elsewhere, the author is engaging in pseudo-profundity. Nathan Glazer's

"Individualism and Equality in the United States" is undocumented and filled

with textbook cliches and offhand judgments; the article does little justice to

Glazer's abilities. Reuel Denny's essay on "Varieties of Sociable Experience in

America" is overly theoretical-like Gusfield's it too often restates the obvious

in highfalootin' language, becoming in the process more a parody than an example

of social science. It is totally uninformed by the historical literature on clubs,

organizations, and lodges that might have put some facts on the essay's bare

analytical framework.

The volume is partially redeemed, however, by several contributors who

viewed their assignment as something more than an opportunity to publish pet

theories or cocktail party platitudes. Christopher Jencks' "The Social Basis

of Unselfishness" raises interesting questions about how different societies

restrain egocentric behavior, and Rolf Meyerson reassesses with considerable

insight Riesman's 1958 essay "Abundance for What?" in light of the current

trend toward scarcity. Gerald Grant's "Journalism and Social Science" compares

three types of journalists (police reporters, investigative reporters, and analytical

journalists). The recent emergence of the third type, who successfully use

social scientific analysis in their work, represents a distinctive phase in the

history of journalism that may have wider cultural implications.

Three essays with a strong historical orientation are among the best in the

anthology. Martin Trow's analysis of the differences between "elite" and

"mass" education is useful, although in failing to examine the community

college movement he may have underestimated the degree to which the United

States has recently adopted elements of the European "tracking" system in

education. Hidetoshi Kato, in an elegantly written article, indicates some

remarkable similarities (even down to the timing of the civil wars) between

Japan and the United States in the nineteenth century. His thought-provoking

comparison between the two nations' attitudes toward the frontier (using the

settlement of the island of Hokkaido as the Japanese example), education,

and mobility should be especially enlightening to those interested in comparative

history or cross-cultural studies.

Herbert Gans' "Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and

Cultures in America" is an important theoretical contribution. Gans argues

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Book Reviews                                                          93

 

that the current supposed resurgence of ethnicity does not really contradict the

"straight-line theory" that predicates the eventual complete assimilation of

immigrant groups into some larger societal and cultural pattern. The author

believes much of what is called "ethnicity" is really working-class behavior and

notes perceptively that recent "ethnic" political movements are really pan-ethnic

or sometimes simply anti-black. He ascribes a good deal of the "ethnic revival"

to overstatements by the media or to the yearnings of disenchanted ethnic

intellectuals. Gans theorizes that in the third and fourth generations ethnicity

takes on an increasingly symbolic or "expressive" function, "becoming more

of a leisure-time activity and losing its relevance, say, to earning a living or

regulating family life" (p. 204). Ironically, ethnic identity becomes less

ambivalent as time passes because it becomes less important, bearing little or

no relationship to a living culture. Gans' article should be of interest to all

students of ethnic history. It is destined, I think, to become a classic essay and

hopefully will stimulate scholars to trace the origins and development of the

phenomena it describes in greater detail. Whether or not the concept of symbolic

ethnicity is equally applicable to all groups is still an open question.

Temple University                                      Kenneth L. Kusmer

 

The Elusive Quest: America's Pursuit of European Stability and French Security,

1919-1933. By Melvin P. Leffler. (Chapel Hill: The University of North

Carolina Press, 1979. xvi + 409p.; notes, bibliography, index. $22.00.)

 

Few subjects in recent historiography have aroused as much interest

and professional attention as the tortured course of international finance

after World War I. Melvyn P. Leffler's The Elusive Quest: America's

Pursuit of European Stability and French Security, 1919-1933 is a major

contribution to this growing literature, and joins the works of Charles Maier,

Michael Hogan, Stephen Schuker, Joan Wilson, and Carl Parrini in offering

a remarkably sophisticated and penetrating assessment of the problems of this

era. Leffler in no sense limits himself to the American-French financial

connection as his title conveys; instead, he uses it as a structural framework

for his treatment of the entire spectrum of postwar American-European

financial arrangements.

Leffler is a well-informed scholar and the research for The Elusive Quest

is truly exceptional. His work in the documents has been exhaustive-he has

studied in the archives of every major collection related to his field, as well

as consulted the private papers of leading American bankers and investment

houses, presidential papers, and important oral history collections. He is thor-

oughly familiar with nearly every secondary source in print on this subject. This

has led him to a balanced position on the debated issue of American financial

imperialism in the period, and he steers a course midway between the

impassioned, often polemical, leftist historiography and the overly defensive,

often unimaginative, traditionalist positions.

Leffler's goal is to "elucidate the dynamics of American efforts to

reconstruct and stabilize all of western Europe in the aftermath of the

Great War." He demonstrates that America's posture vis a vis France and

Europe was based on the primacy of economic over political considerations,

a situation which led to considerable misunderstanding. Yet a basic dilemma

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94                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

characterized the United States' position. Whereas American policy makers

sought to concentrate on domestic priorities-a balanced budget, controlling

inflation, and protecting markets at home-nevertheless they also endeavored

to reinforce the security of France and to return Germany to economic health.

The heart of Leffler's book is his analysis of the way in which the administrations

of Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Roosevelt sought to reconcile these

basically contradictory forces in both the diplomatic and domestic arenas.

The author takes his readers on a forced march through some fifteen

years of American diplomacy. He focuses in turn on the immediate post-

Versailles period and the formation of American economic diplomacy, French

security demands, German rehabilitation, the failure of Hoover's economic

diplomacy, and finally the dilemmas of Roosevelt's policy making in 1933.

Several important ideas emerge in the work. First, and of greatest importance,

the French were the key to European financial success or failure in the

1920s. The real problem was that France was unable to reconcile political

considerations-their paranoid obsession with punishing Germany-with eco-

nomic realities, which called for international understanding and cooperation.

A second theme which characterized French diplomacy in the period was

their unrelenting attempts to force a reduction in war debts on Washington.

An example of the outcome of such unreconciled conflicts between Paris and

Washington-the United States took exception both to the reluctance of Paris

to return Germany to political and economic stability as well as her demands

on the war debts-was an American embargo on loans to France. In 1925 this

led to the fall of Prime Minister Briand and the drastic weakening of the

franc. The crisis was ended only after Poincare scheduled renewed war debt

payments.

Washington also demonstrated intransigence in her foreign policy, the result

of the primacy of economic considerations. Whereas France equated security

with a strict interpretation of Versailles, the United States on the other

hand put a high premium on the prosperity of Germany. Under Hoover

this led to serious misunderstandings, as the United States maintained its

insistence on domestic priorities and the balancing of international with

national considerations. The French were justified in feeling that the Americans

had little sympathy for their obsession with security vis a vis the Germans.

They were livid about the Hoover moratorium on international debt announced

in 1931 because it treated Berlin and Paris equally. Further, Washington

refused to become entangled in strategic obligations in Europe. The result

was that first under Hoover, and then under Roosevelt, the United States

turned to a strongly nationalist position which embraced protectionism and

fiscal imperatives, and a refusal to recognize the political obligations of an

international economic structure.

Leffler demonstrates that the United States' policies failed over the long

run. The fine contribution his work makes is that it examines the subtleties

of American policymakers' attempts to harmonize domestic and foreign

considerations in the era. He concludes that it was impossible to build an

Atlantic political order on American isolationism, and to reconcile support

for the recovery of Germany with French perceptions of her security needs.

 

Miami University                                         Jay W. Baird

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Book Reviews                                                      95

 

Libbey Glass Since 1818: Pictorial History & Collector's Guide. Compiled by

Carl W. Fauster, (Toledo: Len Beach Press, 1979. xi + 415p.; illustrations,

bibliography, index. $30.00)

 

This book shares much in common with some examples of its subject.

It is expensive, beautifully crafted, pleasing and interesting to look at-but

one is not quite certain how to use it.

In the main unabashedly intended to foster the collection of fine cut and

engraved glass formerly produced by the Libbey Glass Co., over a third of the

book consists of reprints of four company catalogues: 1905 Cut Glass,

1922 Cut and Engraved Glass, 1933 Libbey-Nash Series, and the 1940

Modern American Series. For a variety of reasons, including the Depression

and World War II, as well as changing modes in taste, many Libbey lines

were produced for only a short period; consequently, they are now rare

and, therefore, "collectible." These reprinted catalogues no doubt will be

of considerable value to Libbey collectors, and doubtless every collector of

Libbey glass would like to own a copy of this book.

