Ohio History Journal

BOOK REVIEWS

 

Ohio in Homespun and Calico. By I. T. Frary.    (Richmond,

Virginia, Garrett and Massie, 1942. 148p. $2.00.)

"This is a saga of common people," says the author of Ohio

in Homespun and Calico in presenting his latest literary product

to the reader. I. T. Frary does not sing of arms and the hero,

but of the sturdy pioneering Ohioans who bore the burden of

building a commonwealth, and of whom, as a bearer of their

tradition, he is justly proud. "I like those simple people who

were mine . . . a few so-called leaders have been accorded the

honors . . . but the common people, like my people, carried the

burden."

Author Frary concerns himself but little with the esthetics

of pioneer Ohio life. Rather, he prefers to paint a word picture

of the homely virtues of the founding fathers and their folkways.

The reader's mind is refreshed by a brief review of conditions

which set the stage for the arrival of white settlers and of what

they found awaiting them on their arrival in the Ohio country.

The stern struggle against the wilderness and hostile Indians serves

as a background for the erection of cabin homes, clearing of the

land and planting of crops. These labors are lightened by house-

raisings, corn-huskings, quilting bees and singing schools.

The reader feels himself a very part of these activities, thanks

to the skill of the author, whose familiarity with the things about

which he writes is most convincing. Pioneer arts and crafts,

schools, churches, travel and budding industry in a wilderness

community, are vividly portrayed and made a basic part of our

cultural heritage.

A wealth of illustrations depicting early Ohio homes and

architecture, pioneer arts and crafts and objects of everyday use in

the home, supplement the text. I. T. Frary, a member of the

staff of the Cleveland Museum of Art, is nationally known as a

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344   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

lecturer, writer and photographer. Other books from his pen are

Thomas Jefferson, Architect and Builder; Early Homes of Ohio;

Early American Doorways; and They Built the Capitol.

H. C. S.

 

 

Hennepin's "Description of Louisiana." By Jean Delanglez, S.J.,

Ph.D.  (Chicago, Institute of Jesuit History, 1941. viii??

¹⁶4p.)

This book is a critical essay on the authorship of Hennepin's

Description of Louisiana and continues the author's series of

studies of seventeenth century French activities in the Mississippi

Valley. It is a book of fundamental importance in this field and

that of North American cartography, and has incidental im-

portance, also, in the historical re-evaluation of Jesuit activities in

early American history.

With a brilliant display of textual criticism, which seems to

settle the old controversy conclusively, Father Delanglez shows

that Hennepin plagiarized the first two thirds of his Description

from the first third of an unpublished Relation des descouvertes,

composed by Abbe Bernou from a series of letters directed to him

by La Salle. The basic method employed is a careful comparison

of the texts of the letters, the Relation and the Description. The

last third of the Description, he shows, was written in an entirely

different style (Hennepin's), is untrustworthy as to chronology

and geography, and inconsistent in many points with the plagia-

rized section. The author then goes on to prove, with less over-

whelming evidence, but still conclusively, that Roussel's map which

accompanied the original edition of the Description is an imitation

in most respects of the well known anonymous map of 1682. This

anonymous map, the Abbe Bernou "not only helped to draw, but

also amplified and brought up to date by furnishing the artist with

data taken from the same letters of La Salle on which he had relied

in writing the Relation des descouvertes." It has long been well

established that Hennepin plagiarized his New Discovery from

Le Clercq's narrative of La Salle's'discovery of 'the mouth of the

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BOOK REVIEWS                     345

 

Mississippi. The addition of Father Delanglez' well proved

charges makes the unhappy Recollect missionary appear as one of

the greatest plagiarists in American history.

One notes with interest the author's intention to produce a

larger work on Mississippi Valley cartography (p. 111) and hopes

also, that he will soon give attention to the need recognized (p.

