Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

 

 

A Signal Victory: The Lake Erie Campaign, 1812-1813. By David Curtis Skaggs

and Gerald T. Althoff. (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1997. x +

244p.; illustrations, notes, appendix, glossary, glossary of nautical terms, bib-

liographic essay, index. $34.95.)

 

The battle of Lake Erie, in which an American naval squadron annihilated its

British counterpart on 10 September 1813, was one of two defining engagements

of the War of 1812 in the Old Northwest. The British-Indian capture of Detroit in

August 1812 and their seizure of Michigan Territory changed the course of the war

at its beginning. It aborted the American attempt to invade Upper Canada, ex-

posed the western settlements of the United States to Indian attack, and humiliated

the arms of the republic. Thenceforth, Madison's administration threw dispropor-

tionate resources into redeeming itself in the Northwest, to the detriment of opera-

tions in strategically more significant theaters further east. It took a year, but

those objectives were effectively achieved by the desperately fought encounter on

Lake Erie. The battle, and Oliver Hazard Perry's dynamic leadership, entered

American folklore, but this new study is by far the best we have.

It is both comprehensive and judicious. The authors have garnered material

diligently, and in a clearly written and even-handed analysis tackled almost every

aspect of their subject, from its overall strategic context to the politics and tech-

nicalities of the competing dockyards. As a study of the issues governing naval

conflict-strategy, tactics, men, ships, seamanship, armaments, gunnery, health,

morale, discipline, logistics and the sheer unpredictability of war-this is a model

for the sailing-ship era. Shipwrights, dockyard artificers, and contractors justly

find their place in the narrative alongside the commanders and their men. The

only issue missing, the question of whether horizontal hull-smashing fire con-

ferred advantages over upward dismasting fire, did not influence the engagement

on Lake Erie, in which both sides opted for the British tradition of close-quarter

action and horizontal fire.

Initial British supremacy on the Lakes played an important role in frustrating

American attempts to invade Canada in 1812, but as this book makes clear the

United States was successful at every subsequent stage of the naval rivalry on Lake

Erie. In the ensuing year the Americans built twice as many vessels for Lake Erie

as their opponents. They acted more quickly, and drew men and materials from a

more resourced hinterland in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Whereas the

British high command was willing to sacrifice the Lake Erie front to retain control

of the more vital Lake Ontario, the American administration drove its building

program forward with greater energy. Even Noah Brown, the shipwright at Presque

Isle, had a clearer sense of purpose than his British counterpart at Amherstburg.

He put speed of completion above quality, observing that "plain work is all that is

required: they [the ships] will only be wanted for one battle" (p. 72).

On the decisive day, Robert Heriot Barclay, the British commander, sailed into

action disadvantaged in vessels, guns, equipment and the proportion of profes-

sional seamen among his crews. The British flagship even lacked slow matches to

ignite the cannons, and pistols had to be fired into the gun vents to discharge

them. Although a light wind and a hesitant performance from Perry's second- in-

command, Jesse D. Elliott, enabled the British to use a slight advantage in long

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Book Reviews                                                        197

 

guns to reduce the American flagship to submission, ultimately they were over-

whelmed.

Paradoxically, Skaggs and Althoff convincingly argue that this most complete

of American victories was also in some respects a defeat. While it enabled United

States forces to recapture Michigan and drive the British-Indian army from the

Detroit frontier, it represented a misallocation of scarce resources to the West.

The Americans should have focused upon Canada's vulnerable frontier below Lake

Erie. By safeguarding that, and allowing the United States to indulge itself in the

conquest of a strategically subordinate arena, Canada survived until it could be re-

inforced by British veterans from Europe in 1814. In this light, then, the battle of

Lake Erie can be viewed not only as an overwhelming tactical victory for the

United States, but also as the symbol of the surer strategy of the defenders of

Canada.

 

Arnside, Cumbria, England                                   John Sugden

 

 

Nathan Boone and the American Frontier. By R. Douglas Hurt. (Columbia:

University of Missouri Press, 1998. xii + 256p.; illustrations, notes, bibliog-

raphy, index. $29.95.)

 

Nathan Boone, the youngest child of Daniel Boone, lived his entire life on the

frontiers of Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma. A hunter, trapper,

surveyor, ranger and dragoon in the United States Amy of the west, Nathan Boone

left a legacy of his own, "that helped the army execute both military and Indian

policy and contributed to the settlement of the frontier" (p. xi). In this volume in

the Missouri Biography Series, R. Douglas Hurt, who has written extensively on

the American frontier, attempts to reconstruct the life of the less well-known

Nathan Boone, a task made extremely difficult since Boone, a poorly educated man

of action, left relatively few personal letters, diaries or papers. As a result, despite

Hurt's admirable effort, Boone remains something of an enigma. The author, at

times, is reduced to speculating about what Boone thought or how he must have

"perceived, sensed or reacted" to certain events or situations in his life.

In many respects Nathan Boone's life paralleled the westward movement of the

American frontier from just after the Revolution to just before the Civil War.

From Virginia, down the Ohio to Kentucky and eventually eastern Missouri and fi-

nally southwestern Missouri, Boone moved with the ever-shifting frontier.

Serving the army as a scout, surveyor and officer in the dragoons, he helped to se-

cure control of the Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa and Oklahoma frontiers for

the United States government. Hurt credits Boone with playing "an instrumental

role" on the frontier, helping in the resettlement of the Cherokee Indians west of

the Mississippi, keeping the peace and paving the way for Euroamerican expan-

sion westward (p. 212). Boone emerges from these pages as a quietly competent

military officer. Without men like Boone, the author insists, "the army would

have failed the test of leadership" on the frontier (p. 193). Although Hurt believes

that Boone developed highly respected diplomatic skills in negotiating with the

Indians and in carrying out Indian policy, Boone apparently played no role in

shaping that policy; a policy to which Hurt devotes relatively little critical analy-

sis.

Indeed, we learn relatively little about Boone's personal life, which Hurt de-

scribes as "difficult to trace." During the course of his long marriage, Boone's

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198                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

wife, Olive, bore him fourteen children. Seldom home to care for his children or

the family homestead, and a disinterested, if not inept, farmer and businessman,

Boone spent most of his life on the move. Hurt's Boone "was a man of action,"

uncomfortable with life at home with his family and most content hunting, scout-

ing, working as a surveyor or in the saddle and on the march with the Army (p.

175). A slave owner and defender of the institution, Boone supported the proslav-

ery faction which called for the admission of Missouri to the Union as a slave

state. Although elected to the Missouri Constitutional Convention, he served in-

effectually and failed in his effort to win a seat in the legislature after Missouri

gained statehood. After his unsuccessful foray into politics, Boone eventually re-

turned to doing those things he did best, scouting, surveying and soldiering.

As a guide for William Clark, Boone played a major role in helping the U.S.

government secure a peace treaty with the Osage Indians, a treaty which ceded

much of the state of Missouri to the United States government (p. 77). Hurt is at

his best describing Boone's long years as an officer in the United States Army, the

long, arduous and sometimes deadly marches into the Indian country of Oklahoma,

his invaluable service as a surveyor of frontier boundaries and the difficulties of

army life in frontier army posts and forts. Hurt's well-written biography, taking a

traditional approach to western history, should prove of interest to the general

reading audience.

 

Wright State University                                  Harvey Wachtell

 

 

David Zeisberger: A Life among the Indians. By Earl P. Olmstead. (Kent, Ohio:

The Kent State University Press, 1997. xxiv + 441p.; illustrations, maps,

notes, appendices, selected bibliography, index. $39.00.)

 

In 1970 the publication of Carl John Fliegel's Index to the Records of the

Moravian mission Among the Indians of North America demonstrated the rich re-

sources available in the archives of the Moravian Church at Bethlehem,

Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, written in archaic German, many are difficult to use

and have attracted less attention than they deserve. Not the least achievement of

Earl P. Olmstead's new biography of David Zeisberger is that he has mastered

much of this material.  He has gone further.  The process of translating

Zeisberger's diaries was begun long ago by such scholars as Eugene F. Bliss,

Archer B. Hulbert and William N. Schwarze, but in preparing this book Olmstead

caused the diaries for the years 1775 to 1781, the only ones remaining to be trans-

lated, to be deciphered. Olmstead's is, then, a work of considerable industry. It

deals with Zeisberger's life up to 1782, and complements his previous book,

Blackcoats Among the Delaware (Kent, Ohio, 1991), which treated the mission-

ary's later career, and both form an essential companion to the pioneer biography

by Edmund de Schweinitz, published in 1870.