Another fifth of Fauster's "monolithic" book is devoted to a "Collector's

Guide," including photographs of the 1968 Toledo Museum of Art exhibition,

"Libbey Glass, A Tradition of 150 Years." This is considerably more useful

than the original museum catalogue, which illustrated only 29 of the 224

entries. A 24-page color section provides ample proof of the beauty and

artistry achieved by Libbey craftsmen. Also illustrated is a wide variety

of other Libby products, ranging from the whimsical to the baroque; World's

Fair (1893) souvenirs, glass canes, spun-glass neckties, and dresses vie with

promotional gimmicks as well as unique presentation items of spectacular

craftsmanship, if somewhat doubtful utility.

The remainder of the book is a pictorial history of "People, places and

events, pictorial highlights and milestones, portrayed to provide background

for review of Libbey's history and products." This includes an interesting

if uneven selection of unique photographs from the company files, together

with a brief sketch of the company from its beginnings in East Cambridge,

Massachusetts, in 1818 (as the New England Glass Co.) to its 150th anniversary

in 1968, as a division of Owens-Illinois, Inc. While Fauster states that he

wished to avoid making this work an "economic treatise," the historian and

even the general reader might wish greater attention had been given to

economics, labor, production, and similar facets of the company and the

industry. Although the foreword labels this book "the first definitive history

of Libbey Glass," one has to demur, trusting that the statement implies a

second, more definitive history in the future.

Mr. Fauster was for nearly thirty years advertising director for Libbey

Glass and subsequently founded the Antique and Historic Glass Foundation.

One must admire the assiduity with which he has collected memorabilia

pertaining to Libbey glass, as well as the enthusiasm with which he continues

to promote this historic Ohio product.

Ohio Historical Society                              James L. Murphy

 

The Presidency of Andrew Jackson: White House Politics, 1829-1837. By

Richard B. Latner (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1979. 291p.;

notes bibliography, index. $20.00)

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96                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

Somewhere during the course of reading the first chapter the reader

becomes aware that he is being asked to make an act of faith. He must

clear his mind of the portraits of Andrew Jackson that have flowed from

the creative pens of the scholars of the last quarter century. Ignore the

Wards, the Meyers, and the Bensons, but most especially those practitioners

of the dark psychological arts, Michael Rogin and James Curtis. A bold

and refreshing thought, but can we so easily return to the Garden?

In this volume a new Jackson emerges, strutting across the stage of history

draped in a Roman toga. Old Hickory is presented as the republican theoretician

whose weighty and measured judgments saved him from the impulsive actions

to which all men of mortal flesh are heir. This is neo-revisionism with a

vengeance and more than a little refreshing, though not convincing.

First, the best. Latner has presented a tightly researched and clearly-

reasoned argument for a reassessment of the role of the kitchen cabinet

and the operation of internal White House affairs. Certainly too much

emphasis has traditionally been placed on the shadow cabinet's influence

on presidential decision-making. Herein the author describes how Jackson,

ever the leader, manipulated, cajoled, threatened, and pleaded his case in

the meeting room before demanding uniformity from his advisors. Of even

more import is the observation that we have tended to stress the high moral

tone of whiggery while ignoring the potent moral message of Jackson's

republican appeal. Thus in White House maneuverings the President was

always center stage. The Little Magician and his Empire State-Old Dominion

coalition were relegated to the gallery. Another telling point is made when

Latner dissects Jackson's border-state western mentality and lack of real

concern for southern state interests.

Of special interest is the chapter on the destruction of the Second U.S. Bank.

Latner is impatient with Marvin Meyers' description of the young Jacksonian

men-on-the-make in eager pursuit of economic libertarianism and material

gain, those Janus-faced entrepreneurs falling backwards into the future.

This neo-revisionism takes us back to the simpler but ideologically simon-pure-

hearted Chief Executive of The Age of Jackson.

The author is adamant in his insistence that the Tennessean's opposition

to nullification, the bank, and internal improvements stemmed from political

rather than personal considerations. But the evidence does not support the

contention. A perfect example is the bank veto. The words of the message

belonged to Taney and Kendall, but the self-righteous indignation was pure

Andy Jackson. James Curtis has correctly labelled this evidence of "the

language of social apocalypse."

Thus while Latner accepts the proposition that Jackson himself was in

control of White House events, we might logically ask if the man was in

control of himself. It is not hard to find examples of how quickly and

effectively Old Hickory could personalize an issue. In fact, how many of the

events of his administration reflect the fabrication of previously non-existent

issues? A case could be made that the Eaton affair, Indian removal, the

Maysville veto, nullification, the Van Buren confirmation, and the bank war

were largely self-created crises that were handled not so much in political or

ideological terms but rather as matters involving personal insult and honor.

In the final analysis we must ask if the author's argument is persuasive,

On the informational level it is. This monograph is well researched, tightly

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Book Reviews                                                      97

 

woven, and deftly presented. But as an effort in interpretive history we can

do little more than commend the author's effort.

Florida State Archives                                  Dan J. Kraska

 

Sherman's March: An Eyewitness History of the Cruel Campaign That Helped

End a Crueler War. By Richard Wheeler. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell,

Publishers, 1978. xi + 241p.; illustrations, maps, appendix, bibliography,

index. $11.95.)

This slender volume utilizes the accounts of various participants to develop

a history of William Tecumseh Sherman's campaigns from November 1864

to the Confederate surrender in North Carolina. Designed for the general

reader, it supports the thesis that Sherman's attack on the material resources

of the South saved lives and was of crucial importance in the defeat of the

Confederacy. Appropriately, a thin but balanced life of the Ohioan is

woven into the work.

Wheeler stresses the change of attitude that came to Sherman during the

early occupation of Memphis. Having restored a normal pattern of urban

existence, he was not prepared for renewed Confederate hostility. He concluded

the entire populace was responsible for the rebellion and must be broken.

The devastation at Jackson and Meridian, Mississippi, showed his determination

to act. After the tough campaign for Atlanta, Sherman implemented his

philosophy by evacuating the civilian population of the city. His correspondence

with General Hood and Mayor Calhoun was open and frank. The protesting

Hood was reminded of his destruction of housing for military purposes

and was told "not to appeal to a just God ... you who ... have plunged a

nation into war ...." (p. 42.) Sherman wrote Calhoun, "now that war comes

home to you, you feel very different." (p. 44.)

The march to the sea began after the railroad to Kingston, Georgia, and

the industrial shops of Atlanta were destroyed. Many homes were plundered

and burned and a tone was set for the campaign. Well-chosen accounts

describe the organization of the army, the work of its pioneers and foragers,

and the struggles with swampy bottom lands. The destruction of the local

rail network, the industrial facilities, and all public property and supplies that

could possibly help the Confederate war effort continued apace. Most blacks

helped the army when possible. Few homes in Georgia were burned, but many

were ransacked. On entering the Palmetto State every regiment on the

left flank cheered. South Carolina received a heavier hand because it was

the center of nullification and secession. A number of similar pieces by women

who lived through the turbulent advance are featured by Wheeler. Most, but

not all, were numbed and left aghast at the whirlwind of destruction that

swept through the region.

The genre employed in this work is familiar to students of the Civil War

era. Wheeler utilizes snippets of documents more than is customary, but they

do not detract from the effectiveness of the narrative. It is regretable,

however, that each document is not fully identified. Of greater concern is

the failure to cite more of the diverse press materials available. The author

is confused regarding the New York Herald correspondent, David P.

Conyngham, who did not accompany the army on the march to Savannah.

Conyngham's observations were taken from the reports of other men. He

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98                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

rejoined the army for the push through the Carolinas and wrote a splendid

piece on the officer corps at the crossing of the Saluda river. A neglected

classic, With Sherman to the Sea by Theodore Upson, would have added

balance to the book, notably with details on the soldier's life and the fire

at Columbia, South Carolina.

A number of drawings from the illustrated works of the period complement

the text, but most of the documents are graphic enough to sustain the

interest of any reader. And every reader will recognize once again the dimensions

of the total war that was fought in America from 1861-65.

