Book Reviews
The Threat of Peace: James F. Byrnes
and the Council of Foreign Ministers,
1945-1946. By Patricia Dawson Ward. (Kent: Kent State University
Press, 1979. x + 227p.; notes,
bibliography, index. $12.50.)
The story goes that once when Lyndon
Johnson was extolling the virtues
of John F. Kennedy's Harvard-educated
government appointees to Sam
Rayburn, the venerable Speaker of the
House replied, "You may be right,
but I wish some of them had at least run
for sheriff." The story might be
apocryphal, but the inference about
experts in government is clear. Particu-
larly after the frustrations of Vietnam
it was common to read and hear
about how much better foreign policy
might have been had the best and the
brightest not been formulating policies
and administering procedures.
Focusing upon an earlier period of
foreign policy flux, Patricia Dawson
Ward's The Threat of Peace; James F.
Byrnes and the Council of Foreign
Ministers, 1945-1946 demonstrates clearly that the American folklore
about the importance of true-grit
political experience can be just folklore as
far as foreign policy considerations are
concerned.
Using her sources skillfully, Dr. Ward
presents us with a sound analysis
of Secretary of State James Byrnes
attempts to wrestle with the complex-
ities of constructing a sound and
lasting peace after the end of World War II.
Ward carefully refrains from boggling
the reader with masses of material,
and for spurning this all too seductive
temptation she deserves congratula-
tions. She is realistic and critical in
her assessment of Byrnes' tenure as
secretary of state, but she rightfully
does not fall prey to conspiracy theories
of foreign policy formulation and does
point out Byrnes' strengths and how
they served him and led to some useful
peace treaties.
The heart of the work is an analysis of
a series of meetings of the allied
foreign ministers. Here Ward shows how
Byrnes, by relying on attributes
that made him a successful American politician instead of utilizing intelli-
gent planning and analysis, many times
pursued policies and procedures
which helped bring about the Cold War.
Indeed, it was his very success as a
politician which caused James Byrnes so
mcuh trouble as secretary of state.
It was hard for this ex-governor,
congressman, senator, supreme court jus-
tice-and in FDR's phrase, assistant
president-not to be arrogant about
his abilities. As Ward explains it, this
arrogance did not allow Byrnes to see
just how insular he was, and in the end
he aggravated not only the Soviet
Union but also Great Britain, France,
China, and ultimately Harry Tru-
man.
As Ward succinctly points out, Byrnes
was not involved with President
Truman in attempts at atomic or economic
blackmail of either the Soviet
Union or Western Europe. His failings
were honest rather than omissions
stemming from a top-level conspiracy to
use the threat of nuclear war to
bend Soviet and allied viewpoints to
meet those of America. Alas, the more
exciting and dramatic revisionism of Gar
Alperovitz withers away when
compared with the analysis contained in The
Threat of Peace.
Book Reviews
161
Ward's critical study also does not shy
away from the difficult task of
attempting to reconcile the subject's
strong points with his failures. Ward
does not attempt to give Byrnes his just
due. His skills in arranging compro-
mises, his intelligence, and his
extroverted nature often combined to melt one
or another iceberg of a procedural or
political nature threatening an entire
conference and negotiation. Thus it is
certainly not fair to view this work as
one constantly emphasizing Byrnes'
failures. Ward is complex in her analy-
ses of the foreign ministers' meetings.
She shows how Byrnes marshalled
his political background effectively for
quid pro quo negotiations with the
Soviets and constructed peace treaties
he thought to be quite sound.
Yet, what is one to make of a secretary
of state who thought that by
speaking directly to Stalin he was going
over Soviet Foreign Minister Molo-
tov's head and significantly changing
Russian foreign policy? This lack of
historical perspective about how the
Soviet Union operated and how its
goals were established is a good example
of US provincialism. Similarly,
one can only read with amazement about
how Byrnes' supreme self-
confidence continually undercut him. He
scorned long-range planning or
the determination of future objectives.
His belief in the ad hoc method
extended to refusing to plan for a
particular conference until just a few days
before its start; he usually used the
five days it took to steam across the
Atlantic as his planning time.
Paradoxically, when Byrnes had to fly, he
was better prepared because he had to
start planning sooner.
This fine work is wonderful in helping
one ponder more modern historical
puzzles: a politically maladroit Nixon
Administration which developed a
bold approach to China and detente; or
Jimmy Carter, an ex-governor and
state senator, who felt personally
betrayed when allies or enemies moved in
historically predictable ways. But, if
puzzles are not one's strong suit, this
book should be read for its message
about American insularity.
Cleveland State University Michael Wells
The Progressive Presidents: Theodore
Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin
D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson. By John Morton Blum. (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1980. 221p.;
epilogue, notes on reading, index.
$11.95.)
Purportedly mired in malaise since the
upheavals of the late 1960s,
American liberals have demonstrated a
strong propensity toward doctrinal
reevaluation. John Morton Blum,
self-styled "conventional liberal,"
attempts to nudge that reassessment into
more positive directions through
his analysis of a key tenet and vexation
of the progressive faith-the role of
presidential power.
Ambiguity functions as the thematic
touchstone of this study. Surveying
the domestic and foreign policies of the
Roosevelts, Wilson, and Johnson,
the author stresses the positive reforms
achieved under their leadership.
However, he is quick to point out that
each president, in varying degrees,
contributed to an ambiguous liberal
legacy by failing either to recognize or
to resolve "tensions" between
principles and/or policies. Examples abound.
All four progressive presidents utilized
trained elites to administer reform,
162 OHIO HISTORY
ideally in a rational, neutral manner.
Yet, such elite government contra-
dicted the liberal beliefs in
democratic-majoritarianism and equal accessi-
bility to influence, while frequently
serving the very interests to be control-
led. In their gradualistic efforts to
correct capitalism's iniquities, various
conflicts arose: between maintaining
economic growth and improving the
quality of life; between individual
opportunity and corporate power; be-
tween traditional agrarian morality and
the exigencies and affluence of
modern industrialism. Unlike his fellow
progressive executives, Franklin
Roosevelt avoided the paradox of
intolerance and suppression or radical
dissent in a free society. Nevertheless,
FDR was faced with more unique
tensions between reform and immediate
economic recovery for a depression-
ridden society which carried long-term
institutional implications. Foreign
policy, Blum asserts, has been a
traditional liberal quagmire. The progres-
sive presidents either ignored or failed
to implement liberal principles in
the tumultuous arena of world affairs;
and, as was the case with the world
wars and Vietnam, foreign involvements
hindered domestic reform. Final-
ly, each president expanded executive
power without either defining its
limits beyond self-restraint and
political necessity or developing a
framework of liberal theory beyond their
ephemeral perceptions.
As a well-balanced, succinct overview of
American reform and the expan-
sion of presidential power in the
twentieth century, this book is highly
commendable. A particular asset of
Professor Blum's analysis (in keeping
with recent liberal inclinations) is the
inclusion of significant criticisms of
progressive reform made by New Left
historians such as Gabriel Kolko. The
objectivity of this study is marred,
however, by its polemical overtones and
the pitfalls of presentism. The author's
unabashed liberalism leads him to a
rather simplistic advocacy of Keynesian
economics. Many of the social prob-
lems plaguing America could have been
resolved, he asserts, if only more
money had been spent over a longer
period by FDR and Johnson. Again,
because of his polemical purpose, Blum
felt obliged to deal with the Johnson
administration. However, his virtual
lack of primary research in the area
gives an impressionistic tinge to his
analysis, and stands in sharp contrast
to his recognized scholarship in the
administrations of Wilson and the
Roosevelts. Bias becomes blatant in such
historiographically unnecessary
phrases as "the wretched
Nixon." Most importantly, Professor Blum does
not press his central thesis hard
enough. He indicates that liberal ambigui-
ty has been generated by circumstance
(wars, depression, party politics), by
intermittent abuse of president power
and personality flaws, and by short-
comings endemic to the system itself.
The progressive presidents and their
constituents are chastized for giving
too little thought to basic inadequacies
in the American system. Yet, Blum
suffers from the same malady. His own
liberal mind-set apparently inhibits him
from asking, for example, whether
the president must be the primary agent
for reform. Defending liberalism
from criticism by the right and the
left, the author concludes that liberals
living in an imperfect world should
expect ambiguity, deal with it as well as
possible, and retain pride in the
cumulative effects of progressive policy.
Such refrains may be pragmatic, but they
have also been typical of Amer-
ican liberalism for two hundred years.
In this sense, Professor Blum's
synthesis contributes little that is new
to the discourse and fails to provide
liberalism's most pressing
need-exhaustive definition.
Ohio Historical Society Raymond Boryczka
Book Reviews
163
Thunder on the Right: The "New
Right" and the Politics of Resentment. By
Alan Crawford. (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1980. xv + 381p.; notes,
index. $13.95.)
Tolstoy once said that his greatest fear
was a Genghis Khan with a
telephone; Russia under the Bolsheviks
demonstrates that he was not in-
dulging in aimless prophecy. The
analogue in contemporary American poli-
tics, for Alan Crawford, is a "New
Right" populist armed with direct mail
techniques. Crawford is a conservative
right-wing Republican who, from
1973 to 1979, worked for Human
Events, Conservative Digest, Young Amer-
icans for Freedom, and Senator James
Buckley of New York. From these
vantage points he observed unsettling
activities which impelled him to
disclose how certain right elements
"have the potential of being far more
damaging to the conservative cause than
anything the liberal opposition
might do, in much the same way that
Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon
set back the cause of
anti-communism."
Crawford's critique is animated by the
interpretations rendered of conser-
vatism by Richard Hofstadter and Clinton
Rossiter. The New Right is uto-
pian, majoritarian, obsessive, and
simplistic. While American conserva-
tives have traditionally been averse to
popular government with a prefer-
ence for the established order, the left
has insisted upon more popular
participation in government and has
drawn its support from those Rossiter
called the "disinherited,
dislocated and disgruntled." A role-reversal has
taken place and Crawford decries the
"democratism" and plebiscitary im-
pulses suffusing the New Right. He finds
these "single interest" groups
ritualistically anti-elitist and
antagonistic to the more enriched and
nuanced conservatism of George Will,
Russell Kirk, Peter Viereck, Irving
Kristol, William Safire and Commentary,
and The Public Interest.
This book is valuable not for any
breathless revelations, nor original
historical/political analyses, but
rather for its willingness to declare that
there are enemies on the right. There
are useful summations of the Com-
mittee for the Survival of a Free
Congress, the National Right to Work
Committee, the American Conservative
Union and the Conservative
Caucus. There are, also, some insights
into the modus operandi of Richard
A. Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, and Howard
Phillips. Especially interesting is
the contempt demonstrated by journalists
Kevin Phillips and Patrick
Buchanan for certain establishment
conservatives. While historians will
find Peter Viereck's dust-jacket
admonition ("Don't vote till you've read
Crawford") overwrought, Thunder
on the Right will provide future students
of conservative politics with an
insider's views on the divisions and tensions
wracking those individuals and groups
who have yet to make peace with the
New Deal's social reform legacy.