Zeisberger, a founder member of the Moravian settlements in Pennsylvania, is

best known for his attempts to Christianize the Delaware and Munsee Indians, a

task to which he devoted more than forty years of his life. Olmstead gives by far

the best blow for blow account of his fortunes, and leaves no doubt that Zeisberger

was a man of tremendous energy, courage, dedication and self-sacrifice. It is also

impossible not to agree with Olmstead that he loved the Indians, and that his abil-

ity to win trust and accommodate some aspects of Delaware culture contributed to

his success. That success was substantial.  In 1775 the Ohio missions of

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Book Reviews                                                        199

 

Schoenbrunn and Gnadenhutten had 414 converts, a significant proportion of a

Delaware-Munsee population of some 2500.

The book would have benefited from a wider perspective on Delaware history,

and reference to the books by Richard White, Gregory E. Dowd and Michael N.

McConnell. For example, the success of the Moravians owed much to the con-

comitant attempts of the Delawares to consolidate their scattered communities in

the face of British, French and American interference. It was this which induced

them to invite the Moravian missions to the Beaver and the Muskingum in the

1770s and to the White River (Indiana) in 1801. The Indian converts, not the

missionaries, were wanted; commonly, the Indians quickly tired of the Moravians,

and anti-missionary factions developed.

Similarly, the religious awakening among the Delawares in the mid-eighteenth

century was worth examining. Smitten by epidemic diseases, Indians were look-

ing to increase their sacred power to combat decline. Two contradictory manifes-

tations of this movement developed: one, nativistic, saw prophets striving to re-

gain spiritual favor by rejecting white influences and restoring supposed aborigi-

nal culture, the other the interest in alternative, non-aboriginal, sources of sacred

power, such as Christianity mediated by the Moravians. The tension between the

two, and the extent to which they explain the successes or failures of Zeisberger,

would have repaid treatment.

Olmstead is aware of the "destructive forces" often released by the Moravians (p.

178), but does not probe deeply into their effects upon Delaware society. A con-

sideration of the extent to which the missions provided models for economic de-

velopment, divided communities and families, modified belief systems, and gener-

ated spiritual anxiety by denouncing sacred ceremonies as "desperate heathensim"

(p. 150) might have prompted a less charitable view of the Moravian interven-

tion. If they had no interest in land or profit, and were admirably self-denying, the

Moravians also wanted something from the Indians, their souls.

Nevertheless, this is a valuable book about a remarkable man, grounded

throughout in primary sources, and containing much that will interest students of

the missionaries, the Delaware Indians, and the American Revolution in Ohio.

 

Arnside, Cumbria, England                                   John Sugden

 

 

Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most

Scandalous President. By Carl S. Anthony. (New York: William Morrow &

Company, 1998. xx + ⁶⁴⁵p.; illustrations, sources, notes, index. $30.00.)

 

On August 2, 1923, President Warren G. Harding died under mysterious circum-

stances. The personal and public scandals that broke after his death have earned

him a reputation as America's worst president. These scandals shocked and dis-

mayed the nation for over a decade after Harding's death. In the wake of these

scandals various rumors and half-truths began to circulate, chief among them was

the theory that First Lady Florence Kling Harding murdered her husband in a San

Francisco hotel room. The alleged motives vary from retaliation for a mistress to

a misguided attempt to martyr the President and thus preserve his popularity in the

face of the emerging scandals.  Whatever the reality, Florence Harding, the

"Duchess" as she was called, is best known today as a coldly calculating shrew

who used her chosen vehicle, Warren G. Harding, to obtain the White House. Like

Warren, she is regarded to be among the worst occupants of the position.

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200                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

It is with this reputation that Carl Anthony must contend as he argues that the

Duchess was a historically significant person in her own right. Anthony has

taken on a monumental task. Wisely, Anthony has approached the Harding legacy

with two different assumptions. First, he makes no attempt to argue that Harding

was a great president, but rather attempts to understand Harding's rise to power

within the context of the times. Harding's efforts to "harmonize," which are often

characterized as vacillation on issues such as the League of Nations, were a call for

tolerance and cooperation. Harding tried to moderate some of the worst excesses

during a period of racism and xenophobia. Secondly, he uses the life of Florence

Harding to unravel a story that is often steeped in the male culture of politics. In

many ways this is the story of a woman who was not satisfied with the sexual dou-

ble standard of the Victorian period and was not content to be barred from the male

domains of politics and business.

Florence Kling was the first child of Amos Kling, a leading businessman in

Marion, Ohio, who desired, above all else, to have his firstborn be a boy.

Florence disappointed her father in this respect and spent the rest of her life bal-

ancing efforts to both defy and please him. Florence ran away (usually referred to

as an elopement) at the age of eighteen and, according to Anthony, her child with

Pete DeWolfe was born out of wedlock. Florence returned to Marion to meet her fa-

ther's disapproval and to make her own way in the world. In 1891 she married

Harding, a rising newspaper editor and rival of Amos Kling, and thus began one of

the most notorious marriages in American history.

Those familiar with the Harding story will know much of what follows. Warren

Harding's adultery is infamous. Anthony has added new names to the list of

women who were involved with Harding, and there will be some debate about the

validity of the details. Anthony relies on a variety of sources for this comprehen-

sive biography and repeats many old stories, some of which are suspect. The bi-

ography is full of stories from the papers of Alice Roosevelt Longworth and

Evalyn Walsh McLean. Nonetheless, Harding's adultery is unquestionable. What

remains is determining with whom and where. Anthony does use, and quotes, the

controversial and sealed letters of Carrie Phillips, the mistress who blackmailed

the Republican Party. Most interesting, however, is reading Florence's reaction

to Warren's dalliances, which reveals much about the workings of their marriage

and the hurt that the sexual double standards of the day could inflict. Anthony re-

lies on Florence's newly discovered diary and he will come under criticism until

the diary, now in the hands of a private collector, becomes available for inspec-

tion by other scholars.

Carl Anthony has written what will become one of the standard works on the

Hardings. He has demonstrated that unlikely subjects can shed new light on old

topics. Florence Harding did not murder her husband, but she did greatly con-

tribute to the demise of his reputation. She set about burning his papers to protect

his reputation and hide events from the public, including the incompetent medical

treatment Harding received at the hands of Charles Sawyer. In the absence of doc-

umentation or open discussion of events, suspicion and conspiracy flourished.

Anthony concludes that Sawyer, a longtime Harding associate, was guilty of neg-

ligent homicide for his botched treatment of Harding's heart condition. Florence,

if guilty of anything, was guilty of self-absorption to the point where she was

more concerned with public adulation than with her husband's failing health. The

Duchess, after August 1923, found herself removed from power and public life.

Ultimately, Florence's power was derived from the male world in which she so

much wanted to participate. She might have been a strong woman and an interest-

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Book Reviews                                                        201

 

ing person, but her power and popularity came through her relationship with

Warren. In the end, it might not be possible to separate the two.

 

St. Bonaventure University                               Phillip G. Payne

 

 

Changing Plans for America's Inner Cities: Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine and

Twentieth-Century Urbanism. By Zane Miller and Bruce Tucker. (Columbus:

The Ohio State University Press, 1998. xiii + 227p.; illustrations, notes, ap-

pendix, index. $32.00 cloth; $15.95 paper.)

 

Ever since the emergence of residential neighborhoods as identifiable compo-

nents of the urban landscape, their definition has reflected the concerns of individ-

uals interested in understanding the city and shaping its destiny. Changing Plans

for America's Inner Cities represents one of the most recent efforts to explain the

dynamics of urban definition and neighborhood action. Focusing on the fate of

neighborhoods located closest to the city center, Zane L. Miller and Bruce Tucker

found that between 1915 and 1985 slum clearance became neighborhood conserva-

tion. This shift in orientation, they concluded, represented a reaction to a wave of

totalitarianism that culminated with the spread of communism in Europe. The so-

cial engineering ethos that drove slum clearance grew unacceptable when seen in

the light of authoritarian structures imposed on the areas under Communist domi-

nation.  Individualism, on the other hand, which acknowledged the right of

Americans to choose and exercise their right of selection and self-identification,

seemed more appropriate. The shift from one mode of thought to another, a pro-

cess which accelerated at the mid-century mark, affected not only the web of be-

liefs that motivated urban planners but also the arsenal of weapons used by all par-

ties involved in the process.

