BOOK REVIEWS
Preliminary Inventory, Record Group
10, Indian Affairs. Compiled by
Manuscript Division, Public Archives of
Canada. (Ottawa, King's Printer
and Controller of Stationery, 1951.
14+xiiip., appendices and index.)
The manuscript division of the Public
Archives of Canada has launched
a series of inventories to describe in
some detail all its collections. Each of
the publications will be concerned with
a particular section of the manu-
scripts in the public archives. "Record
Groups" are divisions of official
public records which have been
continuously in the custody of some branch
of government, and "Manuscript
Groups" are parallel series composed of
photocopies or transcripts of
manuscripts in other depositories, private
papers, and other nonofficial materials.
The present preliminary inventory, the
first of the series to be published,
is concerned with all the records of the
Indian affairs branch and its
predecessors which were transferred to
the public archives up to June
1951. The history of the management of
Indian affairs in Canada is a
rather complicated story. At first,
officers at the various military posts acted
as agents and liaison between the
Indians and the English. In 1755, how-
ever, it was found expedient to appoint
a full-time superintendent, the
first being the well known Sir William
Johnson. Jurisdiction over Indian
affairs has since passed through many
officials with changing titles and
has been under supervision of a number
of various governmental depart-
ments. Since 1950 the Indian affairs
branch has been attached to the
department of citizenship and
immigration.
Notwithstanding the complexity of this
story, Record Group 10 lends
itself to a simple and efficient
organization. The records are arranged to
give a picture of the agency from which
they were created; and then the
agencies are grouped under functional
headings.
Until 1860 responsibility for the
expense and management of Indian
affairs was under imperial control. The
administrative records of this
period, 1755-1860, conveniently form a
unit of this inventory. These
contain not only items of Canadian
history, but also many matters of
interest to American history, such as
Pontiac, the Six Nations, Sir William
Johnson, and an Indian council held at
Albany. After 1860 the Indian
department was placed under ministerial
control. The administrative records
of this second division are mainly
concerned with routine matters. They
also include some valuable indices of
other manuscript sources. A third
440
Book Reviews 441
section of the inventory concerns itself
with the records of the field
superintendencies of the Indian
department. The last contains the Indian
land records, which are listed
chronologically and by land superintendency.
The item entries of this publication
consist of a descriptive title, such
as pay lists, Indian conferences, letter
books, correspondence, account books,
and minutes. Inclusive dates, a volume
designation of location in the public
archives, and an indication of shelf
size are included. These are followed
by a brief description of a calendar
nature.
Two appendices are a valuable addendum
to the inventory. One lists
senior administrative officers in Indian
affairs chronologically and by office.
The other, "Who Was Who and
When," is an alphabetical table of
functionaries of all sorts with brief
biographical statements of concern to
Indian affairs. Otherwise evasive
information is readily available in these
tables.
This and the other inventories to follow
are designed to enable scholars
to predetermine in some detail the
contents of the vast manuscript collec-
tions of the Public Archives of Canada.
Such a project is always welcome,
especially when it concerns as important
manuscript depositories as those
in Ottawa.
Ohio State University DWIGHT L. SMITH
American Folk Decoration. By Jean Lipman, with Practical Instruction by
Eve Meulendyke. (New York, Oxford
University Press, 1951. xii+163p.,
line illustrations, maps as end papers.
$10.00.)
Once upon a time this reviewer was moved
to paint a child's toy chest.
It seemed a gay undertaking at the
moment; it would recall the spirit of
American folk decoration with its fresh
charm, its directness, its naivete.
Peter Hunt's glib formulas were
cursorily dismissed as lacking the true
character. This must be worthy of its
blonde-tressed recipient, and an
enthusiastic if not very well-stocked
memory was called on. But time, as
is its pre-Christmas habit, began to
press while the American folk decorator
turned out to be as naif as a Prussian
drill sergeant. Nevertheless, the toy
chest was somehow ready by Christmas
Eve, if slightly tacky, and a vast
respect for the American folk
decorator's sophistication and disciplined art
had been born.
If Mrs. Lipman's useful book had been
available, a measure of mental
anguish might have been avoided, even if
respect for the American folk
442 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
decorator might have been diminished,
due to the ease and practicality of
the how-to-do-it instruction furnished
concurrently by Eve Meulendyke.
Unimportant and personal though such a
loss would have been, it must
inevitably be shared by future users of
the book, since, well though the
Meulendyke job has been done, the life
and energy, the often wry in-
dividual accent of American folk
decoration cannot be reduced to a set of
dress-maker's patterns except at the
cost of that life and personal flavor.
But the book shows the original sources
abundantly and with discreet
scholarship. Beginning with pleasant
end-paper maps of the chief productive
centers of the Middle Atlantic and New
England states, with borders of
typical decorative motifs, the book
arranges its material into chapters on
Decorated Furniture, Decorative
Accessories, two especially attractive sections
on Ornamented Tinware and Stenciled and
Painted Fabrics, followed by
Architectural Decoration with a
surprising series of wall paintings, Coach
and Sign Painting, and finally that
remarkable survival of the medieval
illuminator's craft, Fractur Designs. Each
chapter, and here lies the book's
chief value, has a historical
introduction, and a useful bibliography is
appended.
The American folk decorator may not have
added much to the repertory
of motifs he brought with him across the
Atlantic, not even as much
perhaps as his fellows added to the
mother tongue in adapting inherited
speech to the different demands of a new
soil and climate and an emerging
republican society, but he applied his
graphic language with the same in-
genuity and often striking originality
his mechanical brothers showed in
architecture and engineering. His
originality was unfortunately short-lived,
corresponding exactly to the colonial
and early Federal periods. When
it met the machine, represented here by
such industrial harbingers as the
Hitchcock chair, it flared briefly in
spirited competition and then sank to
the prosaic uniformity of contemporary
American life. How great a price
of color, charm, and personal texture
has been paid for that industrial
uniformity is only too evident in Mrs.