Eisenhower College of the Rochester Frank Annunziata
Institute of Technology
Military Operations of the Civil War.
A Guide-Index to the Official Records
of the Union and Confederate Armies,
1861-1865. Volume IV: Main Thea-
ter of Operations Except Gulf
Approach (1861-1863). Compiled by
Dallas
164 OHIO HISTORY
Irvine and continued by Edwin R. Coffee
and Robert B. Matchette,
(Washington, D.C.: National Archives and
Records Service, General Ser-
vice Administration, 1980. 189p.;
index. $10.00 per set.)
Military Operations of the Civil War. A Guide-Index to
the Official Records
of the Union and Confederate Armies,
1861-1865. Volume V: Trans-
Mississippi and Pacific Coast
Theaters of Operations. Compiled by
Dallas
Irvine and continued by John Ferrell and
Robert Gruber. (Washington,
D.C.: National Archives and Records
Service, General Service Adminis-
tration, 1980. 205p.; index. $10.00 per
set.)
Preparing an index to a 129-volume set
of official papers cannot be an
easy task, especially when the original
publication was made over eighty
years ago. Dallas Irvine, who conceived
the project, and his colleagues at
the National Archives (NARS) have
succeeded admirably in their task of
compiling a guide-index to The War of
the Rebellion: A Compilation of the
Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Printing Office, 1880-1901). The
last two volumes of the five volume
guide-index are reviewed here.
The first volume of the guide-index
serves as a general guide to the 127
volumes of the Official Records, the
general index, and the atlas. The re-
maining four are indexes to recognized
Civil War military operations. Each
of the volumes is divided into two
parts. A "Comprehensive Index of Recog-
nized Military Operations,"
arranged alphabetically by state and there-
under alphabetically by the name of the
operation, fills the bulk of each
book. Following the comprehensive index
is a "Checklist of Recognized
Military Operations by State and
Date." This second, shorter section lists in
chronological order for each state those
operations listed in the comprehen-
sive index. Taken together, the two
parts serve as an excellent guide to the
published sources. Furthermore, they can
stand alone as a handy reference
to military operations of the Civil War.
The entries in the comprehensive index
are listed as identified by the
editors of the Official Records. The
compilers of the guide-index discovered
many errors in the designations of minor
operations, adding explanatory
notes to correct them. These notes serve
not only to aid the user of the
guide-index, but also as a critical
commentary on the editing of the Official
Records. As such they make a contribution to the study of the
military
operations of the Civil War. The purpose
of the index entries is to direct the
researcher to the appropriate volume and
page of the Official Records. They
do this quite well, provided the user
takes the time to master the format and
abbreviations used in the comprehensive
index entries.
As originally conceived, the guide-index
was to have been even more
comprehensive. Additional sections
planned were "Tables of Key Reports
for Principle Military Operations,"
"Checklists of Recognized Military Op-
erations by State, County, and
Date," and "Peculiarities of Particular
'Volumes' and Books of Series I" of
the original publication of the Official
Records. Two of these three additional sections were included in
Volume II,
but dropped from subsequent publications
following the retirement of Dr.
Irvine. NARS feared that going ahead
with the original plan would have
delayed publication inordinately. Those
fears were probably justified, when
Book Reviews
165
one considers that the more limited
product was published over a period of
twelve years.
Nevertheless, the guide-index is a
welcome addition to the Civil War
reference shelf. It greatly eases the
task of conducting research using the
Official Records. NARS is to be commended for these volumes and should be
encouraged to compile similar special
indexes to other extensive record
series, published or unpublished.
Ohio Historical Society David Levine
The Virginius Affair. By Richard H. Bradford. (Boulder: Colorado Associ-
ated University Press, 1980 xvii +
180p.; illustrations, notes, notes on
sources, index. $10.00.)
Richard Bradford's book, The
Virginius Affair, is a tight, traditionally
written diplomatic history which
emphasizes the role of Secretary of State
Hamilton Fish in avoiding war with Spain
after military officers of that
nation had seized a ship of rebels bound
for Cuba in 1873 and executed
thirty-seven of them, including some
Americans, under judicial circum-
stances embarrassing to Spain and
noxious to the United States. Bradford's
thesis is that Fish, a sophisticated and
experienced diplomat surrounded by
the ignorance and incompetence of the
Ulysses Grant administration,
cooled the jingoistic passions of
American officials and dealt adroitly with
Spanish ones to prevent disastrous
conflict. Bradford's view is that it was a
near thing.
Cuba in the 1870s was in the midst of
one of its periodic revolts against
Spain, and America, more in a period of
general disinterest with interna-
tional events than of isolationism,
leaned toward the rebel cause with the
usual mixture of idealism and avarice
that characterized its nineteenth
century Caribbean policy. Against this
background, a group of Cuban ex-
patriates sought a ship to deliver arms
and men to Cuba. Through a series
of machinations designed to circumvent
United States law and policy, they
acquired the Virginius and then
weapons and men of varying commitment
to the rebellion and, finally, an
American flag.
The well-traveled Virginius was
not a particularly fit vessel and the
Spanish easily captured it on its maiden
rebel voyage to Cuba. Within ten
days, the Spanish military in Cuba had
convicted and executed thirty-seven
men. Not yet aware of the executions,
Grant instructed Fish to protest the
seizure of the ship. Both recognized
information was scant and sometimes
contradictory and they were also sympathetic
to the Spanish republic as it
struggled against a long history of
monarchy. When a delayed cable con-
cerning the executions reached
Washington, cabinet debate resulted in Fish
proposing to the Spanish minister that
both sides recognize Spain's inabil-
ity to deal with the Cuban situation and
allow the United States a free hand
in dealing with the incident. Spain, of
course, refused the offer, but when
new, though inaccurate, reports of
further executions arrived in Washing-
ton, the Grant cabinet opted for
increased pressure.
When the capture and executions became
public, newspapers demanded
166 OHIO HISTORY
satisfaction, though only a few
advocated war, and there were a number of
public demonstrations demanding
intervention in the Cuban struggle.
Grant now saw both that Spain would have
to concede to as yet undefined
terms to satisfy American public
opinion, if not national honor, and that
neither the navy nor the army were
sufficiently strong to become a factor in
forcing any concession. That task fell
to Fish, who stated the terms of
settlement: Spain was to offer an
indemnity, punish those responsible for
the executions, surrender the Virginius
and its survivors, and salute the
American flag unless Spain could prove
that the Virginius had no right to
fly it.
While Spanish governmental instability
and Daniel Sickles, American
minister to both Madrid and his own
ambitions, complicated the negotia-
tions, the two sides quickly reached
agreement as Grant dropped the de-
mand for saluting the flag. Although
Fish thought the Virginius at least
ought to fly the American flag as a
matter of national honor, Grant over-
ruled him, thus ending the affair less
than six weeks after the capture of the
Virginius.
Though one wonders whether Grant played
so small a role in the incident
as is implied and whether the United
States was in fact close to interven-
tion, Bradford has thoroughly researched
and competently written a fine
diplomatic narrative which is a significant
addition to an under-researched
period and area. One wishes, however,
that he had dealt more completely
with Grant and his cabinet, the
Congress, the problem of accurate and
timely diplomatic communicaton, and the
decade in which this incident
took place and happily was resolved with
such dispatch.
The Ohio State University John A. Cooley
The Army and Civil Disorder: Federal
Military Intervention In Labor Dis-
putes, 1877-1900. By Jerry M. Cooper. (Westport, Connecticut: Green-
wood Press, 1980. xv + 284p.; notes,
bibliography, index. $22.50.)
In recent years military historians have
emphasized the significance of
the post-Reconstruction period for the
United States Army because of the
emerging professionalization and
collective intellectual growth within the
officer corps. Jerry M. Cooper, in this
excellent addition to the Greenwood
Press "Contributions in Military
History" series, demonstrates that the
army's role in late nineteenth-century
labor strife was also important to
that service's institutional
development. The army intervened in few labor
disputes, primarily the railroad strikes
of 1877 and 1894 and the intermit-
tant strikes during the 1890s in Idaho's
"Coeur d'Alene mining district, but
Cooper argues these "had a
qualitative rather than quantitative import-
ance" because they "brought
the Army more directly into American life
than did any other service
activity" (p. xiv).
Hired guards, local police, and the
National Guard provided the first lines
of defense against labor unrest. But
when these agencies failed to quell
protest-the Guard was often ineffectual
because its members sympathized
with the workers-state governors and
concerned capitalists called for
federal assistance. In 1877 neither the
army nor the federal government
Book Reviews
167
was prepared for involvement in labor
turmoil. The army had no contingen-
cy plans for strikebreaking duty and the
government had no policy to gov-
ern intervention in such situations.
Remarkably, despite a quarter of a
century of sporadic experience, in 1900
the officer corps generally remained
ignorant of the army's proper role in
domestic disturbances and the legisla-
tive and executive branches had failed
to establish policy guidelines.
The lack of clear-cut policy meant the
government responded to each
crisis on an ad hoc basis, usually
relying on the assessment of state officials
and corporate managers as to the
necessity for federal intervention. Even
worse from the army's perspective,
presidents often shunned their constitu-
tional duties as commanders-in-chief and
placed the army under command
of civil officials in states beset by
strikes. Consequently, officers acted with
caution when ordered to suppress labor
turmoil. Many of them served in the
South during Reconstruction and knew the
hazards of acting without clear-
ly defined responsibilities.
Implementing vague policy while operating out-
side the federal chain of command might
lead to legal liabilities, just as
Reconstruction duty had resulted in
numerous civil suits against officers.
Although the army accepted strike duty
reluctantly, some officers used
labor disputes to justify requests for
an expanded army. With the Indians
virtually subdued, the army sought a new
mission and spokesmen attemp-
ted to exploit the fear of labor
turbulence for their institutional advantage.
They failed to convince Congress, but
did antagonize the labor movement.
Labor had good reason to be suspicious
of the army because in every
dispute it sided with management.
Officers discovered they were in ideolog-
ical agreement with the social classes
controlling government and capital in
regard to their "perception of the
threat protesting workers posed to Amer-
ican society in the late nineteenth
century, and of the necessity to suppress
those protests .. ." (p. 245). Both
the army and the propertied classes viewed
labor upheavals as the vanguard of
anarchy and revolution, and both
agreed that law and order must be
maintained. But neither group under-
stood the economic conditions forcing
workers to strike or comprehended
that laws shaped by property and management
inevitably constrained
labor. In short, "strike duty
revealed that the Army, as represented by the
officer corps, was not divorced from
middle and upper-class America. In-
deed, they shared a common set of
values" (p. xv).
Cooper's superb book stands in the
mainstream of military historiogra-
phy during the last several decades,
emphasizing that military history is
more than battles and blood. The
author's prodigious research relies heavily
on primary sources: personal papers and
memoirs, army records, published
government documents, newspapers, and
military and labor journals. The
book is detailed yet analytical, written
in straight forward (if unexciting)
prose, and essential reading for
military historians and students of the
Gilded Age.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Peter Maslowski
Thrust for Canada: The American
Attempt on Quebec in 1775-1776. By
Robert McConnell Hatch. (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979. xiv
+ 295p.; illustrations, notes, select
bibliography, index. $12.95.)