141) for more light on European aspects of the subject of this

study, particularly that of the "Jansenistically inclined coterie"

(pp. 30, 50-51 and passim) which seems to have aided and abetted

Hennepin in his plagiariasm.

Hiram College                        HAROLD E. DAVIS

 

 

The American Agricultural Press, 1819-1860. By Albert Lowther

Demaree. (New York, Columbia University Press, 1941.

389 p. Bibliography and Index.)

Only recently have students come to understand the tre-

mendous importance of the agricultural paper and magazine which

went into so many rural homes during the nineteenth century not

only to carry news of advances in farm procedures and techniques,

but also to impart scraps of poetry, bits of household advice and

columns of recipes and fashion news.

Dr. Demaree has sought to tell the story of the significance of

this type of journalism from its beginning in 1819 until the period

just prior to the Civil War. His book is divided into three general

parts--the first a discussion of the agricultural 'press including

chapters on program and policies, outstanding editors, special fea-

tures and concluding with an explanation of the significance of

rural journalism; the second might well have been incorporated in

an appendix as it consists of more than twenty-five selected articles

dealing with various phases of the farm scene taken from repre-

sentative papers of the day; and the third is a collection of sixteen

sketches of certain important agricultural journals, including the

Ohio Cultivator which was published in Columbus for the period

1845-1864. There is no full length sketch of the Ohio Farmer, but

scattered references to it are made. Although the bibliography

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346   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

cites the Ohio Agriculturist, published in Tiffin, and The Ohio

Valley Farmer, published in Cincinnati, neither of these journals

receives attention of consequence. In general, Dr. Demaree has

done the student who wishes a quick survey of agricultural jour-

nalism in America a service. No history of farm papers in the

United States, however, can be written until a closer examination

is made of many more individual papers and particularly of their

editors. Journalism in the Middle West, in particular, deserves

additional attention. The entire field needs to be continued from

the date that Dr. Demaree stops--1860--until the end of the

nineteenth century, for this type of journalism came into its own

after the Civil War. This, of course, reflects no discredit upon the

volume under review whose author has given a fair picture of the

agricultural press in its infancy.

Miami University                   PHILIP D. JORDAN

 

 

The Allegheny. By Frederick Way, Jr. (New York, Farrar &

Rinehart, 1942, ²⁸0p.)

Here are 217 narrative pages of sheer delight--a simple,

"easy-going" unpretentious book that probably will go a much

longer way than was intended. If you enjoy a long ramble of a

holiday, try an afternoon with Mr. Way.

Mr. Way starts out from a spot "under the postage stamp of

a postcard map of the western rivers of the United States"--Olean,

New York, and ends right in medias res in the middle of the Alle-

gheny River. He takes a whole book of fast, exciting pages to

travel down the Allegheny, but gets side-tracked (side-wheeled

seems more in keeping) with all manner of people and things:

George Washington, Christopher Gist and their 1753 ducking in

the icy deeps; honey bees and rats (did you know they came over

with the white men?); oil wells and the eastern boom towns of the

late 1800's; John Wilkes Booth; merry John Steele, the whim-

sical millionaire; and on and on so fancifully that you hardly care

quo vadis or whether you get there.

Mr. Way must have taken his cue from the Allegheny, for he

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BOOK REVIEWS                    347

 

says she regularly does stand-on-her-head antics and all manner

of unpredictable things like disappearing her creeks and capes

and turn-about-faces and upsetting sundry folk on Sundays. Yet

the savage river has bred a virile race of people, he says, and here

he takes a two-page jibe at the lazy Mississippi: "It's sticky,

muddy, lethargic, slinks along . . . The Mississippi never ram-

pages. It rises with a slow stealth . . . stands at flood tide for days

at a time, sopping and wetting everything in reach, and covering

the landscape with a layer of the best chocolate fudge. It does this

with such a sound-asleep monotony that even the jack rabbits

can't stand it, and go daffy from sheer boredom." Mr. Way should

have a nice long set-to with Clark B. Firestone, straight as the fur

flies. Gentling the Allegheny's floods was as overwhelming a feat,

says the former, as stilling the Moon in the valley of Ajalon--and

Joshua had God's help, while the Allegheny engineers have to

shift for themselves--and keep an expense account besides.