Focusing on the experience of Over-the-Rhine, an inner-city community located

at the northern rim of Cincinnati, Ohio's, central business district, Miller and

Tucker trace the interplay between ideas and action on the local level. During the

nineteenth century, as Cincinnati spread throughout the basin nestled at the bot-

tom of the city's many hills, the area that became Over-the-Rhine attracted a mix

of people and land uses. During the 1850s and 1860s, German immigrants pre-

dominated in this section of Cincinnati and their "Rhine" (the Miami and Erie

Canal) continued to identify the area even as the Germans began to reestablish

themselves elsewhere in the city. By 1915, Over-the-Rhine had ceased being a

dynamic neighborhood that served as a springboard to a more prosperous life for

urban newcomers. It had become instead a relatively dilapidated community that

housed semi-reputable entertainments and, as the century wore on, an increasingly

poor African American and Appalachian population with limited mobility.

After an introduction to Over-the-Rhine, Miller and Tucker divide their story

into two parts. In "Zoning, Razing, or Rehabilitation" (1915-1960), they relate

the way in which the prevailing definition of the city as an interdependent unit in

which individual or group interests were to be subordinated to a larger public inter-

est was translated into city plans. Through the manipulation of the social and

physical environment planners promoted rezoning areas for new uses, slum clear-

ance of tracts of land marked by physical obsolescence and general deterioration,

and the construction of new low-income housing in selected neighborhoods.

Through the use of these strategies planners strove to halt the encroachment of ur-

ban blight and stabilize the environment. The ultimate goal was the promotion of

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202                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

a smoothly running, cooperative whole.

The authors trace the emergence of a new definition of the urban community that

promoted a more individualistic approach which offered residents the opportunity

to assert control over their neighborhoods in "New Vision and Visionaries"

(1954-1985). Part of a larger movement against determinism, the new urban vi-

sion encouraged local activism and implied a measure of neighborhood autonomy.

Communities, such as Over-the-Rhine which had survived slum clearance, became

involved in struggles to define what and who constituted their neighborhoods.

Mobilizing public opinion, participation on task forces, testifying at public hear-

ings, and utilization of opportunities afforded by national preservation programs

surfaced as strategies for influencing the decisions of planners and city officials.

While residents of particular neighborhoods might consider their relationship

with the city, their goals often had less to do with cooperation or adherence to a

larger civic vision and much more to do with separatism and parochialism. The

impact of what the authors call "cultural individualism" virtually ignored any no-

tion of a larger public interest.

The strengths of Changing Plans for America's Inner Cities are numerous. The

authors ably demonstrate that urban definition is not static but related to different

historical periods. Strategies which may seem to transcend time possess different

meanings in different historical contexts. Also of note is the examination of the

battle over the use of historic preservation as a means to conserve neighborhoods,

a local experience which could inform other preservationists locked in conflicts

over neighborhood identification and use. More focused attention to the linkages

between the "revolt against determinism" (p. 44) and its urban manifestations in

the story of the period after 1954 would have better integrated the local story into

the authors' conceptual structure.

 

Loyola University                                 Patricia Mooney-Melvin

 

 

The Salmon P. Chase Papers. Volume 4: Correspondence, April 1863-1864.

Edited by John Niven, James P. McClure, Leigh Johnsen, and Kathleen Norman.

(Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1997. xxiii + 479p.; illustra-

tions, notes, chronology, editorial procedures, bibliography, index. $45.00.)

 

Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873) of Ohio was a major political figure in the

nineteenth century United States. Lawyer, antislavery activist, governor of Ohio,

and senator from that state, Chase also served as Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of

the Treasury and as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. This volume,

the fourth of Chase's selected papers and the third of his correspondence, covers

the last part of Chase's tenure as head of the Treasury Department and the brief hia-

tus before he was appointed to the Supreme Court to replace the recently deceased

Roger B. Taney. As with the two previous correspondence volumes, this one is

extremely selective, choosing only 269 of the 3,700 letters included in the micro-

film edition for the period. Nevertheless, the letters included, both to and from

Chase, give a sense of his personal life, his political desires and maneuverings,

his concern with the war effort and the well-being of the former slaves, and his fis-

cal responsibilities as Secretary of the Treasury.

Chase's personal life was never as major a factor in the correspondence as his

political concerns, yet during this volume his older daughter, Kate, became en-

gaged to and, in November 1863, married Rhode Island Senator William Sprague

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Book Reviews                                                        203

 

in one of the social events of wartime Washington. This volume includes a series

of letters between Sprague and Chase discussing arrangements and living accom-

modations. Chase, continually anxious that his daughters do their best, from his

perspective, was almost always critical of something in every letter he wrote to

them. In a typical chiding missive of November 23,1863, Chase returned his

younger daughter Nettie's letter with corrections, telling her that she must im-

prove her writing, and earning in response a plea that he write her a letter that was

not critical. Beginning in January 1864, Chase wrote a series of lengthy autobio-

graphical letters-tracing his childhood, antislavery activities, and work as

Secretary of the Treasury-to John T. Trowbridge who used the material to write a

children's biography of Chase, The Ferry Boy and the Financier (Boston, 1864).

Chase, of course, wanted to be elected president in 1864. Correspondence is in-

cluded which shows the responses of other people, such as Horace Greeley, to

Chase's desires. The embarrassment of the "Pomeroy Circular," the failure of the

Ohio Republicans to endorse Chase for the presidency, and Chase's own reasons

for withdrawing from the presidential contest are included.

Chase was not pleased with his role in Abraham Lincoln's cabinet and fre-

quently complained to correspondents that Lincoln did not consult his cabinet as

he should nor act as Chase would have him do. Finally, a disagreement over the

appointment of an important Treasury Department official in New York led to

Chase's resignation at the end of June 1864, which is fully covered in the corre-

spondence.

True to his antislavery background, Chase was concerned that blacks not lose

their gains so far won. He was a strong advocate of black suffrage and frequently

mentioned the importance of including such a provision, for example, in the 1864

Louisiana constitution.

Chase often mentioned war events in passing and was concerned about the ef-

fects major losses might have on the financial status of the federal government.

During the spring of 1864 Chase frequently wrote about the need for Congress to

establish a national currency and to phase out unstable state bank notes, to pass a

tax bill that would raise revenue to meet at least half the projected government ex-

penses, and to keep the price of gold from rising. Chase also often discussed the

various (confusing) bond issues used to raise funds for the war effort.

The late John Niven and his fellow editors have done their usual good job of an-

notating the documents. Researchers can look forward to one final volume cover-

ing Chase's years as Chief Justice.

 

University of Tennessee, Knoxville               Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein

 

 

Seeing Reds: Federal Surveillance of Radicals in the Pittsburgh Mill District,

1917-1921. By Charles H. McCormick. (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University

of Pittsburgh Press, 1997. x + 244; notes, index. $37.50.)

 

Charles McCormick's Seeing Reds is an account of the federal surveillance of

radicals in the Pittsburgh mill district during the World War I era. The story is a

familiar one, but McCormick adds a new dimension through the use of the declassi-

fied files of the Bureau of Investigation (the precursor of the FBI), the Military

Intelligence Division and the Office of Naval Intelligence. These detailed records

give McCormick a window into the day-to-day activities of federal agents in the

field. The book is a "from the bottom up" look at domestic intelligence opera-

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204                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

tions during this period. The main characters are the agents and the "foot soldiers

of the radical Left" on whom they spied.