168 OHIO HISTORY
The campaign of 1775-76 was the stuff of
legend. Richard Montgomery's
hastily assembled, ill-matched, and
badly supplied force moved up Lake
Champlain and overwhelmed the upper St.
Lawrence area, despite the
valiant resistance of Major Preston at
Chambly. The march of Benedict
Arnold's force from the Kennebec River
to the St. Lawrence was an epic of
perseverence and endurance. The attack
of the two American commanders
on the final citadel of Quebec, when the
mounting problems of the campaign
made such a desperate move necessary,
seems almost more suited to the
pages of a novel: it took place on New
Year's Eve in a snowstorm! The
campaign ended with the first
significant naval battle of the war on moun-
tain-ringed Lake Champlain. The battle
of Valcour Island was a tactical
failure for the Union but a strategic
success, for the fleeing American army
was in disarray and for a whole summer
and autumn Arnold's little navy
was all that stood in defense of the
North.
Yet, though the campaign is the stuff of
legend, a legend has never grown.
Until this study no modern American
historian has found the story worth
retelling (although Kenneth Roberts made
it the setting for his powerful
novel, Rabble in Arms). Perhaps
the reason for the campaign's neglect lies
in the fact that the expedition was in
the end a costly failure. We are
conditioned by what is: if Canada were
now a part of the United Staes,
would we not be more interested? On the
other hand, perhaps it lies in the
later treason and disgrace of Arnold who
played such a large part in the
campaign.
This book does much to set things right.
Hatch has added little that is
new to the story, but he has mastered
all the recent scholarship-Canadian,
American, and British-as well as the
primary material and has produced
an eminently readable and balanced
account. He explains, as no other
American historian has, the failure of
the invaders to win the support of the
Canadians, a support critical to the
overall success of the expedition. His
portrait of Guy Carleton,the British
governor and military commander in
Canada, is fair and judicious-a man who
if he did not deserve the knight-
hood he was given for the defense of
Quebec did deserve it for his judicious
political handling of the province. The
author's portrait of Arnold, which
neither denies his accomplishments nor
tries to give him a martyr's crown,
is also convincing. He was, Hatch says,
a man of"towering pride," who also
"bore scars from a war with private
demons that left him short-tempered
and combative . . ." (p. 23).
All in all, this is an excellent work.
Though much less detailed than the
last study of the subject (Justin H.
Smith, Arnold's March to Quebec, N.Y.,
1903, and Our Struggle for the
Fourteenth Colony, N.Y., 1907), it is
more
balanced and more readable. I can
recommend it without reservation both
to the general reader and to the teacher
compiling a reading list on the
Revolutionary War for students.
SUNY at Buffalo R. Arthur
Bowler
Jamestown, 1544-1699. By Carl Bridenbaugh. (New York: Oxford Universi-
ty Press, 1980. xiv + 199p.;
illustrations, notes, appendices, chronology,
index. $12.95.)
Book Reviews
169
Jamestown, Virginia, is sung and spoken
of in ballads and folktales;
textbooks and patriotic speakers mention
it ubiquitously; demographers,
Indian scholars, social and political
historians write theses, articles, and
books about specialized aspects of it;
but no modern historian has fashioned
this material into a synthesis. Carl
Bridenbaugh's slim volume, Jamestown,
1544-1699, which attempts to integrate our knowledge of early
Jamestown
into a readable whole, was written by a
distinguished historian for "the
general reader"; it has the
potential for being an exciting and intellectually
solid addition to popular historical
literature. Unfortunately, it does not
fully realize this potential because on
the scholarly side the book is flawed
with dubious interpretations and
omissions in research. On the popular side
it does not have the verve that makes
for a best seller. Historians will not
think it a good account to give the
public and the public will probably not
find it very exciting.
As one example of an interpretive
problem, Bridenbaugh argues that "it
seems clear, given the superior
intelligence, knowledge, and experience of
Opechancanough, that he was the
principal architect" of Powhatan's Con-
federacy and that Powhatan himself
played a secondary role. The basic
evidence for this conclusion consists of
the fact that Opechancanough may
have travelled in Spain, been educated in
European culture and Christian-
ity, and undoubtedly possessed a fine
mind and leadership ability. This
evidence, however, does not make it
clear that he and not Powhatan built
the Indian empire unless one accepts the
assumption that European know-
ledge is essential to organizing
American natives. Bridenbaugh, of course,
could be right but he does not produce
the evidence to back up his claim. For
another example, in a major chapter of
the book Bridenbaugh revives
Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker's heroic interpretation
of Nathanial Bacon
and presents him as a man of great
principle fighting for essential reforms.
Bridenbaugh mentions only casually
Bacon's propensity for killing friendly
Indians and does not seem to think that
detracts from his heroism. Wilcomb
Washburn's convincing work showing Bacon
to be a man of little character
and far from a humanitarian reformer is
dismissed by Bridenbaugh because
it has "too long polarized
[accounts of the revolt] around the 'governor and
the rebel.'"
Admirably, for a book aimed at a general
audience, Jamestown rests upon
a substantial amount of primary research
and draws reasonably upon older
secondary literature. While that places
Bridenbaugh's efforts greatly ahead
of more popular historians' efforts, his
research curiously does not seem to
extend far into the extensive secondary
literature of the last fifteen years.
Aside from a few references to recent
articles, almost all of the works cited
were published prior to 1965. Thus, the
public does not get a narrative
based on the most up-to-date
professional work and, without adding any
bulk or pedantic quality, the book could
be much more well informed. Nor is
the narrative compelling. One cannot
find a story coursing through the
various chapters; at least half of the
last substantive chapter is a summary
of the preceding chapters.
Despite the above problems, this account
of Jamestown provides one ex-
tremely salutory service to popular
history. As Bridenbaugh argues, the
story of Jamestown and its settlers is,
in most respects, the story of a failure.
Obviously, Jamestown was a colony and
helped establish the American
170 OHIO HISTORY
nation; but it did not thrive as a town,
the vast majority of its settlers died of
disease or malnutrition soon after
arriving there, and it never achieved the
goals of the company that planted it.
While professional historians know all
of this, it is sobering and educational
for the American public to learn that
the history of the United States is not
solely a history of unbroken succes-
ses. For this lesson, Jamestown, with
all it mythic connotations, is a marve-
lous subject.
University of Winnipeg Bruce C. Daniels
At Odds: Women and the Family in
America from the Revolution to the
Present. By Carl N. Degler. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1980.
xiv + 527p.; tables, notes,
index. $19.95.)
"After two hundred years of
development both the future of the family
and the fulfillment of women as persons
are at odds as never before." To
arrive at this conclusion Carl Degler
has examined the major problems and
issues confronting American women and
their roles in the family since the
American Revolution. The purpose of this
volume is to bring together
women's history and the history of the family
and to demonstrate that the
two subjects, which scholars have too
frequently investigated separately,
are interrelated. The diaries, letters,
periodicals, and advice manuals De-
gler cites make it abundantly clear that
there is an obvious and significant
connection.
Several factors helped change the course
of nineteenth-century family
life. One was that a growing emphasis on
mutual affection between men
and women during courtship encouraged
women to seek a greater degree of
influence and automony once they were
married. Another factor was that
separate spheres of influence and duty
came to characterize family life:
mothers ran households and reared
children while fathers labored, usually
away from home, to provide financial
support. Moreover, the reconcep-
tualizing of childhood distinguished
children from adults, strongly implying
that children required a different kind
of love and understanding. All of
these factors placed considerable
demands on women at a time when many
women sought autonomy, reflected in a
growing number of activities and
organizations many women participated in
by 1900. For purposes of con-
solation and emotional release from the
demands of "true womanhood,"
some women entered into close personal
relationships with other women.
Some spurned marriage and family
altogether. Degler's chapters on abor-
tion and sexuality help shatter the myth
that Victorian women did not talk
much about sex or cope with its
ramifications. Abortion is viewed as signify-
ing the extent to which some women were
ready to defend the premise that
their bodies were truly their own. The
rising divorce rate suggests that a
number of women were willing to
challenge traditional vows of obedience to
their husbands. During the twentieth century
many of these trends were
accelerated by the depression and war.
Thus a dilemma: could the balance
between family and personal fulfillment
ever be achieved?
Book Reviews
171
Although contraception, women working,
and divorce have been pre-
viously studied, Degler's treatment is
fresh and illuminating. In most cases
he does not overturn existing
interpretations but capably synthesizes them
within the framework of his own thesis.
He disagrees with William O'Neill
(Everyone Was Brave) that it would have been wiser for women to have
pursued marriage and family reform rather
than asking for the vote. Deg-
ler's research leads him to suggest that
feminists have no real alternative to
reforming inter-family relations unless
they first achieve equal status with
men. And herein lies one criticism of At
Odds. This book about women and
family is more instructive on women's
attitudes and rights than it is on the
family as a dynamic institution and
woman's role in it. Most of the last part
of the book covering the twentieth
century deals with employment patterns
and the quest for equal rights. Little
attention is given to trends regarding
sexual fulfillment, modern courtship,
live-in arrangements, alternative life
styles, abortion, marriage and divorce,
and how all of these are aspects of
fulfillment and liberation for many
women attempting to resolve the dilem-
ma. Nevertheless, At Odds remains
a worthwhile book for scholars as well
as general readers wanting to learn more
about women and family life in
America.
Muskingum College Joe L.
Dubbert
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Making
of a Radical Feminist, 1860-1896.
By Mary A. Hill. (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1980. ix +
343p.; illustrations, notes,
bibliography, index. $14.95.)
One of the most exciting achievements of
Women's Studies has been the
rediscovery-in some cases the first
discovery-of "lost" women's lives and
works. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is one
of these women. Mary Hill's fine
biography introduces us to both a
complex human being and a brilliant, if
sometimes erratic, mind. Internationally
renowned by the 1890s as a lectur-
er and writer of articles, poetry and
books, Gilman speaks to readers with a
voice as contemporary as our own. Her
critique of marriage is a case in
point. A system which uses economic
dependency to force the female part-
ner into mindless submission and slavery
to boring and repetitive domestic
tasks is, she believed, both immoral and
destructive. In her 1898 landmark
study of Women and Economics she suggested
antidotes to marital incar-
ceration: cooperative living
arrangements with child care (she vigorously
attacked the Wife and Motherhood Myth)
and food preparation carried out
by professionals, thus freeing women to
develop their intellect, creativity
and independence. Equally modern are her
attacks on romance and
courtship as meaningless rituals, her
call for dress reform and physical
fitness for women (she was an ardent
runner) and her defense of same-sex
love. Her attendance at the 1896 Woman's
Suffrage convention reinforced
two other major philosophical ideas.
Debates over Elizabeth Cady Stanton's
Woman's Bible encouraged her own feminist religious concepts of God
the
Mother as a life-nurturing force
contrasted to the death-obsessed patriar-
chal god. At the same time, she became
convinced of the correctness of
172 OHIO HISTORY
Lester Ward's gynaecocentric theories
holding that only the female is essen-
tial for civilization's growth, stability and
continuity.