 

Ohio Wesleyan University                               Richard W. Smith

 

 

Not to the Swift: The Old Isolationists in the Cold War Era. By Justus D.

Doenecke. (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1979. 289p.; notes,

bibliography, index. $17.50.)

The old isolationists had a point. They were angry and paranoid; they

supported Chiang Kai-shek and Joseph McCarthy; but they were not black-

hearted villains. Beneath their extreme and vitriolic rhetoric there was a

simple and credible message. The United States should be careful not to

overextend its foreign policy commitments. That seems to be the theme of

this turgid and opaque book. Part of the literature spawned by the Vietnam

debacle, it surveys again the debates between interventionists and non-

interventionists, nationalists and internationalists, which have been important

strands in American foreign policy since the birth of the nation. After a

brief introduction to the history of isolationism, the author traces the activity

of non-interventionist activists from 1943 through the early years of the Cold

War to 1954 when, their strength eroded by death and philosophical

defections, the survivors admitted there was little hope that they could effect

a realignment of American foreign policy.

It is essentially the same old story and the same old cast of characters

described from a more sympathetic perspective. Historians and publicists

like Charles Beard, Harry Elmer Barnes and Garet Garrett, traditional

politicians like Robert A. Taft and Burton K. Wheeler, businessmen like

Robert E. Wood, reformers and pacifists like Norman Thomas and Oswald

Garrison Villard-a "mixed bag" of anglo-phobes and Russo-phobes, home

market enthusiasts and corporate capitalists, religious and ethnic bigots,

civil libertarians and neo-totalitarians, idealists of the left and the right-

believed, like their interventionist opponents, that they were patriots and that

the policies they proposed were the proper ones to save the Republic.

The United States must stay out of war. All foreign powers were equally

malignant, and Hitler's Germany was no better or worse than any of the

others. A war would strengthen British imperialism and godless communism,

threaten democracy and reform at home, bring about executive dictatorship

and wreck the free enterprise system. Let the despotic old world destroy

itself-the United States could only profit from its distress. The same kind of

criticism continued after the war as the isolationists resisted what they considered

a disastrous process of involvement in world power politics which threatened

everything they held dear. Indeed, the best chapter in the book discusses

such postwar revisionist criticisms of the Roosevelt and Truman policies.

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Book Reviews                                                      99

 

(As history is a matter of time and place, we will never know whether the

policies proposed by the old isolationists would have been more effective.

Unlike the Vichyites in France, they never had the chance to put them into

practice.)

Doenecke insists that ideology played a much more important role in old

isolationist thinking than previous students of the subject have suggested.

However, he does not make clear what ideologies he is writing about. Is it

the civil-libertarianism of Thomas, the anti-authoritarianism of Taft, or the

populist xenophobia of Wheeler? Were not the common non-interventionist

themes he stresses merely rhetorical masks to disguise the differences between

groups which could only agree that they opposed current policy? A more

categorical and analytical organization would have clarified the complex roots

of the isolationist impulse in the forties and fifties. The book is also marred

by irritating typographical errors and minor errors of fact which more careful

preparation would have prevented.

University of Cincinnati                              Daniel R. Beaver

 

Origins of the Modern American Peace Movement, 1915-1929. By Charles

DeBenedetti. (Millwood, New York: KTO Press, 1978. xviii + 281p.;

notes, bibliographical essay, index. $15.00.)

One of the lasting effects from the protracted American involvement in

the Vietnam War has been a surge of books and articles dealing with the

history of peace and antiwar movements in the United States and elsewhere.

Lawrence Wittner's Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement,

1941-1960, Charles Chatfield's For Peace and Justice: Pacifism in America,

1914-1941, C. Roland Marchand's The American Peace Movement and Social

Reform, 1898-1918, and most recently Doves and Diplomats: Foreign Offices

and Peace Movements in Europe and America in the Twentieth Century

edited by Solomon Wank are just some of the insightful works that have

come out of the peace-research movement in the last ten years. Origins of

the Modern American Peace Movement, 1915-1929, by Charles DeBenedetti,

is another significant contribution to a fuller understanding of this too-long

ignored and important field.

The modern American peace movement, according to DeBenedetti, originated

during and after World War I as social activists faced for the first time the

hard realities of industrialized total war and social revolution. These peace

reformers engaged in a frustrating attempt to build an effective national

coalition between 1923-1924, and involved themselves in a successful strike on

behalf of American involvement in the World Court. An arbitration campaign

followed that laid the groundwork for an apolitical antiwar treaty that

eventually became the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1929. Ratified three months

before the Great Crash, the Kellogg Pact conveniently concluded the opening

phase of modern peace activism, as the economic collapse precipitated

a sharp reduction in the general American interest in questions of war and

peace. Following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria just two years later,

the peace movement rapidly became the antiwar movement of the 1930s.

The first purpose of the modernizing peace movement, the author claims,

was to drive the United States government into leading the international effort

to trap the menace of modern total war into a web of global order.

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100                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

They operated out of the common conviction that the prospects for saving

the world from total war in their generation turned essentially on America's

willingness to discharge its proper global responsibility.

In spite of these shared sentiments, however, the common front evinced

by the postwar peace movement was split along several fault lines. DeBenedetti

demonstrates that conservative legalists, liberal internationalists, and social

progressives were each distinguished by a unique conception of peace, a

singular vision of the American world role, and a special socioeconomic

appeal. These peaceseekers constantly haggled over the most appropriate

means-a noncoercive League of Nations, a World Court, arbitration,

disarmament, the Outlawry of War-by which America might bring peace to

the world. Faced with internal division, antipathy in Washington, enmity on

the Right, and apathy in the general electorate, the peace movement was

unable to move American foreign policy into directions that could help

industrial peoples to revolve the problem of total war and pave the way toward

total peace.

Yet, the author claims, peaceseekers succeeded in at least three vital ways.

In the first place, they successfully established a host of new organizations

and agencies, including the Foreign Policy Association, the Women's Inter-

national League for Peace and Freedom, the War Resister's League, and the

League of Nations Non-Partisan Association, which worked to keep the peace

issue alive in the public consciousness. Secondly, postwar peace leaders like

James T. Shotwell and Jessie Wallace Hugham defined and articulated the

most intelligent critiques of Washington's ongoing foreign policies and mounted

in their writings and speeches the best-reasoned attack on the unilateralist

and imperialist underpinnings of American diplomacy.

Finally, the peace movement became modern as it framed new perspectives

by recognizing the synergism at work in their time among nationalism,

advancing modernization, and a war-organized society. Confronted with the

force of this fresh social synergism, concludes DeBenedetti, postwar American

peaceseekers came gradually to speak of nationalism and modernization less

as harmonizing elements in world politics, and more as the highly divisive

sources of rank imperialism and conflict. American peace reformers perceived

the greatest paradox of our century, that nationalism "is at the same time

the most unifying and most divisive force in our modern world," the most

contributive to modernization and the most destructive of cooperation.

DeBenedetti's book lends valuable insight into analyzing the prewar pro-

gressive spirit that took new life and purpose in the peace crusade of the

postwar years. His scholarship is commendable as his work is thoroughly

researched in primary documents and secondary literature and concludes

with an informative and comprehensive bibliographic essay. The peaceseekers

which the author describes asked the right questions and perceived the

paradoxes of their society. His book, however, does not leave the reader

sanguine about the prospects for peace. Unfortunately, we are all too-well

aware these peace reformers of the twenties were no more successful in bringing

lasting peace to their time than we have been in ours.

Kansas City Art Institute                                 Milton S. Katz

 

A Streak of Luck: The Life & Legend of Thomas Alva Edison. By Robert

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Book Reviews                                                      101

 

Conot. (New York: Seaview Books, 1979. xvii + 565p.; illustrations,

appendixes, reference guide, notes, index. $15.95.)

The centenary of the invention of the incandescent light bulb has focused

considerable attention on the recent renewal of scholarly interest in Thomas

Edison. For several years a number of historians of technology have been

engaged in reinterpreting this complex and provocative inventor, seeking to

understand his intellectual and inventive style and to penetrate the legendary

aura surrounding him. Edison's heroic image reached its zenith in the four

years between the fiftieth anniversary of the light bulb and his death in 1931.

