BOOK REVIEWS
Woodland Sites in Nebraska. By Marvin F. Kivett. Nebraska State Historical
Society, Publications in Anthropology,
No. 1. (Lincoln, Nebraska State
Historical Society, 1952. 102p., 30
plates, maps, and bibliography. Paper,
$2.00.)
This is a report on previously
unpublished excavations in sites generally
assignable to the Woodland Pattern in
Nebraska, as well as a discussion and
summary of existing evidence on the
place of Woodland in the Plains area.
The presence of Woodland manifestations
in this region has been known
since the work of Strong in the
mid-thirties on the Sterns Creek Aspect of
eastern Nebraska. The present data adds
to that of Strong, Wedel, Champe,
and others to provide a variegated and
chronologically deep picture of Wood-
land in the central Plains. With this
evidence it is no longer possible to
assume that Woodland is
"typically" eastern in locus. Kivett feels that on
the basis of the extensive Woodland
deposits in western Nebraska it must
be hypothecated that similar
manifestations will be found in eastern Colo-
rado; and this, with the Woodland
evidence from northern New Mexico,
extends the range of the pattern well
into the southwestern province.
The several Woodland manifestations
described by Kivett are as follows:
first, Valley Focus, central
Nebraska, with generalized "Middle Woodland"
pottery (cord-marked with nodes,
stamping, and so forth), and with possible
cultural affiliations to the generalized
"Hopewellian" sites near Kansas City.
Second, Keith Focus, western
Nebraska, with simple cord-roughened pottery
lacking the Middle Woodland decorative
treatment. Third is an unnamed
focus represented by pottery finds in
the sandhills of western Nebraska, and
suggestive of Early Woodland forms.
To these manifestations described by
Kivett may be added the previously
known cultures: Sterns Creek, with its
smooth-surfaced pottery (early), and
the Late Woodland Missouri Bluffs Focus,
with its single-cord-impressed
ware, which extends into Iowa.
Kivett is appropriately cautious in his
assignments of focal identity,
chronology, and affiliation. He is aware
of the fact that the Woodland cul-
tures are extremely complicated, and
that extensive investigations of habita-
tion sites provide a picture of
considerable blend and overlap--a picture
which in many parts of the eastern
United States has been oversimplified by
the early attention to spectacular and
unique funerary complexes, and the
subsequent fixation of typical
"cultures" ("Adena," "Hopewell"). The most
409
410
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
important thing one can say about the
Nebraska Woodland story is that it
provides a record of Woodland
development and change of a complexity
and type-modification which is
duplicated in broad sweep in Iowa, Illinois,
Wisconsin, and Indiana. It goes without
saying that sequences of similar
depth and complexity must also exist in
Ohio.
Kivett also provides a discussion of the
possible relations of Woodland
cultures to the later and better-defined
"typical Plains" groupings of Upper
Republican and Pawnee. These later
developments are larger in site area and
are clearly agricultural, while the
Woodland sites are small and do not appear
to have agriculture until later times.
Nevertheless, even the older and smaller
Woodland sites provide abundant evidence
of the use of shellfish and game,
and the frequent trash pits indicate
that these people enjoyed a semi-
sedentary existence. Artifactual
resemblance to the later, "typical Plains"
cultures (for example, abundant bone
tools) is present in most Woodland
components, suggesting a general Plains
tradition overriding pattern differ-
ences. Thus the older image of the
Plains as the home of nomads continues
to be revised in the light of
archaeological evidence to the contrary.
Ohio State University JOHN W. BENNETT
Impatient Crusader: Florence Kelley's
Life Story. By Josephine Goldmark.
(Urbana, University of Illinois Press,
1953. xii+217p., foreword and
index. $3.50.)
Here is a biography in which author and
subject are both almost equally
significant: The late Josephine Goldmark
is famous as the social worker who
did the difficult research for the
seminal "Brandeis Brief"; her subject was
a close friend, Florence Kelley, whose
father is known to history as "Pig-
Iron Kelley," inventor of the
Kelley process in steel and an ardent tariff
advocate. James Weber Linn, nephew of
Jane Addams and good friend of
Mrs. Kelley (she dropped her marriage
name after a divorce), aptly called
her "the toughest customer in the
reform riot, the finest rough and tumble
fighter for the good life for others
that Hull House ever knew." Yet Mrs.
Kelley, like so many other ladies of
Jane Addams' remarkable circle, came
from a colonial well-to-do background
and devoted herself to a hard war
upon the worst laissez-faire era in
American history.
Protective laws for working women and
children during the nineties
were either nonexistent or mere paper
legislation. Factory inspection was a
corrupt farce, workmen's compensation
for injuries was nullified by anti-
quated legal procedures, disease-ridden
tenements destroyed lives at home
Book Reviews 411
while spreading infection through the
garments made for commercial use,
and countless children lived stunted
lives by working from dawn to dusk in
factories. These conditions had begun to
disappear in England since the days
of Charles Kingsley and Charles Dickens,
but they were so thoroughly en-
trenched here that only the courageous
dared to interfere.
A leader of professional social workers
and reformers in the woman's
movement, Mrs. Kelley agitated
successfully for pioneer welfare laws. As a
leading propagandist for an effective
factory inspection law in Illinois, she
was appointed by Governor Altgeld to be
chief inspector. When official
prosecutors quailed before the task of
punishing corporations for violating
factory laws, Mrs. Kelley took
night-school courses to become a lawyer so
as to prosecute her own cases. But her
efforts were thwarted by a manu-
facturers' lobby, and the course of
similar welfare laws elsewhere was set
back for a decade when the state supreme
court in Ritchie v. Illinois nullified
Altgeld's social legislation; the
governor was himself defeated by resentful
industrialists and public utility men.
At this point Josephine Goldmark makes
the most significant contribution
of her biography. For the first time she
tells in detail the story of how Mrs.
Kelley and she herself collaborated with
Louis Brandeis in gathering data
regarding industrial fatigue that made
it possible for them to win the land-
mark case involving shorter hours for women--Muller
v. Oregon (1908).
Miss Goldmark, who was related to the
Brandeises, tells somewhat over-
modestly how she helped the victory of
sociological jurisprudence in the
Brandeis Brief by showing how long hours
affected the health of women.
This met the objection of the court in
the previous case, Lochner v. New
York, when the judges declared that they could not see the
connection be-
tween a law providing shorter hours for
bakers and the question of health.
From this time on, Mrs. Kelley and her
organizations reaped successive
social victories for women and children
in industry. On the national scene,
she was the sponsor of one of the few
solid welfare laws of the conservative
twenties, the Sheppard-Towner act for
maternity and infancy protection.
The New Deal consolidated these gains
through the fair labor standards act
of 1938.
While historians will be disappointed at
the author's failure to use such
basic sources as the H. D. Lloyd papers,
they may feel compensated by the
fact that Josephine Goldmark is herself
a major source. It is unfortunate
that the book is marred by continuous
eulogy of the glazed obituary type
even though the praise is so richly
deserved. But the merits of this book far
overshadow these weaknesses. Social
workers of today whose high pro-
412
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
fessional competence has been gained at
the expense of the crusading spirit
can learn a vital lesson in leadership.
Social historians, who have been overly
concerned with the suffrage aspects of
woman's history, should welcome this
fresh picture of the wise strategy of
Hull House in strengthening the Amer-
ican family at a time when it was
threatened by industrial abuses.
Western Reserve University HARVEY
WISH
Architecture in Old Kentucky. By Rexford Newcomb. (Urbana, University
of Illinois Press, 1953. xii+185p.+70
plates, glossary of architectural
terms, bibliography, and index. $12.50.)
The appearance of a new volume by
Rexford Newcomb is a guarantee of
an additional contribution of value to
the history of architecture. His Old
Mission Churches and Historical
Houses of California (1925) and Archi-
tecture of the Old Northwest
Territory (1950), to mention but two
of his
numerous works, set a high standard for
scholarly writing in a specialized
professional field. Architecture in
Old Kentucky more than maintains that
standard and surpasses the previous
works in its artistic and romantic appeal.
The University of Illinois Press may
take credit for the production of one of
the handsomest volumes of the year in
presentation of text and illustrations.