In the Pittsburgh mill district the federal government ran an elaborate network

of spies, informants and agents provocateurs whose mission was to identify and

suppress radicals. Their objective was to ensure a loyal work force and to make

sure that agitators did not disrupt industrial production during the war. The per-

sonnel who made up this network were so closely linked to corporate capitalism

that one would not be in error to consider them as auxiliaries of the steel corpora-

tions. When war broke out many of them were recruited from the private detective

agencies that had supplied security and intelligence to industry. Motivated by a

narrow patriotism and relying on oversimplified and exaggerated ideas about the

nature of radical movements, these operatives were all too willing to believe in

radical leftist conspiracies among the foreign-born working populations in the

mill district.

Despite a great deal of time and effort, the government proved remarkably inef-

fective in catching those who posed a real threat to society.  The Bureau of

Investigation, led by J. Edgar Hoover, failed miserably at finding the culprits re-

sponsible for the wave of terrorist bombings that shocked the country in 1919. In

an effort to divert attention from this failure, the Justice Department launched a

highly-publicized deportation campaign (the so-called Palmer raids) against the

Union of Russian Workers (a small fraternal organization of Russian-speaking

mine workers) and the unnaturalized foreign members of the Communist Party. In

the Pittsburgh district McCormick observes that most of those rounded up were

"small fish," guilty of little more than having their names on the membership

lists of suspect organizations.

The names of two men appear prominently throughout McCormick's book:

Louis A Wendell, the leading federal undercover agent in the Pittsburgh district,

and Jacob Margolis, the city's most prominent radical. Using the alias of Louis A

Walsh, and also known as agent 836, Wendell infiltrated the Pittsburgh left with

ridiculous ease, winning the trust of local radicals and becoming a leader in

Pittsburgh leftist circles. Margolis, an outspoken anarcho-syndicalist and paci-

fist, was an attorney and son of Jewish immigrants from Russian Poland. Wendell

shadowed Margolis throughout the period, but never proved that he was a member

of the IWW or had committed any act of disloyalty. This did not prevent the

Allegheny County Bar Association from disbarring Margolis because of his un-

orthodox opinions.

Those who have read William Preston's Aliens and Dissenters (1963) will find

few surprises in this book. Nevertheless, Seeing Reds provides us with a valuable

look at the inner workings of the federal domestic intelligence operations during a

formative period. The significance of the story, as McCormick concludes, is that

as "the World War I welfare state provided a model for the New Deal welfare state,

so did the period 1917-1921 shape the official response to Reds in later genera-

tions" (p. 204).

 

Loyola Marymount University                          Errol Wayne Stevens

 

 

Labor's Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of

Modern American Labor Relations, 1912-1921.    By Joseph A. McCartin.

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. xvi + 303p.; illustra-

tions, notes, bibliography, index. $49.94 cloth; $18.95 paper;.)

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Book Reviews                                                        205

 

"As wartime conditions disrupted familiar patterns of labor relations in the

United States, employers no longer possessed as much power to compel obedience

on the shop floor"(p. 49).

Joseph A. McCartin argues that the ensuing struggle to attain a new balance be-

tween employers and employees not only helped to define more clearly the

Progressive era, it helped to lay the foundation of modern American labor rela-

tions. Employers lost power partly because of increased federal intervention, but

more important was the struggle between labor and management to define

"industrial democracy," a term popularized by Frank Walsh of the United States

Commission on Industrial Relations. Using the language of industrial democracy,

so closely intermingled with the wartime rhetoric of political democracy, count-

less workers demanded a greater voice in their work place. Disagreement over a

satisfactory definition of industrial democracy was at the crux of labor and man-

agement conflict between 1912 and 1921.

The battle to define industrial democracy and the increased role of the govern-

ment were not the only factors that disrupted traditional labor relations. Frederick

Taylor's notions of scientific management were profoundly altering American in-

dustry. Simultaneously, the composition of the work force was rapidly changing,

becoming more diverse and radical, which posed a threat to the AFL. The AFL des-

perately wanted to maintain its leadership position. Under siege from both the

Left and the Right, the AFL's leadership continued to advocate increasing the

power of workers through bargaining with employers, not through government

fiat.

The War Labor Conference Board (WLCB), co-chaired by Walsh and William H.

Taft, eroded employer control because its concern was to maintain production, not

the status quo. Consequently, its rulings often favored employees. American

workers further strengthened  their position  through grassroots  activities.

McCartin concisely demonstrates how some workers, led to believe that the gov-

ernment would intervene on their behalf, engaged in organizing efforts and strikes

without the approval of union chiefs. This militancy threatened to disrupt both

the government agencies that sought to regulate it and the union hierarchies that

sought to exploit it (p. 122). Even the rhetoric of industrial democracy and the

WLCB could not help labor to build industrial unions strong enough to withstand

the employers' backlash that followed the armistice.

By the war's end industrial democracy had so thoroughly permeated American

language, however, that employers had to grant it some quarter. Employers called

their scheme the American Plan. They initiated various types of representation

plans that they argued gave workers a collective voice on the shop floor. Of

course their primary intent was to thwart unions. By the early 1920s the American

Plan weakened many unions, especially those most dependent upon the govern-

ment for their growth. Still, the labor movement was stronger than prior to the

war.

McCartin argues that labor conflicts of the period were primarily significant be-

cause they gave voice to the widely expressed demand for industrial democracy.

Although much of what labor gained proved to be short-lived, its defeats were not

always decisive, as others have argued. The notion of industrial democracy was so

firmly implanted that all parties paid it homage. Thus, it laid the foundation for

the postwar struggle over industrial democracy that changed labor relations.

Labor's Great War is well-crafted, tightly argued, and sheds provocative new

light on the experience of labor during this crucial period. It should be read by

students of industrial relations and anyone interested in the years that surrounded

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206                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

American involvement in World War I. Although McCartin does not ignore

women and minorities, the impact of industrial democracy on these groups re-

mains to be fully investigated. This should not distract from a very fine mono-

graph.

 

Framingham State College                                Jon R. Huibregtse

 

 

American Politics in the Gilded Age, 1868-1900.  By Robert W. Cherny.

(Wheeling, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1997. xi + 167p.; illustrations,

notes, appendix, bibliographical essay, index. $11.95 paper.)

 

This is an informative addition to an ambitious series of brief studies designed,

as the editors emphasize, "for use in both basic and advanced courses in American

history, on the undergraduate and graduate levels." Robert W. Cherny examines

what he describes as "the federal political stalemate that lasted from the mid-1870s

to the 1890s" and "the political changes wrought during the 1890s that ushered in

important new forms of American politics" (p. 2).

Cherny clearly defines the two major political parties. Republicans stood for

"patriotism, prosperity, and morality" and believed in an active federal govern-

ment. Democrats, on the other hand, "typically crafted their identity in terms of

what they opposed." As the legendary Republican Speaker of the House of

Representatives "Czar" Thomas Reed put it, "the Republican party does things,

the Democratic party criticizes" (p. 26).

Many white Protestant Republicans equated morality with the elimination of al-

coholic beverages from American society. Democrats opposed prohibition or any

attempt by the government to interfere in social behavior. Cherny acknowledges

the work of Paul Kleppner on analyzing voting behavior in relation to the issue of

prohibition. Kleppner pointed out, for instance, that at least 70 percent of

Catholic voters in the North supported the Democratic Party. As Cherny explains,

"the more strongly a group opposed prohibition, the more likely they were to

vote Democratic" (p. 27).

Cherny writes at great length about what he calls the "deadlock" in national pol-

itics between 1868 and 1890. According to Cherny, all of the presidents in the

period contributed to the stalemate by failing to provide leadership on domestic

policy. He demonstrates, however, that each president made some effort to restore

the influence of the office after Ulysses S. Grant served for eight years as a "weak,

unassertive, easily influenced, even manipulated" chief executive (p. 52).

Ohioans can relate to Cherny's assertion that "a disproportionate number of

Ohio Republicans emerged into national leadership."  He cites Rutherford B.

Hayes as a perfect example of those who "demonstrated a solid grasp of party poli-

tics and a commitment to Republican party ideals tempered by an understanding of

the need for compromise" (p. 58). Nevertheless, Hayes and the presidents who

followed could not break the deadlock. As one of several useful tables in the ap-

pendix illustrates, Republican presidents almost always had to deal with a House

of Representatives under Democratic control, and Grover Cleveland, the only

Democratic president, had similar problems with a Senate under Republican con-

trol.

