Ohio History Journal

PROCEEDINGS                          241

 

Joint Session, Saturday, April 2, 10:00 A. M., Ohio State

Museum, Harlow      Lindley, Presiding

The first speaker of the Saturday morning session was the

executive director of the Federal Government's Northwest Ter-

ritory Celebration Commission, Mr. E. M. Hawes.           A  resume

of his extemporaneous remarks follows:

 

THE HISTORICAL PROGRAM OF THE NORTHWEST TERRI-

TORY CELEBRATION COMMISSION.

By E. M. HAWES

I have had to qualify as an expert on oxen, building of boats, and as

a pilot, trying to get out of the mudhole last night. However, the caravan

is now on its way. It left West Newton a day ahead of time in order to

get out of the river, it having the lowest water in years. Perhaps it will

interest you to know that we shoved them off the last rocks at eight o'clock

last night; they were due in Pittsburgh at nine o'clock.

I do want to say and Dr. Lindley knows it--It was our hope that

Governor White would come instead of myself. It isn't easy to tell you,

but I am not going to do any bragging about what I am doing. The Gover-

nor, as chairman of the Commission, is trying to make about six towns a

day, so I am here. I asked Dr. Lindley this morning about phases which

would be most apt to interest a meeting of this sort. He thought the edu-

cational phase of it, and particularly a statement of our program. I hope

you will bear with me. I can talk it for twenty-four hours a day.

We purposely set out to make it different. We are trying to take the

show to the people. We are not asking the people to go to one area.

Marietta is one of the 169 points where the caravan will show. Twenty-

four million people are within an hour's automobile ride of the Northwest

Territory Celebration. There is no partiality shown to any community.

There may be some here from those towns. To give an illustration some

of the towns in the State, both publicly and privately, have said that Ma-

rietta was getting a great slice of the appropriation. The appropriation

was for $100,000, the smallest amount ever made for a program of this

kind; but it is the exact amount for which we asked. We are trying to

have more historic pageants at a cost which the people can stand. The

best way to teach the people history is through pageants, celebrations. The

actual fact is that Marietta is not getting one five cent piece. We are

treating them all exactly the same. During the winter we have turned

away twice as many people as could get into the halls. They showed in

West Newton to 6000, and West Newton is a town of 3000 people. Last

time they had an outdoor show.

Now let us talk about the program. I am very sincere, very earnest

in saying that we did not set out to build a Dallas, a Cleveland, Chicago.

or San Diego. We are trying to get it to the people. We all want to

know how the United States really came about. School histories do not

tell it to you. You men know that. We figured there should be a con-

siderable program. We decided in a rather crude way to start with the

A.B.C. books and from there on up. The first was the map which has

been distributed to some three million people. It is particularly for chil-

dren but a great many adults find it interesting as well.

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242     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The next thing we did was to publish a brochure on the Ordinance

of 1787 and the Old Northwest Territory. Dr. Lindley served without

any fee as editor-in-chief and deserves great praise. A quarter of a mil-

lion books were distributed free, one to each teacher. We have not had

the cooperation which we expected from the schools in the use of that book.

They are also being sold at cost price of 10 cents each. We are selling

more on the West Coast, in Arizona, New Mexico and some of those

states than in the Northwest Territory.

The next step up in our program    was sugar-coated history. The

publishers all told us that where we would sell 5,000 copies of a soberly

written history, made into a historical novel the same thing would sell

25,000. We therefore had it written by a well-known writer. The result

was Black Forest, by Meade Minnigerode. It is now in its third printing.

A strange thing happened in this regard. It was only intended to take

available materials and put the story in one book. We inspired Black

Forest. Yet we believe that there have been more books currently published

dealing with this phase of our national history than have ever been put

out at the time of any historical commemoration. At the present time

there have been twenty-one books, published in the last fifteen months,

dealing with this subject. We have written to the authors asking them

"How come?" because we had nothing to do with it--that we know. They

write back, "This is the most wonderful period in American history. Why

haven't we known about it?" Or, "I have just found out about it."

The last phase is the standard work of history covering the period

for which the historical commission has offered an honorarium of $1,000.

We did not require people to make a definite entry. We hope to get the

best authors in America to do it, and not in a cut and dried manner.