The subject of architecture south of the
Mason-Dixon line has a senti-
mental appeal to a generation of
Americans brought up on the romances of
the War Between the States to the tune
of "My Old Kentucky Home."
Therein rests a difficulty and danger
for the historian so easily trapped be-
tween the whirlpool of sentimental
fiction and the rugged rocks of factual
data. Dean Newcomb has cleverly avoided
being wrecked by either threaten-
ing danger, but has selected a nice
balance of social setting and scientific
records.
It is but natural that any building that
has been the stage setting for the
pageantry of history becomes endowed
with myth and legend of associations.
All may have a certain symbolic truth,
but often much of the picturesqueness
of the so-called associated legend has
to be discarded when the clear light of
historical fact-finding is turned upon
the problem. The ghosts disappear,
reluctantly relinquished by certain
writers who have used the old southern
homes for such habitation. A romantic
approach may have its merits,
especially for architectural styles
based upon romanticism, either Greek or
Gothic, but it is wholesome to read an
author who can appraise a building
for its fundamental merits without
having to rely upon fiction when facts
are available and often more
fascinating. The approach that Professor
Book Reviews 413
Newcomb has made to the Kentucky
monuments, especially those tempting
one to wax sentimental, is that of the
staid historian who would set the
record straight. This he often does by a
conscientious use of archives and
by the cold facts of measured drawings.
The photographs, chronologically
arranged in the last section of the
book, are excellent and wisely selected to
augment the text.
Rexford Newcomb in his quarter of a
century study of the architecture of
Old Kentucky has achieved his affirmed
purpose of a book to inspire all
loyal Kentuckians to take inventory of
their artistic assets, to the end that
unity, taste, and distinction, which are
the heritage and tradition of the
Bluegrass State, may again be reflected
in her building.
Ohio State University RALPH FANNING
Correspondence of Governor Samuel
Ward, May 1775-March 1776. Edited
by Bernhard Knollenberg. With a
Genealogy of the Ward Family, com-
piled by Clifford P. Monahon.
(Providence, Rhode Island Historical So-
ciety, 1952. ix+254p., biographical
introduction, genealogy, bibliography,
and indexes. $7.50.)
The Ward family played an active and
important role in the history of
Rhode Island and the nation during the
eighteenth century. Its members
served as governors and secretaries of
the colony and in the armed services
of the country. After the publication in
1846 of the biography of Governor
Samuel Ward in the Library of American
Biography Series edited by Jared
Sparks, the Ward papers disappeared and
were unavailable to scholars until
acquired by the Rhode Island Historical
Society in 1945. The present volume,
which covers the short but important
period May 1775 to March 1776, repre-
sents in the words of the director of
the society, a beginning in the publi-
cation of the valuable collection. The
"beginning" is made the more useful
by the carefully done genealogy that is
appended.
The importance of Samuel Ward derives
from the fact that he was thrice
governor of Rhode Island, chief justice
of the supreme court of the colony
for a year, and delegate to the first
and second continental congresses. In his
biographical introduction Mr. Knollenberg
gives an account of Ward's
career from his birth in 1725 to May
1775, and traces his activities as a
successful farmer and storekeeper and
head of a household of eleven children.
From the time Ward left Rhode Island in
1775 to his death in March 1776,
the correspondence itself tells the
story.
The documents reproduced in this volume
present an intimate and first-
414
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
hand account of the struggle with the
British ministry, the growing senti-
ment toward independence, the
difficulties in raising and equipping a con-
tinental army, and sectional differences
over the question of representation.
In the attempt to reach a settlement of
differences with England, Ward was
always for the bolder course. He was
neither rash nor unreasonable, but
had the courage to speak out clearly for
independence when hope of settling
differences within the empire had
apparently disappeared. As a member of
the congress he worked unceasingly to
raise an adequate army and to see
that it was properly equipped. He
opposed a draft but strongly advocated
bounties to encourage enlistment. When
congress began to discuss articles
of confederation, he favored an equal
representation of states, a position not
unnatural to a man from a small state.
Ward's manifold exertions for the
cause of independence were cut short in
March 1776 when he fell a victim
to the scourge of smallpox.
The value and appeal of the
correspondence reproduced here are en-
hanced by the fact that it is largely of
an intimate and private nature. When
Ward departed for Philadelphia in 1775,
his wife had been dead for five
years and his two older sons had left
for the army. There remained at home
in Westerly a band of small children. In
dealing with his family Ward was
a sort of Polonius--full of good advice.
The older daughters were expected
to bring up the family in Wisdom and
Virtue and the sons were expected to
haul fertilizer, dig potatoes, mend the
fences, dag the sheep, improve their
minds, and write their father with every
post. It need hardly be added that
there was some negligence in the
fulfillment of these many filial duties.
Samuel Jr., commissioned a captain
(later he rose to the rank of lieutenant
colonel), is given much sage advice on
the improvement of his mind and
character and how to care for his
troops. All this might be quite tire-
some were it not for the fact that Ward
was obviously a sagacious, sincere,
and truly religious man.
Among the public figures addressed by
Ward were Washington, Franklin,
and Deputy Governor Nicholas Cooke of
Rhode Island. But the most im-
portant letters are to and from his
brother, Henry, secretary of Rhode
Island, and General Nathanael Greene,
husband of Ward's niece. The na-
tural genius and sterling character of
Greene shine through with a fresh
luster.
In bringing this correspondence together
Mr. Knollenberg has done an
excellent editorial job and thanks are
due the Rhode Island Historical So-
ciety for making the material generally
available. So far as this reviewer is
concerned, the general effect is a
renewed respect for the generation of
Americans who brought about
independence. The age of the Revolution
Book Reviews 415
was truly a golden age of American
history. At a time when freedom is
under attack both from without and
within the country, Ward's advice to
one of his daughters is quite as
applicable today as then: "Endeavor to in-
spire all your Acquaintance with Love of
Liberty and a fixed Resolution
never to part with it but with their
last Breath."
Ohio State University HARRY L. COLES
Portrait of the Old West. With a Biographical Check List of Western
Artists. By Harold McCracken. (New York,
McGraw-Hill Book Com-
pany, 1952. 232p., illustrations and
index. $10.00.)
Portrait of the Old West is described in the Preface and on the jacket as
a delineation of three and one-half
centuries of life on the Great Plains. It
is neither. The period covered is
1830-1900; the life documented is that of
the Indian, the fur trader, and the
cowboy on or beyond the frontier. The
Great Plains area furthermore is
stretched to include the Red River country
of Canada and the headwaters of the
Mississippi. This failure to establish
and maintain a critical point of view is
characteristic of the book.
Mr. McCracken opens his survey with two
introductory chapters sketch-
ing the moving of the frontier from the
time of Columbus until the return of
Lewis and Clark, making brief mention of
the work of Jacques Le Moyne
and John White (Florida and Virginia are
a little distant from the Old
West of the Plains). Actually his story
of American documentary painting
of the Great Plains area begins with
Samuel Seymour, artist on Stephen H.
Long's western expedition in 1819-20;
however, his account of it and of
Long's second exploring trip, up the
Mississippi in 1823, amounts only to
one page of text, is inaccurate in its
count of pictures published, and makes
no reference to extant original
drawings. In the same chapter are brief
treatments of Peter Rindisbacher and J.
O. Lewis, whose work featured
Canada, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
Indiana, rather than the Plains. Lewis,
he says, "devoted fifteen years to
attending councils and observing Indians."
His trust in the artist's statement is
certainly misplaced, for Lewis's at-
tendance at such treaties was
essentially limited to the years 1825-27.
The treatment of even the most important
artists is superficial. The chap-
ter of eight or ten pages about Catlin
is drawn almost entirely from
Donaldson's The George Catlin Indian
Gallery. The much too brief chapter
on Bodmer is extracted chiefly (though
inadequately) from Prince Maxi-
milian's Travels (the German
edition is cited but apparently McCracken
used the English). Seth Eastman is
presented as a Minnesota artist, little of
whose work is described save for the
engravings used to illustrate his wife's
416 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
books and H. R. Schoolcraft's History
of the Indian Tribes. Other chapters
handle in similar fashion Alfred J.
