Ohio History Journal

Book Notes

 

 

 

The Synagogues of Kentucky:   History and Architecture. By Lee Shai

Weissbach. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995. xiv + ¹⁸⁴p.;

illustrations, tables, appendices, notes, index.) In this second volume in the

Perspective's on Kentucky's Past series, professor Weissbach provides a compre-

hensive survey on Kentucky's Jewish communities and synagogues, and one of

the first works that studies small Jewish communities outside the major American

urban centers. Presenting information about an ethnic group not typically

thought of in connection with Kentucky, this hardbound text provides a detailed

inventory of synagogue buildings built over the last 150 years. Although never

large numerically, Kentucky's Jewish population was centered in 12 cities across

the Commonwealth, organized into many branches and different congregations.

The longer-established central European Jews, first settling in Louisville in the

1840s, functioned differently than the more Orthodox, newer Eastern European

congregations that dominated Kentucky Judaism from 1881-1931. Differences in

synagogue design and interior plan, including Moorish, neoclassical and domed

Byzantine architectural influences, are chronologically profiled. A central theme

of the book is the impact post-World War II suburbanization had on the Jewish

community and synagogue design. Weissbach explains how the Diaspora away

from the center cities, along with social changes in the Jewish community, re-

sulted in a contemporary style synagogue with minimal external iconography. Of

26 pre-World War II synagogues, only 11 are standing, and only 2 are used as syn-

agogues. Generously illustrated with maps and archival photos, Synagogues of

Kentucky also includes a twenty-page bibliographical essay and a series of tables

listing the locations, dates, architects and status of all known Kentucky syna-

gogues.

 

Ohio Historical Society                                  Steve Gordon

 

 

Lincoln's Unknown Private Life: An Oral History By His Black Housekeeper

Mariah Vance 1850-1860. Edited by Lloyd Ostendorf and Walter Oleksy.

(Mamaroneck, New York: Hastings House Book Publishing, 1995. 563p.; illus-

trations.) This is a singular account. The story goes like this: in 1850 thirty-

one-year-old Mariah Vance went to work as a laundress and domestic for Abraham

and Mary Lincoln in their Springfield, Illinois, home; she worked for the Lincolns

for a decade, until the new presidential family moved to the White House; during

her employment, Vance closely observed the family and witnessed events-in-

cluding Lincoln's secret baptism-that no one else saw, or at least recorded.

Skip ahead forty years to 1900. In that year a seventeen-year-old office worker,

Adah Lilas Sutton, met the eighty-one-year-old Mrs. Vance and became entranced

by her stories of working for the Lincolns. Over the next four years, Sutton

recorded, in "shorthand notes," many of Vance's reminiscences. The project ended

when Mrs. Vance died four years later.

Skip ahead half a century. In 1955 artist and Lincolniana collector extraordi-

naire Lloyd Ostendorf placed an advertisement in Hobbies magazine offering to

purchase Lincoln-related and Civil War items. Mrs. Vance contacted him, and

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Book Notes                                                        117

 

when he learned of Mrs. Vance's account, he urged Miss Sutton to transcribe her

notes. "I went over every note carefully," she recounted, "Many were badly worn,

brittle, and writing so erased that they were not legible. First I pasted [the legible

notes] on large sheets of paper. Rearranging as best I could in sequence and ac-

cording to dates of historical facts which she [Mariah Vance] often mentioned."

Over the next few years, Miss Sutton wrote out, in longhand, Mariah Vance's rem-

iniscences, based upon the 1900-04 shorthand notes.

Skip ahead forty years. When Adah Sutton died at age ninety-two in 1976, she

and Lloyd Ostendorf had not found a publisher. Some years later, Ostendorf teamed

with Walter Oleksy, a former Chicago Tribune writer, to edit the work. The pre-

sent book contains, along with introductions by Sutton, Oleksy, and, Ostendorf,

both Oleksy's edited and moderately annotated version and a facsimile reproduc-

tion of Sutton's 1955-58 handwritten manuscript.