Lipman's valuable book.
Cincinnati Art Museum PHILIP R. ADAMS
A History of the Hemp Industry in
Kentucky. By James F. Hopkins.
(Lexington, University of Kentucky
Press, 1951. xii+240p., bibliography
and index. $4.00.)
The history of American agriculture is a
field which has attracted in-
creasing attention in recent years. As a
result, we no longer suffer from a
Book Reviews 443
lack of general works or surveys of an
overall nature. We do need, however,
a great many more studies of the
development of agriculture in restricted
areas-natural economic regions, states,
or even counties-and of different
branches of the industry, on either a
local or national scale. Unfortunately,
few historians can contemplate with
equanimity the drudgery involved in such
projects, for they find that the source
materials on which they must rely, no
matter how abundant they may be, are
widely scattered. Any scholar, there-
fore, who, like the author of this book,
by embarking on such a venture,
enables us to see a few trees instead of
the same old forest, is deserving of
our warmest commendation.
The hemp industry in Kentucky was
confined to a group of counties
centering on Lexington, and even here it
was predominantly merely one
aspect of a scheme of general farming.
It owed its importance in this
region to special characteristics of the
soil, access to Ohio River trans-
portation, the availability of Negro
labor, and the demands of the frontier
for cordage and of the cotton planters
of the lower Mississippi Valley for
rope and bagging. Agricultural societies
occasionally tried to foster the
industry by promoting competitions and
offering prizes, but there is nothing
to show that their activities were of
much more real importance than similar
ones elsewhere. The industry was
handicapped throughout by the strong
competition of northern European hemp
and hempen products. Russian
hemp had the advantages of being cleaner
and more uniform, and of being
water rotted rather than dew rotted. The
Kentucky hemp industry was
likewise ultimately weakened by the competition
of cheaper oriental fibers
such as manila hemp (abaca) and jute, by
the introduction, beginning about
a decade before the Civil War, of iron
bands for baling cotton, and by the
disappearance of the sailing vessel.
Under these conditions the growing of
hemp was characterized by wide cyclical
swings, from its inception in pioneer
Kentucky through its decline in the
1880's and 1890's to its spasmodic
revivals during the two recent world
wars.
This study is a careful history of the
industry in Kentucky, but one
integrated into the general history of
hemp growing in the United States.
Though it is of necessity mostly
concerned with the vicissitudes of the
business, it devotes considerable
attention to the techniques. The methods
of production described are those which
actually prevailed, not the ideal
methods advocated by this or that
reformer. It is only too apparent from
these descriptions that there was little
technical progress in the industry,
virtually the same procedures and
implements (except for the self-rake
444 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
reaper, introduced around 1900) being
used in the early twentieth century
as a hundred years before. As much more
reliance was placed on machinery
in the few other states which from time
to time offered competition to
Kentucky, it would appear that the
comparative backwardness characteristic
of Kentucky in this respect was a result
of the dependence from first to last
on Negro labor. Some attention is given
to the manufacturing of hemp
in Kentucky by the bagging
establishments and ropewalks. Though this
account is entirely adequate, it will
take on added significance if it is
compared with the somewhat parallel
descriptions in Samuel E. Morrison's
Ropemakers of Plymouth (Boston, 1950). Of the other matters dealt with,
perhaps the most significant is the
share taken by the Kentucky hemp growers
in the promotion of the
protective-tariff phase of Henry Clay's American
System, especially as exemplified in the
tariff of 1824.
The book is based on a wide variety of
sources, mostly printed, as must
be true of any agricultural history.
These are used honestly and intelligently.
The critical bibliography is good, and
so is the index. The writing is clear
and straightforward, with a welcome
absence of unnecessary economic
jargon. There is only one sentence over
which the author (and his editor
too) must have dozed, and which leaves
this reviewer in a fascinated
bafflement. It is stated, with reference
to hemp breaking (p. 63), that
"two hundred pounds was not an
unusually high production for a skilled
workman . . . and in recent years from
one to three hundred pounds was
considered the average." Surely
this must mean the range. In any case, it
is merely a slip. The important thing is
that this study will tell any historian
about all he is ever likely to need to
know concerning the background,
evolution, and decline of the Kentucky
hemp industry.
Marietta College ROBERT L. JONES
Women Camp Followers of the American
Revolution. By Walter Hart
Blumenthal. (Philadelphia, George S.
McManus Company, 1952. 104p.,
appendix and bibliography. $3.75.)
This monograph is a short study of those
women of both the British
and American armies who accompanied
their men into the field. For the
most part, the book is concerned with a
statistical analysis of the numbers
of women (and children) who straggled
along with the armies, and the
extent to which they depended upon
public support for their existence.
The term "camp follower" one
generally associates with ambulatory
prostitution. As employed in this work,
the term includes all those women
Book Reviews 445
with the armies from Martha Washington
down to the most base of
womanhood. To a great extent,
particularly in the second of the two sections
of this thin volume, "Camp Women
Under Washington," the emphasis
is placed upon the legal wives of
officers and enlisted men.
In comparing the section on the camp
women of the British army with
that of the camp women with the American
forces, one feels that perhaps
the author is a bit harsh with the
treatment of the former. While the British
were perhaps more forthright in their
approach to the problem of women
about the camps, it would seem that the
Americans, being on home ground,
perhaps had fewer women actually going
along with the army for any
length of time, but probably had as high
a percentage, if not higher, of
transitory followers.
In attempting to allay the moral horrors
of these camp followers, the
author points out that the cleanliness,
neatness of uniform, and preparation
of food in the American army was due to
the presence of women. While
this might all have been true, it makes
one wonder how modern armies
get through the wars without "women
on the ration."
On the whole, this study is a
disappointing one; disappointing in that it
has the potential for a great story.