Such nonconformist views brought her
both denunciation and idolization.
Dr. Hill is interested not only in
Gilman's ideas, but in the events that led to
her radicalizaton. As Hill reveals, both
temperament and environment
played a role in shaping Gilman's mind.
Born into an upper-class family,
she was early exposed to individualistic
and nonconformist behavior: her
great aunts Harriet Beecher Stow,
Catharine Beecher and Isabella Beecher
Hooker were role models in rebellion and
reform. The painful mismatch and
divorce of her parents gave her early
insight into the injustices of marriage
and economic dependence. In young
womanhood, she was included in an
illustrious intellectual circle of
friends (such as Grace Channing, Ada
Blake, Mary Diman) where women's equality
was assumed, not questioned.
Around this time she had her first
serious love; the object was Martha
Luther. The surviving correspondence
reveals a passionate and sensual
attachment, albeit not consummated
sexually. Crushed when Martha mar-
ried, she found herself rebounding into
the arms of a local artist, Walter
Stetson. Following a pressured,
agonizing courtship, she submitted to a
disastrous marriage filled with
hysteria, quarrels and severe depression
both before and after the birth of their
daughter, Katharine. (Dr. Hill's
chronicling of the disintegrating
marraige is especially fine.) Eventually
she came under the care of Dr. S. Weir
Mitchell who forbade her to "touch
pen, brush or pencil as long as you
live." Such a prescription could only
exacerbate the depression and anxieties
of a curious and creative mind; her
splendid short story "The Yellow
Wallpaper" is a semi-autobiographical
account of that experience. Leaving
Walter, she fled to California where she
discovered the freedom of economic
independence and where she was ex-
posed to the people and ideas of the
California Renaissance. She became
immersed in Populist and Nationalist
thinking, had her reputation and
divorce pilloried by newspapers, wrote
and lectured prolifically, and gave
up her daughter to Walter and his new
bride. Caught up in the tumult of
new social/political thinking, her
personal crises and the crises of the late-
nineteenth century converged to complete
her radicalization.
What emerges from this carefully
constructed biography is the image of a
woman caught between
dichotomies-alternately rebellious and submis-
sive, healthy and melancholic, generous
and selfish, confident and inse-
cure-but always complex. She attempted
to hide these dualities by creat-
ing a public persona in her writings and her Autobiography. The private
self, however, is richly revealed in her
diaries and some of her letters. The
two selves are never completely reconciled,
as they cannot be in a world
which sends mixed and ambivalent
messages to women. Surely this partial-
ly accounts for the inconsistencies in
her own philosophies. She opposed
class structure, for example, but
believed in inferior and superior people
and held racist attitudes. Nevertheless,
she created a body of significant
work, much of which is timeless in its
analysis of the condition of women.
Dr. Hill analyzes Gilman's life with the
insight that comes from meticu-
lous research and years of intimacy with
Gilman's writings, diaries and
letters. Never does the biography sink
under a load of trivia; the author has
the gift of an uncluttered view of her
subject. Hill is also generally effective
in placing her within the framework of
both the literary and social/political
Book Reviews
173
movements of the time, although the
distinctions between Populist, Social-
ist and Nationlist thinking in the 1890s
are not clearly delineated. Still,
this is a solid and fine piece of
scholarly work.
The reader will not always
"like" Gilman, for she is all too human. But
her mind is a towering one, her struggle
to integrate both living and loving
is poignant, and the reader will not
soon forget her. This volume, however,
takes us only to 1896. The story of
Gilman's major productive years and her
happy second marriage to Houghton Gilman
remains to be told. Volume II
cannot arrive quickly enough.
Southwest State University Judith Ann Sturnick
Lucy Breckinridge of Grove Hill: The
Journal of a Virginia Girl, 1862-1864.
Edited by Mary D. Robertson. (Kent: The
Kent State University Press,
1980. xvi + 235p.;
genealogical table, notes, bibliography, index.
$14.00.)
Historians know well the rules of
evidence applying to personal accounts
of current events. When the writer's eye
looks toward publication, his pen
tends to the self-serving. This has been
decidedly noticeable with the post-
Watergate spate of memoirs and analyses
written by transgressors (Read
"crooks"), their
investigators, prosecutors, husbands; wives, lovers, ad
nauseum. Happily, we find that Lucy Gilmer Breckinridge intended
to
write her recollections and observations
during the Civil War as a balm for
the pain, worry, and boredom of life on the huge
Botetourt County, Virginia
estate of her family, Grove Hill. She
intended that the Journal would be
destroyed. Lucy died of typhoid fever on
June 16, 1865, less than a year
after the final entry in the Journal.
The Journal is an important
source for scholars of the antebellum South,
particularly as an instrument that
removes some of the shrouds that veil
the character of life for southern women
of the upper class. A casual reading
of the Journal might appear to
provide confirmation of many of the roman-
tic generalizations of the idealized
gentility and sterile life of such women.
Much more potent though is her insight
into the frustration, anger, and
despair of life "on a
pedestal." Lucy shared her frustration and despair only
with her Journal. It seemed not
to have occurred to her that other women,
her mother included, experienced many of
the same emotions. She, like
most of the women of her era and
station, felt singularly isolated.
In a general way, the Journal provides
the reader with a valuable sense of
the character of the Civil War from the
vantage of the people at home, an
interesting sense of the upper South's
reaction to that conflict, and a real
flavor of life on a beautiful and
gracious plantation in the Tidewater.
What is most important, timely, and
fascinating, is the sporadic yet
penetrating insight that she brings to
her condition as a woman caught in a
vise of rigid social expectations clamped
upon her that gave no room for
individual self-realization outside
those expectations. We are offered an
opportunity Lucy did not pursue: to
extrapolate from her personal feelings
to those of a group of women who
doubtless felt similarly. A few quotations
174 OHIO HISTORY
from the Journal may illustrate
the point: "I wish I was a man! I would
make my wife so happy" (p. 22);
"I read some in Michelet's book on Woman
(La Femme). It scares me of myself, and makes me rebel against my
lot" (p.
25); " ... I expect, for
mournfulness, being quite a desolate old maid or still
worse a married woman with ever so many
crying babies and a cross, horrid
husband as all husbands are" (p.
124). On men, "Oh, what would I not give
for a wife! Some pure, lovely
girl who would be mine and never learn to love
any male .... Women are so lovely, so
angelic, what a pity they have to
unite their fates with such coarse,
brutal creatures as men ..." (p. 134). Of
her husband to be: ". .. I am more
opposed to marring our happiness by
getting married" (p. 170). Finally,
Lucy comments at length on marriage as
it will relate to her:
Let people talk as much as they choose
about engagements being happy; my late
experience does not increase my faith in
the idea. Engagement leads too certainly to
matrimony. It is happy to be 'in maiden
expectation fancy free.' I envy girls who are
free-they cannot realize the blessedness
of it. I hate the idea exactly, 'The hour of
marriage ends the female reign! And we
give all we have to buy a chain; Hire men to
be our lords, who were our slaves; And
bribe our lovers to be perjured knaves. 0, how
they swear to heaven and the bride, They
will be kind to her and none beside; And to
themselves, the while in secret swear,
They will be kind to everyone but her.' Perhaps
I am unjust in my opinion of man and too
partial to woman. Sometimes I am wild and
schoolgirlish enough to dream of
connubial bliss. I am going to try very hard 'a gude
wife to be,' at any rate, and I expect I
shall be enabled to endure all the hardships. I
feel certain, as if I had a peep into
the book of fate, that I shall never marry Lieut.
Bassett, not that I shall prove false,
but something will prevent it. Maybe he'll jilt me!
That would be funny.
This is a wonderful book. The editor,
Mary D. Robertson, has done a
sensitive and supremely deft job of
editing Lucy Breckinridge's Journal.
The Prologue is just right in
providing a useful and informative context, the
Dramatis Personae touches the significant people, and the index is thor-
ough. John T. Hubbell wrote a Foreward
that is on the mark and his Kent
State University Press chose well,
produced a handsome volume, and in all
matters pertaining to the publication
acted tastefully. The book deserves a
wider readership than the predictable
group of scholars who will nod their
heads to it, at least appreciately.
Lake Erie College David
French
Blood Relations: The Rise and Fall of
the du Ponts of Delaware. By Leonard
Mosley. (New York: Atheneum, 1980. xvii
+ 426p.; genealogical tables,
illustrations, source notes, notes, index. $17.50.)
With his background as a novelist and
scriptwriter, Leonard Mosley dis-
tills over 150 years of du Pont family
history into a swift and enthralling
narrative in Blood Relations. It
was an eventful century and a half between
the family's arrival from France in 1800
and 1974 installation of a non-
family chairman at Du Pont. The firm
supplied the ammunition for the
Book Reviews
175
world's wars, nurtured the rise of
General Motors, and created a new realm
of synthetic fabrics.
But despite the importance of Du Pont in
any history of the du Ponts,
Mosley focuses his attention on the
characters rather than on the corpora-
tion, using the firm primarily as the
backdrop to a personal drama. Howev-
er, he chooses to feature only those
family members most immediately
involved with the company. As a result,
Pierre Samuel (P.S.) and Alfred I.
du Pont dominate the book as they did
their relations, first as partners who
brought the firm into the twentieth
century and later as dedicated enemies
whose conflicts ranged through
emotional, political, and financial skir-
mishes. This limited scope reduces most
of the family to mere walk-on roles
as they impinge on the lives of the
central characters. Mosley chooses to
maintain a cohesive narrative rather
than providing an encyclopedic
account of the entire family or even a
detailed examination of the members
he considers most prominent. His
intentions are those of a storyteller, and
he uses the historical elements of the
du Ponts as the material for his
seductive melodrama.
Admittedly, the du Ponts fit a
melodramatic model, the allure of their
immense wealth heightened by the secrecy
which has long surrounded the
family. And, at least in Mosley's hands,
the family history overflows with
vicious feuds, stormy marriages, steamy
liasons, murder, and insanity, all
against an undercurrent of business
intrigue. But while the material may
have certain inherent melodramatic
qualities, chapter titles such as
"Brotherly Hate," "Dirty
Deals," and "Filthy Rich" demonstrate that Mos-
ley emphasizes the sensational facets of
their history. He also manipulates
the material to create a sense of
suspense. Of itself, there is nothing wrong
with making the reader eager to discover what happens
next. Further, the
threat of imminent violent death which
hangs over the early chapters deal-
ing with the Brandywine black powder
factory is factually appropriate as
well as stylistically effective. But the
melodramatic technique of concluding
most chapters on a cliffhanging note
with life, love, or the company im-
periled becomes irritating through its
blatant repetition, regardless of its
efficacy in drawing the reader through
the story.
But the issues of suspense and
repetition create additional problems. By
opening the book with a prologue set in
1918, Mosley eliminates mundane
chronological order and arouses the
reader's curiosity as to how this scene
fits into the book's overall pattern.