This Frederick Way is a kind of amalgamation of Robert

Benchley and Alexander Woollcott in many of his flings and fan-

cies. His good-natured tirade against artistic, pen-flourishing,

river cartographers could just as well come out of My Ten Years

in a Quandary and many of his ghoulish river tales would grace

Mr. Woollcott's repertoire. He indulges his every literary whim

--and the Allegheny's.

Here is his jolly speculation on the way of the old pioneers:

"You know it is a wonder, as wonders go, how those pioneer fel-

low got around the country the way they did. Like as not a party

of them would strike off into the tall timber with no idea on earth

where they were heading, and then disappear from civilized so-

ciety for months, and months and months--then someday turn up

again, usually with a big story to tell. Most of them were young

bucks, and full of vinegar, and used excuses (for their wives

mainly, I think) such as converting the heathen Indians, and then

there was always the possibility that they would discover the

Pacific Ocean. There is no denying that the Pacific Ocean needed

a good sound discovering in those days. A husband could look his

wife plumb square in the eyes and say, 'Honey, I've got a notion

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348   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

creeping around in my bones that the Pacific Ocean is over the

mountain yonder, and down the river apiece.'"

Occasionally bad literary devices (eg., Great-grandmother

Way's two chapter recitative on early Pittsburgh) and more than

occasional bad grammar are wearing, at times, but then, in the

next breath, he more than compensates with either pure poetry or

a gem of a story and all is well forgotten. One valley of the Al-

legheny is a cool paradise "Where silence screams to make itself

heard."

This story will go well with an afternoon's lolling, a ham-

mock, stiff-egg-white clouds and someone gay to share it with.

Columbus, Ohio             ARDIS HILLMAN WHEELER

 

 

 

Flowing South. By Clark B. Firestone. (New York, Robert H.

McBride & Company, 1941. ²⁶3p.)

This is a vacation book--not the kind you read on a vacation,

but the kind you read instead of one, and that's always good

news these stay-at-home days. Yet, not everyone will enjoy stay-

ing at home with Mr. Firestone's book, and it's one many people

will take by hops and skips. It's high spots are intensely absorb-

ing and its low spots, well--too much spinach and not enough

garnish perhaps. Mr. Firestone has here a curious (and in many

cases, admirable) blend of adventure, romance, history, geography,

travel, humor, statistics and footnotes. Perhaps it's so calculated

to reach and interest a wide audience, and yet, at that, it's more of

a man's book than a woman's. Women are seldom the adven-

turers, historians, geographers, or statisticians, so that leaves them

only romance, travel, humor and footnotes. There's enough here,

however, for general reading if the reader doesn't bog down be-

tween the hops and skips.

The author has the experience of wide and varied river travel

to draw upon, having been many times packet passenger up and

down the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers and tributaries.

One of his joggiest and most tortuous rides was aboard the Ser-

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BOOK REVIEWS                     349

geant Pryor, a survey boat out of St. Louis on the wild Missouri--

the wild Missouri that has cost the United States $182,000,000 to

turn into a civilized waterway.

His appreciation as a naturalist, his zeal as an historian, his

spice as a humorist, all serve to add height to his story. Into his

travel annal, he weaves many colorful anecdotes, and it's remark-

able the ground he covers: from the story of Cincinnati (especially

vivid perhaps, because it's the author's home town), to revelry at

the Mardi Gras, and on to the breathless tale of the pillaging of the

lycanthropes on the Natchez Trail. (There's another reason for

reading Flowing South: what are lycanthropes?) He illustrates

his book with a generous number of photographs of river subjects,

and some of the angle shots of steamboats and loading docks are

stories in themselves.