Badly organized and unreadably written,
it lacks throughout a complete and
enlightening study of any particular
point. That General Howe's mistresses
delayed him in New York perhaps has
some historical significance, but if
such was the case, the author skipped
on to another point without making the
first one. Questions such as, what
did the women do in the field of
nursing, how actually did the women live,
how did they behave in battle, are left
generally unanswered. Only slighting
reference is made to what the reviewer
feels should be salient points for
study.
This book is a beginning, albeit a poor
one, for what should be an im-
portant study. Little has ever been done
to write the story of these women
heretofore, and Mr. Blumenthal does
little to raise the curtain of existing
ignorance.
Anthony Wayne Parkway Board RICHARD C. KNOPF
Harvey Firestone, Free Man of
Enterprise. By Alfred Lief. (New York,
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1951. 318p.,
illustrations and index. $3.00.)
America's industrial greatness of the
past half century developed when
large-scale corporate production
replaced the scattered, decentralized pattern
of economic enterprise. Where formerly
production had been local, in-
446 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
dividualistic, and economically
"wasteful," modern industry grew into
unified national concentrations,
technically "efficient," intricately "co-
operative," and with effective
control lodged in the hands of a hierarchy.
In the career of Harvey S. Firestone, a
Columbiana County, Ohio, farm boy
whose imaginative thinking and business
ingenuity helped pioneer the
development of rubber manufacturing in
this country, was mirrored the
modern industrial revolution. The
"rubber-tired carriage" helped put
America on wheels, accelerated the
growth of the automobile industry,
brought about the speed and economy of
motor-truck delivery, gave the
farmer a better tractor, and ushered in
vast and onerous social problems.
Harvey S. Firestone's business methods,
quarrels, social concepts, and mis-
adventures have formed part of the
historical mechanism of this country.
Alfred Lief's eulogistic study has
overemphasized the homey and personal
life of Harvey S. Firestone. In a
flattering series of folksy anecdotes which
he has gathered from Firestone's friends
and neighbors, Mr. Lief has
portrayed the personality of Firestone
as an unbelievably benign character,
devoid of taint or blemish. Here is
Firestone in knee pants, to whom
McGuffey's readers "unfolded
visions and ideas"; here is the "self-confident"
Firestone traveling and selling in the
Middle West; here is the "rubber-
conscious" Firestone who came to
Akron and organized in 1900 the
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company; here
is Firestone who "liked action"
and who fought for leadership in the
feverish market of rubber compe-
tition; here is Firestone exhilarated by
his intimate camping trips with
Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and John
Burroughs; here is Firestone the
businessman, searching for economical
manufacturing procedures, better
distribution techniques, and cheaper
home-grown raw rubber; and here is
Firestone, proud parent, philanthropist,
and civic leader.
What Mr. Lief's account lacks is a
broader perspective and serious
judgment of the significance of
Firestone's works and days as they con-
tributed to the overall picture of a new
moral climate and national social
philosophy. To be sure, Firestone was a
giant in his personal force and
character, a man great in plan and
action, but his career must be considered
as part of a greater show of opposing
social, political, and economic ideas.
The years of his life, 1868-1938,
influenced and were affected by the general
course of American history. This phase,
however, has been minimized in
Lief's biography. The author has made
only scant mention and evaluation
of the relationship between the career
of this "Free Man of Enterprise"
and the changing trends and backdrop of
the contemporary American scene
-social tensions, labor unrest,
Wilsonian reforms, Republican "normalcy,"
Book Reviews 447
New Deal legislation, and the reactions
of courts, lawmakers, churches, and
schools to the newly fashioned pecuniary
philosophy.
This reviewer does not imply that Mr.
Lief should have written his
biography in anger or should have
dispraised Firestone's moral courage and
absolute honesty. Rather, Mr. Lief's
past writings, his admirable works on
Senator George Norris and Justices
Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D.
Brandeis, have caused the reader to expect
from his pen objective and
sensitive scholarship, not only
stressing the inner logic behind the march of
ideas, institutions, and events, but
maintaining a proper historical perspective
and chronological balance. In his study
of Harvey S. Firestone, however,
Mr. Lief has been only a bemused and
loving biographer, lingering so
long over letters, scraps of
conversation, memories of teachers and friends
that, despite his considerable skill,
the final work has been unimpressive.
Air Research and Development Command HAROLD M. HELFMAN
Baltimore, Maryland
Hoosier Caravan: A Treasury of
Indiana Life and Lore. Selected, with
comment, by R. E. Banta. (Bloomington,
Indiana University Press, 1951.
xiii+499p. $5.00.)
Whether the Hoosier writer was closer to
Turner's frontier, closer to a
single folk-tradition uncomplicated by a
diversified economy, or merely
closer to the Chicago Renaissance and
its book publishers, Ohioans must
admit that Hoosier means more to editors
and historians of literature than
Buckeye does. Whatever the causes, we
must congratulate our Crawfords-
ville neighbor R. E. Banta and his
lively publisher, the Indiana University
Press, for their excellent work of
native piety.
The book is less an anthology of Indiana
writers than an anthology of
writing on Indiana, stretched on an
historical matrix and illuminated by the
bubbling comments of the editor.
Beginning with the migratory and other
causes of the Hoosier character, the selections
proceed in roughly chrono-
logical order to the conquest and its
aftermath of Indian raids and struggling
settlements, to the idealism of embryo
education, Rappite and Owenite
Utopias, and Underground Railroad, to
the realities of pioneer society,
Civil War, and the Gaudy Age of Grant to
Harrison, to the Golden Age
of Crawfordsville letters in late
nineteenth century and the "renaissance"
of twentieth-century letters in the
"sinful" twenties; they close with skilful
reference to the eternal Indiana of the
outdoors.