Unfortunately, the author repeats the
details of the prologue in virtually
identical form later in the book as well as
reiterating other material. The prologue
discloses that Pierre Samuel's
wife, Alice, "had been in love with
P.S. as long as she could remember"(p.
10), while Chapter 11 contains the
amazing revelation that "Alice had been
in love with P.S. since she was a little
girl" (p. 151). To make matters worse,
Chapter 17 begins, "As far back as
the early 1890s Alice ... was in love with
her cousin P.S. du Pont" (p. 238).
And these are far from the only instances
of repeated material, the most insulting
occurring after the interval of a
single page.
Beyond melodrama and repetition,
Mosley's neglect of documentation
represents the most serious of his
errors in his search for a novelistic style.
Perhaps his goal is a popular book with
necessary compressions and eli-
sions, but his total lack of footnotes
to primary sources weakens the work by
176 OHIO HISTORY
making the material as well as his
manipulation of it historically dubious.
Passages such as "Lammot had
another glass of Henry's excellent burgundy
and accepted the mission" (p. 44)
might pass for mere literary fluidity
without seriously damaging the account's
accuracy. But for Mosley's state-
ment that Lammot du Pont's widow
"felt that, with the exception of the
place beside her in bed, [her son P.S.]
had all but taken over from Lammot"
(p. 107) to be unaccompanied by a single
indication of its source is inexcus-
able. Time and again he attributes
feelings and motives which his general-
ized discussion of "letters"
and "papers" in the source notes do nothing to
substantiate. Mosley even sinks to sheer
mind reading: "He never said so,
but he was almost certainly pleased when
Hoover won" (p. 330). The reader
of a novel might accept such literary
license, but anyone concerned with
scholarly accuracy cannot.
Ultimately, Blood Relations is
good reading but a flawed history.
Winterthur Museum Christopher L.
Bensch
Correspondence of James K. Polk. Volume V. 1839-1841. Edited by Wayne
Cutler. (Nashville: Vanderbilt
University Press, 1980. xxxvii + 836p.;
illustrations, symbols, notes, index.
$20.00.)
This new volume of James F. Polk
correspondence has all the fine fea-
tures of the four which preceded it.
Most of the correspondence relates to
state and national politics. During this
period Polk completed his second
term as Speaker of the United States
House of Representatives, campaigned
for and won the Tennessee governorship,
attempted to win nomination for
the vice presidency as a Democrat,
managed Van Buren's presidential cam-
paign in Tennessee, and campaigned again
and lost his second bid for the
governorship. Polk's state campaign
attracted national attention and con-
tributed to a reputation that somewhat
disputes his "dark horse" quality in
1844, when he ran for the presidency.
Polk and his friends took politics more
seriously than most, even for their
time. They seemed honestly to believe
that the Whigs were really Federal-
ists, and that a minor political victory
for that party posed a threat to
democracy throughout the land. Much of
the correspondence deals with
choosing candidates, planning political
rallies, and rejoicing or lamenting
about election results. In an age before the advent of electronic
media. the
personal appearance of a candidate was
of critical importance. So, too, was
the presence of a reliable partisan
newspaper in every locale. Such a journal
could well swing an election. One
correspondent wrote Polk, "I agree with
you that we labour under a great
disadvantage in not having a sound
Democratic paper in this town to
promulgate the principles of our party & to
expose federal Whiggery in its true
colors."
Very little of Polk's official
correspondence as governor is reproduced in
this collection. Since Tennessee's
governors exercised a minimum of power,
much of such correspondence related to
pardons, applications for office and
other routine matters. On the other
hand, there is a rather detailed exposi-
tion of the carefully orchestrated but
unsuccessful campaign to make Polk
Book Reviews
177
the Democrats' vice presidential
candidate in 1840. There is also a wealth of
material on proposed railroads and other
internal improvements, much of
which is contained in correspondence
with railroad promoter J.G.M. Ram-
sey of Mecklenburg.
There are also a number of letters
relating to Polk's Mississippi planta-
tion and problems with its slaves. It is
always something of a shock to
realize how many of our presidents were
slaveholders and how well they
filled that role. At no time did Polk
question the institution of slavery or
admit any moral question relating to it.
He did very much object to the
abolitionists, and even accused
Congressman Seth Gates of "criminal" be-
havior because he sent out under his
frank a report from the "World Con-
vention of Abolitionists."
"Were it not for the official station which you
occupy," wrote Polk, "I should
treat the part you have bourne in the dark
transactions with the scorn and contempt
which I entertain for the proceed-
ings themselves and which I am sure all
patriotic citizens attached to the
Union and desiring its preservation will
pronounce upon your conduct."
Family matters occupy some of the
correspondence, though Sarah Polk
was also very much involved in political
affairs, acting as her husband's
manager when he was absent from home,
and keeping him informed of
developments. Some more personal
material is included, such as a rather
poignant account of the death of Polk's
brother Samuel. But the emphasis,
as it should be, is on politics and
economics.
All students of Jacksonian politics are
indebted to Wayne Cutler and his
associates for this outstanding series.
Serious Polk scholars, however, will
still have to consult the original
materials, since the editors could include
only 688 items from the more than 2,400
that are available. The editorial
work is of the highest quality, and the
Vanderbilt University Press has put
the volume in a very handsome format.
This is a most welcome addition to
the published source material of the
period. A thirty-seven page index adds
to the book's usefulness.
Wilmington College Larry
Gara
The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Vol. 7. December 9, 1862-March 31, 1863.
Edited by John Y. Simon. (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University
Press, 1979. xxiv + 588p.;
illustrations, notes, chronology, calendar,
index. $34.00.)
The seventh volume of The Papers of
Ulysses S. Grant, from December 9,
1862, to the end of March, 1863, covers
a period of ebb tide in the life of the
general, and a story of remarkable
recovery with a turn toward success.
This volume begins with Grant facing a
crisis created by distructive Con-
federate cavalry raids against his
supply lines in Mississippi and Tennes-
see. It concludes with his army poised
for attack against the formidable
Confederate fortress at Vicksburg.
Vicksburg became Grant's prime target
after his army, still flushed with
the victory of Shiloh, occupied the
important railroad terminal, Corinth,
Mississippi. Stymied throughout the
following summer from his Vicksburg
178 OHIO HISTORY
goal by Earl Van Dorn's tenacious
defense of the river bastion, he chaffed
impatiently until after General William
Rosecrans' army turned back a
spirited Sterling Price-Earl Van Dorn
attack on Corinth in early October.
He then began to reach out more
emphatically toward the capture of Vicks-
burg.
Success in this venture did not come
easily to Grant who was still seeking
to prove that he could command a large
army. Van Dorn, a continuing thorn
in his side recently assigned to the
Confederate cavalry, raided Holly
Springs, Grant's center of operations,
destroying necessary supplies, dis-
rupting communications, and creating a
Union morale problem. General
Nathan B. Forrest followed this action
quickly with costly raids against
Humboldt and Trenton, Tennessee. Grant
suddenly felt new pressure: from
the enemy in the field, from the War
Department, from deep within himself.
Then, methodically but surely, recovery
began. The mettle that would
carry him to greatness began to shine
through. He reeled for a moment,
recovered, then exploded in a furor of
activity designed to assume the initia-
tive lost to the Southern offensive. He
put his own cavalry into action,
ranging the Mississippi countryside far
and wide, cutting supply lines,
harassing the partisans, rounding up
contraband slaves for his work force.
His troops disabled the Mobile and Ohio
Railroad upon which the Rebel
Army depended for supplies and
reinforcements. His engineers began a
second canal effort in a new neck of
land across the Mississippi River from
Vicksburg in a second effort to bypass
the guns that still controlled the
passageway of Union gunboats moving up
and down the river. He systema-
tically began weeding out the
inefficient from among his staff officers while
turning more enthusiastically for advice
to the commanders he admired,
good men like William T. Sherman, James
B. McPherson, and Admiral
David D. Porter, whose naval forces were
cooperating in the Vicksburg
effort. In the early months of 1863 the
general matured. The Federal Army
in the Mississippi Valley recovered its
equilibrium.
Still there were dark days ahead. Errors
in judgment were costly. There
was some suggestion of continued
drinking, though this appears to be main-
ly the ravings of his foes. The press
and some military authorities speeded
up criticisms of his leadership. He
created a new furor within his depart-
ment and beyond with the expulsion of
Jewish sutlers from his theater of
action. He suffered a severe military
setback in Sherman's premature
attack against Chickawas Bluffs, an effort
which he had sanctioned. The
new canal efforts had to be aborted in
the wake of spring flooding.
In these moments of crisis Grant did
begin to recover, but not without
some personal suffering. He worried
about the welfare of his family, espe-
cially his children; about the health of
his men; and about the ineffective-
ness of some of his commanders and their
continuing bickering for higher
rank. He worried too much about the
Confederate cavalry even after the
departures of Van Dorn and Forrest from
the theater. General John A.
McClernand, a political appointee,
especially piqued his sensitivities, and
his correspondence bristled with
indignation over the unwillingness of the
Lincoln appointee to cooperate with him.
Little things also set off continued
annoyance. The weather failed to
cooperate. Cotton buyers intruded their
demands into his more serious
military concerns. Telegraph operators
were uncooperative. Lengthy letters
Book Reviews
179
from his generals in the field made for
difficult reading. There was a short-
age of forage for his horses. He even
lost his false teeth in a careless acci-
dent.
Still, to his great credit, Grant moved
on. He accepted stoically the abort-
ing of the canal; he cashiered a few
discontents, blocked promotions of the
unqualified, and transferred and retired
some of the others. He brought
harmony to the combined naval and army
actions. He even sanctioned the
purchase of some private property back
at home from funds he had accumu-
lated in the field. Grant's personal
slogan was never more obvious than in
the efforts toward Vicksburg: ". .
. never wait to have them attack you."
When his own troops were reluctant to
move, the general sent personal
encouragement.
As this volume ends, the bayous begin to
open to Union persuasion,
Federal commanders are moving with new
determination, Yankee rams are
running the blockade, and Grant begins
to assume a new optimism while
McClerndon disappears into the Arkansas
swamps. Even General Henry W.
Halleck, in Washington, acknowledges
Grant's competence and begins to
accept his command decisions as
"satisfactory."
The great value of this series becomes
more apparent with each new
volume from the press. Grant, himself,
is no great chronicler of war, nor has
he at this time a great penchant for
history. He was surrounded by intelli-
gent and observant officers who poured
their summaries of deeds and
thoughts into his headquarters, creating
a vivid picture of the beginnings of
a new phase in Civil War action. Grant's
spelling is a sometimes annoyance
and the small print of the editor's
comments and the correspondence incom-
ing to Grant's headquarters is an
obstacle to the hurried reader, but neither
of these affects the value of this
undertaking. The harried historians of war
will welcome this and the coming
volumes.
Wittenberg University Robert Hartje
The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Vol. 8. April 1 -July 6, 1863. Edited by John
Y. Simon. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1979. xxiii +
609p.; illustrations, notes,
chronology, calendar, index. $35.00.)