A study of that image indicates its remarkable consistency in journals serving

a wide range of reader constituencies. The general qualities of Edison the

hero-persistence, genius, warmth, and an awe-inspiring secular "sanctity"

eschewing wealth and status-remain familiar today. The consistency and

durability of this Edisonian myth reveal the inventor's powerful impact on

the technological consciousness of the American public.

Robert Conot's archival search has yielded a remarkable body of new

information with which he has constructed an image in sharp contrast to the

governing myth. The title itself announces the theme: Edison's achievements

are "A Streak of Luck." Conot's Edison is obsessed with money and

cavalier with associates. His persistence and creativity are crippled by a

kaleidoscopic mind which, like his personal habits and physical appearance,

is sloppy and capricious. His famed genius is frequently portrayed as the

opportunism of a sharper. It is a shockingly iconoclastic image supported

by much, sometimes fascinating, new material which cannot be ignored in

further research.

This wealth of anecdotal material may have led the reviewer for Publisher's

Weekly, excerpted on the dust jacket, to describe the book as "this magisterial,

exhaustively researched biography." Unfortunately, Conot's demonstration

of the importance of the archives for reinterpreting Edison is offset by

three major failings in scholarship and biography which suggest that the work

is an attempted best-seller rather than careful historical research. The work

suffers from a persistent negative bias, considerable organizational confusion,

and an appalling format for source notation.

Conot's use of descriptive language and arrangement of anecdotes establishes

a pervasive belittling tone which leads the reader to suspect that the author

may have violated the canon of objectivity. One is left with the impression

that Conot's hours of research have not generated any affection for his

man. A balanced intimacy between biographer and subject is lacking. One

finds, instead, eager iconoclasm.

Admittedly, the organizational problems facing any Edison biography are

formidable. The interfaces among Edison, his collaborators, and their multiple,

often simultaneous projects defy simple chronological exposition. Occasionally

Conot rises to the challenge. In Chapter Ten, for example, he suggests that

Edison's ability to cross-reference inventive insights propelled him into an

unmanageable array of projects. This is a genuine help to the reader.

Regrettably, the book as a whole suffers from a superabundance of detail

and a scarcity of such organizing concepts. If the reader chooses to endure

the more than 450 pages of insufficiently digested detail, the final chapter

will come as a welcome surprise. This is Conot at his best, interpreting

Edison in a balanced and provocative manner as personality and mythic hero.

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102                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

Conot's claim that his radical, revisionist interpretation of a major historical

figure rests on exhaustive archival research demands that his system of source

notation provide other scholars with access to that material. Unfortunately,

the format is so evasive and difficult to use that one is tempted to conclude

that Conot does not welcome a critical examination of his evidence. The

format frustrates the reader who might wish to investigate the relative weight

given to, say, the reminiscences of an embittered former employee and

material culled from laboratory notebooks. Thus, while Conot provides a

perceptive critique of previous biographies in terms of their use of questionable

source-materials, it is extremely difficult to assess his own work on the same

terms.

With greater care for the biographer's art, Conot might have given us a

challenging and significant revision of Edison's public image. Indeed, with

all its serious failings, the work raises important new questions about America's

premier inventor. For a careful, historical reinterpretation of Thomas Edison,

however, we shall have to look elsewhere.

University of Pennsylvania                   John M. Staudenmaier, S.J.

 

Apprentice to Genius: Years With Frank Lloyd Wright. By Edgar Tafel.

(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1979. iv + 228p.; illustrations,

credits, appendix, index. $19.95.)

The best parts of this book are anecdotes which present unique glimpses

into the personal life and behind-the-scenes architectural practice of Frank

Lloyd Wright. Edgar Tafel served as an apprentice in the Taliesin Fellowship

between 1932 and 1937 when Wright was designing some of his most famous

structures. The reader learns, for example, that while a famous client was

on his way to Wright's home and studio near Spring Green, Wisconsin,

he telephoned and was assured by Frank Lloyd Wright, "We're ready for you."

At the time not a line had been drawn on the design of his residence, but

a little over two hours later when Edgar J. Kaufman arrived Wright had

finished the conceptual design of "Falling Water," one of the greatest houses

in the history of architecture.

Among many reminiscences of daily life in the Fellowship, Tafel recalls

Wright telling six-feet four-inch William Wesley Peters (as the apprentices

gathered in a low ceiling room at Taliesin) "Sit down Wes, you're destroying

the scale." Only five-feet eight-inches tall himself, many of Wright's spaces

are small, and on occasion he referred to all persons over six-feet tall as

"weeds."

Especially characteristic of Wright's internationally well-known flamboyant

personality is the story of an automobile trip from Taliesin to Pittsburgh

which included unscheduled, spur-of-the-moment stops for the architect and

his two apprentices in Chicago, Detroit, Canada, Niagara Falls and Buffalo.

(The apprentices learned that the shortest distance between two geographical

points was by way of a Wright Building.) At his Larkin Building in Buffalo,

Wright burst into a busy Ladies Rest Room to show off one of his firsts-a

wall-hung water closet. Undaunted by protocol or the world in general, on

the same trip he stopped in Buffalo to inspect a house he had designed twenty

years earlier. Not anticipating his surprise inspection, the owners were away.

• 11
 

Book Reviews                                                     103

 

Wright gained entrance to the house, completely rearranged their furniture,

and left a note-"Stopped by to visit you. FLLW, your architect."

While Mr. Tafel obviously remains a great admirer of his former employer

and teacher, he does touch upon some incidents which indicate that Frank

Lloyd Wright was, in fact, more human that he would have wanted anyone to

believe. For example, Tafel intimates that Wright may have used more

traditional methods in gaining the Imperial Hotel commission than suggested

in his Autobiography, where he tells us of a Japanese Commission ending

its world-wide search for their architect at Taliesin. The hotel, which was

originally budgeted for two million yen and actually cost nine and one-half

million, was a financial disaster for its backers. Tafel, however, does not

challenge the celebrated story that Wright spent his entire three-hundred

thousand dollar commission for this job on oriental art that arrived at Spring

Green as a full traincar load.

While Frank Lloyd Wright clearly stands out as one of the greatest

architects of all time, his innovative details often led to problems that would

have been professional disasters for a lesser architect. The concrete doors in

his Los Angeles Hollyhock House were aesthetically consistent'with the concrete

theme, but totally impractical. Aline Barnsdall, the client, abandoned the house

because it "leaked like a sieve" and was always damp. One of the few clients

whose personality held up to Wright, Miss Barnsdall dramatically parted

company with him after an intense argument by ordering his partially built

design for her Olive Park Kindergarten torn down and planted over.

In other parts, of the book the reader learns that Frank Lloyd Wright liked

to swat flies; that visits with his architect son, Lloyd, always ended in

arguments; that he had formidable powers of concentration; that his work

was always "final" when he walked away from it, but he might come back

later, change it, and make it "final" again; and that when he began to turn

gray, he was known to have rubbed graphite from pencil sharpenings into

his hair.

At times both the text and illustrations approach the format of a personal

diary or scrapbook and the reader occasionally feels like an intruder. Mr. Tafel

seems to take special pride in recounting each time he was "fired" and

welcomed back as a prodigal son by Mr. Wright. Some sections of the book

present the early history of Wright's career which will be well-known to many

readers. The book, which contains a list of selected Wright buildings open

to the public, however, does deserve the attention of anyone interested in

American Architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Ohio State University                            Paul E. Young, Jr.

 

Soldiering: The Civil War Diary of Rice C. Bull. Edited by K. Jack Bauer.

(San Rafael, California: Presidio Press, 1977. x + 259p.; maps, bibliography,

index, $12.95.)

Rice Bull had just passed his twentieth birthday when he enlisted in the

123d New York Volunteer Infantry, raised in the summer of 1862 in the

James Fenimore Cooper-Revolutionary War country of upstate New York.

Sent to Washington in the lull following the battle of Antietam, the regiment

was assigned to the XII Army Corps, Army of the Potomac.

• 12
 

104                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

Wounded at Chancellorsville, Bull missed the battle of Gettysburg, but

before his wounds were fully healed he rejoined his regiment, which in the

meantime had been shipped west to help redeem the situation at Chattanooga.

After a short spell at home on recruiting duty in the winter of 1863-64,

Bull, promoted to sergeant, took part in the Atlanta Campaign, the March

to the Sea, the campaign north through the Carolinas, and on May 24, 1865,

he marched ("How much shorter our regimental line was than it had been.")

in the Grand Review in Washington of Sherman's army.