Nothing reads with such fascination as
the literature of childhood and
448 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
adolescence, and that is in the main
what we have here. Sandford Cox's
youthful heroes run the gauntlet of the
injuns and Simon Girty; Samuel
Ginger at twelve encounters the
mysteries of the hunt and "the wizard of
Loblolly"; A. B. Guthrie's hero
flies from the authority of a bullying
father only to meet evil in a swindling
city-slicker and injustice from the
whip of the sheriff; Edward Eggleston
renounces the crudities of his native
state in his figure of the Schoolmaster,
a "frail young intellectual" scarcely
older and distinctly outclassed in most
things by his yokel students. In
Ross Lockridge's Raintree County the
fifteen-year-old Johnny Shawnessy
discovers sex and violence and adult
evil, but none of them spoil his
Fourth of July or his swelling American
dream. James Whitcomb Riley
sentimentalizes about the Old Man and
his soldier son who makes the
hardened surgeon weep, about the
palpitations of another father for his
marriagable daughter, and about the
ineffable Little Orphant Annie, who
uses the "Gobble-uns" to make
you "mind yer parunts" much as her
Chicago Tribune reincarnation minds the Eternal Verities with
caricatures
of professors and labor leaders.
Tarkington's Penrod and Willie Baxter
are absent, perhaps because they were so
universally conceived, but we
have a poisonously snobbish Georgie
Amberson Minafer, eleven and
sharing only a Fauntleroy suit with
"the fabulous little Cedric." Young
Dreiser dawns into the world of glamor
and sin in the persons of his
brother Paul Dresser and an attractive
madam, while Maurice Thompson
recalls a poker-playing transvestite.
Jessamine West describes the youthful
disillusionment of a Quaker boy who
flees his family's leading-strings to
fight Morgan's Raiders; Albert Beveridge
speaks with sense and restraint
about the boyhood and youth of Lincoln;
Lew Wallace flaunts his adolescent
skills against "the elders who may
have predestined him to the gallows";
George Ade as a Purdue undergraduate
discovers the theater; and Ben
Riker gives us a child's view of the
Gentry Brothers' Dog and Pony Show.
Margaret Jackson describes the Hoosier
madness of basketball, and one of
its "most tragic problems, that of
the boy who is too short to make the
team" (good Hoosier that he is, he
becomes a cheerleader). Elmer Davis,
who escaped to the international scene,
still can rouse himself to a boy's
cheer for the Ohio River country:
"We were wearing pants when the
up-staters still went around in
bearskins." Ernie Pyle, wherever he went,
never got far from his father and
mother, but he is honest about it in
Home Country. The superb Kin Hubbard tells us an immoral fable about
Mort Pine, a youthful bank robber in
revolt against his mother, who is a
Book Reviews 449
specialist in uplift work. All is not
Stardust for Hoagy Carmichael, who
stands there with his college band,
"six little children of jazz, brave in
long pants, and then the candle sputters
out and we are afraid." Edwin
Way Teale's Dune Boy discovers the
transiency of life in the death of
a tree.
The best of the selections, on the
whole, are in this reminiscent and
myth-making tradition-Guthrie, West, Beveridge,
Ade, Tarkington, Pyle,
Hubbard, and Teale. Strangely enough,
the most effective pieces to escape
the adolescent horizon are by three
women. Mary Catherwood reflects with
adult humor and irony on the trauma of a
railroad train, Emily Kimbrough
does a Thurber on her Grandmother Wiles,
and Juliet Strauss writes with
wit on "The Sin of Trying to Be Too
Good." Even Gene Stratton Porter
manages to talk "without romantic
trimmings" of a Bird of the -Limberlost.
Perhaps the women in general grew up
earlier than the men, or settled
down with more compliance and less
boast, or manifested their fabulous
instinctive sense of reality. We know
that even women could slip, as Mrs.
Porter did in her best-sellers. But
Banta at least gives us no Sweet Singers
of. Indiana who are women. That role is
reserved for the emasculated
Riley, and for Banta's candidate for
worst poet of the ages, James Buchanan
Elmore, who, from the outset of his poem
on The Monon Wreck, when
"The engineer opes the steam chest
throes," to the pinioned man who
moans "Cut, oh, cut my leg
away!", sustains a frantic note of magnificent
consistency. We could do worse than
close with a larger sample of the poem:
But there they laid on the crimson snow-
Their hearts have ceased to ebb and
flow;
Quite as cold as a frozen chunk,
With a lady's heart upon a stump.
Ohio State University FRANCIS LEE UTLEY
Kincaid: A Prehistoric Illinois
Metropolis. By Fay-Cooper Cole and
others.
(Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1951. xv+385p., illustrations,
appendix, bibliography, and index.
$7.50.)
This volume is the second major report
by the department of anthropology
of the University of Chicago on their
archaeological explorations in Illinois.
The first report, Rediscovering
Illinois, published in 1937, presented a
summary of excavations in Fulton County
in central Illinois, while Kincaid
is a summary of excavations in the
southern part of the state. The Kincaid
450 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
site is located in southern Massac and
the adjoining portion of Pope
County along the Ohio River between the
mouths of the Cumberland and
Tennessee rivers. It was this strategic
location along the Ohio near its
major tributaries from the south, plus
the near conjunction of the Wabash
to the east and the proximity of the
Mississippi to the west which prompted
Cole and his associates to concentrate
their archaeological summer field
school in the Kincaid area from 1934 to
1942. Their hopes in regard to
the archaeological richness of the
region were amply fulfilled, and the report
bears witness to the long and varied
occupancy of the area in prehistoric
times.
The report has a general introduction to
the Kincaid area which presents
the cultural sequence and the main
characteristics of the archaeological
units. The second chapter is a summary
of the results of the excavations
in the main village and mound area. Six
mounds were wholly or partially
explored, while three major areas in the
village site were tested. The materials
recovered are described in the following
chapter, while chapter four presents
an interpretation of the age of the
Kincaid component as determined by
tree ring dates, and of the cultural
relations of this large Mississippi site.