 

Ohio Historical Society                        Christopher S. Duckworth

 

 

The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore & Ohio, The Nation's First

Railroad, 1828-1853. By James D. Dilts. (Stanford: Stanford University Press,

1993. xix + 472p.; chronology, illustrations, notes, index.) James D. Dilts de-

scribes the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad as "the prototypical American railroad dur-

ing the critical period of its formation and construction" (p. 3). His volume pro-

vides a comprehensive history of the development of what became America's most

important nineteenth century form of transportation. Each chapter builds on the

last to provide detailed information on the combination of personalities, technol-

ogy, environmental influences, and business and legal intrigue that contributed to

the development of the B&O. Dilts places the story into the context of the grow-

ing movement for internal improvements prior to the Civil War. The many pho-

tographs, drawings and maps provide a visual dimension for the interpretation.

The work is meticulously researched, relying on the archival materials of the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum for primary documents. Dilts' history cele-

brates what the author clearly sees as a major feat of engineering and the full po-

tential of human ingenuity. The Great Road will appeal to scholars and students of

nineteenth century transportation developments, railroad buffs, and anyone inter-

ested in the evolution of railroad technology.

 

The University of Toledo                                Diane F. Britton

 

 

Cleveland as a Center of Regional American Art: Symposium presented by the

Cleveland Artists Foundation at The Cleveland Museum of Art, November 13 and

14, 1993. Edited by Sandy Richert. (Cleveland: Cleveland Artists Foundation,

1995.  v + 153p.; endnotes, references, authors.)  The Cleveland Artists

Foundation, in its commitment to ". . . preserving the heritage, researching and

exhibiting the work of NE Ohio artist[s]," has published the proceedings of its

1993 symposium. Begun with the idea to examine the arts from a regional context

rather than the "art as a universal" viewpoint, the symposium featured topics such

as Cleveland photographers of the 1920s and 1930s, an overview of Public Art

and Patronage in the city, and the environmental influences on contemporary

artists. Organizers were surprised by the overwhelming response to their call for

papers; the final selections included presenters such as David Steinberg (Cleveland

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Museum of Art), Holly Rarick Witchey (San Diego Museum of Art), Christina

Corsiglia (Cambridge, England), and Gladys Haddad (Case Western Reserve

University). So successful, indeed, was this, the CAF's first symposium, that the

organization has joined with the Midwest Art History Society to hold a second

symposium in the spring of 1996. Readers will look forward to the publication of

those proceedings with interest.

 

Ohio Historical Society                                 Laura A. Russell

 

 

The French and Indian War, 1754-1763: The Imperial Struggle for North

America. By Seymour I. Schwartz. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. ix +

177p.; maps, illustrations, bibliography, index.) Based largely on the author's

extensive cartographic collection, this is a pictorial history of the French and

Indian War. The chronologically arranged volume includes various maps of east-

ern colonial North America, portraits, documents, fort plats, battle maps, and per-

spective or landscape scenes, all explained through a concise narrative and brief

captions. Most date to the mid-eighteenth century, although a handful of interpre-

tative maps help to clarify some of the more complex historic charts. The major-

ity of the 118 images are reproduced as half-tones, and a dozen are recreated in

four-colors. Unfortunately the 7 x 10 inch format of the book makes many of the

reproductions of the large color wall maps difficult to decipher. So while it is nice

to have the grouping of historic cartography and plats under a single cover, the

undersized format alone will make acquisitions librarians wonder if the hefty price

tag of $75.00 is justified.

 

Ohio Historical Society                               David A. Simmons

 

 

General Grant by Matthew Arnold with a Rejoinder by Mark Twain. Edited by

John Y. Simon with an introduction by the editor. (Kent: The Kent State

University Press, 1995; originally published in 1966 by the Ulysses S. Grant

Association and Southern Illinois University Press. x + 58p.; notes.) English

literary critic Arnold's review of Grant's Memoirs prompted Twain to "review" the

reviewer. His audience loved it.

