Ohio History Journal

90                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

Three books by Louis Filler have recently been re-published: Horace

Mann on the Crisis in Education and Wendell Phillips on Civil Rights and

Freedom: Second Edition with New Preface, both by the University Press of

America; and A Dictionary of American Social Change, by the Robert E.

Krieger Publishing Company.

Other books of interest are: Social Action Collections at the State Histori-

cal Society of Wisconsin: A Guide, issued by the State Historical Society of

Wisconsin; the Forest History Society's David T. Mason: Forestry Advocate,

by Elmo Richardson, and Forest History Museums of the World, compiled

by Kathryn A. Fahl; Elizabeth F. Cutler's Six Fitzgerald Brothers: Lake

Captains All, published by the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society; and

Sprague, Lamont, and Edwall, Washington: Stories of Our People, Land, and

Times, 1881-1981, by the Southeastern Lincoln County Historical Society in

Sprague, Washington.

 

 

Ohio History wishes to apologize for several errors in the journal's Annual

1983 issue. In the Notes and Queries section, Carl M. Becker, a faculty mem-

ber at Wright State University in Dayton, was incorrectly listed at Wilmington

College; and the Joseph W. Smith and Standard Oil Company of California

grant mentioned on page 150 was, in fact, received by the Department of His-

tory, Wright State University.

 

Published by the Ohio Historical Society since 1887, Ohio History hopes

to serve as a clearinghouse for information about Ohio historians, depart-

ments of history, professional meetings, research activities, historical soci-

eties, museums, and libraries. Such an undertaking depends, however, upon

the cooperation of the many individuals and institutions we endeavor to

serve. If you or your organization are interested in placing an announcement in

Notes and Queries, please write to: Ohio History, 1985 Velma Avenue, Colum-

bus, Ohio 43211. Production deadlines dictate that all dated materials (con-

tests, meetings, requests for papers) be in our office five months prior to pub-

lication.

• 1
 

Book Reviews

 

 

The American Style of Foreign Policy: Cultural Politics and Foreign Affairs.

By Robert Dallek. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983. xx + 313p.; notes,

index. $16.95.)

 

This book on the cultural whys of U.S. foreign policy arrived for review

just when headlines were screaming the question WHY? in connection with

the Soviet downing of a Korean airliner, and it points up clearly the need for

this type of study. How, we ask ourselves, could the Soviets have pulled

such a blunder? How could their command system have been so inept?

What irrationality led them to risk universal vituperation over the murder of

innocent civilians?

Blunder? Ineptness? Irrationality? Robert Dalleck's well-written essay on

the latent cultural forces at work on 20th century U.S. foreign policy reminds

us about the relativity of these terms and that understanding the differing

cultural currents of any society is as important to the histories of foreign policy

as it is to the histories of art or music. Dalleck takes us from the Spanish-

American War to the war in Vietnam as he relates how complex cultural

forces affected U.S. foreign policy. To what extent was our war with Spain

caused by the pressures of a recently closed frontier? Was Woodrow Wil-

son's search for world order also a way to relieve progressive frustrations at

failing to fully reform domestic institutions? Was our post-World War I isola-

tionism attributable in part to the class and racial hatreds epitomized by the

executions of Sacco and Vanzetti and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan? How did

the American legalistic and moralistic outlook on world affairs combine with

our new post-World War II awareness of the world to help start the Cold

War? What individual and national cultural inclinations led to the Nixon-

Kissinger structure of peace?

Mr. Dalleck admits that his book is a fledgling effort to systematically ex-

plore cultural influences on U.S. foreign policy, and while some of his thesis

has a familiar echo and his organization clings to the old one president after

another approach, the point is that in this book an experienced historian is

willing to share with us his first thoughts in understanding American foreign

policy as a whole. He is willing to leave the facts-the treaties, the markets,

the wars-in the background and concentrate on how psychological and so-

ciological factors helped shape the American worldview.

As these studies continue, Mr. Dalleck and his colleagues must surely help

us achieve a more sophisticated understanding of how and why we come to

foreign policy decisions. (Was it not George Kennan who extolled the British

domestic drama "Upstairs, Downstairs" in helping him study World War I

and its diplomatic aftereffects?) And if we are wise enough to follow Mr.

Dalleck's advice about instituting comparative historical studies along this

line, it will be studies of this sort that will make us see how futile it is to try to

understand the Soviet Union's foreign policy without understanding its cul-

tural background. (The mind boggles to think that most of our current CIA

analysts of the Soviet Union cannot read and write Russian!)

This book is an important point of departure for foreign policy studies. It

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92                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

takes the historian's question WHY? to a new level of abstraction. And not to

fully understand why in foreign policy leaves us all open to terrible danger.

Cleveland State University                         Michael V. Wells

 

America's Quest for the Ideal Self: Dissent and Fulfillment in the 60s and 70s.

By Peter Clecak. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. xii + 395p.;

notes, index. $27.50.)

 

Like everything else, the pace of historical revisionism seems to be acceler-

ating. Here we are, less than four years into the 1980s, still too early, one

would have thought, to have arrived at a standard view of the preceding

two decades, and already we have someone telling us that that view is mis-

taken. For, according to Clecak, the period was not one of failed expectations

and blighted hopes, as the conventional portrait has it, but rather one when

a substantial number of Americans were able to pursue their own versions of

personal fulfillment with a large degree of success.

Clecak maintains that those who have written on the period, regardless of

their ideological persuasion, have taken a gloomy view because their hopes

for widespread social change have been only partially achieved and that the

distance between their hopes and their actual accomplishments has inclined

them to vent their frustration on a society and culture which have not con-

formed to their wishes. But, he argues, if one turns from intellectuals and fo-

cuses instead on what ordinary Americans were striving for, one will be im-

pressed by the extent to which many achieved what they sought. Women,

members of ethnic and racial minorities, evangelical Christians, gays, and

handicapped persons, among others, have all become more inclined than

ever before to express dissatisfaction with prevailing norms and practices, to

assert their claims to more consideration from society, and to organize in the

effort to have those claims realized. One result of such efforts has been the

"democratization of personhood," a compound of many recent social and

cultural changes including the enhancement of political power among groups

formerly unable or disinclined to exercise it, improved economic positions for

many relatively disadvantaged Americans, and a greatly increased range of

cultural and lifestyle options for all. More people than ever are convinced of

their right to pursue fulfillment as they define it, are inclined to engage in the

actual pursuit, and are unwilling to listen to the arguments of those who say

that their goals or methods are illegitimate or unworthy.

Clecak's major point is well worth making. No one can pretend that we

have achieved racial or sexual equality or that there are not many individuals

and groups who would like to impose their own version of cultural uniformity

upon society, but a balanced view of the recent past requires us to note the

real advances that have been made toward lessening what Clecak calls the

"structure of disadvantage" and the extent to which cultural diversity has

been accepted as a value.

Clecak discusses a wide range of ideas, but, inevitably, he has more empa-

thy for some positions than for others. He is critical of everyone, radicals, lib-

erals, and neoconservatives, but he reserves his sharpest weapons for the

last. They alone receive no credit for positive contributions to recent Ameri-

• 3
 

Book Reviews                                                   93

 

can life; only their ideas are analyzed in terms of biographical origins and

psychosocial roots, an effective, if often unintentional, way of trivializing

ideas one finds uncongenial. Being fair to neoconservatives is not something I

enjoy, either, but a sense of professional obligation, possibly misguided,

compels me to point out that Clecak's treatment is not as even-handed as it

might be.

Still, this failing-along with a writing style marred by a tendency to lapse

into jargon-is minor. On the whole, the book is an impressive piece of evi-

dence that it is possible to write effective contemporary history. Being close

to the ideas, people, and events under discussion may lead to a certain loss of

perspective, but it may also, as in the present case, contribute to a deeper un-

derstanding than would otherwise be possible.