Separate chapters are devoted to three
pre-Mississippi pattern components
from the Kincaid area. These are Lewis,
a late Woodland (post-Hopewell)
culture; Baumer, an early Woodland
(pre-Hopewell) culture; and Faulkner,
a pre-ceramic complex which is the
earliest material from the southern
Illinois area. The summary and
conclusions interpret the time position and
cultural correlations of the entire
archaeological occupation. A significant
portion of the volume contains four
appendices. These deal with dendro-
chronology at Kincaid by Robert Bell;
with a statistical study of ceramic
changes within certain selected Kincaid
units by Kenneth Orr; with a
Kincaid trait list selected by John W.
Bennett; and with an analysis of
textile weaves by Charles Wilder.
The field work and the laboratory
analysis offer a long cross section of
prehistory in the lower Ohio Valley,
which begins with the lithic remains
of the Indians when they were in a
relatively simple hunting-fishing-
gathering stage and living in rather
small bands. This late Faulkner archaic
occupation is a regional variant of a
general cultural level which was wide-
spread over the entire area east of the
Rocky Mountains. The next cultural
development is called Baumer in southern
Illinois and is characterized by
the first pottery to appear, the first
houses which are rectangular in form,
and the first appearance of polished
stone, celts, grooved axes, bell pestles,
Book Reviews 451
and other indications of a more advanced
culture. It is possible that at
this time the Baumer people were
agricultural, but there is no definite
evidence from excavated sites to prove
this. By and large the Baumer
complex is on a time level and in a
cultural stage which is akin to the
Adena culture of the central Ohio
Valley. A curious feature of this report
is the absence of Hopewell occupation in
the area.
The next cultural group in point of time
is the Lewis Focus, which
belongs at the beginning of the late
Woodland period in the north. This
post-Hopewell development is a marked
decline from the Hopewell level
in most all of the cultural data with
which the archaeologist is able to
deal. However, Lewis either foreshadows
or becomes changed by developing
Mississippi centers to the west and
south, for some of its traits, such as
rim incising and lugs on the pottery,
and smaller projectile points, are
indicative of the approach of the
Mississippi period.
Most of the field and laboratory work at
Kincaid was devoted to the
large Middle Mississippi village and
pyramidal mounds and the materials
obtained from those areas. Kincaid was
one of the largest settlements in
the lower Ohio Valley and is an
excellent representative of this closing
phase of the Indian occupation. It is on
the same time level as most of the
Fort Ancient sites but was culturally
more advanced. Analyses of the ceramic
and other features indicate significant
cultural changes within the Mississippi
occupation and clearly show strong
cultural connections with the western
Kentucky-Tennessee areas as well as with
southeastern Missouri. Tree-ring
dates indicate the Kincaid component was
occupied from at least 1523
to some time after 1613.
This volume is a significant and
valuable contribution to the steadily
growing scientific literature of the
prehistory of the Mississippi Valley.
Dr. Cole and his associates have
provided one of the few descriptions of
a large Middle Mississippi complex.
Specialists in the archaeology of the
area will find a number of
interpretations which are open to question, and
certain sections of the analysis of the
excavation are not too clear. I believe
that the descriptions of the cultural
complexes of Early, Middle, and Late
Kincaid are somewhat skewed toward the
late end of the Mississippi
occupation. Early Kincaid, as
characterized in this volume, should not be
equated with an early Mississippi
cultural complex which is known in other
areas to be a much simpler and less
florescent archaeological assemblage.
Museum of Anthropology JAMES B. GRIFFIN
University of Michigan
452 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Up the Missouri With Audubon: The
Journal of Edward Harris. Edited by
John Francis McDermott. (Norman,
University of Oklahoma Press, 1951.
xv+222p., appendices and index. $3.75.)
This is an account of Edward Harris'
journey with John James Audubon
up the Missouri to the Yellowstone in
the summer of 1843. Harris was
a well-to-do gentleman farmer of
Moorestown, New Jersey, and a patron
and friend of Audubon. His name has been
perpetuated in three birds
described by Audubon: Harris'
Woodpecker, Dryobates villosus harrisi
(Audubon); Harris' Hawk, Parabuteo
unicinctus harrisi (Audubon); and
Harris' Sparrow, Zonotrichia querula (Nuttall).
On March 11 the party assembled at
Philadelphia: Audubon; Harris;
"old John G. Bell," a
taxidermist; Isaac Sprague, an artist; and Lewis M.
Squires, a young neighbor of Audubon's.
The party traveled by rail from
Baltimore to Wheeling, thence to St.
Louis by steamer, whence they
embarked, after some delay on April 25
on the Omega, "the last word in
Missouri River steamboats." The
journey up the shifting currents of the
Missouri was an arduous one, the vessel
being impeded by headwinds and
delayed by boiler trouble. Several stops
were made each day to collect
wood for the boilers, and the boat was
frequently hung up on sand bars,
when the cargo sometimes had to be
unloaded before it was freed. Never-
theless, the Omega reached Fort
Union on the Yellowstone on June 12,
after a voyage of "17 hours less
than 7 weeks," one day earlier in the
season than had been done before and
"a quicker passage than any other
boat by about 15 days."
The period from June 12 to August 16 was
spent at Fort Union, where
specimens of birds and mammals were collected
and a great deal of time
was spent in hunting bison for sport.
The party returned to St. Louis on
October 19.
Harris writes graphically of the
incidents of the journey, of the natural
history along the route, and of the
Indians he met. One gains the im-
pression that he was an accurate
observer and that his account is more
factual and objective than that of the
ebullient and romantic Audubon.
He writes spiritedly of the buffalo
hunts. The Indian ponies were re-
markably well trained for the sport,
following a wounded animal persistently
and skilfully avoiding the charge of one
which turned on its pursuer. There
appears to be some evidence that as
early as 1843 bison were beginning to
become scarce in the vicinity of Fort
Union. Parenthetically, it is also of
Book Reviews 453
interest to note that at that early date
Audubon and Harris were equipped
with pneumatic rubber mattresses.