Miller, John Mix Stanley, Charles Deas,
Paul Kane, Charles Wimar, Friedrich
Kurz, Narjot, Darley, Ranney, Moll-
hausen, Tait, Bierstadt, Blakelock,
Moran, Mulvaney, Adams, Farny, Brush,
Russell, Schreyvogel, and Remington in
accounts that vary from as much as
eight pages of text down to four lines.
Obviously Kane does not belong in
such a group, and it is very doubtful
that Tait should be included; on the
other hand, Ranney in such a volume as
this deserves three or four pages
rather than three or four lines.
It was avowedly the author's intention
to make "neither a monograph nor
a critique" but a survey. A
reviewer can only say then that this survey
should either have included more artists
or its accounts of those chosen as
representative should have been more
detailed. It is disappointingly thin.
Particularly is this sketchiness to be
lamented when the author declares "the
basic concept has been
documentary," for his own documentation is far
from adequate. Not merely do his acknowledgments
sometimes seem too
slight; there is little evidence that he
is aware of exploratory work in this
field. Except in a brief mention of F.
B. Mayer in his Check List, Mr.
McCracken does not refer to the work of
Bertha L. Heilbron on artists of
Minnesota. Still more astounding is the
complete absence of the name of
Robert Taft, whose "Pictorial
Record of the West" running through six-
teen numbers of the Kansas Historical
Quarterly constitutes the most
thoroughgoing and extensive
investigation yet published of the artists of
the Great Plains area during the latter
half of the century. Nor does the
author mention (though it is little
worth mentioning) the Haberly life of
Catlin; nor does he list the Kinietz
monograph on Stanley. These among
others. The student of western history
or western art or western ethnology
whose interest may be aroused by this
book is provided almost no clues
in either footnotes or bibliography to
sources where he may find more in-
formation about the lives or careers of
his subjects.
Portrait of the Old West remains a picture book which will bring
many a scene and many a face of the
Mississippi Valley and the Great
Plains to the attention of new readers.
Its one hundred and four illustra-
tions (thirty-nine in color) will
stimulate interest in many little-known
artists and the West they portrayed. One
feature of some value is the
eleven-page Check List of Western
Artists, but even this is somewhat mis-
leading, for many of these artists are
not "western" by the terms of the
book.
Washington University JOHN FRANCIS MCDERMOTT
Book Reviews 417
Zion on the Mississippi: The
Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri,
1839-1841. By Walter O. Forster. (St. Louis, Concordia Publishing
House, 1953. xv+606p., illustrations,
appendices, bibliography, and
index. $4.00.)
This excellent monograph is a welcome
addition to the growing list of
books that treat of a specific phase of
European emigration to the United
States. Although the author is a
graduate of the theological seminary of
the religious group treated, there is a
remarkable objectivity in his approach
to the controversial questions involved.
The book is attractive in appearance,
amply illustrated, copiously documented
with footnotes, and well indexed.
The detailed treatment may at times tire
the reader, but on the other hand,
it makes the volume a veritable
encyclopedia for many phases of the Saxon
migration.
Such a migration may be approached from
the standpoint of an episode
in European migration or as a study of
the history of a religious group in
its formative years. This work attempts
to cover both of these phases.
German migration to the United States
divides itself into two distinct
periods. The one took place before the
Revolution and brought settlers
along the Atlantic seaboard. It then
subsided for a time, to be revived after
1830 in a flood that spread over the
states in the upper Mississippi Valley.
It is with the latter that Dr. Forster,
who is a professor in Purdue University,
deals.
The forces contributing to this new
immigration were both economic and
political. The former were the
distressing lot of the Saxon peasant, his low
income, and the stagnation of German
industry. The latter were the con-
flicts of syncretism with strict
doctrinalism, of rationalism with romanticism
and pietism. Involved also was the
battle between centralization and partic-
ularism in politics.
The state church of Saxony was Lutheran,
although the king had been a
Roman Catholic for many years. The
central figure in the emigration was
Martin Stephan, who in 1810 became
pastor of a church in Dresden. His
personality looms large in the
disturbances that took place. It was the type
that arouses unswerving loyalty and
provokes bitter opposition. Certain
practices, such as night conventicles,
aroused opposition. His supporters
defended him with a credulity that is
difficult to understand. The author
concludes, "Stephanism was nothing
if not personal; it was a personal faith,
a personal leadership, a personal
allegiance." There would have been no
emigration had not personal influences
and religious principles blended.
When the authorities suspended Stephan
as a pastor in 1837 the move-
418 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
ment for emigration took definite form.
The pastors impressed their people
with the conviction it was their moral
and spiritual obligation to emigrate
as the only means of saving the church,
which was doomed in Germany. The
freedom of worship that the United
States offered was held before them.
Plans for the emigration were made with
care if not always with discretion.
The control of the Auswanderung-Gesellschaft
passed entirely into the hands
of Stephan. The first of the emigrants
left Germany on November 3, 1838,
and arrived at St. Louis, January 19,
1839. The exact number of emigrants
cannot be determined. Various figures
have been given. Forster places it
at 665 persons.
The selection of St. Louis was well
made. It had in 1840 a population of
16,469 of whom more than one-fourth were
Germans. Some of these who
were motivated by a hatred of religious
orthodoxy and clericalism offered op-
position from the start but were never
able to defeat the project. The Saxons
also encountered the nativism rampant in
the United States at this period.
On the voyage to America Stephan had
been elected bishop, an election
later confirmed by the congregation in
St. Louis. The clergy unanimously
supported this hierarchical
organization. The leader selected a spot in Perry
County along the Mississippi River south
of St. Louis for their settlement.
Reliable statistics as to their finances
are not at hand. The land, comprising
4,475.88 acres, cost an average of $2.06
per acre. The selection was not
made with the shrewdness that Dr. Carl
Wittke ascribes to the Germans.
It was of poor quality, much of it low
and unhealthy. A number of the
emigrants remained in St. Louis at all
times.
Dissension as to the administration of
the project soon arose. To this was
added on May 5, 1839, an accusation of
immorality against Bishop Stephan.
Without trial he was treated as guilty.
On May 31 he was shipped across
the river into Illinois.
Confusion now was inevitable. A leader
whom all including the clergy
had idolized had fallen. Above all,
episcopacy was completely discredited.
This left them to face the question
whether a true church existed in their
midst. In this dilemma the solution was
offered by Pastor C. F. W. Walther,
who, according to Dr. Forster, was
largely indebted for his interpretation
of Luther's writings to Carl Edward
Vehse, a layman. The doctrine of the
universal priesthood of believers
enabled him to teach that the true church
arises wherever a group of believers
join together into a congregation and
call a man as their pastor. Thus were
they saved from spiritual destitution.
The settlement of the property rights of
the creditors was soon made. There
is no evidence as to the precise date
when the communal basis of organiza-
Book Reviews 419
tion was dissolved. Individualism took
the place of collectivism among the
Germans in the western states.
There was no later emigration of Saxons
on an organized basis. But
thousands of Germans came to the United
States. Under the leadership of
Walther these were gathered into what is
today known as the Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod with a membership
of 1,871,569 members in 1952.
Their contribution to the religious life
of the United States has been a
strict adherence to the confessional
symbols of the Reformation combined
with a vigorous practical program that
produces concrete results.
The vision that these Saxons of 1839 had
of an extensive communal
settlement of Germans did not
materialize. Instead there has emerged a
powerful church that is active in all
parts of the world.
The conclusions of the author will
undoubtedly lead to vigorous discus-
sion and revision of some points in the
traditional history of the Lutheran
Church in the United States.
Wittenberg College B. H. PERSHING
The Great Frontier. By Walter Prescott Webb. (Boston, Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1952. xiii+434p., bibliography
and index. $5.00.)
Readers of Professor Webb's The Great
Plains (1931) will look forward
to The Great Frontier as another
major foray into what would appear a kind
of extension of the method and ideas he
employed in his earlier masterwork.
Those who have read his curious study, Divided
We Stand (1937), will
wonder if its plan and direction enter
into his latest work. Divided We
Stand did little else than wake up, with a kind of start, to
the realities of
American life as the Populists of the
1890's had conceived them. The West
was in the grip of eastern financiers.