Then came the "critical realignment" of the 1890s. Rapid-fire developments be-

tween 1890 and 1896 left the Republican Party in power for most of the next

thirty-five years. The emergence of the Populists proved to be only the first shot

• 11
 

Book Reviews                                                        207

 

in what Cherny calls the "Republican Waterloo" of the early 1890s. At the same

time that the Populists drew votes from the Republicans in the West, an increasing

Republican emphasis on prohibition alienated more Catholics and others in the

Midwest. The Democrats took over the House of Representatives by a wide margin

in 1890, then followed with a big victory in 1892, returning Cleveland to the

White House and winning control of both Houses of Congress.

As it turned out, the Democrats would "fail to govern," according to Cherny, and

they self-destructed. With the party in deep trouble because of the economic col-

lapse that began in 1893, Cleveland drove a wedge among Democrats with his call

for the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. The Congressional election of

1894 brought Republicans control of the House of Representatives in a tidal wave,

as they swept almost all seats in the North.

Republicans put the finishing touches on the "realignment" in the historic pres-

idential election of 1896. Cherny credits the team of William McKinley and Mark

Hanna with running a perfect campaign, attracting Catholics, for instance, both

by denouncing anti-Catholicism and abandoning prohibition as an issue.

McKinley easily defeated William Jennings Bryan by emphasizing economic is-

sues and attracting middle-class voters in the North. As Cherny concludes, "After

1896, no one doubted that the Republicans were the national majority" (p. 130).

 

Wright State University                                     Allan Spetter

 

 

Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform 1910-1935. By Claudia

Clark. (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press,

1997. xii + 289p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 cloth;

$17.95 paper.)

 

Interweaving industrial, medical, legal and women's history, Claudia Clark has

written a fascinating, albeit tendentious, account of women workers in New

Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois who suffered horrifying illnesses as a result of

their employment in factories producing luminous watches and clocks. To manu-

facture these items which became popular in 1917 and 1918-a fad partly spurred

by soldiers' use of luminous watches during World War I-employers instructed

female employees to wet their radium-soaked brushes with their lips. By 1922 and

1923, some of the women began to die from radium-induced cancers and the com-

panies ceased to use the lip pointing method, though deaths and court cases result-

ing from the industrial use of radium continued right through the mid-1930s.

Clark's book is divided roughly into two parts. The first section focuses on the

young women employed in Orange, New Jersey, by the U.S. Radium Corporation

and the efforts by Katherine Wiley and other members of the New Jersey

Consumers' League to expose the plight of these employees, to win compensation

for them, to shut down the offending plant and to prevent such tragedies from ever

occurring again. Clark connects Wiley's efforts with those of the women-led in-

dustrial hygiene movement which had its origins during the Progressive Era and

which continued to press health and safety reform during the more conservative

1920s.  Making use of female-reform networks, members of the New Jersey

Consumers' League worked closely with Dr. Alice Hamilton, the pioneer of the

movement and the first woman professor at Harvard University. Though critical,

at times, of Hamilton's cautious approach, Clark contrasts her favorably with

prominent male scientists, who due to corporate funding of their research, hesi-

• 12
 

208                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

tated about making the public aware of the dangers of lip pointing.

Clark also contrasts the female and male victims of radium poisoning.  The

young women who painted luminous numbers on watch faces initially welcomed

jobs that paid relatively well for women's work and which did not require demand-

ing labor. They even joked when their clothes glowed and their hair shined in the

dark. Innocent victims, they had no inkling of the dangers of their job. The same

cannot be said of the male scientists who also suffered radium-induced illnesses but

who began their work with some prior knowledge of its dangers and who often en-

gaged in forms of self-denial, once the first symptoms appeared.

The second part of the book introduces a wide variety of themes. Clark con-

trasts efforts to gain compensation and some restitution for the victims in New

Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois. In New Jersey, a series of court cases resulted

from the assiduous efforts of the Consumers' League. In Connecticut, which Clark

portrays as the most conservative of the three states, out-of-court settlements led

to an unsatisfactory denouement. Illinois, due to the efforts of Florence Kelley

and other turn-of-the-century reformers, had some of the nation's most advanced

factory inspection legislation which allowed for more aggressive governmental

action. Clark also describes efforts to make industrial diseases compensable under

workers' compensation laws, corporate efforts to shape legislation, the biases of

state labor and health department officials, the use of radium as an internal

medicine, the far greater governmental concern for the consumer victims compared

to the employees, and the media's maudlin portrayal of the suffering women, cov-

erage which took attention away from corporate culpability for radium poisoning.

At times it is difficult to connect the different threads as the text jumps from point

to point.

This book needed a good copy editor. Unfortunately, the University of North

Carolina Press did not provide one or provided someone who only made minimal

changes in a text that often reads like a dissertation. The book is marred by poor

syntax, needlessly convoluted sentence structure, confusing organization and

needless repetition. This will limit its potential use. This is especially unfortu-

nate given the importance of the topic. We are now aware of workers who have

suffered from mercury and lead poisoning, anthrax, silicosis and numerous other

occupational diseases. Only recently, medical researchers pinpointed the cause of

a "puzzling" outbreak of brain tumors at an Amoco research facility near Chicago.

We need to know more about a critical issue Clark poses. When did companies

first learn of these dangers and did they attempt to cover up the result of their find-

ings?

 

Cleveland State University                              David J. Goldberg

 

 

Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a

Decade. By Jeff Shesol. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997. xi + 591p.; il-

lustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $32.50.)

 

In Mutual Contempt, Jeff Shesol has focused squarely on the relationship be-

tween Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy. The author treats the story as a

"Greek tragedy played out on a nation's center stage" (p. 8). This feud helps to il-

luminate the politics of the period, and thus this book is must reading for anyone

who seeks to understand the political dynamics of the sixties. Thoroughly re-

searched, the work is very well written.

• 13
 

Book Reviews                                                     209

 

Each page sheds light on the strained relationship, which was complex and

deep. Bobby Kennedy blamed Lyndon Johnson for the charges in the 1960 pri-

mary that Jack had Addison's disease, and that Joseph Kennedy was a Nazi ap-

peaser. He concludes that the selection of Johnson as Jack's running mate ruined

the fragile relationship between the two men. Shesol disagrees with Bobby's con-

tention that LBJ was offered the vice presidency with the idea the Texan would turn

it down. One of the ironies of the relationship was that LBJ had to maneuver

Bobby's cabinet nomination through an unhappy Senate. The Hickory Hill gang

in a "meanspirited" fashion made fun of LBJ, and of course this kind of attitude

made its way back to the vice president. Likewise, Johnson began to complain to

all who would listen about Bobby's undermining his activities. Basically, Bobby

had become the number two man in Washington instead of the vice president.

However, all of this changed on November 22, 1963, with JFK's assassination in

Dallas. As the plane arrived in Washington, Johnson was deeply hurt as Bobby

brushed his way past the new president to get to Jackie. Bobby also kept Johnson

out of the Oval Office as long as possible. To Bobby, Johnson had abused Jackie

during this time of personal crisis. Concerning the notion that Kennedy went to

Dallas to help Lyndon Johnson, the author notes that it actually was to help JFK.

By 1964 many close to Kennedy admitted that Johnson went out of his way to be

sympathetic to the Kennedy family, and many on the Kennedy team were amazed

with Johnson's ability during the transition.  Shesol believes LBJs "singular

achievement" was the passage of the Civil Rights Act without compromise, and

that he deserved most of the credit for passage.

As a second administration approached, due to rumors of disloyalty, Johnson

came to the conclusion that Robert Kennedy had no place in the Johnson cabinet.

Yet Bobby "irrationally" hoped that he might be Johnson's running mate.

Johnson turned frequently to J. Edgar Hoover, who provided him with anti-

Kennedy information. Ultimately, Johnson told Kennedy that he was not to be

his running mate, and later embellished the Kennedy reaction in a Texas story-

telling style in which he portrayed Kennedy as a "stunned semi-idiot." Thus,

Kennedy turned to the Senate race in New York, where he managed to get elected,

partially thanks to Johnson's coattails.  Soon after Kennedy became a U.S.