There are appendices containing Harris'
report of the geology of the
Missouri, his description of the
Long-tailed Chickadee, Parus atricapillus
septentrionalis, his remarks on the beaver and their houses, a list of
the
specimens collected on the expedition
(302 birds, 48 mammals), and expense
accounts of the trip.
Dr. McDermott has edited the journal
sympathetically and carefully.
The volume should be of value to
naturalists, anthropologists, historians,
and others interested in the early
history of the United States.
Ohio State Archaeological EDWARD S. THOMAS
and Historical Society
The Valley of God's Pleasure: A Saga
of the North Union Shaker Com-
munity. By Caroline B. Piercy. (New York, Stratford House,
1951.
vii+247p., illustrations, map on
endpapers, bibliography, and index.
$3.75.)
At the end of the nineteenth century the
expanding city of Cleveland
engulfed the lands that had been
occupied from 1822 until 1889 by the
Shaker community of North Union. The
section of the city known as
Shaker Heights preserves the name of
that communistic, celibate sect. And
now, in the present volume, an
historically minded resident of the area has
undertaken to present to her fellow
citizens the annals of these first settlers.
Mrs. Piercy is able to draw upon family
and local tradition, for her
mother lived as a neighbor of the
Shakers from so early a date as 1856.
An intimate and affectionate knowledge
of the terrain contributes to the
effectiveness of the presentation. But
the author's principal source is, as it
should be, the magnificent collection of
Shaker manuscripts preserved in
the Western Reserve Historical Society.
Mrs. Piercy has utilized these to
excellent effect, and a substantial and
valuable part of her book consists
of extracts from these first-hand records.
Part One of the book, entitled
"Beginnings," deals in eight chapters
with the history of the Shaker sect down
to the time of the founding of
North Union in 1822, and also with the
early history of Warrensville
Township, Ohio, where the community was
established. This is a clear
and straightforward introduction to the
subject, based primarily on the
printed historical works of the Shakers
themselves.
454 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Manuscript sources furnish most of the
material for the last three of the
four parts of the volume. Five chapters
trace chronologically the events that
occurred during the administrations of
the five successive elders who headed
North Union. Then come eight chapters
dealing topically with such matters
as the industries, the religious rites,
and the educational practices of the
Shakers. One could wish that the
arrangement had been chronological
throughout, for there is considerable
repetition and an inconvenient shuttling
back and forth between the beginning and
the end of the sixty-seven year
period covered.
The general reader will find the
selections from the sources illuminating
and evocative. The scholar, however,
will wish that more care had been
taken to identify the documents
precisely, to date them, and to distinguish
quotation from commentary. In many
instances, especially throughout
chapters nine to thirteen, it is
difficult to determine whether a given
document is a literal quotation from a
contemporary document, an extract
from a narrative written long after the
event, or a paraphrase.
In many respects the most interesting
sources excerpted in the volume
are from contemporary letters written by
the Shaker ministry, for in them
the iron hand of Shaker discipline is
occasionally visible beneath the velvet
glove. The diaries of individual Shakers,
on the other hand, tend to be
timidly conventional both in their piety
and in their rather lush expressions
of joy. They were obviously written in
the knowledge that their contents
might at any time come under the eye of
elders and eldresses. The complete
lack of spiritual privacy in a Shaker
community-a fact overlooked by most
eulogists of the sect, including the
author of the work in hand-meant the
elimination of every vestige of dissent.
Ultimate spiritual and intellectual
stagnation, increasingly apparent in the
years of Shaker decline, was the
price paid for the harmony so frequently
and so uncritically admired.
This book is a labor of love, and the
admiration expressed for the
Shakers is unbounded and unqualified.
Such an attitude is, of course, better
than supercilious contempt. But one
wonders whether the author has
really weighed the implications of her
often extravagant words of praise.
If the Shakers really solved so completely
the insistent problems of life,
should we not all adopt forthwith their
principles of celibacy, community of
property, and absolute pacifism? I doubt
if the author really intends such a
conclusion.
University of Illinois ARTHUR E. BESTOR, JR.
Book Reviews 455
The Thurber Album. By James Thurber. (New York, Simon and Schuster,
1952. x+346p. $3.50.)
Just about every person I know and, of
course, a great many whom
I do not know, have read the fifteen
pieces that make up this book by
James Thurber, once upon a time a
newspaper reporter on the Columbus
Dispatch. The pieces appeared first in the New Yorker, a
magazine of
limited circulation in central Ohio.
Still, as we said, almost everyone has
read the stories. When Thurber has a
piece in the New Yorker, the word
spreads around the statehouse square.
The result is a rush for the news
stands, and a begging and a borrowing of
copies of the New Yorker. It
has become extremely smart in Columbus
to be able to say, oh, ever so
casually, "Did you read Thurber's
new story this week?"
The secret of Thurber's extreme
populariety in Columbus lies not in his
peculiar ability as a literary
craftsman, but in the fact that he is a Broad
and High boy who made good in the big
city.
Thurber really has arrived. When an
author can successfully present
a series of what turned out to be
incomplete, or rather inadequately told,
stories, then is granted the privilege
of adding to them in a caboose
chapter, he is really a high priest of
the literary world. We wonder that the
publisher, poor fellow, did not insist
that the new material be placed in
its proper juxtaposition in the text.
Thurber himself knows there isn't a
city editor who wouldn't say, "Give
me a rewrite on this stuff, Jim, and
hurry it up for the makeover!"
I first heard the name Thurber when I
joined the news staff of the
Columbus Dispatch in 1924. The paper was then published at Gay and
High streets. I got the job when there
was a sudden vacancy on the copy
desk, created by a more than somewhat
trivial incident. A copyreader re-
ported for work fuller of bootleg than
enthusiasm for journalism and
displayed his dislike for the profession
by holding his Underwood at arm's
length from a window on the Gay Street
side and dropping it as gently as
possible to the sidewalk two stories
below.