There is another phase. The celebration will be over in the fall, and

the books will be on the library shelves. We feel it will be entirely

proper and one of our jobs to put out material for the future, not just for

today. The permanent expression we have decided on is the Memorial to

the United States mounted and carved by Gutzon Borglum, to be dedicated

in July.

The original program was planned for the 15th of July. The date,

however, is changed as President Roosevelt will be there on the eighth of

July. The Memorial is a symbolic thing of the march on the move, with

six sailors, four men, a woman and a child--a circular fifteen-foot pano-

rama, standing twenty feet high. It will be located in the center of the park

in Marietta.

I will close with one thing more. The caravan in the Northwest Ter-

ritory Celebration will show in some fifty-three towns in Ohio. The North-

west Territory caravan is a big thing. In every one of your towns you

have local history which your own peple do not know. You can portray

that history, build it around something significant. The caravan has been

an attraction all across the country. We have had more than a hundred

thousand dollars worth of advertising space. The celebration is as nearly

historically correct as we can make it. We should all know how this

Nation got started--plain people did it, and the plain people will build the

America of the future.

Harlow Lindley, secretary and editor of the Ohio State Arch-

aeological and Historical Society, outlined for the conference the

general plans for the History of Ohio, which is being sponsored

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PROCEEDINGS                              243

 

by the Society as its chief contribution in connection with the

State-wide celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Establish-

ment of Civil Government within the limits of the State.                His

general presentation is printed in this number of the QUARTERLY

as a part of the "Prospectus for a History for the State of Ohio."

(pp. 249-259.)

Miss Bertha E. Josephson, editorial associate of the Missis-

sippi Valley Historical Review, was next on the program.

 

CRITICAL INVESTIGATION versus CARELESS PRESENTATION

By BERTHA E. JOSEPHSON

Ever since the rise of the critical school of historical writing in

America, over half a century ago, there has been a marked increase in

the total quantity of historical production.  Unfortunately, this has been

accompanied by a marked decline in the literary quality of historical presen-

tation. As early as 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, in his presidential address

before the American Historical Association uttered an eloquent plea for

the use of the imagination in the treatment of historical subjects.¹  Eight

years later, cognizant that "the writing of history was not in a satisfactory

state," the American Historical Association appointed a committee con-

sisting of Jean J. Jusserand, ambassador from France, chairman, Charles

W. Colby, Wilbur C. Abbott, and John S. Bassett. These scholars were

requested to make a study of the matter and to report their analysis and

offer their suggestions as to the possibility of improving the craftsmanship

and style of historical writing.

This study resulted in the composition of four inspiring papers in

which the respective essayists treated the subject in three phases: an ex-

amination of the existing situation, with some discussion of how it came

about; a consideration of style of expression in historical writing; and a

recommendation for the training of historians in effective presentation.² On

the first point the four members of the committee agreed in their slightly

overlapping essays: that historical science had "succeeded or replaced his-

torical literature."³ On the second, they were unanimous in commenting:

"History must conform to truth . . . it must at the same time be as inter-

esting as life itself."⁴ But on the third point they could only advise that

it took training, time, and effort to master the technique of the art of

effective historical presentation.5

1 Theodore Roosevelt, "History as Literature," American Historical Review (New

York), XVIII (1913), 473-89.

2 Jean J. Jusserand, "The Historian's Work"; Wilbur C. Abbott, "The Influence

of Graduate Instruction on Historical Writing"; Charles W. Colby, "The Craftsmanship

of the Historian"; and John S. Bassett, "The Present State of History Writing," in

The Writing of History (New York, 1926).

3 Abbott, "The Influence of Graduate Instruction." 39. See also Colby, "The

Craftsmanship of the Historian," 74; Jusserand, "The Historian's Work," 11; Bassett,

"The Present State of History Writing." 112.

4 Jusserand, "The Historian's Work," 11-12; Abbott, "The Influence of Graduate

Instruction," 39; Colby, "The Craftsmanship of the Historian," 67; Bassett, "The

Present State of History Writing," 113.

5 Jusserand, "The Historian's Work," 17-18; Abbott, "The Influence of Graduate

Instruction," 55; Colby, "Craftsmanship of the Historian." 76; Bassett, "The Present

State of History Writing," 116. See also letter of J. Franklin Jameson in Bassett,

"The Present State of History Writing," 127-35, especially, 128-29,

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