Bull kept a diary, and wrote letters home whenever he could. In 1913, having

retired after a modestly successful business career, he used the diary and letters

as the basis of a narrative of his experiences in the army in three years of

war. This narrative, which is misrepresented as a diary in the subtitle, has

been edited by Professor K. Jack Bauer. The editing is deserving of all

praise; it is both unobtrusive and succinct, confined to a brief account of

Bull's pre- and postwar career, and identification of the personalities, places,

and events mentioned in the Bull narrative.

Bull's story lacks the spontaneity and immediacy of a diary, but it is a

splendid, gripping narrative nonetheless. Told quietly, it is a sober, intelligent,

clear-eyed, sensitive account of a footsoldier's wartime adventures. It is all

there: army rations, winter camp, shockingly inadequate field hospitals, long

marches in deep mud or searing heat, contaminated drinking water, skirmish

line and battle, boredom, excitement, nervousness, and fear. There too is

the astonishment of men of the Army of the Potomac at their first sight

of the soldiers of the western armies, wearing "large hats instead of caps . . .

carelessly dressed . . . [marching] in a very irregular way."

There are no novelties in Bull's reminiscences, but in his quiet way he tells

a story eminently worth reading. More than that, his harrowing, moving

account of his experiences in the nine days from May 3, 1863, when he was

wounded at Chancellorsville, to May 12, when he finally reached the base

hospital at Aquia Creek (pp. 57-86), rises to a high literary level and is

worthy of inclusion in any anthology of Civil War soldiers' narratives.

Soldiering is a fine addition to the literature of the Civil War.

Cambridge, Vermont                                       Stephen Z. Starr

 

Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums.

By Edward P. Alexander. (Nashville: American Association for State and

Local History, 1979. xii + 308p.; illustrations, notes, some basic museum

books, index. $12.95 cloth; $7.95 paper.)

"Objects," Edward P. Alexander notes, "have been around much longer

than language." Our sensory powers, he continues, "should supplement but

not replace the customary rational avenue to understanding provided by words

and verbalization; together they constitute a powerful learning process."

(pp. 195-96.)

In that museums deal with objects, Alexander regards them as public

institutions with a distinct educational role, teaching in a manner of informality

yet full seriousness. And after a career as an administrator of both historical

agencies in New York and Wisconsin and programs at Colonial Williamsburg

and the University of Delaware, he is eminently qualified to write about

museums.

• 13
 

Book Reviews                                                     105

 

What emerges in this work on "the history and functions of museums"

is a book of two parts. Following an introductory chapter on definitions,

the author examines the history and current state of the art of the various

types of museums-art, science, natural history, and history museums along

with botanical gardens and zoos-in the first half of the volume. In the second

part, he discusses the current practices and future possibilities related to the

tasks-collection, conservation, research, exhibition, and interpretation-which

museums must address, before concluding with a chapter on the developing

professionalization of the museum field.

Alexander includes in most chapters, but particularly the first half of the

book, a useful and commendable section on the problems besetting the given

topic. He provides therein a balance that does not obscure his own positions

in the process. To this reviewer, however, the author writes more forcefully

in the chapters on the tasks that museums perform. Beyond this, cognizant

as he is that museology is an emerging profession-even as new museums

proliferate weekly (p. 5)-he points through gentle repetition to the forces

of the Renaissance, the universities, nationalism, democracy, and the World

Fairs that have played such a significant part in the development of the

modern museum. The book is decidedly oriented toward institutions in Europe

and the United States but, given this framework, Alexander sees the museum

with an importance closely parallel to that of the academy. He does not

turn from the possibility of the museum serving as an instrument for social

change.

In format and arrangement, the chapters are divided into sections, all of

which are listed in the table of contents. This enhances the book's reference

value but leaves the prose with an uneven, choppy quality. Each chapter begins

with an appropriate photograph. The footnotes are placed toward the rear

of the book and have a heading on each page which notes the pertinent page

in the text. A brief bibliography contains selected basic readings. The index

has an interesting feature: museums are listed under their institutional name

and the city in which they are located.

All in all, the volume is less engaging than S. Dillon Ripley's collection

of essays, The Sacred Grove (1969), and less catholic in its perspectives than

Kenneth Hudson's Museums for the 1980s (1977). But it complements the

expanding shelf of quality books, such as G. Ellis Burcaw's Introduction to

Museum Work (1975), that have come from the presses of the Nashville

organization in recent years. In this day and age, all undergraduate history

majors should be made aware of Edward Alexander's Museums in Motion.

 

Ohio Historical Society                                George W. Bain

 

 

The Pioneering Role of Clarence Luther Herrick in American Neuroscience.

By William Frederick Windle. (Hicksville, New York: Exposition Press,

1979. 140p.; illustrations, notes, appendices, biographical references, index.

$7.50)

Perhaps the greatest honor to come to Clarence Luther Herrick occurred

when William Frederick Windle decided to write his biography. Dr. Windle,

a distinguished American neuroscientist, has lifted Herrick from obscurity

to identify him as the founder of neuroscience in America. "Neuroscience,"

• 14
 

106                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

a term unknown to Herrick, refers to the integration of the disciplines of

neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, endocrinology, and psychol-

ogy. Earlier work had been done on the nervous system, but C. L. Herrick

was the first American not only to suggest that the brain must be studied

by interrelating its structure and its function, but to recognize the importance

of physiology to psychology, the relationship of mind to body. In 1892 in

Granville, Ohio, Herrick established the first American journal to incorporate

these ideas, The Journal of Comparative Neurology: a Quarterly Periodical

Devoted to the Comparative Study of the Nervous System. In a policy

statement, he outlined his intent: "In addition to anatomical and physiological

papers, there will be special attention given to habits, instincts, expression of

emotion-in short, all data germane to a true comparative psychology." (p. 68.)

How is it then that Herrick has been overlooked by medical historians

until now? The answer may be found in Herrick's own life which was fraught

with disappointments, frustrations, lack of funds, and his own inability to cope,

ultimately ending in the breakdown of his health and his early death at forty-

six. Scientific research in the late nineteenth century depended primarily on the

largess of private universities and institutions for support. This support tended

to be every bit as fickle and unreliable as federal funding is today. Lack of

funding inhibited Herrick's research from the very beginning of his academic

career. For example, shortly after he joined the faculty of Denison University,

taking the Chair of Geology and Natural History, it became apparent that

he had little to work with-the new library contained few books and laboratory

space was almost nonexistent. The President of the University sympathized

with Herrick's needs and pleaded with the Trustees for laboratory space and

equipment. The trustees responded by authorizing a fifty-dollar microscope.

The greatest disappointment, however, from which he never fully recovered,

occurred some eight years later when William Rainey Harper, President of the

University of Chicago, sought to hire Herrick for the Department of Biology.

Encouraged by Harper, Herrick outlined his requirements for research,

teaching, and for a new journal, all of which would incorporate his ideas

of neuroscience. Harper responded with a vaguely worded offer which Herrick

in his enthusiasm accepted readily. To prepare for his new appointment, he

decided to go to Berlin for additional study and was encouraged by Harper

to purchase laboratory equipment. Herrick borrowed money for his journey

and his apparatus and proceeded with his plans to publish the Journal. That

these actions were disastrously premature became evident when the official

offer arrived with none of Harper's commitments acknowledged and an

indication that he would be without salary for nine months.

The system and Harper's perfidy were not entirely to blame for Herrick's

lack of success. Dr. Windle ascribes much of his difficulty to his impetuous

nature. He was an opportunist, taking advantages, changing directions without

consideration of the consequences, jumping from one line of study to another,

allowing no time for his research to develop. As a result, he made no great

discoveries and his scientific articles were undistinguished.

Thus it is not surprising that Herrick has been forgotten in the annals of

neurology. Yet, as Dr. Windle observes, he deserves to be recognized for

his pioneering role, for his promotion of the concept of an integrated approach

through the Journal of Comparative Neurology which laid the groundwork

for a new discipline. Dr. Windle's account of Herrick's tragic life is well-

• 15
 

Book Reviews                                                      107

 

documented through his correspondence, notes, and published writings and is

told with the objectivity of a scholar and the empathy of a fellow scientist.