Another man had left the paper so
recently that his name, too, was
still mentioned in the city room. His name
was James Thurber, and he had
left under his own propulsion to go to
New York. No one, as I recall
their conversation after a quarter of a
century, spoke of his having shown
marked ability as a writer. They did
speak of him, however, as a good
reporter, and a nice fellow, who had
gone to take a fling at the Big Town.
Secretly, all of us envied him. Probably
all of us, I know that I myself
456 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
did, resolved to make the break for New
York as soon as we had conquered
Broad and High.
Two years and a few months later, on a
winter's day, I walked into the
city room of the New York Evening
Post, then a "big name" newspaper.
I wanted a job on the paper and I
thought Thurber might help me. He
was on the Post's editorial staff
and only a few days before had made his
name known in journalistic circles by
scoring a sensational news beat. He
had obtained an exclusive interview with
Thomas A. Edison, then in
laboratories in Orange, across the river
in Jersey. Just what the story was
about I've forgotten, but it was a
one-day wonder.
The office boy pointed out Thurber, the
only reporter in a sea of reporters'
desks, the staff having gone home for
the day. So I saw Thurber for the
first time. He was a tall, spare figure,
obviously about ready to leave the
office. He wore a long, black overcoat
and a black hat. Over his arm was
a heavy-handled umbrella, and he was
struggling to get his feet into
overshoes.
He studied me through his thick,
horn-rimmed glasses while I told him
my story. At mention of Columbus, he
smiled and shook hands. He took
me to the city editor's desk and introduced
me. Before I could thank him,
he disappeared.
There was a temporary job open as night
copy editor, 10 P.M. to 6 A.M.
The regular man was having trouble with
his eyes. And no wonder--the
only light at the copy desk was high in
the ceiling. A few days later I
landed a job on Park Row and left the Post.
Thurber was working dayside,
so I never saw him.
Some years passed and I was back in
Columbus, holding down the city
desk on the Ohio State Journal. I
had worked under City Editor Norman
(Gus) Keuhner, of whom Thurber was to
write in the book we are dis-
cussing as "Newspaperman-Head and
Shoulders." I had worked for
Editor Bob Ryder, of whom Thurber was to
write as "Franklin Avenue--
U.S.A." I had worked with
Cartoonist Billy Ireland, of whom Thurber was
to wrote as "Boy From
Chillicothe."
We were getting out the Journal one
night when we heard Thurber's
father, a Columbus resident, had died.
Jim was a "big name" by this time.
"Find out when Thurber is
coming," I directed. "He's the story."
A few minutes later, a tall, thin man,
somewhat stooped, came into the
city room. He had on horn-rimmed glasses
with thick lens. There was a
woman with him.
I left my desk and went to him.
"You're Thurber, aren't you?" I asked.
Book Reviews 457
"Yes," he replied. There were
no introductions.
"You came to tell us about your
father?" I inquired.
"Yes," he said flatly. The
strain he was under was obvious.
I went to a reporter's desk. "There
is the Thurber obit, Hugh," I said.
"Take it and write it
straight."
By "straight," I meant the
story should not be twisted to feature the
distinguished son over the father.
That's the way the story appeared in the
paper. We thought it was the way Thurber
wanted it written.
Thurber has written of many
"characters." Sometimes, in the dead of
night, we wonder who will write of
Thurber.
Columbus, Ohio ROBERT S. HARPER
Lafayette, Guest of the Nation: A
Contemporary Account of the Triumphal
Tour of General Lafayette Through the
United States in 1824-1825 As
Reported by the Local Newspapers. Volume I. Compiled and edited by
Edgar Ewing Brandon. (Oxford, Ohio,
Oxford Historical Press, 1950.
275p., illustrations, index, notes, and
bibliography. $3.00.)
The author of this book was a
distinguished professor of French at
Miami University for a quarter of a
century. Joy in scholarly work and
intellectual activity, undiminished by
age, prompted him to undertake this
project. During vacations he often
followed Lafayette's routes, and searched
for contemporary records of his tours
for preservation in printed form.
Thus far, two volumes have appeared,
this one, and another, A Pilgrimage
of Liberty (1944), covering Lafayette's southern and western tour.
A third
is planned concerning his stay in
Washington, the Yorktown celebration,
and his tour of Virginia, and a fourth
for the Bunker Hill semi-centennial,
and farewell visits in the East and in
Washington. Lafayette had been
unanimously invited by congress and
generously voted $200,000. He also
received invitations from the
twenty-four state legislatures and governors,
and he visited each.
Following the editor's essay covering
briefly Lafayette's previous visit in
1784, and his forty years to 1824, is an
account of his arrival in New
York on August 15, 1824, and the
reception that followed. Lafayette then
left for Boston. Changes of horses had
been provided to cover the seventy
miles to New Haven in one day. But
villages en route had raised their
triumphal arches, prepared cannon for
salutes, and crowds of people coming
long distances to see him delayed him.
It is remarkable that the sixty-eight-
year-old guest stood the strain of
traveling more than 6,000 miles in less
458 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
than a year, mostly by coach, over
unimproved roads. On his trip to Boston,
for example, his party traveled
regularly till midnight and was again on
the road at 5 A.M. Touching and
sublime scenes reduced the sense of fatigue
and added a unique charm. The party was
escorted by outriders carrying
flambeaux, and hailed by fires kindled
on hilltops along the road and by
sounding trumpets. Lafayette was
traveling on the same road over which
he had marched in 1778.
New England "blue laws"
forbade unnecessary travel on the Sabbath,
but an exception was tolerated in
Lafayette's case. In New London, parading
militia, martial music, and a salute of
twenty-four guns from Fort Trumbull
violated the holy day. Though Lafayette
and his party attended worship at
two churches, a critic pointedly
emphasized the disruption which forced
even "ministering angels to retire,
while organ and choir struck up a song
of praise, 'Welcome LaFayette.'"