Senator, the war in Vietnam escalated, and by the spring of 1965 Robert Kennedy

began calling for a bombing pause. Thereafter, Kennedy spoke out strongly

against the Johnson acceleration. Therefore, Vietnam became another major issue

in the split. Ultimately, a waffling RFK began to assume leadership of the antiwar

Democrats, and LBJ became more paranoid about the senator from New York. The

feud would dominate the debate over the Vietnam war. On March 16, 1968, RFK

announced his candidacy for the presidency, and Vietnam was his issue. Finally,

to Kennedy's surprise, LBJ pulled out of the race, but on June 5, Robert Kennedy

was mortally wounded in Los Angeles. Even with the death of one of the protago-

nists, the feud did not end, as Johnson unsuccessfully attempted to find ways to

keep Robert from being buried in Arlington.

Shesol concludes this balanced, fascinating account by pointing out that Robert

Kennedy "won the hearts of Democrats," but LBJ continues to "battle for their

souls."

 

Marshall University                                   Robert F. Maddox

• 14
 

210                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy, & Theology. By

Allen Jayne. (Lexington:  The University of Kentucky Press, 1998. xiii +

245p., illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $39.95.)

 

Still another study of Jefferson is hardly occasion for celebration. Only Julius

Caesar, Jesus, Shakespeare, Washington, and Lincoln have generated more books.

Allen Jayne has ventured into a well-worn subject, seemingly, which has little

more to divulge. Moreover, as an intellectual historian, Jayne does not deal with

such popular subjects as Jefferson's sex life nor his ownership of slaves, and he

ignores entirely post-modernist theoretical perspectives with their jargon and at-

tention to gender, race, and class. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence looks

at a familiar subject in conventional, even traditional intellectual terms. Even so,

it is fresh and valuable.

Jayne argues that Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence have shaped

American democracy and by implication modern democracy. According to him

previous scholars have reduced Jefferson's thought to either watered-down ver-

sions of John Locke, emphasizing the primacy of individual right at the cost of

communal responsibility, or they have distanced Jefferson from Lockean liberal-

ism and, instead, tied his thought to classical republicanism rooted in the Italian

Renaissance with an emphasis on civic responsibility. Jayne finds these two ap-

proaches narrow and distorting. Just as disturbing, he insists that both fail to ad-

dress Jefferson's theological views and epistemological grounding. Jayne insists

that Jefferson's most important influences came from the eighteenth-century

Enlightenment, especially the theological and epistemological ideas of Lord

Bolingbroke, Lord Karnes, and Thomas Reid whose thought Jefferson encountered

as a student at the College of William and Mary.

Prior to the American Revolution, according to Jayne, the British North

American colonies adhered to a Christian orthodoxy that affirmed the existence of

one God, one morality, and the frailty of human rationality. Far from being a free-

thinking, independently minded people, Americans believed that humans received

God's truth through authorized agents such as ministers, priests, or rabbis.

"Colonial American religions stultified individual determinations of morality, re-

ligious opinion, and politics on the part of their own members and followers" (p.

18). The Declaration of Independence marked a watershed in American thought. It

institutionalized in American political culture Jefferson's radical theology which

rejected the orthodox ideas of original sin, predestination, biblical infallibility,

and miracles. Through the writings of Bolingbroke, Jefferson encountered the

scientific revolution, and from Locke he adopted the notion of natural rights and

individual equality. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson replaced the ar-

bitrary and vengeful God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses with an orderly and ratio-

nal law maker. Nature's God gave all humans the right to life, liberty and prop-

erty, not simply God's chosen people. Unlike Locke, however, Jefferson did not

restrict knowledge to a highly educated elite. Instead, he borrowed from the

Scottish jurist, Lord Karnes, the belief that all humans possessed an internal moral

sense, a conscience which enabled them to determine right from wrong, truth from

error. Such a universal and inherent moral sense allowed humans to perceive natu-

ral truths and qualified them for political power. It provided the epistemological

foundation for democratic society.

According to Jayne, Jefferson  rejected the  skeptical currents of the

Enlightenment that denied the validity of all knowledge whether based on ortho-

dox religion or scientific empiricism.  Following the lead of Thomas Reid,

• 15
 

Book Reviews                                                          211

 

Jefferson insisted that human perception, without any mediation, could discrimi-

nate between truth and error. Common sense enabled humans to make reliable and

just choices as long as they remained open to rational argument, verifiable evi-

dence, and new insights.  Jayne points out that such a belief informed the

Declaration of Independence, Jefferson's endorsement of public education and his

support for the secular curriculum  of the University of Virginia.  These

Enlightenment ideas led Jefferson to affirm freedom of religion and speech, sepa-

ration of church and state, scientific knowledge, public education, and political

democracy. Institutionalized in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of

Rights, these ideas challenged Americans' orthodox religious beliefs. Jayne ar-

gues that without religious freedom and the separation of church and state, democ-

racy, as Jefferson envisioned it, cannot survive.

Whether or not you agree with Jayne's assertion, his scholarship has several

problems. First, Jayne has replaced Calvinist orthodoxy with a Jeffersonian or-

thodoxy. Jefferson was, after all, only a man and a man of his time. His ideas are

tantalizing and influential, but they remain Jefferson's. A sovereign, democratic

people are no more bound by the beliefs of their founders than they are by despotic

monarchs.   Further, while Jayne offers a coherent and plausible outline of

Jefferson's thought, it is an idealized construction that ignores the contradictions,

confusions, and historical ambiguities. In his introduction Jayne tellingly quotes

Paul Conkin that it is "impossible to determine Jefferson's world view because it

always ended up with such an eclectic mix of ideas as to defy systematic ordering"

(p. 7). Quite likely, Jefferson would find Jayne's construction attractive and flat-

tering, but in his own lifetime Jefferson refused to emancipate his slaves, ex-

pressed profound racial prejudice, described Virginia's white majority as a

"rubbish heap," and failed to adopt the radical feminism of his contemporary Mary

Wollstonecraft. He would have failed contemporary definitions of political cor-

rectness. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence would have benefited from

greater familiarity with the historical context and with contemporary theory.

Still, this is a powerful study, well organized, clearly written, and convincingly

argued. It should be required reading for all students of American history and cul-

ture.

 

Kenyon College                                            William B. Scott

 

Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862-1865. By Noah A.

Trudeau. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1998, xxii + ⁵⁴⁸p.; illustra-

tions, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.)

 

One of the gaps in the current literature on African Americans in the Civil War

has been a detailed account of their combat activities. In Like Men of War, Noah

Trudeau has mainly met this need with an interesting narrative of all of the battles

and skirmishes that the United States Colored Troops participated in.

Trudeau divides the book into five parts, basically corresponding to the years of

the war. In the first section he describes the creation of the first black regiments

in Kansas, Louisiana, and South Carolina and the difficulties that their leaders had

in receiving official sanction for them. The second section focuses on 1863 and

the actions of the now official black units. Trudeau provides a detailed description

of the attack by the 54th Massachusetts on Fort Wagner. He notes that the

Confederates refused to give full military honors to the dead black soldiers, an in-

• 16
 

212                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

dication of one of the major problems that faced the USCT. Following a two-page

discussion of the issue of unequal pay, Trudeau describes the other battles of 1863,

including small skirmishes in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The

well-written battle narratives are fleshed out with quotations from official reports,

excellent maps, and the words of many of the participants. The next two sections

(1864-1865) of the book follow this pattern. Trudeau provides a good account of

the Fort Pillow and Poison Springs massacres. He also describes skirmishes

where the USCT themselves took no prisoners. Another topic that Trudeau pre-

sents is the attitude that Union commanders took toward using the USCT units un-

der their command. Many Union officers, such as Sherman, generally did not want

to employ their black soldiers in a significant combat role but exploited them to

free white soldiers for more active duty. In the final brief section, Trudeau notes

that after the war the contributions of the black soldiers were quickly forgotten by

most white people.

This work has many strengths and some weaknesses. Trudeau certainly fills a

gap in the literature on the African-American soldier in the Civil War. Previous

accounts, such as those by Joseph Glatthaar and Dudley Cornish, dealt with their

activities in a general sense or looked at the USCT in terms of other issues.