Cleveland State University                    Thomas L. Hartshorne

 

The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer, 1874-1914. By George H. Nash.

(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983. xii + 768p.; illustrations, bib-

liographical note, notes, index. $25.00.)

 

In retrospect, it seems odd to have waited so long for a multivolume life of

Herbert Hoover, one of the most influential statesmen of this century. Nine-

teen forty-one marked the first volume of Irving Brant's life of Madison, fol-

lowed in 1945 by James G. Randall on Lincoln, 1947 by Arthur S. Link on

Wilson, 1948 by Douglas Southall Freeman on Washington and Dumas Ma-

lone on Jefferson, and in 1952 by Frank Freidel on Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Hoover himself attempted to remedy this gap in 1951 with the first of three

volumes of memoirs. It was, however, only in the seventies that Joan Hoff

Wilson and David Burner gave us our first scholarly accounts-be they one-

volume ones-of Hoover's career.

An examination of this, Nash's first volume, shows the work holding its

own with the best of the massive presidential biographies. It is also beauti-

fully written, revealing Nash as a genuine man of letters. Undoubtedly we

have a worthy candidate for the Pulitzer and Bancroft awards.

All biographers face a fatal temptation: to so internalize the subject they

write about that author and subject end up thinking as one. Nash is truly ob-

jective, even going so far as to maintain a healthy skepticism towards the

Hoover memoirs. Nash continually makes the reader aware of Hoover's ten-

dency to overstate successes, understate failures, and conceal his business

aggressiveness "behind a posture of Olympian detachment" (p. 318).

Without over psychoanalyzing, Nash stresses the inner turmoil of becom-

ing an orphan at age ten. All his life, Hoover was a reserved man, little given

to small talk, abrupt and taciturn, and possessing a tendency to avoid looking

at a person when he spoke. And all his life, he possessed a driving ambition,

for he was determined to achieve financial independence at any cost. At-

tached to this is just a bit of Darwinism. He once said, "If a man has not

made a fortune by 40 he is not worth much" (p. 569).

Nash also finds that too much has been made of Hoover's Quaker up-

bringing. Admittedly it reinforced certain traits that remained with him all

his life: reticence, quiet and direct speech, abhorrence of boasting and

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94                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

display. Yet his ancestors, could they have peered in on him in 1914, would

have found an almost "worldly" man. Hoover smoked and drank, was liber-

al in his theological views, and did not attend Quaker meetings. Emerson,

not Fox, could have supplied his watchword; "There is always room for a

man of force, and he makes room for many" (p. 570).

At Stanford, Hoover was a most uneven student, but he made his mark

in student politics, for he was an able wire-puller, one who maneuvered skill-

fully behind the scenes. Later, as Stanford's most powerful trustee, Hoover

eased David Starr Jordan out of the university's presidency and replaced

him with his own protege. Only after graduation did his bookish side

appear. In a sense reacting to his college training in the sciences, Hoover

would later read omnivorously. (Such reading did not stifle a streak of anti-

intellectualism: he called The Education of Henry Adams "the puerilities of a

parasite" [p. 271].)

As a young mining engineer in western Australia, Hoover experienced heat,

dust storms, flies, and blood poisoning. In eight weeks, he travelled close to

five thousand miles, mostly by camel and teams of horses. In the process, he

led a managerial revolution, one centering on efficiency and systematic busi-

ness techniques.

Nash ably describes Hoover's two trying years in China, where he lived in

Tientsin while exploring areas as far as the Gobi desert. Particularly good is

Nash's account of the Boxer rebellion. Contrary to the claim of David Burn-

er, who says that China made no real impact on Hoover, Nash finds Hoover

and his wife intensely curious about the exotic old civilization in which they

lived. Nash does much with Hoover's acquisition of the great industrial en-

terprise in China, the Kaiping mines, for his London firm. We have several

chapters (which some readers will undoubtedly skip) on this complicated fi-

nancial transaction and one that shows Hoover more than a bit disingenuous.

Returning to London in 1901, Hoover became a partner in the firm he had

served so ably for four years. Here he found Bewick, Moreing and Company,

the most noted mining syndicate in the world, nothing but a series of head-

aches, large and small: embezzlement by a firm partner, possible bankruptcy

for himself, court accusations of covert manipulation in shaky Australian proj-

ects. At the age of 29, he was veering towards a nervous breakdown.

Then suddenly came triumph. Zinc in Australia, silver in Burma, copper

and oil in Russia-by age 35 Hoover's success was unquestioned. Nash con-

veys well the sweep of his activities: "From Korea to Nicaragua, from New-

foundland to Siberia, from oil fields in California to oil fields in Peru, no cor-

ner of the earth seemed to escape his restless glance" (p. 392). It is close to

this point, at the outbreak of World War I, that Nash ends his excellent

volume.

New College of the University of South Florida  Justus D. Doenecke

 

 

 

The Papers of Henry Clay. Volume 7: Secretary of State, January 1, 1828-

March 4, 1829. Edited by Robert Seager II, Richard E. Winslow III, and

Melba Porter Hay. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1982. xi +

777p.; calendar, index. $35.00.)

• 5
 

Book Reviews                                                     95

 

When Charles Hammond advised Henry Clay to resign as Secretary of

State, lest a delicate health be further impaired, the Kentuckian stoutly re-

fused. He must stay, he asserted; "such is my destiny!" This latest volume

of Clay's correspondence reveals that destiny confounded: earlier hopes

notwithstanding, Adams's Administration goes crashing to defeat in 1828,

and Clay arrives at a crossroads in his career. Similarly, this volume also be-

gins a new era in the Clay Papers. Hopkins and Hargreaves have turned over

their editorial chores to Robert Seager II; and a new team has made chang-

es. Budget considerations-threatening to many historical paper projects-

have wrought their toll here as well. The present volume is half the length of

the last; Seager has chosen not to print items of limited interest, such as

checks, routine legal matters, letters of introduction and acceptance, etc. (But

these are calendared at the back of the book.) One cannot fault that deci-

sion, given present necessities. One wonders, however, if it was necessary to

pare down the illuminating footnotes quite so drastically. And as in earlier

volumes, diplomatic correspondence is often summarized, surely bother-

some to diplomatic historians. Nonetheless, Seager and his staff have main-

tained the high standards of their predecessors. The editing is outstanding,

and reflects skill, judgement, and a meticulous accuracy. Especially welcome

is the improvement in the index, which now covers both names and sub-

jects. A subject index for the first six volumes is also included.

Nearly half the volume consists of diplomatic correspondence, some con-

cerning events beyond America's influence (such as Portugal's dynastic up-

heaval, Russia's war against Turkey, and Britain's role in Iberia). Yet the Ad-

ministration spends considerable time preparing for negotiations over Maine's

boundary, and pressing our commercial interests abroad-as in the West In-

dies trade, and the French spoilation claims. Clay also has to walk a careful

line between the newly emergent and squabbling nations of Latin America.

Thus a decision to let Argentine privateers leave American waters ruffles Bra-

zilian feelings, inasmuch as Buenos Aires and Brazil are at war. Moreover, the

new republics are not always respectful of American property. But it is Clay's

domestic letters, nearly half the volume, which pique the most interest; they

reveal his crucial direction of John Quincy Adams's campaign. If there is

nothing so melancholy as a lost cause, small wonder these letters are affect-

ing. The letters of Clay and his friends brim with political stratagems, elec-

tion news, and forecasts of possible victories in key states (mostly incorrect).