Cleveland Health Sciences Library                         Glen Jenkins

 

Steve Biko: I Write What I Like. Edited by Aelred Stubbs, C.R. (New York:

Harper & Row, Publishers, 1978. viii + 216p.; $8.95.)

This book is an anthology of Steve Biko's writings and lectures which are

clearly illuminated and put in perspective by the editor's own amplification

and comments which resulted from his long acquaintance with Steve Biko.

One of the most striking and remarkable qualities of this book, among

several, is the philosophical perceptiveness of Steve Biko, devoid of mundane

abstractions and utopian dialectics that often characterize traditional political

writings. This is not to imply that Steve Biko's writings cannot be compared

favorably with any of the highly acclaimed political thinkers, but the uniqueness

of Biko lies in his ability to explicate the South African problem to a level

comprehensible to the average reader.

In spite of the variety of topics which Steve Biko addresses in this book,

there is a pervasive and consistent theme which he evokes unabashedly in all

the chapters-Black consciousness. Biko's explanation of Black consciousness

makes a mockery of those arguments which ignorantly ascribe pejorative

and diabolical motives to Black resistance movements in South Africa.

Black consciousness therefore according to Biko is the "realisation by the

Black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause

of their operation... and to operate as a group in order to rid themselves

of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude ... it seeks to infuse

the Black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their efforts,

their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life."

In essence it means cultural renaissance of Blacks in South Africa.

In a curious but fascinating explanation, Biko contends that Black conscious-

ness is non-racial, since the pigmentation of one's skin does not necessarily

qualify or disqualify one from the Black consciousness movement. For

example, he contends that "being black is not a matter of pigmentation-being

black is a reflection of a mental attitude." If this contention is stretched to

its logical limits, it may be argued that a white South African can claim

legitimate affiliation with Black consciousness. But Biko would not go that far,

because the liberal-conservative dichotomy is not significant in the South

African situation.

The chapter "White Racism and Black Consciousness" questions the mo-

tives of the liberal white South Africans, since Biko argues that the so-called

liberals provide a smokescreen for the perpetuation of the apartheid system.

Furthermore, he argues that while the liberals may profess a desire for some

form of change within the system, the nature and direction of the change

they envisage is still predicated on the superiority-inferiority syndrome in

which Blacks would never attain equality with whites. The liberal in South

Africa has a self-serving motive in his identification with Black consciousness

movement, since he is described by Biko as one "who is appeasing his own

conscience or at best is eager to demonstrate his identification with the Black

people only so far as it does not sever all his ties with his relatives on the

other side of the colour line."

• 16
 

108                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

There is a strong argument made in Chapter 14 for a revision of the

dialectics of the situation in South Africa in which the thesis is white racism

and the antithesis is a strong solidarity among Blacks, and finally a synthesis

in which there is a mutuality of interests based on true humanity. Does

this mean that there is an inevitable conflict between Black consciousness and

a multi-racial society? Is there an inherent contradiction in the juxataposition

of Black consciousness and an integrated South African society? Biko would

argue that there is not, save for those people who cannot envision a multi-

racial society where there is no stratification based on an oppressor-oppressed,

master-servant relationship.

One of Biko's main concerns that surfaces throughout the book, especially

in the chapter "Black Souls in White Skins," is the danger of some Black

leaders internalizing their presumed inferiority to whites by aspiring to become

white. It is on this score that he severely indicts Black leaders such as

Buthelezi and Matanzima who have given some legitimacy to the bogus

homeland policy which seeks to confine Blacks to only 13 percent of non-fertile

land in South Africa.

Contrary to the official South African characterization of Biko as a radical,

segregationist, and violent agitator, there is no evidence from this anthology

to bear out such vilifications. As a matter of fact, the contrary appears to be

the case. In a typical Gandhian philosophy, he believes in the force of persuasion

especially in South Africa, where he argues that the merits and virtues of the

Black people's quest for a just and humane society are very overwhelming and

therefore require no violence as a strategy for liberation.

This book succeeds considerably in explaining the schizophrenic mentality

of the perpetrators of the inhuman apartheid system in South Africa. Their

whole psyche is predicated upon fear and insecurity in which they become

prisoners of their own brutality and oppression. Biko argues that apartheid

can only be sustained by oppression and brutality, which the South African

government employs successfully.

Reverend Stubbs' personal memoir is very rich in the personal insight of

Steve Biko the man, the activist, the intellectual, and the humanist. The editor

eloquently states that "Stephen was possessed with a passion for the liberation

of his people, and he gave himself to this passion with a single-minded

integrity which consistently proved stronger than his fear of imprisonment,

torture or death. In this vision, he saw himself "the selfless revolutionary

fighting for the liberation not only of the oppressed but also for the oppressor."

Steve Biko's murder was a serious setback for people who believe that

the apartheid system can be changed through the force of reasoning and

persuasion. If South African leaders continually refuse to transform their

society into a humane society, it is not because of the lack of force of

reasoning and persuasion from people like Biko, but from a paranoia which

is inherent and intrinsic in man's inhumanity to man.

This book clearly illuminates the depth of institutionalized racism and the

enormity of obstacles which Blacks in South Africa have to overcome. It

also indicates that the South African problem is not just an internal problem,

but a problem which should challenge the conscience of the world community,

especially those who help to perpetuate it. A remarkable book!

 

The Ohio State University                               Okey Onyejekwe

• 17
 

Book Reviews                                                           109

 

Antitrust and the Oil Monopoly: The Standard Oil Cases, 1890-1911. By Bruce

Bringhurst. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1979. x + 296p.; tables, notes,

bibliography, index. $22.95.)

 

A decade and a half ago Richard Hofstadter argued in his classic "What

Happened to the Anti-Trust Movement" that during the progressive era there

had been intense popular concern over the trust menace but little meaningful

government action, whereas in the post-New Deal years the opposite relationship

prevailed: public indifference coupled with a more vigorous but circumscribed

government posture. Bruce Bringhurst reemphasizes the first part of Hofstadter's

argument. In a detailed narrative of the state and federal attacks on Standard

Oil, he demonstrates that anti-trust became a "powerful and popular public

relations tool." (p. 206.) Standard Oil was a novel and frequently rapacious

business organization; but it was too potent and important to be destroyed.

Anti-trust thus served as a sop to public opinion, a political vehicle for

amibitious prosecutors, and a substitute for meaningful public control.

Bringhurst's principal contribution is his analysis of the specific Standard

Oil cases. His account of the original Ohio case generally covers familiar

ground, but deserves the attention of specialists in Ohio history. (For the

uninitiated, it is a tale of power politics, opportunism, and incompetence

that reflects poorly on the local folk.) The history of the Texas case of

1894-1909 is the most interesting of the state studies, if only because the

Texas politicos outdistanced all competitors in their duplicity. To demonstrate

impartiality in matters pertaining to the oil trust, they typically gave lip service

to anti-monopoly cliches while vying for retainers from Standard Oil.

Bringhurst's most notable contribution, however, is his account of the federal

case and the promulgation of the Supreme Court's "rule of reason" in

1911. He explores the prosecution effort, the justices' reasoning, and the

sinister implications of the "rule of reason," an ironic and contradictory

proviso to a decision upholding the prosecution's charges.

Bringhurst's forte is constitutional history; he is less successful when he

explores other facets of the Standard Oil cases. His portrayals of corporate

strategy and public policy are uneven and incomplete. For a balanced view

of the assault on Standard Oil, the reader should also consult the relevant

sections of Alfred Chandler's The Visible Hand and Gerald Nash's U.S. Oil

Policy. I was particularly disappointed with Bringhurst's treatment of the

Standard Oil defense. Rather than analyzing the big business response, which

included pioneering public relations campaigns, he attributes Standard Oil's

success in fending off its critics to mysterious, sinister influences-corporate

"power," bribery, etc. As a result, important features of the anti-monopoly

battle remain unexplained. How, for example, did the Standard Oil counterattack

differ from the strategies of the railroads, the other prime objects of

anti-monopoly fervor and anti-trust crusading? More surprising is Bringhurst's

neglect of the progressive movement. The reform impulse is evident, of

course, but Bringhurst does not consider it explicitly, nor does he relate

his conclusions to the larger reform enterprise. Are we to conclude that the

progressive attack on the corporation was a fraud? Or that it acted as a

drag on the growth of the economy? For all its anti-big business innuendo,

Bringhurst's treatise can be read as a supplement to Albro Martin's Enterprise

Denied.