Trudeau has focused on combat. Anyone interested in the contributions of black

soldiers to the Union victory can turn to this book to read a very detailed account

about all of the battles. In addition, Trudeau has done a great deal of research to

give us the voices of the soldiers. This focus on the battles is also part of the

weakness of the book, because the battle narratives become repetitious. Instead of

being able to describe in depth a whole campaign or a particular general, Trudeau is

forced to skip from theater to theater and leader to leader. In addition, other issues

of interest, such as leadership, racial attitudes of white officers, and pay disparities

are only mentioned or ignored. While these are topics that Trudeau did not intend

to cover, their absence does detract from the overall effect. The works of other

scholars must still be consulted to help provide a complete picture. Finally, it

would have been useful for Trudeau to attempt some assessment of the quality of

the African-American soldiers in combat, but he ignores the opportunity.

Noah Trudeau has written an interesting, though somewhat limited, book which

explains in great detail the battlefield activities of the United States Colored

Troops. It should make the reader aware of how much they did to help gain their

own freedom.

 

Ohio University                                          Marvin Fletcher

 

 

The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd. By Jeffery S. King. (Kent, Ohio: The

Kent State University Press, 1998. vii + 242p.; illustrations, notes, selected

bibliography, index. $28.00.)

 

In The Grapes of Wrath novelist John Steinbeck depicted the Dustbowl "Okies"

as secular, quasi-socialist partisans of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Five

decades later journalist Dan Morgan wrote a "rebuttal" to Steinbeck. In Rising in

the West, Morgan's "Okies" were stoic individualists and fervent Pentecostals

who disdained labor organizers and New Deal bureaucrats. Now librarian Jeffery

King has given readers yet another view of the 1930s "Okie." In The Life and

Death of Pretty Boy Floyd we are introduced to an "Okie" subculture in which shift-

less men abandon their wives, engage in promiscuous sex, and kill without re-

• 17
 

Book Reviews                                                        213

 

morse. Regardless of which author has captured the authentic "Okie," one must

conclude that Oklahoma was an interesting place to be in the Great Depression.

Charles Arthur Floyd, a.k.a., "Pretty Boy" Floyd (1904-1934), is best remem-

bered for his role in the 1933 "Kansas City Massacre." Never one to consider the

consequences of his actions, Floyd developed a rash plan to liberate gangster

Frank Nash from federal custody. "Pretty Boy" simply blasted away at the law en-

forcement agents  who   were escorting  Nash to  a federal penitentiary.

(Paradoxically, he killed Nash.) The "Kansas City Massacre" earned Floyd a place

on FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's "Most Wanted" list and his name quickly be-

came associated with the other great sociopaths of the Depression Era: John

Dillinger, Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and George "Machine Gun" Kelly.

Hoover vowed to "exterminate" such "vermin."

Although he had a few accomplices, Floyd never built a sophisticated crime

ring. He was, at best, a small-time bank robber and cop killer who tore up and

down the "honky tonk" trail from Oklahoma to Ohio. Floyd could have become a

member of the venerable Kansas City, Missouri, Mafia. "Pretty Boy," however,

did not have it in him to be a team player. He lacked the patience to work his way

up through the ranks of the Kansas City Mob and its political wing, the

Democratic Machine of Boss Tom Pendergast. This perhaps explains why team

player and Machine loyalist Harry Truman became President and Floyd met his

maker in East Liverpool, Ohio, at the age of thirty.

The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd is an action-packed read. Indeed, at

times the pace of King's prose reminds one of the rata-tat-tat of a machine gun.

(And I mean that in a good sense.) , do believe, though, that King could have fur-

ther developed the historical context. In particular, readers who know very little

about American history-a good share of our students-might not understand why

bankers were so unpopular among poor farmers in the early years of the

Depression. Also, the author could have explored the "honky tonk" culture that

the hardest drinking, most self-destructive ethnic Welsh and Scotch-Irish migrants

planted in the Appalachians, the Alleghenies, and the Ozarks. Floyd and his

"cousins," the Hatfields and the McCoys, were products of a culture of "social dis-

organization." Seen in this light, it is not so strange for an "Okie" bandit like

Floyd to make his last stand in eastern Ohio, In all of his travels, Floyd never re-

ally left home.

Quibbles aside. The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd, used in conjunction

with other texts, would be ideal for courses in criminal justice, advanced offerings

on Depression Era America, and, perhaps, a film history class devoted to

Hollywood's depiction of law and order. ("Bonnie and Clyde" and "The FBI Story"

might make good companion pieces.)

 

Ohio University                                      Kenneth J. Heineman

 

 

A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America. By Darlene

Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson. (New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

355p.; illustrations, endnotes, bibliography, index. $27.50.)

 

Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson's A Shining Thread of Hope signals

yet another example of the coming of age of black women's history. Uniquely

written, this book covers the historical experiences of black women from the west

coast of Africa to the present. Unlike most historical overviews which tend to

• 18
 

214                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

provide one with a general story with little depth, Hine and Thompson offer inti-

mate details of the lives of individual black women throughout the pages of their

book. Using this style, the reader is treated to many wonderful stories that when

complemented by historical documentation, truly bring black women's history

alive.

Three major themes emerge from the book; accomplishment, cultural expres-

sion, and resistance to oppression. The authors state that "these three characteris-

tics distinguish the history of black women in America" (p. 29). These themes

characterize Hine and Thompson's style and set their work apart from the only

other comprehensive book on black women in America, When and Where I Enter

by Paula Giddings.

With the first theme, accomplishment, Hine and Thompson provide numerous

historical examples of black women who achieved fame, wealth and/or profound

respect against societal odds. They cite examples such as black women in colo-

nial America like Lucy Terry Prince who along with her husband achieved so much

prominence in Deerfield, Vermont, that they were treated equal to whites (p. 22).

Or the fourteen sisters who in the early 1800s were charter members of the

Philadelphia Antislavery Society, the first biracial women's abolitionist group in

the country (p. 38). The inclusion of women of accomplishment in the book chal-

lenges the uninformed reader who may have previously viewed black women's ex-

periences in the past as both uniform and degraded. It also educates those who be-

lieve that there were only a few black women, such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet

Tubman, who were able to achieve high levels of respect. Hine and Thompson's

sophisticated discussion of cultural expression takes on many forms. They place

the foundation of black women's culture in West Africa in the first chapter of the

book and discuss the blending process that occurred as many cultures came into

contact over time. More time is later given to the immense cultural production

that occurred in the antebellum quarters of enslaved Africans where black music and

dance became both entertainment and resistance. In later decades and into the

twentieth century, cultural expression is documented by famous black women mu-

sicians, singers, writers, and those in the performing arts. The authors provide

many descriptions of black women as cultural producers is written in a way that

places black women in the center of what is and has been considered "American"

culture.

As for the other two themes in this book, examples of black women's resistance

to oppression are numerously documented. The authors discuss the many forms of

resistance black women took to the institution of slavery, sexual abuse, exploita-

tive working conditions, political and economic disenfranchisement, and social

and legal prejudice. Individual resistance by women such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett,

and collective activism such as that which was done by the thousands of black

women who formed the "black women's club movement," or those who worked

behind the scenes during the Civil Rights Movement, bring to life the constant

pressure black women have placed against a system that sought to deny their hu-

manity and liberty. In Hine and Thompson's work, black women are not viewed

solely as victims, but as agents against oppression.

There are many enjoyable aspects to this book. The writing style is unique in

that it is sophisticated, yet easy to understand. It is also creative with its use of

fictionalized stories, historical documentation, and the actual words of black

women in America's past. This blend brings the experiences and voices of black

women alive in an entertaining yet informative manner. Hine and Thompson must

also be credited for synthesizing many of the arguments and historiography of

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Book Reviews                                                        215

 

both black women's history and African-American history in a way that has not

been done before. This book is useful to a wide audience of scholars, teachers, stu-

dents, and those who simply want one of the least-heard voices of the American

experience.

 

The Ohio State University                               Siri Briggs Brown

 

 

Cowan Pottery and the Cleveland School. By Mark Bassett and Victoria Naumann.

(Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1997. 372p.; illustrations,

notes, appendices, index. $69.96.)

 

The authors of what is unquestionably the definitive history of Cleveland's

Cowan Pottery have wisely approached their task in terms of the artists who for a

few brief years in the 1920s and early 1930s created some of the finest and most

original art pottery produced in America.