There is not much of surprise here, though the reader must be impressed

with how much damage was done-at least in the minds of Clay's friends-

by the "bargain and corruption" charge. Perhaps unaware of how profound-

ly their campaign had been forced on the defensive, the Clay men spend

countless hours "proving" the baseness of such accusations. Except for foot-

less attempts to portray Jackson as a friend of Burr's, or as a "military chief-

tain," little effort is made to go on the offensive. Not surprisingly, November

brings defeat. The volume closes with Clay winding up the affairs of State,

assuming a "Roman spirit" (John Crittenden's words), and anticipating his

retirement to Ashland. Even Jackson will not be able to prevent the success

of the American System, he presumes. Still, his last letters hint, should he

prove wrong, was not 1832 just around the corner?

Midwestern State University                        Everett W. Kindig

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96                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy. By Herbert S. Parmet. (New York:

The Dial Press, 1983. viii + ⁴07p.; notes, index. $19.95.)

 

Today, some twenty years after his death, Americans have begun to move

toward a more balanced understanding of the presidency of John F. Ken-

nedy. This book is a useful starting point in the passage toward that under-

standing.

Beginning with the 1960 Democratic national convention and ending with

Kennedy's death in Dallas, Parmet surveys the Kennedy years with a sympa-

thetic but critical eye. Grounded in primary sources available at the Ken-

nedy and Johnson presidential libraries as well as information from many

published accounts, the CUNY historian engagingly brings back to life the

vigor and enthusiasm, fatuity and failings, of Kennedy's thousand days.

Parmet has no use for Camelot's cardboard myths. He has likewise little in-

terest, however, in debunking or demeaning Kennedy's presidency through

sensational but baseless attacks.

With sensitivity and self-confidence, Parmet rather conveys the ordinary

humanness and frailties of the Kennedy White House. And Kennedy cer-

tainly had his share of frailties, especially when it came to women. Sifting his

way through many stories, Parmet examines the icy distance that separated

the President from his wife Jacqueline, and explores Kennedy's many White

House liaisons. He is not eager to make too much of family affairs in the

Kennedy style. Yet he finds himself obliged to devote twice as much atten-

tion to what he politely terms the President's "home life" (p. 101) than to

Kennedy's management of the U.S. economy. Evidently Kennedy did too.

Moreover, if Kennedy liked his women soft and available, he wanted his

men to be tough but pliable. Feeling equal contempt for the paunchy busi-

nessmen of the Eisenhower administration and the egghead liberals of the

Adlai Stevenson wing of the Democratic Party, Kennedy wanted his admin-

istration to be distinguished by a gritty commitment to a cult of toughness

that operated through confrontational politics abroad and quiet accommo-

dation at home. Roger Hilsman used to like to say that the leaders of the

Kennedy administration were the aggressive younger line officers of World

War II come to power. More accurately (and much to Kennedy's displeas-

ure), Walter Lippmann said that they actually resembled "'the Eisenhower

administration thirty years younger' " (p. 303).

Avowing toughness and determination, Kennedy and his comrades

showed no enthusiasm for advancing the civil rights revolution or other

major reform efforts at home. Yet they consistently schemed at ways of

managing anti-Communist social change in places from Laos to the Congo,

primarily through irregular military operations. And regularly they failed.

Consistently, Kennedy and his associates talked tough about things in the

underdeveloped world that they could not change, and shied at home from

the challenges that they might well have overcome. Mostly in self-comfort,

they referred to their approach as pragmatic and realistic.

Generously, Parmet attributes the grand promises and modest achieve-

ments of the Kennedy presidency to the fact that Kennedy was an ever-

practical politician, openly dynamic but inherently conservative. Acknowl-

edging the President's mastery of the media and most intellectuals, Parmet

views Kennedy as a superb political operator who stood in many ways as

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Book Reviews                                                   97

 

America's "first picture star in the White House" (p. 10). Actually, Kennedy

today seems less like a movie star than a stereotypical Hollywood studio

boss, alternately charming and ruthless, uplifting and duplicitous, calculating

and indecisive. He gave us the hype of the New Frontier, and stirring talk

about the need to meet militantly the great challenges of the late-20th centu-

ry world. He manipulated, cajoled, persuaded, and sometimes even in-

spired. He did everything that an outstanding democratic politician needs to

do. But he never learned how to lead.

University of Toledo                            Charles DeBenedetti

 

 

Descent From Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family. By Paul C.

Nagel. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. xvi + 400p.; illustra-

tions, genealogical chart, sources, index. $25.00.)

 

Toward the end of his life, the family dynasty well begun, John Adams

warned his son John Quincy about the mass of family letters. They were, he

said, preserved "for your affliction" and would "make you laugh and cry,

fret and fume, stamp and scold ...." (p. 128.) In Descent From Glory Mr.

Nagel has worked his way undaunted through most of 608 microfilm reels of

the Adams Papers covering four generations from creation (John and Abigail)

to declension (Henry, Brooks, et al.) in order to describe "how various

Adamses-both notable and forgotten-lived with each other ...." (p. vii.)

Acting as family friend and confidant, he allows the thirty-odd (and some of

them really were) Adamses covered in this collective biography to speak for

themselves and about each other. This method gives one a sense of intimacy

with the family and encourages one to fret and fume, stamp and scold just as

old John Adams predicted. It also provides copious private detail about the

family "stars" and unknowns.

Nagel offers two main themes. First, the "glory" of the family became an

ever weightier burden for successive generations-a generalization well sup-

ported by the text. Second, the Adamses were driven by a secular version

of the seventeenth-century Puritan dilemma: a Saint must live in a corrupt

world and yet not be a part of it. Whether this was for the later generations

more than a kind of ritual incantation remains in doubt. What the narrative

does show is that public success did not bring the Adamses private bliss.

The family history is punctuated by alcoholism, neurosis, unhappy marriage,

suicide, fatal accident, childhood death, and geriatric infirmity. Self-

destructive behavior abounds. The Adams women, particularly those who

were in-laws, found it hard to truly belong to such an obsessively self-

conscious and patriarchal family.

Descent From Glory has no foot or end notes. The absence of such schol-

arly apparatus in a work made up substantially of direct quotations and its se-

lection as a major book club offering mark it as popular history. As such it

has much to commend it-human interest, drama, glimpses of the foibles

and frustrations of the mighty. However, judged as social history Descent

From Glory is seriously flawed. It could have been a much more informative

book had the author adopted a more detached stance toward his subject.

Judicious application of psychological and sociological theory and the use of

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98                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

the growing corpus of social history data might have helped the author to

write more concisely and to put the Adams story in perspective. Recent work

in social history suggests that the "dark side" of the Adams story is not

unique. Alcoholism, neuroses, fear of failure, and generational conflict

plagued many nineteenth-century American middle-class families. Compari-

son with the Adamses' notable contemporaries (Jefferson, for example)

would reveal equal or greater private and family woes. And it is hardly news

that successful public careers may be coupled to untidy and unhappy private

lives. Nagel's focus, it seems to this reviewer, tends to reduce the Adams sto-

ry to a period soap opera-or perhaps to a grand opera plot unredeemed by

soaring music.

Fairmont State College                       Charles H. McCormick

 

 

 

Antoinette Brown Blackwell: A Biography. By Elizabeth Cazden. (Old West-

bury, New York: The Feminist Press, 1983. xii + 315p.; illustrations, notes,

chronology, genealogies, index. $9.95 paper.)

 

Without a royal family to engage the national imagination, Americans have

periodically focused on families whose numerous kin are noted for varied

achievements over one or more generations: the Rockefellers in business, fi-

nance and politics; the Adamses in politics and letters; the Beechers in reli-

gion and reform. The Blackwells are gaining a deserved niche in this unusual

and arbitrary pantheon. The maturity of women's history is largely responsi-

ble for the clan's new stature, for it is the women-sisters and sisters-in-law-

who dominate this family's accomplishments. They combine the ability of

Beecher women to gain personal renown with the capacity of Adams wives to

speak in voices all their own.