The monopolists were standardizing
all American life, destroying individual
initiative, and so forth. The tie-up
with the frontier was alleged to lie in
the fact that the frontier had repre-
sented a basin of democracy, which had
now disappeared, and which there-
fore left us with no avenue of escape
and with fascism a possibility in
America. The then current New Deal was
attempting to save the country
from its "feudal lords," and
should be prayerfully supported.
It must be plainly stated that Professor
Webb saw the crisis in over-
simplified and even naive terms; and
since some other professors, and per-
haps some others, including Texans,
seemed to think that Divided We Stand
clarified something, it might well have
used such a symposium as The Great
Plains had earlier inspired. A symposium might have asked, for
example,
420
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
whether Professor Webb's "feudal
lords" were all in New York, or could
not have been also found in the South,
and in his beloved Texas. It might
have asked whether his frontier was
actually as democratic as he deemed it
to be, considering its small-town mores,
its repression of some minority
peoples, its vigilante committees, and
its prissy, eastern-bred school marms.
It might have taken into more adequate
view the anti-Turner criticisms, of
which only one is the challenging idea
that there are "frontiers of the
mind," scientific frontiers, which,
in effect, provide new frontiers. Profes-
sor Webb's present book offered him a
fresh opportunity (which he did not
take) to consider whether we had lost or
won more democracy since Divided
We Stand was published. Serious questions demand highly specific
and
comparative responses; and in such a
work as The Great Frontier, which
undertakes to develop a thesis with
proportions which dwarf those of The
Great Plains, one cannot be fine enough in weighing one's factors and
evidence.
Professor Webb now argues, roughly, that
Metropolis, as he terms civil-
ized Europe of the sixteenth century,
was suddenly presented with a
bonanza of frontier land, including
South and North America and Australia,
which it has been exploiting for about
450 years. This great Frontier
enabled Metropolis to enjoy undreamed of
wealth, and to attain heights of
individualism and expansion at home and
on the frontier, which was, as
with our Great Plains proper, a vast
democratic engine. But the Great
Frontier is now gone, its easy riches
are spent, and individualism on the old
model must become a thing of the past--has
already become so. All this
our author relates with much marshaling
of data from large studies of
population developments, land settlement
movements, and financial and
economic histories, as well as from a
variety of special analyses like Gordon
R. Taylor's Are Workers Human? and
John Dewey's Individualism, Old and
New.
One of the difficulties with analyzing
so large and complex a discussion
as that of Professor Webb is that he
often shows an awareness of arguments
which conflict with his own, and so he
cannot easily be accused of obtuse-
ness; but he draws them so tightly into
the skein of his argument that they
lose their individual quality and so are
not, in a sense, what they were
originally intended to be. Thus, his
argument presupposes an intense indi-
vidualism on the frontier, yet he notes
the presence of organized social
efforts there. But cooperation becomes,
in his view, a kind of cheerful help-
fulness among well-to-do equals and
individualists, in no way to be con-
fused with socialism. And that is all we
learn. We not only miss the
Book Reviews 421
socialist leaven injected into our
individualistic society by such worthies as
Josiah Warren, Robert Dale Owen, Albert
Brisbane, and John Humphrey
Noyes, among many others who were
products of frontier-times or the
frontier, though not necessarily of the
Great Plains. We do not learn of the
decentralizing, impulse in American life, as it is symbolized by
thinkers and
doers from Thoreau to A. E. Morgan. And
these are only Americans;
Professor Webb's frontier spans the
world, and to be adequately weighed--
either to prove or disprove Professor
Webb's theory--would take much
more knowledge than he, or numerous
other investigators, could readily
arrange. The problem is whether his
special posing of the frontier thesis
warrants extensive attention.
Professor Webb posits a view of the
western world's development which
is not readily acceptable. A tight,
narrow, overpopulated, and poor world
begins to create "the
individual" by way of the Renaissance. "We have
evidence of this . . . in the sculpture
of Michelangelo . . . and in the very
human qualities of Chaucer's unsaintly
characters." Men like these "breached
the walls through which other men,
Luther, Columbus, and all the rest [sic],
were to escape from their long mental
prison onto the high plain of indi-
vidual thinking and acting." What
does all this mean? The references are
conventional, the generalizations
drastic and monumentally controversial.
Professor Webb says that Europe was
overpopulated, but when is an area
overpopulated? If I own nine-tenths of
this room, and you and ten others
are jammed in a corner, the room is
overpopulated. In addition, Metropolis,
which once poorly supported a hundred
million people, has since more or
less supported many more than that, and
to some extent on the basis of its
own increased production. There is no
denying that the frontier affected the
old society, as well as developed new
ones; Professor Webb seems to think
someone is denying it. The question
relates to the actual influences, the
actual developments. That there have
been different social configurations in
Europe as compared to America, that our
several expectations vary, is true.
But how fundamentally different are
they, and in what respects? These
matters can't be settled by broad and
dubious statements: by saying, for
example, that America has created no
religion--I happen to be writing this
in Salt Lake City--or by comparing European
social rigidity with presumed
American democracy. Europeans have
claimed to be more "genuinely"
democratic than we are, and their
arguments merit attention.
What the matter seems to come down to is
this: the frontier has been a
manifest factor in the development of
older cultures, and of the newer
cultures as well. How much the
fact of the frontier influenced the older
422
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
cultures in any respect, and how much
other factors did--tradition, wars,
religious theories, personalities,
scientific discoveries, among others--is a
question for the kind of detailed
examination which Professor Webb does
not seem of a proper mind to consider.
He sees only a frontiered and a
frontierless world juxtaposed, with
inevitable changes in temper and per-
spective created by both. But the world
with a frontier was no bonanza to
those who did not profit from it,
economically, psychically, or otherwise;
and its
"disappearance"--itself a controversial point--is no loss to those
who have not been looking for bonanzas.
That Professor Webb is a vigorous
and daring theoretician should be
evident; that his theories must be handled
with care, and treated as suggestive
rather than in any sense or phase
definitive, is also evident. At a time
when there is no useful biography of
Ignatius Donnelly available, we have a
need for filling out our specific
knowledge of even American life, to say
nothing of our intelligible knowl-
edge of the world. And though we must
advance boldly on intellectual
horizons, we must be careful to bring up
our intellectual equipment and
supplies to support our advance columns.
Antioch College Louis FILLER
America First: The Battle Against
Intervention, 1940-1941. By Wayne S.
Cole. (Madison, University of Wisconsin
Press, 1953. xi+305p., bibli-
ography and index. $3.50.)
With the outbreak of World War II
writers rushed to their typewriters to
tell us how it all came about, and the
literature on those "doubtful years" of
1940-41 continues to roll from the
press. The "great debate" of that age
is fresh in our minds: isolationism vs.
interventionism. Briefly the isola-
tionists held that we should sever
relations with all potential or actual
European belligerents because any such
relationships would inevitably in-
volve us in a war that would be our
ruination. They contended with various
shadings of opinion that Great Britain
was not our first line of defense, that
Hitler would win the war, and that the
certain German victory represented
no serious threat to the American way of
life. The interventionists with
similar internal differences advocated
sending military supplies to the Allies
on the grounds that our own destiny was
closely identified with that of
Great Britain. They insisted that a Nazi
triumph would mean virtual en-
slavement of western civilization.
Two privately financed citizens'
organizations set the tone of the debate.
Upholding the cause of assistance to the
Allies was the Committee to Defend
America by Aiding the Allies, formed in
May 1940. Although a few mem-
Book Reviews 423
bers of this group desired a declaration
of war against Germany, the great
majority argued for "all aid short
of war." Walter Johnson tells the story in
The Battle Against Isolation. Defending the isolationist position were a
number of groups, composed variously of
sincere patriots, anti-New Dealers,
anti-Semites, Bundists, Fascists,
Communists, and pacifists. The most signi-
ficant and the most respected of these
was the America First Committee
(hereafter referred to as the AFC). In a
companion volume to Johnson,
Wayne Cole has now ably traced the
history of the AFC in his book America
First: The Battle Against
Intervention, 1940-1941.