In Boston he was met by the governor,
escorted by mounted dragoons
and prominent citizens. Streets and
roads were lined with people. Old
veterans who had fought with him came
with tears in their eyes to kiss
his hands. Of the seventy fired upon by
the British at Lexington in 1775,
fourteen were on hand to greet him.
Harvard welcomed him at its commence-
ment, and at a special Phi Beta Kappa
banquet, an oration by Edward
Everett graced the occasion.
After a two-day trip to Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, he returned west
through Lexington, Concord, Worcester,
and Hartford and then by steam-
boat to New York, barely in time for his
birthday dinner, September 6,
staged by the Society of the Cincinnati.
Fifteen toasts and thirty-seven
volunteer toasts were drunk, an
indication of the magnificence of the
occasion. An account of the trip up the
Hudson and return with stops
on the way closes the volume.
One captures some of the emotional and
spiritual inspiration created by
the return of a prominent and generous
participant in a receding era. Many
Americans, as a result, had a deeper,
patriotic appreciation of the civil and
religious liberties under their
republican form of government, with its
freedom of thought and initiative to
stimulate intellectual and material
progress. This spirit of success and
security, of national and local pride,
sometimes bombastic, the editor has
caught and conveys to the reader.
Details of Lafayette's itinerary,
monuments erected, and present-day his-
torical markers, and other information
are supplied in footnotes. The book
consists mainly of carefully collected
newspaper accounts of the continuous
round of celebrations with their
parades, banquets, and official speeches.
Book Reviews 459
Gaps are filled in by the editor.
Interest is stimulated and held for the early
chapters, but lags as the same kind of
receptions and speeches recur. And
yet, for the student of social history,
there crop up significant illustrations
of life in 1824.
These volumes help to fill out the story
first presented in detail by
Lafayette's secretary, Auguste
Levasseur, in his two-volume Lafayette en
Amerique en 1824 et 1825, published in France in 1829, and in the United
States in the same year in two different
translations. The itinerary is given
in Bennett J. Nolan's Lafayette in
America, Day by Day, published in 1934.
One wishes that the editor had had the
time and energy to utilize also
manuscript sources, and that some of the
editor's pages had been turned into
author's pages. Dr. Brandon demonstrated
in his preface and introduction
that he could have synthesized historic
facts.
"There is something of imposing
grandeur in this visit of General
Lafayette to the United States,"
wrote an anonymous reporter near the end
of the tour. "In moral sublimity
there is nothing like it in the history of
man. Triumphs have been awarded and instituted
by law, but here is an
instance of a private individual of
foreign birth, enjoying a splendid triumph
throughout the whole nation ... awarded
to him by the spontaneous feelings
of a grateful people."
Ohio University A.
T. VOLWILER
Early American Gunsmiths, 1650-1850. By Henry J. Kauffman. (Harrisburg,
Penna., The Stackpole Company, 1952.
xx+94p., illustrations. $5.00.)
This book cannot be classified as just
another on firearms. Nor is it one
which will furnish hours of delightful
reading. Mr. Kauffman has pro-
duced here an extraordinary reference
book on firearms makers covering
the two-century period when arms
artisans were most active. The book
is unusual and of particular value in
that every gun maker listed is authen-
ticated by documentary evidence, either
old newspaper advertisements, city
directories, United States Patent Office
records, tax lists, or archives. In
addition to the invaluable listing of
gunsmiths, the book contains many
illustrated plates showing at close hand
for careful scrutiny rifle stocks,
locks, patch boxes, engraving, and
carving.
Early American Gunsmiths is strongly recommended for every careful
collector and serious student of
American firearms.
Ohio Sesquicentennial ROBERT C. WHEELER
Commission
BOOK REVIEWS
Preliminary Inventory, Record Group
10, Indian Affairs. Compiled by
Manuscript Division, Public Archives of
Canada. (Ottawa, King's Printer
and Controller of Stationery, 1951.
14+xiiip., appendices and index.)
The manuscript division of the Public
Archives of Canada has launched
a series of inventories to describe in
some detail all its collections. Each of
the publications will be concerned with
a particular section of the manu-
scripts in the public archives. "Record
Groups" are divisions of official
public records which have been
continuously in the custody of some branch
of government, and "Manuscript
Groups" are parallel series composed of
photocopies or transcripts of
manuscripts in other depositories, private
papers, and other nonofficial materials.
The present preliminary inventory, the
first of the series to be published,
is concerned with all the records of the
Indian affairs branch and its
predecessors which were transferred to
the public archives up to June
1951. The history of the management of
Indian affairs in Canada is a
rather complicated story. At first,
officers at the various military posts acted
as agents and liaison between the
Indians and the English. In 1755, how-
ever, it was found expedient to appoint
a full-time superintendent, the
first being the well known Sir William
Johnson. Jurisdiction over Indian
affairs has since passed through many
officials with changing titles and
has been under supervision of a number
of various governmental depart-
ments. Since 1950 the Indian affairs
branch has been attached to the
department of citizenship and
immigration.
Notwithstanding the complexity of this
story, Record Group 10 lends
itself to a simple and efficient
organization. The records are arranged to
give a picture of the agency from which
they were created; and then the
agencies are grouped under functional
headings.
Until 1860 responsibility for the
expense and management of Indian
affairs was under imperial control. The
administrative records of this
period, 1755-1860, conveniently form a
unit of this inventory. These
contain not only items of Canadian
history, but also many matters of
interest to American history, such as
Pontiac, the Six Nations, Sir William
Johnson, and an Indian council held at
Albany. After 1860 the Indian
department was placed under ministerial
control. The administrative records
of this second division are mainly
concerned with routine matters. They
also include some valuable indices of
other manuscript sources. A third
440