Frederick Way calls the Mississippi "turbid" but not Clark

B. Firestone. Here's what he says: "The Mississippi is the wild-

est, strangest thing I ever saw . . . wooded everywhere--aloof

almost as when De Sota first saw it four centuries ago. As always,

the river is at its casual, ruthless work, sending tribute by long

bayous back into the forests, tumbling the banks, uprooting tall

trees, pondering new courses that would turn the old bends into

oxbow lakes swarming with catfish.

"Its perpetual duel with the people, whose troops are the

government engineers, is the most dramatic thing on this con-

tinent. Scarcely can it be resisted. . . . Sometimes the thought came

to me that it would go on and on, taking away land, as once it had

bestowed it, until all between Ozarks and Alleghenies would again

be sea."

A good literary selling point for Buckeyes is that Mr. Fire-

stone compares every distinctive river beauty with the Beauty of

the Ohio, and with him, nothing ever quite measures up.

The book starts out much more brightly than it finishes; his

sprightly wit gives good promise, but the author seems to get

weighted down by his own narrative as he goes along. His ac-

count becomes more matter of fact and log-ish with every page,

as if he felt duty bound to include every observation he had orig-

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350   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

inally jotted down in his notes. With a little more picking and

choosing, the book would take on more sustained interest, and

read along more comfortably.

Columbus, Ohio             ARDIS HILLMAN WHEELER

 

 

 

The Big Con. By David W. Maurer. (Indianapolis, The Bobbs-

Merrill Company, 1940, 300 pp. $2.50.)

The confidence man is the aristocrat of the underworld. He

scorns the rough, brutal and clumsy tactics of the thug and high-

jacker, preferring instead to excite the cupidity of his "mark" as

a victim is called in the jargon of the grifter. The depredations of

the con are always on the genteel side. Usually they are legal.

David W. Maurer, professor of English at the University of

Louisville, became interested in the activities of the con man as a

by-product of his studies in linguistics. In the course of his re-

search into the colorful and secret vocabulary of the society of

high-grade confidence artists, Maurer picked up from many "opera-

tors" information concerning their activities and successes. This

book, then, tells the story of some of the famous con men who

operated during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and on

into the twentieth century. Christ Tracy of New York, Ben Marks

of Council Bluffs, Iowa, Crawfish Bob of New Orleans, and Tom

Denison of Omaha, to mention but a few, are described with almost

loving attention. In general the volume imparts by the case method

the varying devices employed by grifters with boarding-house de-

ceivers in search of apples who won't beef about a pay-off against

the wall. (Translation: In general the volume describes by the

case method the varying devices employed by men who live by

their wits and carry cheap suitcases often left empty in hotels

when the grifter leaves without paying his bills and who search

for easy victims who won't squeal to the police when the deal is

consummated within a fake store with realistic props.)

The book offers little for the historian, but it is a refreshing

study which should be of value to the sociologist and, obviously, is

vastly amusing and entertaining for the general reader.

Miami University                   PHILIP D. JORDAN

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BOOK REVIEWS                     351

Yankees and Yorkers. By Dixon Ryan Fox. (New York, New

York University Press, 1940. 223 p.)

It is always a difficult task to characterize with any degree of

accuracy a race of people. It is still more hazardous to compare

or contrast two nationalities. The national mind is not as easy to

dissect as a cadaver. Dr. Fox then selected a perilous assignment

when he attempted to compare and to contrast the colonial Dutch

with the colonial New Englander--the Yorker versus the Yankee.