"Vicksburg is the key." These
words of President Abraham Lincoln might
well be the title page of this volume of
The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. These
pages recount the unfolding of Grant's
final combined land and river opera-
tion against the city and the long siege
that brought about its fall. It is also
the story of a man, a general, a
commander of men growing in self-
confidence, in strategic abilities, and
in firmness of decision making. These
are the months that the North waited
expectantly for the victory they felt
long overdue, the months the South
struggled on desperately, firmly com-
mitted to its cause, tenaciously
defending Vicksburg in support of its con-
tentions.
All the ingredients of melodrama are
here in Volume 8: men in uniform
frustrated by fate and firepower,
enduring in mass movements of armies
through space ill-designed for such
heroics; commanders in action, some,
180 OHIO HISTORY
their genius overshadowing the
expectations of even their staunchest sup-
porters, the inept failing at the moments of their
greatest challenges; the
land, strange and mysterious, usually
vicious to the invader of alien soil;
the prisoners of war and the question of
exchange, the freedmen and their
confusions about freedom, the sutlers
peddling their wares and buying cot-
ton in the zones of battle, and the
enemy ever present and always threaten-
ing. These pages close upon the
exhilaration of victory and the melancholy
of defeat, conquest, and surrender of
armies; the ending of one important
phase in a general's career; suggestions
of the turning of a new page.
Indeed, a new Grant touches the reader
throughout this important
volume. The new Grant combines firmness
and gentleness in his dealings
with his command, but he gives no
quarter to those who fail to live up to his
expectations. Of one of his "gassy"
officers, he wrote: "I feel a strong inclina-
tion to arrest him and trust to find
evidence against him afterward." In the
case of the controversial General John
A. McClernand, whose dismissal
from his command he finally engineered
less than two weeks before Vicks-
burg's fall, he wrote: "He is
entirely unfit for the position of Corps Comman-
der ...."
Grant reveals an unusual audacity,
carefully calculating risk, then order-
ing movement when the odds favor his
dispositions. He shows a new rest-
lessness and expectancy for victory, a
contentious dislike and distrust of
the press, and a growing intensity
within that leads him often to the solace
of his family-especially son Fred who
spends these invasion days with his
father-in his friends, and on some rare
occasions in private bouts with the
bottle, though there is no tangible
evidence that this adversely affected his
leadership.
As general in charge of the operations
in the Mississippi Valley, he made
firm and important decisions: he gave up
on the canal on an isthmus across
the river from Vicksburg as a
possibility for bypassing the city, he
cautioned strongly against a premature
running of the blockade by Admiral
David Porter's ships, and he decided it
was unprofitable to continue clearing
the Yazoo Valley. Threatened by the
omnipresence of Confederate General
Joseph E. Johnston, he drew up new
plans. In conjunction with Porter's
riverboats he would attack the Vicksburg
position from south.
Bruinsburg, Fort Gibson, Grand Gulf, a
few of many, then onto Jackson;
twenty days from Bruinsburg to the siege
of a city, men and materials
moving through a land crisscrossed with
muddy roads and overflowing
streams, bothered constantly by rebels,
but "abundantly supplied with corn,
bacon, beef and mutton." General
Benjamin H. Grierson's cavalry raids
through Mississippi, cutting railroads
and burning bridges, created a wel-
come "diversion" for advancing
troops. But bloody battles against stubborn
defenders were costly, slowed progress,
and taught harsh lessons. However,
the orders from the general were always
to move on, and they did, until the
garrison's hopes lay only "in
Providence and Jo Johnston."
Johnston never showed up, and Grant
continued the operations that
brought him fame. "Rebellion has
assumed that shape now that it can only
terminate by the complete subjugation of
the South . . . it is our duty
therefore to use every means to weaken
the enemy by destroying their
means of cultivating their fields, and
in every other way possible." Grant
wrote this in mid-April. "I never
expect to have an army under my com-
Book Reviews
181
mand whipped unless it is very badly
whipped..." he explained his person-
al philosophy of war to his father a few
days later. Before Vicksburg in a
long siege, he put his war philosophy
into action.
Vicksburg fell and Grant and his men
rejoiced, as did the gentlemen in
the government at Washington. In the
midst of history, Sherman praised
his friend for his astounding victory,
but he also warned Grant against "the
increase of flattery."
This volume holds a good study of the
building of the canal, and a short
dissertation on Grant's drinking
including Lincoln's statement that he
would like to present some of Grant's
whiskey "to other Generals not so
successful." There is also much
correspondence to support the good relations
between Grant and Porter and between
Grant and Sherman. The volume
also contains an excellent index.
To be just a bit picky, this reviewer
would like a fuller explanation of the
McClernand dismissal, and the extension
of the short biographical sketches
of other officers to include service to
the end of the war.
But these are only tiny shadows at most
on a distinguished work destined
for much use, not only by scholars, but
by students of the human dilemma in
that most tragic human adventure called
war. Grant is always the focus,
and his own writing is often the
expression of events.
Wittenberg University Robert Hartje
Selected Letters of William Dean
Howells, volume 2, 1873-1881. Edited
and
annotated by George Arms and Christoph
K. Lohmann. Textual editors
Christoph K. Lohmann and Jerry Herron.
(Boston: Twayne Publishers,
1979. xiv + 371p.; illustrations, notes,
textual record, word-division, list
of correspondents, index. $30.00.)
Here is the Ohioan Howells from age 35
to 44, editor of The Atlantic
Monthly and a rising novelist. A later volume in this series
will carry the
letters into the 1880s, when Howells
became perhaps the most respected
American writer of the day and leader of
the "realists."
Some of these letters have been
published before. His daughter Mildred
Howells brought out an excellent Life
in Letters of William Dean Howells in
1928, and in 1960 there appeared two
volumes of Mark Twain-Howells
Letters, edited by Henry Nash Smith and William M. Gibson.
Special groups
of letters have appeared from time to
time, such as Leo Coyle's edition in
Ohio History, "Howells' Campaign Biography of Rutherford B.
Hayes: A
Series of Letters" (October, 1957).
The present book is part of A
Selected Edition of William Dean Howells,
which will run to thirty volumes or
more, six of them letters. It has editorial
apparatus of almost unbelievable detail,
but admirable footnotes to the
letters and twenty-six pages of indices
make it useful for all readers.
Howells' letters are interesting as a
kind of autobiography. The largest
single group are some sixty which he wrote,
always on Sunday, to his
Ohioan father, William Cooper Howells,
longtime editor of the Jefferson
Sentinel. A loyal and supportive son (who nevertheless sometimes
lectures
182 OHIO HISTORY
his parent roundly), young Howells, who
had lived in seven or eight differ-
ent Ohio towns, often writes about Ohio
news, especially politics, and not
only to his father but also to J.M.
Comly of the Ohio State Journal, James
Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, and
others.
Howells often complains of "a storm
of visitors" and of heavy social
obligations: "I was out four times
and Elinor twice," he writes to his father
one Sunday, "and we had invitations
to parties or dinner every night of the
week, I believe. I don't know any harder
work than this sort of enjoyment."
Editor and novelist both, he is
extremely busy: "You will forgive me, I hope
for not answering your letter
sooner," he says to one correspondent, "when I
tell you that I have written about four
hundred letters to contributors
during the past four months, and that
this was but a small part of my work,
for I have been finishing a new story
[i.e., novel] of my own, reading proofs,
MSS by the cord, and writing
criticisms."
These well-edited letters present a
self-portrait of Howells at his desk,
growing every year, a record of hard
work and talent.
University of Illinois at Chicago
Circle James B. Stronks
Journal of A Tamed Bureaucrat: Nils
A. Olsen and the BAE, 1925-1935.
Edited by Richard Lowitt. (Ames: The
Iowa State University Press, 1980.
viii + 245p.; notes, index. $15.95.)
The Bureau of Agricultural Economics was
founded in 1922 to foster and
promote research in production costs,
marketing, and certain regulatory
areas. Nils A. Olson (1886-1940)
provides researchers with a detailed
account of the intricacies of the BAE
from 1925 to 1935, the year of his
resignation. His journal, aptly titled
by editor Richard Lowitt, is significant
because it spans key years in the
development of agricultural policy from
the voluntaristic administrations of the
1920s through the New Deal years.
Olson's insights are crisply edited and
provide a compendium of adminis-
trative and political information of
value to those interested in the intrica-
cies of agricultural policy. The
observations are detailed, at times amusing,
and always informative. In a detached
manner Olson develops the style of
the chronicler rather than that of
activist. Perhaps Olson's role suggests a
bureaucratic functionary instead of the
activist policymaker.
Olson's accounts are rich in
interdepartmental relations, agricultural
legislation, the Agricultural Adjustment
Administration, and contain a
plethora of political personalities from
George Peek to Harry Byrd. He
provides information on voluntary
agricultural pressure groups such as the
Farmers Union.
Throughout the journal, Olson's subdued
criticism on such issues as Hen-
ry Wallace's reliance on the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration lends
credence to the making of a
"tamed" bureaucrat. On the surface the entries
are muted and indeed tame; yet, beneath
the surface Olson's demure testi-
mony suggests the maze of politicization
which took place in the develop-
ment of federal agricultural policy in
credit issues, cost of production, and
price supports.
Book Reviews
183
A ten-page introduction by Lowitt, along
with brief explanatory footnotes
throughout the journal, assist the
reader in placing in perspective issues
and legislation.
What emerges from Olson's journal
entries is the tremendous complex-
ities of agricultural policy. On the
basis of Olson's observations, one is
tempted to observe that federal
agricultural policy seems to have been
developed more by political and
administrative elites than by those directly
engaged in farming at the point of
production, and thus the understandable
frustration and anger in the 1930s of
the Farmers Holiday Association and
Farmers Union.
Kenyon College Roy Wortman
Selma, Lord, Selma. By Sheyann Webb and Rachel West Nelson as told to
Frank Sikora. (University: The
University of Alabama Press, 1980. xiv
+ 147p.; illustrations, afterword.
$9.95.)
The march from Selma to Montgomery,
Alabama, in the spring of 1965
protesting voting rights discrimination
is one of the milestones of the Amer-
ican civil rights movement. This episode
reveals the brutal effects of seg-
regation and discrimination which led to
confrontation and resulted in
national outrage and further gains such
as the Voting Rights Act of 1965
and a stronger role for federal
authorities in attempting to redress the
wrongs of the past. The events of the
three months culminating in the
fateful march are presented in
retrospect in this slim volume through the
eyes and hearts of two small black girls
who were neighbors in Selma.
Sheyann Webb and Rachel West, eight and
nine years old at the time,
recount in straightforward style their
gradual awareness of and involve-
ment in the protest. Two of many
children involved, they alternate in de-
scribing their initial inability to
comprehend the discrimination and hatred
which was part of daily life in their
South, and finally their decisions to
participate in what they realized was
their movement. Participation of
these and other children helped develop
credibility for the non-violent char-
acter which was so vital to the success
of the protest and resulted in bring-
ing their parents and many others, white
and black, into the swelling ranks
of the crusade against injustice.