Elizabeth Cazden has written a biography of one of the sisters-in-law,

Antoinette Brown, wife of oldest brother Samuel. Upon marriage, Antoin-

ette's extended family included Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, pioneer fe-

male physicians; Anna Blackwell, Paris-based journalist; and Lucy Stone, re-

former, lecturer and feminist wife of Henry Blackwell. As the nation's first

ordained minister, Brown did not have to defer to any of her pioneering fe-

male relatives.

For readers familiar only with Brown's struggle to attain an advanced de-

gree in theology at Oberlin and ordination afterward, much of Cazden's ma-

terials will prove instructive. Her education at the college and eventual suc-

cess at obtaining a small parish were the overture to half a century of personal

and public achievements and conflict. Socially, the demands of a family-

even when mitigated by a loving, helpful husband and supportive kin-

compromised the ability to engage in career-oriented activities. Intellectually,

she questioned her religious beliefs and tried to adapt faith to the evolution-

ary, scientific thought which engaged popular and scholarly circles after

mid-century. The shortcomings of Antoinette Brown Blackwell's treatises on

natural philosophy-hardly modern science-illustrated the greatest barrier

faced by an educated, nineteenth-century married woman pushing against

the constraints of Victorian society. Even the assistance and encouragement

• 9
 

Book Reviews                                                   99

 

of kin could not compensate for the isolation that denied her intellectual

stimulation.

From the vantage point of the movement for women's rights, the conflicts

between commitment and performance were more personal than social. Her

unyielding individualism meshed well with the needs of the antebellum fem-

inist movement for an eloquent minister and lecturer. Brown was less able to

adapt to and participate in the growing postwar movement, when activities

were collective, organizational and goal-oriented. In addition, her continued

adherence to Biblical pronouncements were seemingly at odds with concepts

of female equality. Her endeavors to exonerate her religion from the onus of

female oppression resulted in intellectual convolutions and emotional stress.

Still, her self-styled feminist stance set her apart from the majority of Victori-

an women.

Antoinette Brown Blackwell transcends Victorian America in time as well.

Like her dear friend at Oberlin College and later sister-in-law, Lucy Stone,

her battles for education, non-traditional career, and feminist gains often

seem frozen in time-more or less encompassed by the third quarter of the

nineteenth century. Her "prejudiced," unofficial graduation from Oberlin in

1850 and subsequent activities as presiding preacher and persuasive lecturer

at women's rights conventions are better known than her longevity. It is start-

ling to follow her into the election booth, alone of all her contemporaries, to

vote for Warren Harding in 1920.

Cazden describes this long path well, but hardly with incisive, analytic

brilliance. Page after page is filled with long excerpts from Brown's letters

and other writings. Occasionally, long responses to the former and critiques

of the latter are also printed. The quoted material is enlightening, but the au-

thor presents a hybrid of literary genres. Brown's life merits an interpretive

social and intellectual biography as well as a well-annotated collection of her

writings. Cazden has confused the two forms, but she has laid the ground-

work for understanding a remarkable American woman and her equally fas-

cinating family.

Case Western Reserve University                        Lois Scharf

National History Day

 

Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915. By Louis R. Har-

lan. (New York: Oxford University Press, xiv + 548p.; illustrations, notes,

index. $30.00.)

 

Professor Harlan's monograph is a sequel to an earlier volume published in

1972 entitled Booker T. Washington, The Making of a Black Leader, 1856-1901,

which won the 1973 Bancroft Prize. Although Harlan's study focuses on the

complex figure of Booker T. Washington, his book is more than a biography

of this most powerful minority-group leader. The author traces the inner life,

goals and struggles of the small middle class that was one generation re-

moved from slavery.

Since Washington is generally known as the founder of Tuskegee Institute,

Harlan warns his readers that they will be disappointed if they expect the

book to be a treatise on Washington's role in the history of education. The

author gives little attention to Washington's educational administration at

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100                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Tuskegee Institute and his speeches and writings on education. Although

Harlan feels Washington played an important but not remarkable innovative

role in educational history, he chooses to stress the more important factors of

"the source, nature and consequences of his power" (p. xi). Very little is

found in the study on the family and private life of Washington because

among approximately one million documents in the Washington Papers, there

were only a few hundred letters between Washington and his family. "His

private and family life remains something of a mystery," says Harlan. The au-

thor speculates on the void in personal correspondence and concludes that

Washington never developed leisure pursuits because he was too busy for

private life and perhaps never felt a need for "homey" conforts and leisure.

Since Washington never had a childhood, he never learned to play.

The book covers the last fifteen years of Washington's life, but Harlan con-

cludes that it was his Atlanta address in 1895 that set the stage for Washing-

ton's rise to fame in the first decade and a half of the twentieth century. The

author frankly admits that Washington acquiesced in disfranchisement of

blacks and some measure of segregation and accepted a philosophy of

accommodationism in return for a white promise to allow blacks to share in

the economic growth and prosperity that the northern investments would

bring to the South. Washington's greatest failure, however, according to

Harlan, was his inability to reverse the hard times for blacks during the Pro-

gressive Period (p. viii).

From his southern base at Tuskegee Institute, Washington built up a pow-

erful personal machine that controlled both northern white philanthropy

and federal patronage to blacks until he finally exercised "an all-pervasive

control of every avenue of black life" (p. vii). Harlan concludes that

Washington was able throughout his life to maintain his power as a black

boss because of "the sponsorship of powerful whites, substantial support

within the black community, and his skillful accommodation to the social re-

alities of the age of segregation" (p. 359).

Harlan acknowledges that most of Washington's public utterances on civil

rights contained "weasel words" that his critics charged vitiated his pur-

poses, but the author contends that Washington worked unceasingly for

black pride and material advancement, and against lynching, disfranchise-

ment, peonage, educational discrimination, and segregation. Washington's

method of operation was not through ringing declarations. Harlan maintains

that he can best be understood by learning what he did rather than by

studying his presumed ideology (p. ix).

Washington's accommodationism did not go unchallenged. William M.

Trotter and W. E. B. Du Bois created the Niagra Movement as a legal rather

than a social or political solution to the denial of constitutional rights to

blacks.

The Wizard of Tuskegee did not accept criticism and opposition to his pro-

gram from black liberals with meek inaction and apologies. Washington em-

ployed ruthless secret methods of espionage, provocation and sabotage

against Du Bois and Trotter that seemed to Harlan "utterly at variance with

the Sunday-school morality he publically professed" (p. x).

Harlan has painstakingly researched his subject and has produced a mod-

el biography that is a major contribution to black history.

Morehead State University                         Victor B. Howard

• 11
 

Book Reviews                                                  101

 

Ban Johnson: Czar of Baseball. By Eugene C. Murdock. (Westport: Green-

wood Press, 1982. xii + ²⁹⁴p.; illustrations, bibliographical essay, notes,

index. $29.95.)

 

Along with such foreign crises as those in the Middle East and Central

America, the domestic economic malaise, problems of political leadership,

and overwhelming environmental issues, the news on the sports page com-

mands much attention and holds tremendous fascination for the population

at large. Obviously, sports and its history reflect societal trends of some im-

portance, proving that it, like other areas of popular culture such as music,

motion pictures, and television, speaks to us in unusual ways and tells much

about our way of life. Hence, these areas of everyday life deserve more seri-

ous attention and respect from scholars than has previously been had. Here,

then, is a field of study and accomplishment that illuminates larger subjects,

and in the case of sports is more complicated than the romanticized reporting

of heroic feats, the contractual wars and franchise difficulties of teams and

leagues, and preoccupation with statistics. There is more than fun, enjoyment

and trivia to the study of sports, and in this volume, there is ample evidence

that it can explain an aspect of the popular mind and how the everyday

world of the "common man" is shaped.