Beginning with a biographical sketch of R. Guy Cowan that skillfully inter-

twines relevant aspects of the history of the Arts and Crafts movement and the art

scene in Cleveland, the book proceeds to a series of sketches of the major Cowan

artists, including their prior and subsequent histories.

Fittingly, R. Guy Cowan (1884-1957) was born in East Liverpool, Ohio,

though his ceramic apprenticeship began at Syracuse, New York, where his father

was chief decorator at Onondaga Pottery Co. At Alfred University young Cowan

fell under the influence of Charles Fergus Binns before moving to Cleveland,

Ohio. Blessed with the cooperation and knowledge of the Cowan family, the au-

thors have provided an ample account of Guy Cowan's life and work.

Biographical accounts of other Cowan artists necessarily vary in fullness; un-

derstandably there is much more information available on the likes of Wayland

Gregory than more retiring or elusive, lesser-known artists such as Whitney

Atchley; but for each, the extent and nature of their relationship to the Cowan

Pottery, as well as its influence on them, is made clear.

This book stands leagues ahead of the horde of "collectors' books" that vie for

the attention and the dollars of pottery dealers and collectors. In terms of scholar-

ship, detail, and insight there are few competitors, and it more than holds its own

when compared with, say, Reich's study of Redwing art pottery and Anita Ellis'

volume defining Rookwood pottery in terms of glaze lines. Perhaps influenced by

Ellis, for example, the authors include in the second part of their book, which is

designed as a "collector's guide, 11 detailed descriptions and ample illustrations of

Cowan's many glazes and shapes. This section obviously will be of the most in-

terest to collectors of Cowan pottery. A third section describes Guy Cowan's ca-

reer after the failure of his Rocky River pottery and traces his influence and legacy.

One of the most impressive and original elements of this history is the relatively

brief concluding section describing and illustrating examples of the work of other

potteries influenced by Cowan.

While many of these potters worked successfully in more than one medium,

most continued to be recognized for their work with Cowan and their subsequent

work in ceramics. Exceptions are Edris Eckhardt, who later turned to glass as an

artistic medium, and Thelma Frazier Winter, who with her husband specialized in

enameled metal. These, together with other major ceramic artists such as Victor

Schreckengost, Walter Sinz, Paul Bogatay, and Wayland Gregory, may loosely be

said to have formed a "Cleveland School," although nowhere in this comprehen-

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216                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

sive work is this term clearly defined. Among Guy Cowan's talents was the ability

to attract other talented potters and accomplish a genuine sharing of knowledge

and ability.

Organization and indexing of the book is a bit idiosyncratic, the index being

confined to proper names and divided into six sections: Cowan Pottery Artists and

Designers, Cowan's Family, Cowan's Staff, Other Artists and Potters of "The

Cleveland School," American Potters and Potteries Outside Cleveland, and

Noteworthy Events, People, and Places. There is also a shape guide which serves

as a partial index to the illustrations, if one knows the shape number. But one

cannot, for example, readily find illustrations of Cowan's well-known Sunbonnet

Girl bookends or even Victor Schreckengost's famous Jazz Bowl, other than by

leafing through the volume. It must be said, in this respect, that leafing through

the volume is a pleasure in itself, for with few exceptions the photography is ex-

cellent, and the lapses are generally clearly due to conditions beyond the authors'

control. Not only the quality of the photography is noteworthy but the sheer

number and variety of the illustrations also merit remark.

Granted that the Cowan Pottery Museum at Rocky River Public Library has

served as a focal point for gathering not only Cowan Pottery but a diverse collec-

tion of Cowan data and memorabilia, the scope, detail, and accuracy of the authors'

investigative work is remarkable. Specific errors noted are relatively minor and

extremely few:   the Winterich Pottery  was located  in  Salineville-not

Salinesville- Ohio, for example. It is a bit misleading to refer to Paul Bogatay's

"patented photostatic process," for while Bogatay and Walter Ford collaborated in

the brief Columbus, Ohio, venture known as Ford Ceramic Arts, family members

agree that the several photoceramic processes developed by this company were

those of Ford, while the work of design was Bogatay's. In any event, the patents

are in Ford's name.

Patient and methodical study of trade journals and other primary material, aided

by interviews of Cowan family members and the few surviving pottery artists and

artisans, has produced an exemplary and scholarly study not only of the Cowan

Pottery but the national shift from studio pottery to industrial art in general. The

authors are to be commended for producing a detailed history of an important phe-

nomenon and tradition in American ceramic history, a work as expressive in its

own way of a knowledge and love of ceramics as are the products of the Cowan

phenomenon it documents.

 

The Ohio State University                                    Jim Murphy

 

 

Tecumseh: A Life. By John Sugden. (New York: Henry Holt and Company,

1997.   xi + 492p.; illustrations, notes, appendix, bibliography, index.

$34.95.)

 

British author John Sugden has lavished extensive research and intensive criti-

cal scrutiny on the achievements of a Shawnee warrior and chief who won fame for

masterminding a pan-Indian confederacy that between 1805 and 1813 tried to de-

feat American efforts to establish hegemony in the Old Northwest. Sugden ac-

knowledges that Tecumseh was not original; Shawnees and their fellow tribesmen

had been failing in similar projects since the 1740s. Tecumseh himself fought in

the post-revolutionary pan-tribal alliance that lost its cause in the Battle of Fallen

Timbers of 1794, and that alliance remained his model.

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Book Reviews                                                        217

 

After the defeat, Tecumseh's eloquence and his skills as a warrior and provider

won him a village following, but his leadership of a pan-tribal movement began

only after 1805, when his younger brother, a drunkard and ne'er-do-well, had vi-

sions that turned him into The Prophet.  The prophetic message combined

Christian views of hell and monogamy with separatist insistence on sobriety,

land retention, and rejection of both intermarriage and the weapons, clothing, an-

imals, and religion of the intruder. This message, and his Dance of the Lakes, won

converts from all directions. The Prophet himself preached peace; he expected a

future cataclysm to remove the whites and return the game. Tecumseh took up the

message that land was the common property of the tribes and should not be sold,

but tried peaceful negotiation to avert catastrophe. A practical man, he wore a

deerskin shirt but kept his woolen leggings, his gun, and his silver jewelry. He

also solicited agents, traders, blacksmiths, and ammunition from the United

States.

Sugden argues that negotiation in good faith might have prevented war.

Instead, Americans credited Tecumseh with militant intentions more clearly mani-

fested by tribes to the west of him. Only after what Sugden takes to be a gratuitous

1809 treaty-cum-land-grab, did Tecumseh seek a defensive alliance with the

British. In 1811 he traveled west and south in a sometimes successful search for

allies, bringing tribes such as the Sioux and Winnebago to their first connection

with an eastern confederation. During his absence, the Prophet committed those

who stayed behind to a premature conflict with the Americans. He communed with

spirits who told him the Indians would be bullet-proof, the Indians attacked

American troops, and those troops sacked and burned Prophetstown.   The

Prophet's mistake, and his abstention from the fighting, discredited him, and

Tecumseh on his return became the acknowledged leader of the pan-tribal confeder-

ation.

When war broke out in 1812, he led an Indian army to the initially successful de-

fense of lower Canada. But once the Americans took command of the Lakes, the

British abandoned Fort Maiden and very nearly abandoned their allies.

Tecumseh, who died in battle at the Thames in 1813, made the political reputa-

tions of many of those who fought him. The Prophet stayed in Canada until Lewis

Cass summoned him to engineer Shawnee removal to Kansas. Sugden clearly has

scant regard for the Prophet, who may have revitalized the Shawnees but remained

himself incapable of Tecumseh's style of courageous and committed leadership.

Justly, in Sugden's view, it was Tecumseh whom both Canadians and Americans

celebrated in poetry, fiction, and drama as a patriot chief. Though he acknowl-

edges Tecumseh's hauteur, his deficiencies as a husband and father, his serious

miscalculations in dealing with the Creeks, and the destructiveness of war,

Sugden's lovingly detailed descriptions of the warrior's battles, his talents, and

his character, clearly delineate a hero.

 

University of Rochester                                      Mary Young

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