Founded on September 4, 1940, the AFC
existed until April 22, 1942,
although its period of effectiveness
ended with Pearl Harbor. Its peak
membership was roughly 800,000-850,000,
two-thirds of which could be
found within a 300-mile radius of
Chicago. By December 7, 1941, it had
organized 450 local chapters. Ostensibly
nonpartisan, the AFC actually re-
flected a Republican, anti-New Deal
sentiment, and an economic conserv-
atism on domestic issues.
The AFC was created by loyal, patriotic
Americans, who believed that
sending aid to the Allies would (a)
weaken our defenses, and (b) involve
us in a war that would (c) destroy
American democracy. From Professor
Cole's account its motives appear pure,
yet the contemporary judgment on
AFC is severe. What gave the AFC a black
name before Pearl Harbor was
the fact that, despite precautionary
steps, it was widely "used" by subversive
elements. Impartial critics hammered
home this point repeatedly, producing
convincing evidence to sustain their
argument. Many AFC rallies were at-
tended, even dominated, by Bundists and
Fascists, and when Hitler and
Goebbels placed their seal of approval
on the AFC, few fair-minded per-
sons could believe its protestations of
loyalty. Upon examining his ma-
terials the author concludes that this
view dealt unfairly with the AFC. He
writes: "The efforts of Nazis and
pro-Fascists to work through the AFC
should not be minimized. Neither,
however, should they be magnified out of
their proper proportions. The
interventionists, by emphasizing the most
unsavory of the Committee's supporters,
by exaggerating the importance of
pro-Fascist individuals to the
organization, and by making positively false
accusations, created a badly distorted
picture of America First. This dis-
tortion has been widely accepted as an
accurate picture of the Committee"
(pp. 123-124).
In closing, Professor Cole admits the
difficulty of adequately gauging the
AFC's place in history. Although it
failed of its major objective to keep
us out of war, it did serve as a vehicle
for non-interventionist opinion.
Furthermore, it caused President
Roosevelt to carefully trim his legislative
424 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
program and the use of his executive
prerogative. The author suggests that
had the Axis not attacked the United
States, the AFC might have played a
more significant role in the history of
the period.
One could have expected Professor Cole,
an Air Force pilot in World
War II, to discharge some sharp blasts
at the AFC, but actually the most
singular quality of the book is its
detachment. It is almost too detached, too
placid; perhaps more of the explosive
atmosphere of 1940-41 is needed.
Still its objectivity, its well
organized narrative, and its revisionist report on
the AFC, constitute a valuable
contribution to our knowledge of the
"doubtful years" before Pearl
Harbor.
Rio Grande College EUGENE C. MURDOCK
A Mirror for Americans: Life and
Manners in the United States, 1790-1870,
As Recorded by American Travelers. Compiled and edited by Warren S.
Tryon. Three volumes. (Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1952.
Vol. I. Life in the East, xx+230+v
p., illustrations and index. Vol. II.
The Cotton Kingdom, viii+231-466+v p., illustrations and index. Vol. III.
The Frontier Moves West, viii+467-793+v p., illustrations, bibliographical
note, index of illustrations, and index.
$5.00 per volume; $14.50 the set.)
Warren S. Tryon, professor of history at
Boston University, has brought
together in three substantial volumes
eyewitness accounts of nineteenth-cen-
tury American life by American
travelers. It is surprising that such a work,
which might be called "America
Through American Eyes," had not been
compiled before, since Allan Nevins' American
Social History As Recorded
by British Travellers and Oscar Handlin's This Was America set the
model,
using English and continental European
travelers' accounts of American life.
Compiler-editor Tryon addresses himself
to the task of collecting and ex-
tracting "the works of those native
Americans who also journeyed about
their country" and recorded
"what their countrymen were like" in "an effort,
if not to redress the balance, at least
to place side by side with the European
commentaries that body of American
observation which exists contemporan-
eously with them so as to make equally
available . . . a native view of the
native scene." In so doing,
Professor Tryon, enjoying what he calls "a kind
of busman's holiday," attempts to
show that American subservience to Euro-
pean opinion in the nineteenth century
was unwarranted, since native Amer-
icans, who were "actually more
urbane travelers than Europeans," were not
only better observers but better able to
understand and interpret what they saw
since they viewed American life
"critically but sympathetically."
Book Reviews 425
The travel accounts, from which the
extracts forming this anthology are
drawn, are grouped into three volumes
under four major headings. Volume
I, with its picture of "life in the
East," presents descriptions by fourteen
different travelers. Pictured herein are
such diverse items as education at
Yale in 1812, Andrew Jackson's first
inauguration, a trip over Pennsylvania's
canals and inclined-plane railroad
between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,
Lowell's textile mills in 1834, the
depraved debauchery of New York City's
Five Points district in 1852, Boston's
cultural advantages, liquid refreshments
in Baltimore, and a view of the
Pennsylvania Germans.
Volume II, although titled The Cotton
Kingdom, covers photochromatic-
ally the whole sweep from the Old
Dominion's tidewater tobacco fields
through the Carolina rice plantations
and the Deep South's cottoned acres
to the sugar bowl of Louisiana. In point
of time, the accounts begin with a
picture of genteel living in Virginia
right after the War of 1812 and con-
clude with a war correspondent's
on-the-spot story of Sherman's march and a
Yankee newsman's report on Charleston
and Columbia just after Appo-
mattox. Most colorful and impressive
among these are pictures of ladies
taking snuff at Raleigh, buzzards acting
as garbage collectors at Charleston,
hysterical rantings at an Alabama
revival meeting, the quadroon mistresses
of New Orleans, and the European
atmosphere of the Crescent City's streets.
The third volume, on the West, contains
two major divisions: "The Valley
of Democracy," on the region
between the Appalachians and the Rockies,
and "Westward the Course of Empire,"
from the Rockies to the Pacific.
Among the eighteen selections here,
passages deal with Indian life, the un-
controllable "jerks" of
frontier religious ecstasy, and St. Louis, Chicago,
Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and St.
Paul. Of particular interest to Ohio
readers is the jaundiced view of life in
the Western Reserve by a Con-
necticut physician who labored in
Ashtabula County in 1820-21 only to leave
after one year overcome with disgust at
the crudity of frontier living. The
last seven travel accounts cover various
aspects of life in California under
Mexican rule, the gold rush of '49,
Horace Greeley at Denver and Salt Lake
City, and glimpses of Portland, Oregon,
Boise, and Arizona.
Of the coverage in these volumes there
can be little cause for complaint.
Time-wise, the editor set for himself
roughly the limits of the Middle Period
of American history. Geographically, the
selections cover adequately the
regions of the United States (in
somewhat the same manner as Nevins'
British Travellers), although the cities come in for more attention than the
rural areas (even in a predominantly
agricultural age), while the rising
industrialism of the Northeast receives
only scanty description. The traveler-
426
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
writers quoted vary from such prominent
figures as Timothy Dwight, Davy
Crockett, Francis Lieber, Horace
Greeley, and Frederick Law Olmsted
through such journalists as Samuel
Bowles, Bayard Taylor, and Sidney
Andrews to such relatively unknown
scribblers as widow Anne Royall, sailor
Joseph Revere, South Carolinian William
Bobo, and Philadelphian Philip
Nicklin.
Why the writings of these travelers were
selected while those of other
observers were omitted, the editor
explains, was "because they seemed to
possess material peculiarly significant
for an understanding of the life of the
American people." That Professor
Tryon achieves his purpose of letting
American travelers present a composite
picture of nineteenth-century Amer-
ican society seems clear, although the
reader may wish that long, repetitive
passages might have been trimmed and a
broader cross-section of travelers
included. The work could also have been
improved by a longer, clearer
statement introducing the author of each
selection and a more critical
analysis of the traveler's ability as an
observer and interpreter of what he
saw. Further, the table of contents would
give more help if it included the
names of the traveler-writers and the
titles of their work.
Despite these minor flaws, A Mirror
for Americans will stand as a highly
convenient anthology for students of
American history seeking in one place
first-hand accounts of life in
nineteenth-century America.
Baldwin-Wallace College DAVID LINDSEY
A Buckeye Titan. By William E. Smith and Ophia D. Smith. (Cincinnati,
Historical and Philosophical Society of
Ohio, 1953. 558p., illustrations,
appendix, bibliography, and index.