While Bringhurst has unnecessarily restricted his subject, he has performed

• 18
 

110                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

admirably in the area of his interest. Antitrust and the Oil Monopoly is a

well-researched, clearly-written essay in constitutional history, one that illumi-

nates the critical first part of the disparity that Hofstadter noted-the gap

between progressive biases and progressive resolve.

University of Akron                                       Daniel Nelson

 

Revolt Against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women's Campaign

Against Lynching. By Jacquelyn Dowd Hall. (New York: Columbia University

Press, 1979. xiv + 373p.; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index.

$14.95.)

This is an ambitious book. Hall has attempted to interweave the life of

Jessie Daniel Ames and the Southern women's anti-lynching movement in order

to understand the motivations and impulses behind that movement. In large

part she has succeeded.

Hall's analysis of Southern politics and racial mores during the first three

decades of this century deepens our understanding of Ames, and the biography

personalizes the development of the anti-lynching movement. Ames was born

in East Texas in 1883 and remained attached to Southern regionalism all her

life. Her childhood was not happy, and her marriage disastrous. At 31 she

was left a widow and almost destitute with three small children. These years,

Hall suggests, made her the "brilliant and flawed leader" that she became.

Forced into independence, she became a successful businesswoman, an active

suffragist, first president of the Texas League of Women Voters, and a

feminist who rejected the "ideologies of domesticity and paternalism." She

was then appointed chairman of the Texas Interracial Committee, the Director

of Women's Work for the Commission of Interracial Cooperation, and finally

director of the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching

at its founding in 1930. Her opposition to the proposed federal anti-lynching

bill, on the grounds that it would violate Southern states' rights sentiment,

weakened her position within the ASWPL, however, and the group itself

died in 1942. When it was replaced by the Southern Regional Council, Ames

was eased out. In retirement she remained active in interracial affairs,

heartened by the success of the civil rights movement but discouraged by

the post-World War II anti-feminist backlash which challenged the validity

of her own life. She died in 1972, too old to realize that the contemporary

woman's movement would once more vindicate her.

Hall places Ames's story squarely into the context of Southern women's

organized activities: the push for the suffrage, the post-suffrage lobbying

for reforms such as protective labor legislation, and the developing interest

of black and white women-particularly in the Methodist Episcopal Church,

South, and the YWCA-in interracial cooperation and harmony. In response

to a resurgence of lynching, the ASWPL was established although it was not

the first Southern anti-lynching group. Its membership was all white, pre-

dominantly urban, middle class, and Methodist. Drawing upon earlier reform

experience, these women attempted to educate the public about the facts of

lynching and to apply pressure to local law enforcement officers in order to

halt interracial violence. Evidence of the group's effectiveness is inconclusive,

but by 1942 it had enlisted the support of 43,000 women who had signed

the ASWPL anti-lynching pledge.

• 19
 

Book Reviews                                                     111

 

The stories mesh closely, as Hall tells them. Ames grew up in an area

where lynching was common; she fit nicely the demographic profile of the

ASWPL constituency, and the League's demise is partially explained in terms

of Ames's personal reluctance to relinquish her regional identity and power base.

Hall is less successful in explaining the motivations of these Southern

women: the "nexus between private experience and public activity and...

the often inaccessible emotional realities of women's lives." She concludes

that the anti-lynching movement represented a "revolt against chivalry,"

an attempt to redefine Southern womanhood. According to Hall, lynching

was a white male's means of retaining not only racial but sexual supremacy,

since participants in a lynching saw themselves as protectors of the frail white

woman, who was then obliged to "repay with obedience." Hence, the ASWPL

was a rebellion against this definition of woman as weak and dependent, a

statement of female independence. However, although their activities occa-

sionally required real courage, the ASWPL members generally cast themselves

in the traditional female role of upholder of morality; below the surface was

the desire to "control male sexuality, erase the double standard, and impose

the ethics of domesticity on the larger society." For example, some of the

evidence suggests that these women were more interested in protecting the

Southern woman's reputation for chastity, endangered by the alleged frequency

of rape by black men, than in declaring her autonomy. This does not constitute

a new definition of womanhood, but a restatement of an old and familiar

one. Hall concedes, in fact, that the ASWPL "remained static, a force for

social order but not for fundamental social change."

The book, however, adds considerably to our knowledge of women's post-

suffrage activities in general, and supplements Anne F. Scott's analysis of

Southern women. Its documentation is rich and impressive, particularly in

Hall's use of oral sources.

 

John Carroll University                              Marian J. Morton

 

Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West 1840-1880. By Julie Roy Jeffrey.

(New York: Hill and Wang, 1979. xvi + 240p.; bibliography, index.

$5.95 paper.)

In this volume Professor Jeffrey seeks to remedy historians' neglect of

women in the nineteenth-century trans-Mississippi West. It includes chapters

recounting women's experiences on the westward journey and on the agri-

cultural, urban, and mining frontiers. There are also chapters on Mormon

polygamy and on feminine efforts to uplift and order pioneer society. The

book receives its structure from Frederick Jackson Turner's classic, if shaky,

frontier thesis, which offers as an explanatory metaphor the notion that the

frontier-the interaction of wilderness environment and civilized man-modified

European ideas, attitudes, and institutions to produce uniquely American

individualistic democratic society.

It seems curious that students of the westward movement have paid so little

attention to frontier women. The ideology of nineteenth-century middle-class

America taught that men and women naturally existed in separate spheres

and that the sphere of the true woman encompassed the conservation of

civilization and morals, and responsibility for nurturing a healthy and religious

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112                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

family life. Therefore, it would seem vital to learn precisely what reciprocal

effects the conjunction of women and the wilderness produced.

In fascinating detail Jeffrey builds a formidable argument that although

pioneer life contributed to some temporary overlapping and blurring of

traditional social and economic roles of men and women, it did not weaken

the commitment of frontier women to what now seems a restrictive and

oppressive domesticity. Jeffrey believes that the loneliness, hardship, and

stress of frontier life encouraged women to cling to the domestic sphere as

a link to the past and family and friends left behind back East and, more

importantly, as a means to self-definition and self-esteem. Thus the white,

middle-class, literate, Protestant pioneer women, the principal sources for

Jeffrey's interpretation, favored extermination and removal of the Indian

as symbol of moral disorder. They tried to keep up with eastern fashion

and organized churches and voluntary associations and networks of female

friendship to battle against sin and disorder. They fought lax Sabbath

observance, gambling, prostitution, and, in the 1870s emulating their sisters

in the Ohio movement, demon rum-all with only partial success.

According to Jeffrey, frontier women recoiled from entering the male

sphere except as a temporary expedient to survival in the most necessitous

conditions. So strong was the power of the domestic ideology that even

the majority of devout Mormon women cleaved to monogamy and housewifery

despite entreaties from their leaders to embrace polygamy and enter economic

activities outside the home. Even the West's reputation for leadership in

granting female suffrage and fostering education were, as several scholars

have pointed out, conservative strategies pragmatically conceived to preserve

domesticity and stereotypical sex roles.

As a readable synthesis and provocative interpretation, Frontier Women

is a useful addition to the literature of the West and of American womanhood.

It should remind students of both that ignoring historical context and reading

back into history the ideologies of the present are not helpful in pursuing

truth. Though the book is praiseworthy, it is not definitive. Literary sources

and the focus on WASP women both have their place, but the story cannot

be complete until a more solid quantitative base is established (census data

and some other statistical materials are included) and until the experiences

of other women-poor, Black, Indian, Hispanic, and Oriental-can be

factored in the analysis. Still Frontier Women deserves wide attention

both from scholars and interested non-specialists.

Fairmont State College                            Charles H. McCormick

 

The Politics of Benevolence: Revival Religion and American Voting Behavior.

By John L. Hammond. (Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corpora-

tion, 1979. xi + 243p.; tables, figures, appendix, notes, references, index.

$16.50.)