Ohio Historical Society                               James K. Richards

 

 

Towboat on the Ohio. By James E. Casto. (Lexington: The University Press of

Kentucky, 1995. x + 189p.; illustrations, glossary, bibliography, index.) The

Ohio River carries more commercial cargo than the Panama Canal. Yet many who

live along its banks know little more about it than about the Panama Canal. To

get a personal view of what the Ohio River and its tributaries are all about, James

Casto, a veteran newspaperman and native of Huntington, West Virginia, spent

eight days on the Blazer, a commercial towboat owned by the Ashland Oil

Company. Written as a first-hand account of a working trip, Casto synthesizes

historical narratives with present day views of labor, business, industry and gov-

ernmental operations. We are introduced to river life through the daily routines of

the pilot and the crew of the Blazer. Boats, bridges and navigation, ever-present

components of river lore, and the ongoing development of a lock and dam system

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Book Notes                                                          119

 

designed by the Army Corps of Engineers, are just some of the subjects chronicled

in this informative volume. Yet Towboat is much more than stories and the his-

tory of commerce-it is a reporter's colorful account of the characters and commu-

nities that help make the Ohio River a lure to many readers.

 

Ohio Historical Society                                   Steve Gordon

 

 

To Appomattox and Beyond: The Civil War Soldier in War and Peace. By Larry

M. Logue. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995. xiv + 168p.; a note on sources, index.)

A title in the publisher's American Ways Series, this curious little volume is tanta-

lizing but ultimately disappointing. In an admirably lucid and straight forward

prose style, the author synthesizes recent scholarship in order to posit a yardstick

of values and aspirations against which the nineteenth-century citizen soldier

measured himself and by which he interpreted his experience. An analysis of that

experience, also based on secondary sources, follows. The result is a series of

generalizations that seem, too often, to rest on inconclusive evidence. The fault

lies, perhaps, with the series format; the task undertaken is far too formidable to

be accomplished convincingly in a book of this length. Happily, for the reader

content with the discovery of starting places, it is ripe with possibility.

 

Ohio Historical Society                                 James K. Richards

 

 

The following books which have been received might be of interest to Ohio

History readers:

 

The Ohio & Erie Canal: A Glossary of Terms. Compiled by Terry K. Woods.

(Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1995. 44p.; glossary.)

Four Dead in Ohio: Was There A Conspiracy At Kent State? By William A.

Gordon. (Laguna Hills, California: North Ridge Books, 1995, 301p.; illustra-

tions, notes, appendices, chronology, annotated bibliography, index.)

REPRINT.

In Common Cause: The "Conservative" Frances Trollope and the "Radical"

Frances Wright. By Susan Kissel. (Bowling Green: Bowling Green University

Popular Press, 1993. iv + 175p.; notes, works cited, index.)

Majestic in His Wrath: A Pictorial Life of Frederick Douglass. By Frederick S.

Voss. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995. xxiii + 104p.;

notes on sources, for further reading.)

A Community of Memory: My Days with George and Clara. By Jeff Gundy.

(Champaign:    The University of Illinois Press, 1996.   xvi + 158p.;

illustrations.)

Plague of Strangers: Social Groups and the Origins of City Services in Cincinnati.

By Alan I Marcus. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991. xxiii +

287p.; notes, index.)

Hayes of the 23rd: The Civil War Volunteer Officer. By T. Harry Williams.

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. xii + ³²⁴p.; illustrations, notes,

index.) REPRINT.

History of Women in the United States: Historical Articles on Women's Lives and

Activities: Social and Moral Reform (2 volumes). Edited by Nancy F. Cott.

(Munich, Germany: K. G. Saur, 1994. xv + 795p.; notes, illustrations, index.)

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120                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

Colonel Grenfell's Wars: The Life of a Soldier of Fortune. By Stephen Z. Starr.

(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995. vii + ³⁵²p.; notes,

bibliography, index.) REPRINT.

The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers.

By Stephen J. Stein. (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1992.

xx + 554p.; illustrations, notes, suggestions on further reading, index.)

The Archaeology of Frontier Taverns on the St. Louis-Vincennes Trace. By Mark

J. Wagner and Mary R. McCorvie. (Springfield: The Illinois State Museum and

The Illinois Department of Transportation, 1993. vii + 56p.; illustrations,

notes, additional readings, picture credits.)

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