For nearly two hundred and fifty years, writes Professor Fox in

his pleasing, convincing style, there was acute dislike between the

two groups. This series of essays, first delivered at New York

University under the Stokes Foundation, attempts to explain the

underlying antagonisms which set Yankees and Yorkers--both

Americans--against one another.   One point of difference, of

course, was the aggressive attitude of the New Englanders who

coveted New York lands and "sincerely felt that they had a sort

of divine right to anything they might take." The result was a

series of boundary disputes which eventually resulted in at least

a partial victory for the Yankee element. In eight chapters Pro-

fessor Fox tells the story of the English crowding against the Dutch

with border-warfare incidents until the Yorkers gave way to a

great migration of Yankees who gave New York their own pe-

culiar culture. The story of this conquest is the theme of the

volume. Professor Fox enthusiastically feels that although this

Yankee triumph is not as "spacious, tragic, and significant" as

that of the Civil War, it "in its own small way . . . bears some re-

semblance, for it too involved a contrast in whole views of life."

If there is a resemblance between that so-called "conquest" of the

Dutch in New York by Yankees from New England and the sub-

jugation of the South by the North, it is a very vague and nebulous

parallel. Nevertheless, the volume offers a most fascinating study

of a small section conflict and presents it with clarity and precision.

Miami University                    PHILIP D. JORDAN

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352   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

The Kentucky. By Thomas D. Clark. The Rivers of America.

Edited by Stephen Vincent Binet and Carl Carmer. (New

York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1942. 410p. Illustrations. $2.50.)

"The Kentucky is not alone a river or a drainage system, it is

a way of life," and before it reaches its destination, in reality, it

becomes several ways of life--each peculiar to the other and to

the rest of America.

A fast and fascinating story it is when Mr. Clark takes you

on a run down the river through a land of history, flavored with

legend to suit all tastes. Characters like Boone, Harrod, "Roaring

Jack Russell," and that Lion of Whitehall, Cassius Marcellus Clay,

once playing the leads in a moving drama, produced and directed

by the Kentucky, are brought back by the author for a repeat per-

formance. Cassius M. Clay takes a chapter and at its end the

reviewer found himself hungry for more of a story than could be

told between the covers of a large volume. Many prospective

Clay biographers have backed away, shaking their heads and mut-

tering, "He lived too long."

Beginning in the southeastern up-country the Kentucky races

north-westward to empty into the broad Ohio, but not until it has

bisected the Bluegrass region and shaken hands with all from

mountainmen to Kentucky colonels. Few rivers can say as much

in as many miles.

The Kentucky's west bank saw the first white settlement be-

yond the Alleghenies; Boonesborough was the embryo from which

civilization grew west and north. This frontier outpost was to

play no small part in the settlement of the western country. After

the more adventureous and less content had moved on, Kentuck-

ians settled down to the serious business of developing the best

horses, the best whiskey, the best food and the most beautiful

women--all this while the rest of the country bothered itself with

such things as railroads and "manifest destiny." This, of course,

was illustrative of only a portion of the banks of the Kentucky.

Farther upstream the mountain and hill folk were worshipping

God through a literal translation of the Bible: there were Shakers

and Hard Shell Baptists as thick as squirrels in a grove of hickory

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BOOK REVIEWS                     353

 

nuts, and perhaps nearly as energetic. Many citizens of the up-

country counties looked at each other only over rifle sights.

Mr. Clark was fortunate in having such a subject, for Dame

Nature had been especially kind to this region. "It is too far

north to be south and too far south to be north," and whenever

Dame Nature wished to view her handiwork she chose Kentucky

as her vantage point. The wise old girl didn't know it then, but

her location of Kentucky caused many a heartache later when

fathers watched sons march in two directions, to the blue and to

the gray, while they stood on neutral ground. To the Kentucky,

the Civil War was just another incident in its life--blood and

sweat had mingled with its waters before.

Thomas D. Clark, a member of the faculty of the University

of Kentucky, has contributed this, the fifteenth volume, to the dis-

tinguished and popular Rivers of American Series. He writes of

the Kentucky as one thoroughly familiar with his subject.

R. C. W.

 

 

Great Soldiers of the Two World Wars. By H. A. DeWeerd.