$5.00.)
In 1811, because of failing health, Levi
James came from Virginia to
Ohio. He was favorably impressed with
Cincinnati. After his health im-
proved, he returned to Virginia for his
family. James soon became a prom-
inent merchant in Cincinnati. In order
to compete with other firms, he and
his partner built a barge to carry
produce down the river and to bring manu-
factured goods up from New Orleans.
Barges were inadequate and were
soon replaced by steamboats. The
position of James rose rapidly in Cin-
cinnati commercial, political,
educational, civic, and social circles. His eldest
son, John Hough James, the "Buckeye
Titan," was to become as versatile
and enterprising as his father.
Young James took every opportunity to
learn the workings of the com-
mercial world by observing and helping
his father in the merchandising and
Book Reviews 427
steamboat business. He received one of
the best formal educations, including
training in law, that could be gained in
that day. Socially he rubbed elbows
with select circles in Cincinnati and
Lexington.
When an Urbana lawyer was appointed to a
diplomatic post, John James
moved there to take over his law
practice. His rise in local affairs was rapid.
A catalog of his activities and
positions would read like entries in the social
register and Who's Who. These
were not confined to the local scene, be-
cause he became prominent in state
politics and attained some influence in
the national Whig party. Indeed, had
Henry Clay ever become president,
James probably would have received some
sort of federal appointment be-
cause of his services to and friendship
with Clay.
In the usual sense of the word, A
Buckeye Titan is not a biography of
John Hough James. Instead, its chapters
are grouped into sections that are
discussions of a number of subjects of
local, state, and national history from
the period after the War of 1812 through
the post-Civil War reconstruction
era. Some sections in which James
figures as a common denominator can be
considered biographical, others are
James's commentary on the passing scene,
and still others are "Fugitive
Glimpses of Places and People."
The account of his father's activities
as a Cincinnati businessman, espe-
cially in steamboating, could serve as
an introduction to a much more de-
tailed study of this phase of western
life. The role of John James in the
establishment and early days of Urbana
University was so intimate that a
description of it becomes virtually a
history of that institution.
The best sections of the volume are
those which deal with James's busi-
ness activities. That on the railroads
is a chapter in the pioneering of the
iron horse in the United States as well
as in the West of the post-War of
1812 period. The section on state and
national banking activities is an ex-
cellent account. James was interested in
Ohio banking as a legislator, banker,
and lawyer. He projected those interests
into the great Jackson-Biddle feud
of the 1830's on the national scene.
Considerable research was necessary in a
number of different libraries and
manuscript repositories to produce this
volume, but the bulk of the informa-
tion contained therein came from the
James papers. The James family was
a prodigious producer and preserver of
correspondence, diaries, and legal
documents. Besides this work which
portrays the Ohio and the national
scene through the eyes of John H. James,
the Smiths have introduced to
scholars one of the most extensive and
valuable source collections on Ohio
history and on some phases of national
history.
Miami University DWIGHT L. SMITH
428
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Study in Power: John D. Rockefeller,
Industrialist and Philanthropist. By
Allan Nevins. Two volumes. (New York,
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953.
xviii+441p.; xi+501p., appendices,
bibliography, and index. $10.00.)
It is interesting to observe the ebb and
flow in public regard for the
leaders of Big Business in America. In
their prime these men were popular
idols. Horatio Alger beatified them as
dedicated missionaries seeking the
goal of a higher standard of living for
all. Whosoever cast aspersions was
a communistic radical, wry-mouthed from
the taste of sour grapes.
But after 1900, while the Populist
phoenix was being reborn in respectable,
Progressive Republican feathers, the
public slowly altered its views. The
pious benefactors of yesteryear were now
become devil-dragons, with claws
to scarify the forever pure and forever
victimized common man. These in-
dustrialists seemed no longer
missionaries, but fat men dressed in loud,
dollar-sign suits or carrying pendulous
stomachs before them in wheel-
barrows.
Next the twenties. The public reversed
its field. There had been a mis-
take. Farsighted entrepreneurs were the
common man's best friends; and
they were said to know the path to the
much-mentioned high plateau of
permanent prosperity! Then the New Deal.
Another shift. To all of us
came the revelation that it was the
malefactors of great wealth, the money-
changers in the marketplace, who were
really responsible for our troubles.
And now the wheel has turned once more.
Business leaders are the wisest,
the ablest, and the strongest element in
our America. The character assassins
of the New Deal (and of the Progressive
Era) have been unmasked. There
is no more room for doubt about it than
there was in 1880, or in 1920. Has
not business smashed all production
records, invented jet power, and be-
stowed television upon even the humblest
among us?
Such is the background against which
Allan Nevins' biography of John D.
Rockefeller must be set. Because of this
background, which we cannot
escape, it is almost impossible to
interpret the life and evaluate the contri-
bution of a Rockefeller or a Carnegie in
a full, fair, and bias-free manner.
How close has Professor Nevins come to
climbing Everest? Rather closer
than one might have guessed.
To be sure, Nevins writes within our
contemporary stream of interpre-
tation. His defense of Rockefeller is so
adept, well-organized, and convin-
cing that it seems less a defense than a
perfectly coordinated offense. But
this is not merely a case for
Rockefeller; it is also a partial apology for Big
Business during the post-Civil War era.
Nevins is a powerful advocate.
Often he reproduces the viewpoint of the
businessman of the 1870's so con-
Book Reviews 429
vincingly that a visitor unfamiliar with
this country might marvel that it
was ever questioned by later
generations. His thesis that overproduction
ruined the Pennsylvania oil
producers--not the Rockefeller squeeze--has
much truth in it. Nevins is quick to
grant that Standard activities were often
unethical and ill-advised, but he finds
Rockefeller opponents far worse in
their behavior. The early critics of
Standard Oil--Ida Tarbell, Henry
Demarest Lloyd, and Washington
Gladden--are belabored
irregularly
through 730 pages before the coup de
grace is administered in Chapter
Thirty-five; more recent critics like
Chester M. Destler are completely
ignored.
Rockefeller's final claim to fame must
rest, Nevins feels, upon his con-
tributions to business organization and
the value of his philanthropies. His
tireless concern for detail, his genius
for attracting able associates, and his
awesome imperturbability made him an
administrator without a peer. The
Knights of Labor dreamed of "one
big union" and never achieved it; but
Rockefeller's goal of "one big
company" was a reality by 1882. But this is
old stuff. Less well known is the successful
trade war waged by Standard
against Russia during the 1880's. One
must be reminded that until 1900
American refiners sold the bulk of their
product overseas. When the great
Baku oil fields were developed in the
eighties by Alfred Nobel, the flood of
cheap oil consequently released
threatened to sweep American petroleum
products out of the European market. How
Standard met this threat to its
existence is a fascinating story by
itself. Even more important is the master-
ful chapter entitled "The First Great
Trust," which should be read by all
who are interested in the trust as an
evolutionary feature of our culture.
Implicit in Nevins' treatment is the
idea that there were two Rockefellers.
First we see the nineteenth-century
businessman; then came the twentieth-
century philanthropist. Due to
Rockefeller's long tenure here on earth, few
realize that he had retired from active
business as early as 1897. After his
departure from Standard, the whole
nature of the oil industry was altered.
In Rockefeller's time oil was used
principally as an illuminant; oil is desired
today as a propellant or as a source of
heat. Before 1900 oil was obtained
from eastern American sources and sold
in foreign markets; today it comes
from foreign and western America
sources, and depends primarily upon an
insatiable market inside the United
States. Abandoning Rockefeller's policy
of discouraging and crushing the cheap
competition of his day, Standard
now welcomes competitors in a field
which only the most well-supplied with
capital dare to enter.
On the other hand, Rockefeller the
philanthropist belongs to our own
century. Charity was a habit with him,
begun at the age of sixteen; thus,
430 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
giving was no frantic, last-ditch effort
to stamp a visa to Heaven upon a
passport from Hell. The bare facts of
the record will suffice to impress all
but the most small-minded. First came
the creation of the University of
Chicago during the 1890's, a small
warm-up job of $10,000,000 on which
Rockefeller cut his philanthropic teeth.