Baseball's so-called "Golden Age" occurred during the first three dec-

ades of the twentieth century-when it became part of the American psyche

and during the time Ban Johnson presided over much of its early organiza-

tion. The industrial-technological changes that characterized the Gilded

Age prompted a momentous change in the popularity of the sport. Farmers

and immigrants swelled the growing cities and recreational needs had to be

provided. The railroad united the nation with bonds of steel, allowing for

baseball's expansion and organization into leagues, and with the changes

in newspaper technology and the development of the telegraph, sports pro-

motion became a key component of the baseball story. Stadia became an ar-

chitectural staple of every major city. The new baseball glamour included

heroes every young boy knew about and wished to emulate, fiction and non-

fiction books and magazines and poems such as the classic about Casey's

tribulations, and songs like the anthem, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." All

of this contributed to baseball as the first mass appeal sport and as an inte-

gral part of the Zeitgeist.

And the man who was at the center of American baseball was Ban John-

son, a no-nonsense, sensible "czar" whose main function he took to be the

elevation of the sport in every way possible. This ex-sports journalist won the

Great Baseball War which challenged the old National League hold on the

sport and created the American League, allowing for expansion and prosperi-

ty. Johnson was a one-man reformer, declaring war on unruly players and

spectators and vesting complete control of the game in the hands of the

umpires. He was instrumental, too, in utilizing the press as a means of popular-

izing the sport. From a rowdy undisciplined activity, Johnson's contri-

bution was to preside over the metamorphosis of baseball into the "National

Pastime"-a respectable, popular game, a family entertainment, and a profes-

sional activity. There is much drama in the Ban Johnson story for he had en-

emies galore, and his rigidity and inability to adapt to changing conditions

were obvious. His demise as a baseball administrator is one of the saddest

• 12
 

102                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

but least-known aspects of the history of the sport and, as a result, his contri-

butions have not been that well recognized.

In essence, this work is both a history of baseball in its formative years

and a biography of its most notable administrator. It is an example of how

sports history should be written as well as why it is an important field. How-

ever, there are some questions. The link with parallel developments in society

seems almost done as an aside from the narrative rather than being more ful-

ly integrated. For example, the discussion of Progressivism and its relation to

baseball and the background information about World War I are quite weak,

and can the author assume that the average reader possesses a general

knowledge of the Zimmermann Telegram? As popular cultural history, Ban

Johnson succeeds on some levels, but more attention could have been paid

to the better integration of the political and social events of the day and what

their effect was on the development of baseball.

This monograph demonstrates that the author understands and appreci-

ates the nuances of the game but his critical analysis of its business aspects,

especially the power of the Czar and the backers, the relationship between

the sports press and the entrepreneurs, the role of recreation, the types of

men who played, and an analysis of what makes spectators a crowd, might

have received more substantial treatment.

As biography, Ban Johnson fills a need and goes far in helping to establish

sports history as valid history. It is well researched, based on both sports

and non-sports journals, on newspapers and monographs, record books, but

also on such archival material as family and college records and on inter-

views with former players and others. Murdock's portrait is that of an inter-

esting if not unusual man. On the whole this work is quite satisfactory and

satisfying. Hopefully it will stimulate further studies in the area of sports his-

tory and biographies of important but out-of-the-limelight figures who

helped make sports a national passion.

State University of New York/Buffalo                   Milton Plesur

 

 

Down & Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. Edited

by Robert S. McElvaine. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,

1983. xvii + 251p.; illustrations, notes, sources, index. $23.00 cloth; $8.95

paper.)

 

Many scholars have attempted to recapture the grass-roots feeling of the

Great Depression. These studies include the Federal Writers' Project, These

Are Our Lives; Studs Terkel, Hard Times; Alice and Staughton Lynd, Rank

and File; Tom E. Terrill and Jerrold Hersch, Such As Us; Ann Banks, First

Person America; and Richard Lowitt and Maurine Beasley, One Third of a

Nation. Perceptive and useful as they have been, all such studies have been

somewhat distorted-by fallibility of memory, by middle class interpreters

who interjected themselves between the poor and the reader, or by lack of

any direct reader contact with the depression's victims. In an effort to elimi-

nate these built-in distortions of time and interpretation and to get "directly

in touch with the contemporary views of those who suffered through the

Depression," Robert S. McElvaine has published selected letters written di-

• 13
 

Book Reviews                                                  103

 

rectly to public figures in the 1930s. A combination of dire economic crisis

and the active encouragement of both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt called

forth an unprecedented volume of White House mail-5,000 to 8,000 messag-

es daily-and a far higher than normal proportion from the less educated

working class. McElvaine combed through some 15,000 letters and pub-

lished 173 of these raw documents. A thirty-page introduction explains the

editor's methodology and concisely outlines the depression.

The letters focus almost exclusively on the depression's middle years. One

hundred fifty-two letters were written during three years, 1934-36. The re-

maining twenty tell us little about the nine years of the early and late depres-

sion. The regional distribution of the mail fairly represents the Midwest and

the Northeast but favors the South (38 percent) at the expense of the West (9

percent). The author selected letters from seven collections; however, 103 let-

ters from the files of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)

and 49 letters from the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers dominate the volume.

The ten letters from Ohio, seven of them written during 1935 and 1936, also

mainly gauge people's reaction to the depression and New Deal at main-

stream. Eight, written by residents of northern Ohio cities, portended a

Roosevelt Revolution-a major political shift from Republican to Democratic

dominance. Of the eight letters that expressed a political point of view, one

attacked banks, one expressed hostility toward Hoover, and six supported

Roosevelt.

The Ohio letters generally reflect the tenor of the larger volume. An eleven-

year-old, Logan County farm girl defied her mother's admonition against

begging and wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, requesting clothing for her parents

and a discarded dress from which her mother could fashion an Easter

dress for her. A northern Ohio salesman had witnessed widespread poverty

and worry but no rancor or disloyalty. An unemployed Cincinnati homeown-

er chided Hoover for aiding the profligate poor while neglecting the needs of

the frugal middle class. A Cleveland youth condemned a bank for losing his

family's savings and then foreclosing on their house. A ten-year-old Warren

daughter of disabled parents, struggling to feed a large family on $6 a week,

begged the President for "a stove to do our cooking and to make good

bread." An Akron woman, who had been supporting her elderly immigrant

mother, hoped Social Security would free her parent from dependence on

other relatives. During the winter of 1935-36, public works employees in New

Philadelphia and Youngstown condemned Republican administrators for ir-

regular pay, wage chiseling, working them in frigid weather, and blaming the

program's inequities on Roosevelt.

The volume successfully recaptures the reactions of some participants to

some events of the Great Depression. Four-year colleges, graduate schools,

and larger public libraries should add the book to their collections.

The Ohio State University at Lima                  John W. Hevener

 

 

 

 

The Politics of Recovery: Roosevelt's New Deal. By Albert U. Romasco. (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1983. xii+ 276p.; notes, index. $19.95.)

• 14
 

104                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Albert U. Romasco's thoughtful study of the political motivations behind

Franklin D. Roosevelt's economic recovery and reform programs is a skillful

analysis of the political pressures exerted on New Deal policy making, particu-

larly during 1933-34. "There was neither unity nor meaning to Roosevelt's

economic eclecticism in his improvisation of the New Deal, if these policies

are analyzed and judged from an economic standpoint," Romasco concludes

(p. 243). Instead, the author interprets Roosevelt as a "total politician" (p. 5),

which means that contemporaries and later historians who attempted to un-

derstand FDR's program in terms of a coherent economic rationale were

doomed to fail.