Scholars have long posited a relationship between the revival fires that

"burned-over" western New York and Ohio's Western Reserve and subsequent

reform movements. In this work John L. Hammond, a sociologist at Hunter

College, examines the impact of the revivals on voting on "benevolent"

issues (antislavery, prohibition, gambling-even Populism) in these two states

from the 1830s to the 1960s. He concludes that revivals created a "political

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Book Reviews                                                      113

 

ethos," which he defines as a "political orientation culturally transmitted

and accepted as part of the recipient's environment rather than deliberately

indoctrinated and accepted or rejected on the basis of a specific decision, but

in which cognition and evaluations of specific objects occupy a central place

and determine behavior towards those objects." This ethos, Hammond believes,

influenced support for abolitionism and the Liberty Party in the pre-Civil

War period. In an analysis of the political realignment of the 1850s, however,

he finds the slavery issue "coopted" by the Republicans and concludes the

"struggle for slavery became a struggle between competing economic interests"

(p. 108). In succeeding generations despite the absence of new revivals the

ethos became institutionalized, contributing as late as 1964 to the pattern of

Republican crossovers from Goldwater to Johnson in New York! In Ohio,

however, the ethos was fatally disrupted by the urbanization and industrialization

of the Western Reserve in the nineteenth century and ceased to have an

important influence.

The argument that revivals and reform movements were connected is a

familiar one. Where Hammond seeks to make his contribution is by suggesting

that religious beliefs (and by implication any strongly held beliefs) are

capable of shaping human behavior without regard to a person's socioeconomic

position, and he attempts to show this unequivocally through the systematic

elimination of all other hypotheses. It is an ambitious undertaking.

On a less cosmic level, however, Hammond's book may well provoke

disappointment, especially among historians. Interdisciplinary works are

essential and vital to modern scholarship, but they also require the mastery

of the methodology of all the disciplines involved, difficult though this is

at times. Hammond's view of the past is shaped almost entirely by secondary

reading, and even here more recent works such as Sewell or Stewart on

abolitionism and Goodwyn on Populism are omitted. While Hammond cites

some studies of nineteenth century political practices and behavior, here too

his knowledge seems sketchy; he assumes, for instance, that many Democrats

voted for Grant in 1872 rather than simply abstaining. Overall there is a

lack of historical depth and sophistication throughout, complete with occasional

minor factual errors.

Hammond's statistical method is sophisticated. He uses multiple regression

to determine the impact of revivalism on specific party votes and referenda,

and factor analysis to evaluate deviations from normal voting patterns that

might relate to revivalism. Although both techniques are explained briefly,

most readers will find a working knowledge of statistics helpful in following

his arguments. Like most historians of early American voting, however,

Hammond is limited by the problem of adequate measurement of variables.

Revivalism in Ohio, for example, is measured by counting the number of

revivals occurring in a county over ten years as reported in ten religious

newspapers published in New York, only one of which is complete for the

entire ten-year span. Forty percent of the revivals were ignored because

they were in towns whose counties Hammond could not identify, and no

attempt was made to control for the population or geographic extent of

the county in stating the strength of its revivalism. Additionally, over half

of Ohio's counties were affected by boundary changes during the period

studied, necessitating the combining of as many as eleven counties at a time

to form composite data cases. Ethnic data for 1870 had to be used to

analyze events as early as the 1830s. While the New York data were somewhat

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114                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

better, in general the problems of poor measurement, the small proportion

of the population adhering to causes like abolition or prohibition, and the

tendency of some variables to be highly intercorrelated raise doubts about

the sweeping, definitive conclusions Hammond makes. Hammond has presented

his readers with food for thought, but it is likely that the revival fires of

the Burned-Over District will continue their attraction to scholars.

Ohio University                                           Phyllis F. Field

 

Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out. Edited by Don B.

Kates, Jr. (Croton-On-Hudson, New York: North River Press, Inc., 1979.

xiii + 239p.; illustrations, tables, figures, biographies of contributors,

notes. $9.95 cloth; $6.95 paper.)

Restricting Handguns is a solid, scholarly, and masterful contribution to the

history of civil liberties and the Second Amendment. Two earlier major

studies-Kennett and Anderson, The Gun in America (1975) and Newton and

Zimring, Firearms and Violence in American Life (1969)-attempted to show

the impact of firearms in the only western industrialized nation which by

constitutional fiat allows its general citizenry to keep and bear arms. Kennett

and Anderson provided a useful general study, objective and dispassionate

in nature, while Newton and Zimring, less objective and decidedly hostile

to handgun ownership, purported to show negative aspects of firearms

ownership in the USA. In both works the issue of civil liberties was omitted,

and it is here that Kates' superb anthology makes a long-needed contribution.

Significantly, the contributors are all liberals and activists in a variety of social

causes: Amnesty International, women's rights, black and native American

rights, anti-poverty law, and constitutional civil liberties. "Gun control is the

litmus test of liberalism." These open-minded civil libertarians who harken

back to the English libertarian heritage persuasively argue handgun possession

is a positive benefit for Americans.

The section on the history of handgun prohibition breaks pioneer ground

in showing that the rural Southwest rather than the urban Northeast

implemented restrictive handgun legislation. Prior to New York City's 1911

Sullivan Law which demanded permits for handgun possession on a politically

selective basis, the pre-Civil War Southwest and the post-Reconstruction

South developed legal limitations on handgun possession. Ample documentation

is given to show that in the post-Civil War South statutes were developed

to prevent blacks from defending themselves from the paramilitary Klan.

In the early twentieth century ethnocentrism in the Northeast made its mark

by introducing restrictive handgun laws to prevent Central and Southern

Europeans, branded as "thieves" and "anarchists," from possessing arms.

British Police Superintendent Colin Greenwood and economist Joseph

Maggadino assert with supportive evidence that factors other than possession

of firearms contribute to crime. Their cross-cultural demographic analysis,

coupled with Mark Benenson's debunking of statistical "empirical" anti-gun

studies, are methodologically sound and logically developed with tight coherence.

Throughout the anthology, and especially in the essays by legal scholar

David Hardy, the Founding Fathers' theme of residual militia is developed:

the Second Amendment, in a carefully-developed essay by Hardy, implies

individual as well as collective rights to keep and bear arms, much in the same

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Book Reviews                                                        115

 

way that the First Amendment is applicable to individuals rather than to a

collective society. Using the Fourteenth Amendment, which defines citizenship,

Hardy's cogent essay gives food for thought to those who argue that "militia"

means organized reserves and the National Guard. Nor is the right of individual

self-defense overlooked. John Salter, active in black and native American

causes, asserts that minority groups must have the right to defend themselves

from armed, aggressive reactionary factions which unfortunately exist in our

complex society. While lawful self-defense is encouraged in those instances

where police protection is unavailable, Salter also makes an excellent case

for the deterrent effect of arms possession.

In a similar vein Carol Ruth Silver and Don Kates develop a provocative

pro-feminist argument that the right to bear arms is necessary in a "violent

sexist society." Most contentious, yet unfortunately most correct, is the feminist

argument that the entire criminal justice system, either by default or design,

has failed to protect women from violent crime. Harkening back to the

Common Law doctrine of resistance to the threat or use of deadly force,

the feminist argument supports the utility of the handgun.

Moreover, the potential for abuse of civil liberties through restrictive gun

measures would destroy more than it would allegedly protect. A draconian

police state, assert Hardy and Kenneth Chotiner of the Southern California

ACLU, would result from the combined effects of massive registration or

confiscation. Invasion of privacy, the increased growth of the bureaucratic

state, centralization of police power, and Fourth Amendment violations

regarding illegal search and seizure merit serious consideration from the authors.

It is apparent that well-meaning "social planning" would destroy more than

build. To "terrify" people into registering their handguns, as some proponents

desire, is to destroy popular sovereignty, faith and trust in one's own

citizenry, and strike a blow at civil liberties. Kates, an activist and a scholar,

reminds us that "In a free country, it is up to those who want to restrict

the liberty of the people to show that the benefits which are likely to

accrue outweigh the ... costs. But that burden of proof is particularly

heavy when the liberty in question is so deeply valued by a large part of the

population that it can be abrogated only by severely punishing many." In a

more positive way, Jefferson, conveying the libertarian tradition, stated:

". . .And what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned

from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them

take arms." For twentieth century anomie and mass society, Jefferson's

admonition, coupled with the civil libertarian views of Restricting Handguns,

offers sobering, prudent insight.

Kenyon College                                             Roy Wortman

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