Launched in 1901 was the Rocke-
feller Institute for Medical Research, which
virtually established the habit
of serious medical science in this
country. Two years later the General Edu-
cation Board began its extraordinary
campaign to improve education and
eradicate hookworm in the South, the
success of which has done so much to
help that section resume something like
its former stature in the Union.
Then in 1913 this immense program was
expanded to world-wide propor-
tions in the shape of the Rockefeller
Foundation. Nor should one forget
the Laura Spellman Rockefeller Memorial
directed by Beardsley Rum1, which
so powerfully supported research in the
social sciences. Excluding the Uni-
versity of Chicago, the above agencies
by 1951 had expended $822,000,000
of Rockefeller money. Is it consistent
to recognize what the de Medicis con-
tributed to Renaissance civilization,
and then sneer at the patrons of our
own age?
Nevins leaves unsolved the enigma of
Rockefeller's true capacity. "His
nature, for all its strength, was
simple; his intellect, never clouded by emotion,
was direct and analytical; his will,
fixed on a few large purposes, was un-
wavering" (Vol. I, p. 1). But could
not this also be a Chicago yegg, a
precinct police lieutenant in New York
City, or just any business executive?
It is hard to escape the feeling that
Rockefeller was a rather average Amer-
ican of his time, whose life was an
endless cycle of kinder, kaufladen und
kirche, who married oil in 1863 and Laura Spellman in 1864,
remaining
loyal to both loves for the rest of his
life. Did the man make the times or
the times make the man? The latter,
almost surely, at least in the case of the
"first Rockefeller." If it be
wondered that so typical an American could be
so hated, Nevins blames this on the
"policy of secrecy" which Rockefeller
followed rigidly, refusing to defend
himself from abuse on the ground that
history alone was the final judge of
truth. Today we can see much to admire
in what then appeared as insolent
disregard of public opinion.
Those who are familiar with Nevins'
earlier life of Rockefeller may ask
why this second book was written.
Professor Nevins gives three answers:
his discovery of a large mass of new
Rockefeller correspondence, the desire
to rewrite the story from a new
viewpoint (as a study of the growth of or-
ganizing power), and because the prior
work is now out of print. Any one
of these reasons would be sufficient
justification for these two well-written
Book Reviews 431
volumes. Here is a biography of a man
and his era which few historians in
America can afford to miss.
Ohio University FREDERICK D. KERSHNER, JR.
The New Dictionary of American
History. By Michael Martin and Leonard
Gelber. (New York, Philosophical
Library, 1952. vi+695p. $10.00.)
Any historian who may be offering a
seminar on "How Not to Write a
Historical Reference Book" would do
well to acquire a copy of The New
Dictionary of American History by Michael Martin and Leonard Gelber to
use as a case study. This volume can
serve no other conceivable purpose.
Purporting to be, in the words of the
publisher, "a comprehensive and
scholarly work that is encyclopedic in
scope," it is in fact incredibly inaccurate,
deficient in good judgment and
scholarship, and generally uninhibited by such
prosaic practices as proofreading. The
only apology offered by the authors
in their preface is for the omission of
items which various readers will
inevitably think should have been
included. Such omission is unavoidable,
of course, for it would be patently
impossible to encompass in 700 pages
every person, place, and event that has
figured in American history. It is
regrettable, however, that in this book
the sins of commission are greater
than those of omission.
According to the advance publicity,
"the authors' years of teaching and
research experience have equipped them
to produce a work that . . . con-
forms to the highest standards of
scholarship." Messrs. Martin and Gelber
themselves acknowledge their debt to
several historians whose wise counsel
rescued them from many pitfalls. In the
light of such statements, it is difficult
to understand how the final result could
be so inexcusably poor.
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of The
New Dictionary is the abundance
of factual errors. Of the multitude that
could be cited, a relatively few
examples will suffice.
The outpost forerunner of Pittsburgh was
called Fort Pitt, not Fort
Duquesne, by Virginia troops (p. 483).
Conrad Weiser could hardly have
been a colonel during the Revolution
when he died in 1760 (p. 665).
Richard Henry Lee introduced his
resolution for American independence in
the Continental Congress rather than the
Virginia House of Burgesses
(p. 20). It is somewhat startling to
read that Edward Everett Hale, b. 1822,
was the son of Nathan Hale, to whom the
reader is referred, and then to
find that the only Nathan Hale listed
was hanged in 1776 (p. 266). The
432
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Northwest Ordinance is said to have been
the work of Thomas Jefferson
(p. 447), and the land to which it
applied as of 1793 is called the Ohio
Territory (p. 440). The Battle of Fallen
Timbers was fought in 1794 in-
stead of the following year, near the
site of present Maumee, Ohio, not
Fort Wayne, Indiana (p. 206); Anthony
Wayne was not defeated at Fallen
Timbers (pp. 260-261); and Arthur St.
Clair was defeated by the Indians
at the site of present Fort Recovery,
Ohio, not Fort Wayne (p. 540). More-
over, the length of Wayne's service in
the West is minimized by the state-
ment that he was appointed major general
in command of American troops
in the Battle of Fallen Timbers (p. 662).
To say that James Wilkinson
"represented the United States in the
Louisiana Purchase" is misleading,
at best (p. 675). Peace negotiations with
England were conducted during, not
after, the War of 1812 (p. 239), and
the Treaty of Ghent did not provide
that Great Britain would give up the
impressment of American seamen (p. 247).
The reference to John Adams
as Secretary of State in 1819 would be
less likely to cause confusion if the
middle name had been used, as is customary
(p. 223). The Adams-Onis
Treaty, it is said, "defined the
western boundary of Louisiana at the 42nd
parallel" (p. 223). Thomas H.
Benton was not a leader of the War Hawks
of 1810 (p. 654). This reviewer takes
issue with the assertion that the
typical newspaper in 1820 was about 12
by 18 inches in size (p. 440), and
history refutes the flat statement that
the "Senate is a stepping-stone to the
presidency" (p. 556).
Andrew Johnson's impeachment caused the
authors considerable difficulty.
The senate vote in the trial was 35-19 for
conviction rather than the reverse
(p. 300); Johnson was impeached
but was not convicted (p. 580); and Ben
Wade, as a member of the senate, voted
for the president's conviction, not
his impeachment (p. 648). Stanton's
first name was Edwin, not Edward
(p. 608). Sherman's Atlanta campaign is
erroneously attributed to Sheridan
(p. 612), and Col. Robert E. Lee is
referred to as General at the time of
John Brown's capture (p. 81). It is stated
that Robert Y. Hayne left the
United States Senate to make way for
Clay, an obvious absurdity (p. 278).
Many dates are treated with mad abandon.
Bacon's Rebellion occurred
in 1676 rather than the preceding year
(p. 39); Braddock's expedition was
conducted in 1755, not 1775 (p. 76);
Admiral Halsey led the naval action
against the Philippines in 1944, not
1945 (p. 267); the Indian Wars in the
Northwest Territory ended in 1795,
rather than 1798 (p. 273); Horace
Mann founded Antioch College in 1853
instead of the preceding year
(p. 383); C. C. Pinckney was the
Federalist candidate for vice president in
Book Reviews 433
1800, not 1796 (p. 482); the Boston
Massacre occurred in 1770 rather than
1774 (p. 508); and Queen Anne's War
ended in 1713, not 1714 (p. 508).
The authors are guilty also of numerous
puzzling inconsistencies. In a
two-page discussion of Literature,
historical novels are brushed off with the
peculiar comment, "Howard Fast
wrote distinguished historical fiction"
(p. 360). The concluding sentence in
this entry, referring to recent years,
reads, "Historical writing drew on
the past in the works of Merle Curti,
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Roy F.
Nichols, and Van Wyck Brooks" (p. 361).
The Temporary National Economic
Committee is accorded a full page
(p. 606), slightly more than either the
American Revolution or the Civil
War; the Hoover Commission of 1947 is
likewise disproportionately long
(pp. 287-288). Why, one may well ask, is
it implied by the use of
"1874. ." that Charles A. Beard is still living five years after
his death
(p. 53)? Why list the Supreme Court
justice as William Douglas without
the always-used middle initial (p. 178)?