Rather, Roosevelt's political eclecticism enabled him to deal successfully

with various organized political constituencies. In fact, Romasco indicates in

detail-with too many lengthy quotes-the strong impact of political pres-

sures upon the President by organized groups and representative spokesmen

such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manu-

facturers, and the Farm Bureau.

Romasco offers several useful interpretations of recovery. For example, his

broader definition of "relief" shows that prior to World War II the Re-

construction Finance Corporation made loans of $10.5 billion to save banks

and businesses, matching the total amount spent by the Works Progress

Administration-both of which helped stimulate Roosevelt's aims of eco-

nomic recovery and political stability.

But the "Hundred Days" program of 1933 did not end the depression. So

Roosevelt, utilizing politics, turned to monetary policy for a "quick" recovery.

Consequently, Romasco's chapters include Economic Nationalism and the

Politicization of Gold, indicating Roosevelt's political purpose of satisfying po-

tent constituencies, while talking economic recovery. As a result, the author

argues that the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the National Re-

covery Administration succeeded politically, but not economically. But both

programs served FDR's political purposes by unifying disparate groups be-

hind omnibus legislation, thus internalizing in the federal government the

public battle over policy making. Therefore, Roosevelt and the federal gov-

ernment benefitted most by increased power and intervention in the now

"mixed" economy.

However, the New Deal's "crisis" was that it could not achieve its major

stated objective, that is, recovery from the Great Depression. Instead, fol-

lowing business demands in 1934-35 for a "breathing spell," Roosevelt's

"test" of the business confidence and the limited federal intervention and

budget balancing proposals of economically "orthodox" spokesmen resulted

in the recession of 1937-38. On the other hand, Roosevelt succeeded politi-

cally: he won mass popular support and overwhelming reelection in 1936 (and

later).

Ellis W. Hawley's 1966 monograph demonstrated the economic ambiva-

lence of Roosevelt's thinking and programs. Romasco has carried that inter-

pretation further, arguing interestingly that Roosevelt's economic eclecticism

was politically essential in a mass industrial society which promised democ-

racy, personal liberty, and jobs to its citizens. Indeed, Romasco discounts

the value of ideology and economics in New Deal policy making, an interpre-

tation which is both provocative and simplistic for understanding Franklin

Roosevelt.

Virginia Western Community College, Roanoke       James E. Sargent

• 15
 

Book Reviews                                                  105

 

The Red Scare in the Midwest, 1945-1955: A State and Local Study. By James

Truett Selcraig. (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982. xviii + 208p.;

notes, bibliography, index. $39.95.)

 

A regional and local study of the Red Scare in the 1940s and '50s could be

extremely useful. Unfortunately, this book does not answer the need. The

author set out to study the midwestern phase of the Red Scare, focusing on

selected incidents in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Events are viewed in terms of their impact on state politics, local elections

and government, schools and libraries, voluntary organizations, and univer-

sity students and faculty members. The book includes a wealth of detail,

with much of it revealing the harassment and persecution of those suspected

of leftist ideas. The events are depicted with more clarity than interpretation.

The first problem concerns definition. The book abounds with references

to leftists, liberals, and conservatives. In a preface the author defines leftists

as Communists and their supporters or sympathizers, and liberals as anti-

Communist reformers. He never defines conservative. Certainly there is a

strong American tradition of a non-Communist left which includes, for exam-

ple, the Socialist Party of Norman Thomas. When the witch hunters became

active they seldom distinguished among socialists, communists or even paci-

fists. All were targets, and many of those who were hurt by the Red Scare

were neither Communists nor Communist sympathizers. Nor did all conser-

vatives agree with or condone the tactics of the more extreme right-wing

groups. The failure to define adequately these basic terms is a weakness of

the study.

In making interpretive comments the author so qualifies each of his ideas

that the point becomes unclear. His first argument, repeated several times, is

that those authors who attributed the Red Scare only to national forces with

a national leader (Joseph McCarthy) were wrong. By examining local events

one can conclude that some of the red-baiting of the time came from local or

state groups rather than the federal government. The thesis that there was a

conservative movement behind the Red Scare also needs further clarifica-

tion. What organizations besides the American Legion were involved? Were

there some business and labor leaders who were spokesmen for the military

profiteers? Were there right-wing, fundamentalist religious groups involved?

What constituted this movement and what were the tactics? Some of this is

brought out in the narrative, but there is little analysis of the forces behind

the Scare.

It is difficult to determine which of the local events were echoes of a na-

tional mood and policy and which were strictly local. Selcraig is correct in re-

vealing the complexities and refuting the idea that all of it came from Wash-

ington. But does anyone really believe that it did? That, too, is difficult to

determine. We now know that the FBI often worked hand in hand with lo-

cal organizations and individuals, and even some incidents that may have

seemed primarily local have proved to involve that agency.

Another point repeated several times is that, although repression was se-

vere at times and in some places, it was not complete. Some of those tried for

alleged crimes were acquitted and some who lost their jobs found other em-

ployment. But the argument misses the point. The constitutional rights of

hundreds if not thousands of Americans were violated. Some had to under-

• 16
 

106                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

go costly trials. An atmosphere of intimidation affected newspapers, schools,

universities, textbook writers, the entertainment industry and nearly every

public interest group. The psychological toll is impossible to determine, but

some interview material might have been helpful. In attempting to avoid mor-

alizing and in striving for objectivity, Selcraig has taken the life out of his

study. If only a handful of Americans had been destroyed it would have

formed a tragic chapter in our history. But the second Red Scare did much

more. That in the name of national security a small group of people could seri-

ously damage those protections provided by the Bill of Rights is a message

which needs to be emphasized over and over again. It is this essential point

which the book overlooked, even though it does contain a lot of useful infor-

mation.

Wilmington College                                      Larry Gara

 

Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era. Edited by Howard N. Ra-

binowitz. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982. xxiv + 422p.; illustra-

tions, notes, index. $19.95 cloth; $9.95 paper.)

 

In this collection of essays by fifteen contributors, editor Howard N. Ra-

binowitz offers studies of ten black leaders of the Reconstruction period,

some of whom served in Congress, others in state and local politics. Addi-

tionally, there are four "collective biographies": of delegates to state consti-

tutional conventions from 1867 to 1869, of South Carolina legislators, and of

local leaders of New Orleans and Richmond. Rabinowitz has written an in-

troductory essay which traces the evolving estimates of black office holders

during Reconstruction and shows how these evaluations reflected prevailing

historical interpretations about the era. The essays included here, he hopes,

will advance our understanding of black leadership beyond the laudable

task of merely restoring reputations, and depict how blacks functioned within

Reconstruction politics-how they gained and maintained power, and how

they lost it.

An Afterword by August Meier, whose Blacks in the New World series this

volume joins, summarizes the diverse findings and attempts an overview of

the lives and careers studied.

As in many works of this nature, the whole is greater than its parts. Chap-

ter biographies of Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi, Josiah Walls of Florida,

and James T. Rapier of Alabama included in this volume duplicate studies

available elsewhere, in two cases books by the authors represented here.

However, the editor hopes that the chapter-length biographies will acquaint

the general public with these figures. This motive seems the reason for inclu-

sion of John Hope Franklin's essay on John Roy Lynch from Mississippi, al-

though substantially the same essay appeared earlier in Franklin's introduc-

tion to Lynch's Reminiscences of an Active Life . . . published in 1970 and

still in print.

To this reader, the section on collective biography featured in Part II of the

work offers the greatest interest to specialists and best serves Rabinowitz's

desire to "point the way for future investigators." Essays by Richard L.