(New York, W. W. Norton and Co., 1941. 378p. Illus.

$3.50.)

In his foreword to this volume, Dr. DeWeerd voices the

familiar complaint that the professional soldier is regarded indif-

ferently in times of peace, but in times of war receives ultimatums

such as the one delivered to General Pershing: "If you succeed, all

will be well; if you fail, the public will probably hang you to the

first lamp-post." The author, a professor of political science at

Denison University and editor of Military Affairs, seems qualified

for the task which he has chosen to perform in this book--to con-

vey to the reader a fuller understanding of military men and

affairs.

Twelve soldiers of recent history have been chosen for dis-

cussion: Schlieffen, Hindenburg, Hoffman, Kitchener, Lawrence,

Pershing, Petain, Gamelin, Wavell, Churchill, Seeckt and Hitler.

A study in contrast is afforded by the swift, brilliant Schlieffen

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354   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

and the slow, cautious Hindenburg--one of the most tragic figures

in German history, whose career was marked by bewilderment and

confusion. His avowed aloofness from politics led only to his last

sad act of turning his country over to Hitler. Another lucid por-

trait is that of Hoffman, "a man of ideas," whose military motives

were always tempered by his intense hatred of Bolshevism. The

author expresses a belief that Hoffman's plans of more than 20

years ago for a German invasion of Russia may have provided

blue-prints for the Nazi invasion of 1941.

Lawrence is pictured as a humane soldier who won his battles

with as few enemy casualties as possible. He never lost sight of

the enemy's performance, often expressing admiration for brilliant

opposition. He had a deep sense of loyalty and fought to fulfill

his pledges to the Arab tribes of setting up an independent Arab

state. Pershing is shown as a stern, capable commander whose

early experience with a Negro regiment gave him the name of

"Black Jack."

One of the most tragic figures in this volume is Petain, the

World War hero who recently turned his country over to the

Fascists. The author credits him with much military endurance

but little intellect. Petain allegedly saw no connection between the

Spanish Civil War and France. Gamelin is shown as a philosophic,

ivory-tower militarist. Churchill is vividly described as the spirit

of British resistance who foresaw disaster in Chamberlain's "peace-

in-our-time" and its accompanying appeasement. Seeckt, an au-

thor-soldier, is said to have unwittingly laid the foundation for

Hitler's military strength. The last chapter gives a detailed and

familiar account of the military genius that is Hitler's. The author

makes an interesting observation--that much of Hitler's success

can be attributed to superior thinking; Hitler spends much time

at his retreat at Berchtesgaden, while his assistants perform his

administrative duties.

This volume awakens the reader to similarities between pre-

vious wars and the present conflict. For example, an early plan

by Schlieffen provided for the striking down of France, a highly

prepared enemy, before the invasion of Russia; since the latter

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BOOK REVIEWS                     355

 

country was so vast in area that such a campaign might drag on

endlessly.

The author's style is usually interesting and sometimes elabo-

rate, as evidenced in the passage: "The historian feels that there

must have been a stentorian laughter in the Valhalla of Warriors

when this jewel of thought was reported." He evidences a sense

of humor when, after relating a military anecdote adds: "If this

story isn't true, it ought to be!"

A rather obvious shortcoming of the book is that in profess-

ing to be an account of great men of the two World Wars, it was

prematurely published.  Although contemporaries Hitler and

Churchill are included, one wonders at the absence of those re-

sponsible for the epochal battles in Russia--Premier Stalin, per-

haps, or Marshal Timoshenko. Another criticism which this re-

viewer might make is that there is an over-abundance of battle

details and a scarcity of philosophies which motivated military

doctrines.

Nevertheless, the author has successfully conveyed the thought

--expressed by Schlieffen on his death-bed and true of all military

affairs--the platitudinous discovery that "great issues depend on

little things."

Ohio War History Commission           RUTH J. FISCHER

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