Why single out for inclusion as
apparently the only sports figure Bill
Tilden, when Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe,
John L. Sullivan, Bobby Jones, and the
innumerable other greats are omitted
(p. 615)? Would not the most casual
research have revealed that William
Rainey Harper was born in Ohio (p. 272)?
Although many subjects could not be
included because of space limitations,
it would seem that certain important
details should not be left out of the
entries which do appear. For example,
missing are the dates of the Battle
of Saratoga and the Rush-Bagot Treaty;
under Richard Rush, any mention of
the aforesaid treaty; under Franklin D.
Roosevelt, his fourth term; under
Shawnee Prophet, the Battle of
Tippecanoe; under John H. Morgan, his
famous Civil War raid through southern
Ohio; under Ebenezer Zane, the
trace bearing his name; and under
Benjamin Lundy, his publication of the
Genius of Universal Emancipation (one of the very earliest antislavery news-
papers) at Mt. Pleasant, Ohio.
Evidence of deplorably careless
workmanship is not lacking. Witness the
following statements (italics added):
Under Henry Ward Beecher: "Accused
of adultery but cleared of charges, his church remained
loyal to him." Under
"Land Butchery":
"Colonial farmers scarcely appreciated the value of
manure. . . . He ploughed up the
fresh land...." Under Philosophy:
"After the Revolution, rationalism
became dominant and the writings of
W. E. Channing and Benjamin Rush."
For cross-reference purposes, names
or words which appear elsewhere in the
volume as independent entries are
printed in small caps instead of being
followed by "(q.v.)." The idea is not
without merit but it does not emerge
unscathed. For example, the authors
434 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
write that opposition to the Stamp Act
led to "the calling of the STAMP ACT
CONGRESS. See Stamp Act Congress." (p. 579). Also, after the election of
1872, the Republican party continued
under the leadership of "BLAINE,
Grant, and COLAX" (p.
354). Grant is not in small caps because it appears
so earlier in the entry, but Colfax
(which is misspelled) should not be either,
since it is not a separate entry. There
are instances of incorrect alphabetical
order in listing the subjects, such as
Harper, Harper's Ferry, Harper's Weekly,
and Harper (p. 271), and Hayes,
Hay-Herran Treaty, and Hay (p. 277).
Certain misleading statements could
easily have been avoided. In the ac-
count of the burning of Washington by
the British, one reads at the close
that they "did not leave the city
until August 25th" (p. 659). Unless he
remembers from the opening sentence that
they did not arrive until the 24th,
the reader might well be left with a
false impression. In another entry,
Elijah Lovejoy is described as
"Abolitionist. Editor, St. Louis Observer con-
demning SLAVERY. Shot and killed by a mob
(Nov. 7, 1837)" (p. 368).
There is no indication that by the time
of his murder Lovejoy had moved to
Alton, Illinois. In a supposedly
scholarly work, one would scarcely expect
to find such weird statements as these:
"The terms laid down by General
Grant provided that the Army of Northern
Virginia was to lay down its
arms, but the officers were to retain
their horses and side arms, with the
exception of cavalrymen and artillery
men who were allowed to keep their
animals" (p. 26); and "[Lord
Dunmore] led the colonists in Indian cam-
paign known as Lord Dunmore's War in which
he defeated them and signed
a TREATY
with them" (p. 183).
It would be charitable to assume that
all misspellings are typographical
errors, but this seems unlikely in such
examples as Greenville for Grenville
(p. 19), Winesburgh for Winesburg
(p. 22), Frederick for Frederic [L.
Paxson] (p. 234), forceable for forcible
(p. 242), session for cession
(p. 262), McClane for McLane (p. 375),
quadriennial for quadrennial
(p. 421), Packenham for Pakenham (p.
439), and Denison for Dennison
(p. 171). In a list of ten outstanding
members of the Supreme Court, Story
and Cardozo are misspelled (p. 595).
Perhaps the most unique specimen
of all appears in the statement that the
Battle of New Orleans followed a
number of unimportant
"squirmishes" (p. 439). The countless typograph-
ical errors, most of which could have
been eliminated by even the most
cursory proofreading, run the gamut from
incorrect or missing punctuation
marks to misspelled words and repeated
passages. It is difficult to imagine a
more appalling travesty on scholarship.
Suffice it to mention one of the more
Book Reviews 435
extreme examples: Santa Anna resigned as
president shortly after the fall
of Mexico City
.... while the special American
emissary NCHOLAS TR ST sought to
nego-
tiate a treaty of peace. On February
B,
1848 the TREATY OF GUADALUPE-HIDALGO
was concluded, terminating hostilities.
(p. 398)
And so on, ad infinitum.
Nearly as culpable as the authors of The
New Dictionary of American
History are a number of reviewers whose opinions have preceded
this one
in print. The publisher quotes from a
half-dozen advance reviews by well-
known historians and professional
reviewers, who term The New Dictionary
"an extremely useful tool,"
"a boon to all . . . who wish specific informa-
tion on characters, facts and events in
American History," "an extremely
useful reference book," "a
'must' on every library's and scholar's reference
shelf," and "invaluable . . .
imposing." And, in two of our most reputable
scholarly journals appear these words:
"On the whole, the work is well done,
except for a few minor but very obvious
inaccuracies," and "The result is
that The New Dictionary must
receive a good mark. The descriptions are
clear; they give the essential facts . .
. and most important of all the stand-
ards of accuracy are high." There
would seem to be no legitimate excuse
for such misrepresentation. If the
reviewers were not granted sufficient time,
it would be advisable for the historical
journals to reassess the relative im-
portance of accuracy and timeliness.
Perhaps the practice of reviewing, itself,
is subject to serious challenge. It is
to be hoped, however, that the reviews
quoted above do not reflect the validity
of most others. Such a lack of moral
integrity would not be pleasing to
contemplate.
Ohio State Archaeological JOHN S. STILL
and Historical Society
BOOK REVIEWS
Woodland Sites in Nebraska. By Marvin F. Kivett. Nebraska State Historical
Society, Publications in Anthropology,
No. 1. (Lincoln, Nebraska State
Historical Society, 1952. 102p., 30
plates, maps, and bibliography. Paper,
$2.00.)
This is a report on previously
unpublished excavations in sites generally
assignable to the Woodland Pattern in
Nebraska, as well as a discussion and
summary of existing evidence on the
place of Woodland in the Plains area.
The presence of Woodland manifestations
in this region has been known
since the work of Strong in the
mid-thirties on the Sterns Creek Aspect of
eastern Nebraska. The present data adds
to that of Strong, Wedel, Champe,
and others to provide a variegated and
chronologically deep picture of Wood-
land in the central Plains. With this
evidence it is no longer possible to
assume that Woodland is
"typically" eastern in locus. Kivett feels that on
the basis of the extensive Woodland
deposits in western Nebraska it must
be hypothecated that similar
manifestations will be found in eastern Colo-
rado; and this, with the Woodland
evidence from northern New Mexico,
extends the range of the pattern well
into the southwestern province.
The several Woodland manifestations
described by Kivett are as follows:
first, Valley Focus, central
Nebraska, with generalized "Middle Woodland"
pottery (cord-marked with nodes,
stamping, and so forth), and with possible
cultural affiliations to the generalized
"Hopewellian" sites near Kansas City.
Second, Keith Focus, western
Nebraska, with simple cord-roughened pottery
lacking the Middle Woodland decorative
treatment. Third is an unnamed
focus represented by pottery finds in
the sandhills of western Nebraska, and
suggestive of Early Woodland forms.
To these manifestations described by
Kivett may be added the previously
known cultures: Sterns Creek, with its
smooth-surfaced pottery (early), and
the Late Woodland Missouri Bluffs Focus,
with its single-cord-impressed
ware, which extends into Iowa.
Kivett is appropriately cautious in his
assignments of focal identity,
chronology, and affiliation. He is aware
of the fact that the Woodland cul-
tures are extremely complicated, and
that extensive investigations of habita-
tion sites provide a picture of
considerable blend and overlap--a picture
which in many parts of the eastern
United States has been oversimplified by
the early attention to spectacular and
unique funerary complexes, and the
subsequent fixation of typical
"cultures" ("Adena," "Hopewell"). The most
409