Although the movement was spearheaded
by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and
local leaders, much of its numerical and
spiritual strength came from these
common people who, sparked by in-
stances of brutality or by the courage
of persistent adults and children,
finally broke the bonds of tradition and
raised their voices in demand for
their human rights.
The strength of this volume lies in its
firsthand description of the mood of
defiance in Selma: the words and actions
of Dr. King; the togetherness
created by common suffering which
bridged age, color, and religion; the
eerie realization of the proximity of
death; the demoralization created by
being dispersed by mounted troopers with
clubs and tear gas; the revival of
unity stirred by the songs of protest
recalling the age-old ordeal. These and
184 OHIO HISTORY
many other vignettes from the memories
of two participants combine to
reproduce the flavor of human struggle
against oppression. Historical con-
text is provided in brief introductions
to each segment as the reminiscence
builds. Photographs of major events and
persons aid in the portrayal of the
personal impact of events which
eventually had national significance. This
book is neither a comprehensive history of the Selma
march nor of the civil
rights movement; it does not claim to
be. Interested readers will regret the
absence of suggestions for further
reading. As an accent to more detailed
scholarly works on the same topic and as
a stimulus for additional study,
this moving and readable account should
be included in both academic and
public libraries.
Archives and Records Division Michael Everman
Oklahoma Department of Libraries
Black Americans in the Roosevelt Era:
Liberalism and Race. By John B.
Kirby. (Knoxville: The University of
Tennessee Press, 1980. xvii +
254p.; notes, bibliographical essay,
index. $14.50.)
Gunnar Myrdal wrote in An American
Dilemma that the administration
of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"changed the whole configuration of the Neg-
ro problem" in the United States.
He also claimed that the New Deal les-
sened racism in America by introducing
social legislation which, for one of
the few times in the country's history,
had not excluded blacks from its
benefits. Writing that American racism
was a result of white prejudice and
the depressed living conditions of the
black population, Myrdal argued that
racism would begin to disappear when one
cause or the other began to
subside. By 1944 when he published his
study, Myrdal suggested that the
New Deal had already begun to improve
the living conditions of many
blacks, and that racism would fade as
black and white Americans became
more socially and economically alike.
For Myrdal as well as for the
"white race liberals" and many of the black
"spokespersons" in John B.
Kirby's fascinating and well-documented study
of black Americans during the 1930s and
early 1940s, class and economic
needs rather than racial prejudice were
at the heart of the "Negro problem"
in America. As a result they viewed the
New Deal and the policies of the
Roosevelt administration as the most
effective means of alleviating the
country's racial problems.
The title of Kirby's book is somewhat
misleading since the first portion
examines a handful of "white race
liberals" who were determined that the
benefits of the New Deal would not be
reserved for whites only. Harold L.
Ickes, Clark Foreman, Will W. Alexander,
and Eleanor Roosevelt were
convinced that the attitudes of whites
would change as the material condi-
tions of blacks improved. Since they
believed that reform liberalism was
implementing racial liberalism, they
often urged caution for those who
sought rights that were more
"social than economic" for fear that the entire
reform program might be jeopardized.
Although black New Deal participants
such as Mary McLeod Bethune,
Book Reviews
185
Robert C. Weaver, Robert L. Vann, and
Forrester B. Washington were often
far more critical of the racial
blindness of the Roosevelt administration,
they too believed that the "Negro
problem" was essentially one of class. For
this reason they saw New Deal
legislation as the best way to elevate the
black masses. They continued to support
it despite constant disappoint-
ments resulting from bigoted legislative
implementation and administra-
tion timidness.
Black intellectuals and activitists
outside the Roosevelt administration
were far less willing to give their
wholehearted endorsement to its policies.
Even so, Walter White, Charles S.
Johnson, Ralph J. Bunche, and John P.
Davis supported the New Deal in varying
degrees, for they too believed that
the walls of prejudice and segregation
could best be breached through black
economic advancement. A Phillip
Randolph, on the other hand, feared that
the New Deal policies were making blacks
too dependent on whites, while
W.E.B. DuBois refuted the positive
impact of liberal reform because of the
engulfing nature of racial prejudice in
America. Unlike most of the other
individuals in the study, DuBois argued
that since racial prejudice was far
more emotional than rational in origin
it would not be eliminated by black
material improvement. From DuBois's
perspective, the solution to the
"Negro problem" was both more
difficult and distant than most of his fellow
Americans thought.
Kirby is sympathetic to the efforts of
the "white race liberals" as well as
the black thinkers and activists who saw
the New Deal as the most effective
means of combatting racism. While he
agrees with Myrdal that blacks
benefitted during the Roosevelt years,
Kirby is critical of the one-
dimensional outlook of those black and
white thinkers who viewed the
"Negro problem" as essentially
one of class rather than one of class and
race. As he argues, that outlook has
left a number of troublesome legacies.
Too many "white race
liberals," for example, were more concerned during
the 1930s with the future of liberal
reform than the future of black Amer-
icans. Cultural homogeneity rather than
cultural pluralism dominated the
thoughts of too many black and white
thinkers during the period and
contributed to their relatively facile
solutions to the "Negro problem." Too
often white bigotry and prejudice went
unchallenged, since racial problems
were viewed largely in economic terms.
And too often racism was seen as a
rational belief that could be nullified
rationally, rather than as the cancer-
ous dilemma it is.
Marshall University David C. Duke
Not Working: An Oral History of the
Unemployed. By Harry Maurer. (New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979.
xi + 279p.; $12.95.)
Here is a stylish oral history of
unemployment as told by 291 unemployed
people. Harry Maurer, an investigative
journalist and former editor of The
Nation, toils with admirable honesty, admitting that during
these inter-
views "I was troubled by what Studs
Terkel calls 'this thief-in-the-night
feeling,' the knowledge that I was
taking much and giving little. The irony
186 OHIO HISTORY
of the fact that I was happily employed
writing a book about unemployment
did not escape me or my companions"
(p. 8). After reading this book, most
will agree that Maurer has contributed
more than enough to cast aside his
"thief-in-the-night feeling."
Maurer uses eight themes, one to a
chapter, to unite his interviews, yet he
carefully preserves the individual
voices, letting the interviews "speak for
themselves" (p. ix). The chapter
titles reveal the thrust of the book and are
worth listing: "Getting
Fired," "Out of Work," "Schemes to Get By,"
"Look-
ing for Work," "Minority
Youth," "Older Professionals," "Fighting Back,"
and "The Alton [unionization]
Struggle."
Maurer's introduction shares insights
gleaned during his interviewing. It
is surprisingly easy to get people to
talk, he says; the real task is to escape
those with nothing to say, and to steer
those that do into honest revelation.
He senses that "unemployed people
feel they have been robbed of some-
thing, yet on a deeper level they feel
it was their fault" (p. 5). Many "soothe
the personal sting" by blaming a
handy social group for "taking all the
jobs." And although devout
Christians may suffer from unemployment, "at
least it is not a meaningless disaster
since the Lord presumably has his
reasons" (p. 6). The author
believes the United States, like Europe, could
have nearly full employment if the demand
for it were widespread enough
to make it a priority for politicians.
We cannot blame the politicians, howev-
er, for "there are very few
organizations of the unemployed-and that is
astonishing, given the million of
Americans out of work" (p.12).
I can only touch the horde of personal
stories tucked away in this fascinat-
ing book. Mike Gunther (all names are
changed), a fifty-five year old his-
tory professor tired of internal
political squabbles, quit his job of twenty
years in a prestigious small college.
When Maurer asked if he had any
qualms about taking unemployment pay,
Gunther replied, "Absolutely
none." Gunther argued that he had
been exploited by the "capitalistic sys-
tem." He earned only $1900 when he
started teaching, and in the bargain
had been subjected to all the
frustrations and abuses that come to the life of
a college teacher. "The least they
can do now is give me one year of unem-
ployment" (p. 130).
Education can be a hindrance in the
bureaucratic labyrinths, but human
nature is pretty much the same. A lad
much younger than Gunther, Freddie
Dreyfus, moved to New York to "make
it in rock music." If he was going to
"bust" himself, it had to be
in rock music. "It's the only thing I can do that
hard" (p. 98). He believed "artists"
like him "were kings." Freddie was not
going to struggle as hard as he said he
was, however, for like the professor
he saw unemployment pay as a right.
"It's a definite part of the social
system. It's another method of
survival" (p. 97). Some, however, like forty-
nine year old California farm worker
Juan Camacho, saw causes and effects
much more clearly: "The real
problem is that there are too many people ...
in the Salinas Valley ... But you can
understand it because the pay is so
bad in Mexico" (p. 77).
This book should be on all library
shelves as an aid to the jobless, union
people, and ordinary citizens searching
for an understanding of our strange
out-of-kilter era. The personal touch
has been preserved in this memorable
example of oral history.
University of Dayton Frank F.
Mathias
Book Reviews
187
A Bibliography of Iowa Newspapers,
1836-1976. Compiled by The Iowa Pilot
Project of the Organization of the
American Historians-Library of Con-
gress United States Newspaper Project.
(Iowa City: Iowa State Historical
Department, 1979. viii + 371p.;
bibliography. $8.00 paper.)
A Bibliography of Iowa Newspapers,
1836-1976, the first comprehensive
guide to that state's newspaper
resources, is the result of a growing aware-
ness on the part of curators and
researchers that the traditional printed
newspaper bibliography-quickly outdated
and expensive to produce-is
inadequate as a reference tool.
In response to this recognized need for
effective bibliographical control of
American newspapers, the Library of
Congress and the Organization of
American Historians sponsored the
unfortunately short-lived United States
Newspaper Project (1976-1978). The
project was designed to provide lead-
ership, at the national level, in the
areas of newspaper bibliography and
preservation. One goal of the project
was to give clearer definition to the
procedures and resources needed to
compile and edit newspaper biblio-
graphical data at the state level, to
convert that information into machine-
readable form, and to enter it into a
national data base. The State Historical
Society of Iowa was chosen to conduct a
pilot project, one objective of which
was to develop and test procedural
models applicable to other state biblio-
graphical programs. A Bibliography of
Iowa Newspapers, 1836-1976, printed
from a computerized data base, is the
result of the pilot project.
The format and scope of the bibliography
are comparable to other pub-
lished newspaper guides. The volume
consists of 6,500 extant and non-
extant titles held by some 700 Iowa
institutions and out-of-state repositor-
ies. General newspapers as well as the
special interest press are included.
Entries in the guide are arranged
alphabetically by city and by title within
each city. Titles are alphabetized by
key word (i.e., the first word in the title
other than articles, the name of the
city or village in which the newspaper
was published, and words which designate
publication frequency). For ease
of use, the key words are underscored.
Along with the title, each entry
includes at minimum the newspaper's
dates of publication and frequency.
Entries for extant papers indicate
variant titles as they occur, repository
holdings, and the file's status (for
example, newsprint bound, microfilm
master copy, microfilm service copy).
Many entries also include notes which
briefly detail the publication's
history-absorptions, continuations, and
mergers-or which indicate the affiliation
of special interest newspapers.