Hume, David C. Rankin, Michael B. Chesson, and Thomas C. Holt survey

• 17
 

Book Reviews                                                  107

 

black leadership in the entire region in addition to one state and two cities.

These studies effectively undermine the descriptions of black office-holders

as ignorant, illiterate, intemperate lackies recently recruited from the sugar

and cotton fields. Overall, the essays show that black participation in politics

was undone not by the race's folly, poverty, or lack of preparation, but by

Republican factionalism which appeared almost incurable, by white re-

sentment and retaliation, and by the fickleness of the national commitment to

altering the South's social and political codes. Black leaders tried accommo-

dation and alliance with whites in the hope of securing modest black gains,

only in the end to see their efforts fail. Critical readers analyzing what went

wrong might be tempted to fault blacks for being too moderate, too modest

in their demands, and too committed to electing bourgeois leaders anxious

to advance self rather than cause; however, the authors represented here

generally exculpate their subjects from these charges and endorse the neces-

sity of practicing the "politics of expediency."

Rabinowitz's volume is useful in spite of its occasional redundancy of mate-

rial. However, he or the University of Chicago Press needs to be rebuked for

permitting publication of such disappointing illustrations, ranging in quality

from execrable Xerox-like photo portraits to a few barely acceptable repro-

ductions. The time should be past that publishers can afford to be careless

or artless in presenting visuals.

Aside from the low quality of most of the fifteen illustrations and the pauci-

ty of available documentation for some of the individuals studied, Southern

Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era successfully portrays the dilemma of

a generation of black office-holders caught between a rock and a hard place,

between the need to formulate well-honed programs for their people and the

desire to survive politically with tactics of moderation and accommodation to

white political majorities. Unfortunately, black leaders during Reconstruction

failed to squeeze through their bind, thus offering no solution for a similar

dilemma which exists today.

University of North Carolina at Asheville      Bruce S. Greenawalt

 

The Antimasonic Party in the United States 1826-1843. By William Preston

Vaughn. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1983. x + 244p.;

notes, bibliographic note, index. $16.00.)

 

With the immediate incident that touched off the Antimasonic frenzy of

the 1820s and 1830s most serious students of American history are reasona-

bly familiar already. William Morgan of Batavia, New York, a man apparently

quite fond of ease and the bottle, was planning in 1826 to publish an expose

of the Masonic order under the title of Illustrations of Masonry, By One of the

Fraternity Who Has Devoted Thirty Years to the Subject. On the night of 12

September 1826 Miller was abducted. Later he was probably murdered-

probably one has to say because no corpse was ever recovered. Nonetheless,

stories of Masonic treachery soon travelled like wildfire, and the result was

first a moral crusade and then an organized political party, both of which

were dedicated to the total elimination of the dangers that a supposedly vile

secret society posed for a simple, open, and republican America.

• 18
 

108                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

William Preston Vaughn, who has given us the first scholarly book-length

treatment of Antimasonry in America, deserves very high marks for candor.

Indeed, only rarely does one encounter an author who speaks so openly

about the grave limitations of the human beings he has researched or so

forthrightly about the relative insignificance of the topic on which he has la-

bored so hard for so long. Some examples will quickly establish the point.

"An embarrassment and a disaster" is what the author calls Solomon South-

wick of New York, who in 1828 became the first gubernatorial candidate to

run on the Antimasonic ticket in any state (p. 30). Similarly, we are told that

William Wirt, the party's presidential contender in 1832, "proved to be a piti-

ful candidate for the Antimasons, demonstrating a complete lack of aptitude

for office seeking" (p. 68). Given such a "dismal conclusion" (p. ix), says

Vaughn, that Antimasonic race for the White House deserves to be dubbed

a "presidential debacle" (p. 185). After the "debacle," this wave of Antima-

sonry, which was, after all, then only half a decade old, went into nothing

less than a state of "rapid decline" (p. 172). "As with many crusades, the

fires of Antimasonry burned too brightly at first, only to wane suddenly be-

fore the party could firmly establish itself on the national level" (p. 190).

Even some of those areas where Antimasonry was most successful were, we

are reminded, "unimportant in national politics" (p. 69). "Unfortunately for

the Antimasons, Vermont, the citadel of political Antimasonry, was of minor

importance in the great political struggles of that day" (p. 68). And much of

this Vaughn does not state just once either, instead often reiterating such

conclusions about the degree of significance of his men and their movement.

Enough, enough the convinced reader is likely to exclaim. Then why the book?

For the simple reason, it would appear, that a scholarly book on the sub-

ject had never before been done. In all fairness to the author, it must be said

that he makes what he can of a difficult situation. His research, for instance,

seems to be thoroughgoing, and his writing is generally quite clear. Typo-

graphical and other minor, distracting errors of that kind are relatively few,

although one of these does have New York's Thurlow Weed still organizing

town meetings and county conventions for the pro-Clinton "People's party"

seven years after Weed had actually become an Antimason (p. 26). Vaughn,

moreover, makes some interesting distinctions between Antimasonry as a

moral crusade and political Antimasonry. He clarifies our understanding of

Antimasonry's actual contributions to the establishment of the nominating

convention and to the development of the Whig party. Very useful too is

what we learn about the Antimasonic stages in the careers of such major

nineteenth century politicos as Weed, William H. Seward, Millard Fillmore,

and Thaddeus Stevens. Finally, the author's last chapter, which is really an

eight-page summary of the story he has just told, provides us with a very

convenient brief review of Antimasonry. In short, this study has so many

virtues that, were it possible to have a major book on so minor a theme,

Vaughn's book just might have achieved that distinction.

So the problems here are more with the subject than with the author per

se. For the simple truth of the matter is that Antimasonry remains, as it was

before Vaughn published this account, a footnote to antebellum American

history. And for some very good and sufficient reasons. The all but deified

George Washington had been a Mason. The "Old Hero," Andrew Jackson,

was a Mason. And the great "Harry of the West," Henry Clay, was a Mason.

Thus the charge that Masons were somehow enemies of the republic, per-

• 19
 

Book Reviews                                                    109

 

sons who ought to be proscribed, was simply not a believable proposition to

most of those patriots and partisans who peopled America in the antebellum

period. It is this obdurate fact, more than anything else, which would make

a study establishing the earth-shattering signifance of Antimasonry a virtual

impossibility.

Marquette University                                  Robert P. Hay

 

 

The Reluctant Patron: The United States Government and the Arts, 1943-1965.

By Gary O. Larson. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

xvi + 314p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $12.95 paper.)

 

Gary Larson's book is not, as its jacket blurb claims, a "history of the gov-

ernment's involvement in the arts" in the years from the final demise of the

Works Progress Administration's cultural projects up to the establishment of

the National Endowment for the Arts. Essentially what Larson has written is

a legislative narrative of postwar efforts to reestablish broad-based federal

subsidy for the arts. Those efforts took place initially in a climate of congres-

sional hostility toward New Deal welfare statism and particularly the New

Deal's arts programs, as well as Cold War-bred suspicions of intellectuals and

both social realist and avant-garde modernist artists. Cultural-exchange ac-

tivities organized by the State Department and proposed legislation to initiate

various kinds of government-related ventures in the arts repeatedly ran afoul

of fiscal conservatives, anti-Communist zealots, and defenders of a fading

genteel artistic tradition who feared alike modernist ascendancy and govern-

ment interference. By the end of the Eisenhower presidency in 1960, advo-

cates of federal sponsorship and financial support for the arts could point to a

number of legislative hearings, various reports by congressional committees

and specially appointed commissions, and a plan for a national center for the

performing arts in Washington, D.C. (subsequently named Kennedy Center),

but to little else in the way of positive accomplishment.

The advent of the Kennedy administration, however, greatly strengthened

the cause of federal subsidy for the arts. John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy

seemed to bring to the White House a greater sophistication about and en-

thusiasm for creative artists and their work than had been the case under

previous administrations. Suddenly the arts were in vogue in Washington.

Arguing that manifestations of American cultural creativity were significant el-

ements of Cold War competition, that increased leisure time made essential

the dissemination of "the best" artistic expression to a broad public, that

realizing the promise of American civilization depended on a favorable envi-

ronment for the arts, and finally that for the arts to flourish, the national gov-

ernment must actively undertake their promotion, federal-arts advocates

were able to transform previously fragmented efforts into a fairly coherent

movement. Kennedy's assassination, the prompt endorsement of arts subsi-

dy by President Lyndon Johnson in his Great Society program, and the stra-

tegic coupling of such subsidy with federal support for humanistic scholar-

ship were all major factors leading to the passage in 1965 of legislation that

created the National Endowment for the Arts (as well as the National En-

dowment for the Humanities). By the late 1970s the National Endowment for

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110                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

the Arts was spending more than $150 million a year. Reagan administration

budget cuts have hampered but by no means dismantled what has become

a well-entrenched federal program.

Larson's research, including work in several manuscript collections as well

as a number of personal interviews, appears to have been reasonably thor-

ough. His bias in favor of large-scale government involvement with the arts is

rather intrusively evident; foes of federal subsidy tend to get labels like "re-

actionary" and "Red baiter," while advocates appear as enlightened pro-

gressives. Two major shortcomings are Larson's failure to explain adequately

how and why the emergence of a willingness to subsidize the humanities

was indispensable to the success of the arts subsidy movement, and a lack of

attention to the makeup of the ultra-liberal Democratic eighty-ninth Con-

gress, which passed the National Foundations for the Arts and Humanities

bill. On the whole, though, Larson has provided an effective overview of a

little-examined aspect of liberal reformism in the postwar decades.

Ohio University                                 Charles C. Alexander

 

How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. By Herman Hattaway

and Archer Jones. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. xii + 762p.;

illustrations, notes, appendices, bibliography, index. $24.95.)

 

This is an important book. It is important for adding significantly to our un-

derstanding of military preparations and the development of attitudes to-

ward total success by the various leaders in the American Civil War. Until

the publication of How the North Won the Civil War, there has been no com-

prehensive military treatment of the strategy and logistics of the conflict. Var-

ious authors-Weigley, Nicolay and Hay, Williams, Nevins, Jones, Connelly,

Freeman and Donald-have touched on the grand strategy aspects of the

war, but left the comprehensive explanation for the strategy of exhaustion to

these two authors.

How the North Won is geared to both the general reader and the mature

student of this period. For the individual not steeped in the study of military

operations, this book requires that you begin by reading the appendix to un-

derstand the scope of the text.

The story of the events between 1860-1865 is the same, but in this fine

piece of historical writing it is told from the viewpoint of those individuals re-

sponsible for developing the grand strategy on both sides. Stressing the im-

portance of interior lines, logistical objectives, turning movements, and raids,

the case is made that "the South almost did" accomplish the task of sepa-

rating herself from the Union.

As the authors have stated the case for the northern strategy of exhaus-

tion, it was not in specific engagements or battles that determined the results

of the war, but rather in the development of managerial systems. To accom-

plish this feat, business leaders were recruited to prominent positions in the

government bureaucracy, the geneses of military staff organizations were de-

veloped, and informal and formal war-time planning was done at all levels of

the system.

The reader looking for a detailed analysis of the individual battles of the

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Book Reviews                                                    111

 

Civil War will most likely be disappointed, because only the military planning

for strategy in the theatres of operation and the larger campaigns are dis-

cussed. In this light, the role played by Lincoln and Grant in developing the

total war concept for defeating the South is both refreshing and enlight-

ening.

Like baseball umpires, the authors call them as they see them: George B.

McClellan failed to understand the political realities of his actions; Jefferson

Davis did not meddle in the War Department of the Confederacy; all kinds

of turning movements were attempted during the war, but only Grant was

successful; Albert S. Johnson must be held responsible for the loss of Forts

Henry and Donelson; and the Confederate high command failed to perceive

the separate detachments as part of the entire war operation.

Professors Jones and Hattaway have brought a critical eye and extensive

secondary research to this welcome book on the military strategy of the Civil

War. The style is clear and well organized. The brief historical sketches of

personalities, the illustrated maps, and the quotations help to make it a very

readable book. The index, however, does not.

Youngstown State University                        Hugh G. Earnhart

 

No Strength Without Union: An Illustrated History of Ohio Workers, 1803-

1980. By Raymond Boryczka and Lorin Lee Cary. (Columbus: Ohio His-

torical Society, 1982. xi + 328p.; illustrations, tables, appendix, bibliogra-

phy, credits, index. $19.95.)

 

A decade ago the history of Ohio labor was a subject largely confined to

the ivory towers of academia, and not even extensively studied there. Few of

the state's unions or historical societies did anything on the topic, courses at

the secondary and college levels on "Ohio History" rarely had a "labor"

component, and there were no significant efforts at popular education.

Then, in response on the one hand to the rise of the "New Labor History"

among scholars and on the other hand to pressures from the state's AFL

CIO, the situation began to change. In 1974 the Ohio Historical Society and

the various other archives within the state network initiated the Ohio Labor

History Project to preserve the records of trade union activities and working-

class life. Soon thereafter, the Labor Education and Research Service pro-

duced its award winning film "Strength Through Struggle: A Chronicle of

Labor Organizing in Ohio," which was shown extensively across the state

and further stimulated grass-roots interest. Increasingly, graduate students

pursued topics on local labor history, Ohio History itself became more recep-

tive to articles focusing on class conflict, and the state and various local his-

torical societies initiated exhibits depicting Ohio's working-class past.

Raymond Boryczka and Lorin Lee Cary's No Strength Without Union rep-

resents an important milestone on the road to rediscovering Ohio's labor his-

tory. First, it makes available for the first time to a general audience a superb

account of working-class activities in the Buckeye state. Secondly, through

its text, statistical tables, and bibliography, it provides a valuable compendi-

um of current scholarship and serves as a launch-pad for future academic re-

search. And third, its interpretive perspective signals the full independence

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112                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

of scholars from institutional backers, for most likely neither the directors of

the Ohio Historical Society nor the leaders of the Ohio AFLCIO would en-

dorse fully the radical perspective Boryczka and Cary offer.

No Strength Without Union is an impressive achievement. Not only is it the

only significant treatment of the working-class within any state, but through

its handling of such topics as pre-industrial culture, shop-floor struggles, and

the plight of minorities on the job, it stands among the finest surveys now

available on American labor history generally. Well-chosen passages from

historical documents and a good array of photographs and illustrations fur-

ther enrich the volume. Teachers at all levels wanting to put national econom-

ic and social events into a local context will be rewarded by examining this

book.

This is not to say that No Strength Without Union is free of weaknesses. At

times it seems to dwell too heavily on workers as passive victims of change

and not enough on how they carved meaningful lives out of limiting circum-

stances. More also could be done on working-class voting and political activi-

ties. Stylistically, the authors inteject too many descriptive statistics into the

text. But most disconcerting was the book's format of five long "Parts" rath-

er than shorter and more manageable chapters and even briefer subsections.

Consequently, the reader is provided no appropriate spots to interrupt his

reading and examine the parallelling photos and documents.

All of which simply proves that not everyone can be fully pleased. In the

final analysis, the above are minor flaws in a well-crafted work, one which

will hopefully stimulate further explorations of the history of Ohio workers

and their institutions.

The Ohio State University                           Warren Van Tine

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