A Bibliography of Iowa Newspapers,
1836-1976 is a valuable reference
tool. Students of Iowa history will find
the guide particularly helpful. It is
easy to use. It lists both extant and
non-extant newspapers, providing in one
volume an outline history of newspaper
publishing in the state. The guide
identifies the special press by type,
thus aiding researchers interested in
specific economic, religious, and social
issues. A distinction is made between
repository holdings of master camera
negative microfilm and service copy
film and between bound and unbound
newsprint holdings-a useful dif-
ferentiation since researchers are
alerted to possible restriction of access to
certain files. The bibliographical
information found in this volume easily
can be updated and corrected if
necessary. The Iowa Pilot Project staff
188 OHIO HISTORY
converted the data it collected to
machine-readable form. Unlike many
other guides, A Bibliography of Iowa
Newspapers, 1836-1976 is not static;
this is its salient feature.
The bibliography has several weak
points. The compilers failed to indi-
cate the political affiliation of the
general press. Many nineteenth and early
twentieth-century newspapers were
closely identified with the major par-
ties, and political advocacy was one
reason for their very existence.
Although special interest papers are
identified as such in the body of the
guide, an index to the special press is
not included-an omission which
detracts from the usefulness of this
important feature of the bibliography.
A Bibliography of Iowa Newspapers,
1836-1976, nonetheless, is a positive
step toward the creation of a newspaper
data base at the national level.
Although it is a welcome addition to the
corpus of American newspaper
bibliographies, this guide is not-in the
words of Alan Schroder, Director of
the Iowa Pilot Project-"an ultimate
product containing the last word on ...
[Iowa] newspapers." It should be
considered an archetype. Apart from its
quite obvious usefulness as a
bibliography, the guide's real value lies in the
machine-readable data base from which it
was printed, in the procedural
methodology developed to collect that
data, and in the fact it represents the
altogether successful completion of one
goal of its sponsoring agencies. A
Bibliography of Iowa Newspapers,
1836-1976, can-and should-serve as a
model for comparable projects in other
states.
Ohio Historical Society Stephen Gutgesell
Hopewell Archaeology: The Chillicothe
Conference. Edited by David S.
Brose and N'omi Greber. (Kent: The Kent
State University Press, 1980.
xiv + 309p.; illustrations, tables,
figures, notes, bibliography. $22.50
cloth; $12.50 paper.)
The 1978 Chillicothe Conference on
Hopewell(ian) archaeology was an
idea right for its time if not indeed,
as some participants suggested, long
overdue. The resultant publication
inevitably invites comparison with the
last previous such work-Hopewellian
Studies, edited by Joseph R. Cald-
well and Robert L. Hall (Illinois State
Museum Scientific Papers, Vol. 12),
the product of a Hopewell symposium held
at the American Anthropological
Association's 1961 Philadelphia meeting.
There is little real comparison, however,
such is the expanded scope and
design of the 1978 symposium volume.
Generally speaking, the concept of
the "Hopewellian Interaction
Sphere" introduced in the Caldwell and Hall
compilation to be somewhat fancifully
embellished by subsequent authors,
is here put into more realistic
perspective, with emphasis upon basic region-
al diversity and in situ cultural
development. Content and scope of the 34
contributions to the present volume are
otherwise difficult to summarize. In
addition to twenty-three regional
studies, ranging from Kansas City to
Ontario and from the Straits of Mackinac
to the Florida peninsula, there
are topical papers on Hopewellian
physical anthropology, trade, subsistence
strategies, and mortuary practices, as
well as two "background papers" on
Book Reviews
189
Adena Hopewellian antecedents and the
roll of exchange during Middle
Woodland times. Understandably, these
papers contain varying amounts of
data, hypothesis, interpretation, and
surmise. Of particular interest to Ohio
readers will be the reports on Raymond
S. Baby's excavations at Seip
Mound, N'omi Greber's analysis of burial
patterns and site structure at Seip
and Harness, and Kent Vickery's discussion
of Hopewell in southwestern
Ohio. Summary discussions of each
section were taped at the conference and
edited, giving some idea of the
"atmosphere" of the meeting. Both in these
and his concluding "Overview,"
James B. Griffin provides his usual or, I
should say, traditional, cogent,
illuminating, and frequently wry remarks.
A few minor factual errors have been
noted, not surprising in view of the
quantity of information contained in
this volume, although some of the
errors themselves are rather remarkable.
Deborah Black's description (p.
19) of the geology of Paint Creek and
Salt Creek in Ross County ("On either
side of the broad valleys rise hills and
bluffs that have developed from the
downcutting of streams into anticlines
of Pennsylvanian sandstones and
shales.") must startle anyone
familiar with the actual geologic structure
and stratigraphy of the area. Mark
Seeman (p. 42) cites Hopewellian faunal
remains from the Martin Mound, Coshocton
Co., although these almost
certainly are Adena features below the
Middle Woodland burial mound.
Likewise, David S. Brose (p. 64)
describes the Daines II mound occurrence of
maize as "associated only with
fire-cracked rock and corner-removed projec-
tile points in a subfloor pit." His
inference that the maize occurrence may be
is Hopewellian is incorrect: no
"corner-removed projectile points" occurred
in this middle-late Adena mound; the
maize was found on the mound floor,
not in a sub-floor pit, and was not
associated with fire-cracked rock. Since
the excavation in 1964, Brose is the
first person to experience difficulty in
recognizing Daines II as a middle or
late Adena component rather than
Hopewellian or Late Woodland; hopefully,
he will be the last.
Editorially, the volume gets very high
marks, standing head and shoul-
ders above such comparable symposia
volumes published previously as The
Late Prehistory of the Lake Erie
Drainage Basin (Cleveland Museum of
Natural History, 1976). Typographical
errors and misspellings are rare,
although "Kanawah" for Kanawha
(pp. 13 and 14) and Classis for Cassis (p.
91) leap to the eye, and the
bibliography is excellent. N'omi Greber and
Mary Baum have done a fine job.
Hopewellian Archaeology will remain a standard reference work for many
years to come and is a necessary
addition to the library of anyone interested
in the archaeology of the eastern United
States.
Ohio Historical Society James L. Murphy
The Development of American
Agriculture: A Historical Analysis. By
Wil-
lard W. Cochrane. (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1979.
xii + 464p.; graphs, tables, suggested
readings, notes, index. $12.50
paper.)
From the founding of Jamestown until the
present, agriculture has been
190 OHIO HISTORY
important for American survival and
prosperity. Indeed, the relationship
between man and the land has had a
profound influence on American his-
tory. Consequently, if one is to fully
understand economic, business, politi-
cal, and technological history,
knowledge of agricultural history is impera-
tive. To help provide that
understanding, Willard W. Cochrane, Professor of
Agricultural and Applied Economics at
the University of Minnesota, has
written a historical narrative and
economic analysis of American
agricultural development.
Cochrane divides his study into three
parts. First, he surveys American
agricultural history within a
chronological framework from 1607 to 1978.
His narrative includes, in part, the
Colonial period, pioneering beyond the
Appalachians, the Great Plains frontier,
and the twentieth century tech-
nological revolution. Second, Cochrane
uses a topical approach to analyze
the influence of the abundance of land
on agricultural development, the
effects of technological change, the
growth of transportation systems and
agricultural education and research, and
the formulation of governmental
policy. Third, he develops a conceptual
model for understanding agricultur-
al development in the post-World War II
period.
Historians will find Cochrane's
chronological and topical analysis the
most useful and many may argue that
conceptual models and hypotheses
are methodological techniques that
cannot be substituted for the historical
fact. Social scientists, however, who
have used those research methods for a
number of years will not quibble with
this aspect of Cochrane's study. As is
true with many surveys, the facts are
sometimes sacrificed for a broad,
stylistic stroke of the pen. For
example, Cochrane writes, "Since trees were
nonexistent on the Plains, lumber out of
which to build houses and barns
was also nonexistent" (p. 85).
Although a lack of lumber was a problem for
Great Plains farmers before adequate
transportation facilities were avail-
able for shipping it into the region,
one hopes the myth that the Great
Plains were totally devoid of trees will
soon pass. These small criticisms,
however, are not meant to detract from
the overall value of the book. It is a
good general reference for anyone
wanting a wide-range introduction to
American agricultural history.
Cochrane's study will be particularly useful
for introductory students in
agricultural economics.
Ohio Historical Society R. Douglas Hurt
Book Reviews
The Threat of Peace: James F. Byrnes
and the Council of Foreign Ministers,
1945-1946. By Patricia Dawson Ward. (Kent: Kent State University
Press, 1979. x + 227p.; notes,
bibliography, index. $12.50.)
The story goes that once when Lyndon
Johnson was extolling the virtues
of John F. Kennedy's Harvard-educated
government appointees to Sam
Rayburn, the venerable Speaker of the
House replied, "You may be right,
but I wish some of them had at least run
for sheriff." The story might be
apocryphal, but the inference about
experts in government is clear. Particu-
larly after the frustrations of Vietnam
it was common to read and hear
about how much better foreign policy
might have been had the best and the
brightest not been formulating policies
and administering procedures.
Focusing upon an earlier period of
foreign policy flux, Patricia Dawson
Ward's The Threat of Peace; James F.
Byrnes and the Council of Foreign
Ministers, 1945-1946 demonstrates clearly that the American folklore
about the importance of true-grit
political experience can be just folklore as
far as foreign policy considerations are
concerned.
Using her sources skillfully, Dr. Ward
presents us with a sound analysis
of Secretary of State James Byrnes
attempts to wrestle with the complex-
ities of constructing a sound and
lasting peace after the end of World War II.
Ward carefully refrains from boggling
the reader with masses of material,
and for spurning this all too seductive
temptation she deserves congratula-
tions. She is realistic and critical in
her assessment of Byrnes' tenure as
secretary of state, but she rightfully
does not fall prey to conspiracy theories
of foreign policy formulation and does
point out Byrnes' strengths and how
they served him and led to some useful
peace treaties.
The heart of the work is an analysis of
a series of meetings of the allied
foreign ministers. Here Ward shows how
Byrnes, by relying on attributes
that made him a successful American politician instead of utilizing intelli-
gent planning and analysis, many times
pursued policies and procedures
which helped bring about the Cold War.
Indeed, it was his very success as a
politician which caused James Byrnes so
mcuh trouble as secretary of state.
It was hard for this ex-governor,
congressman, senator, supreme court jus-
tice-and in FDR's phrase, assistant
president-not to be arrogant about
his abilities. As Ward explains it, this
arrogance did not allow Byrnes to see
just how insular he was, and in the end
he aggravated not only the Soviet
Union but also Great Britain, France,
China, and ultimately Harry Tru-
man.
As Ward succinctly points out, Byrnes
was not involved with President
Truman in attempts at atomic or economic
blackmail of either the Soviet
Union or Western Europe. His failings
were honest rather than omissions
stemming from a top-level conspiracy to
use the threat of nuclear war to
bend Soviet and allied viewpoints to
meet those of America. Alas, the more
exciting and dramatic revisionism of Gar
Alperovitz withers away when
compared with the analysis contained in The
Threat of Peace.