BOOK REVIEWS
Howells & Italy. By James L. Woodress, Jr. (Durham, N. C., Duke Uni
versity Press, 1952. [xiv]+223p.;
frontispiece (portrait), bibliography
and index. $3.50.)
Of late years there appears to be a
trend toward a strong revival of in-
terest in the life and writings of
William Dean Howells, an Ohio boy
whose first years were rooted in
journalistic experience on various Ohio
newspapers, including his father's, and
particularly with the Ohio State
Journal in Columbus.
In this first book-length study about
Howells to be published since 1924,
Professor Woodress, who is both teacher
of English and reviewer of books,
has elected to show the impact which the
four years that Howells spent in
Venice had upon him. The biographer's
thesis is "a thorough treatment of
Howells's Italian interest on his
literary, as well as his personal, life."
Professor Woodress achieves this
admirably. He does it by describing
Howells' experiences abroad and by
illustrating the result of these experi-
ences in Howells' subsequent books. He demonstrates the effect which
Italian friends, writers, and especially
the dramatist Carlo Goldoni had
upon the evolution of Howells' special
brand of realism for which he
became noted.
Having written a campaign biography of
Abraham Lincoln, Howells
sought and obtained a political
appointment from the president in 1861 as
United States consul at Venice. At
Venice his consular duties were light
and he was able to study, travel, take
notes, and write. While in Italy,
he rounded out his personal life by
marrying Elinor Mead of Brattleboro,
Vermont, daughter of Larkin G. Mead and
a cousin of President Rutherford
B. Hayes; and their first child,
Winifred, was born there.
After Howells returned to the United
States in the latter part of 1865,
he published his first book about Italy,
Venetian Life, which received high
praise from many of his literary friends
including Longfellow, Lowell, and
Bayard Taylor. His book and articles in
the North American Review,
Nation, and several newspapers, established him as an authority
on things
Italian, and launched him solidly on his
extensive literary career as writer
and editor.
"Statistically," summarizes
Professor Woodress, "the Italian content of
Howells's work tells a convincing story.
[William M.] Gibson and
[George] Arms in their bibliography list
approximately two hundred books
which he wrote wholly or in part during
his vastly productive lifetime.
296
Book Reviews 297
. . .Among the one hundred novels,
poems, plays, travelogues, etc., of
which Howells was the sole author, the
concentration of Italian material
is still heavier; for of this group
thirty-five, or more than one-third, exploit
the Italian experience in varying
degrees."
But why so much emphasis on the Italian
background in Howells' writ-
ings?
Professor Woodress looks beyond the mere literary productions.
"Howells," he concludes,
"no doubt played a vital part in fostering the
cultural affinity which existed between
the United States and Italy during
his lifetime. If this tie binding the
two countries again seems strong and
enduring . . . Howells's abiding
friendship and affection for Italy may have
been in some small measure
responsible."
Hayes Memorial Library and
Museum WATT P. MARCHMAN
A Treasury of Railroad Folklore: The
Stories, Tall Tales, Traditions,
Ballads and Songs of the American
Railroad Man. Edited by B. A.
Botkin and Alvin F. Harlow. (New York,
Crown Publishers, Inc., 1953.
xiv+530p.; appendix and index. $4.00.)
Despite its title, in place of which a
happier choice would have been
A Compendium of Interesting and
Useful Facts and Fancies about Railroads
and Railroad People, the folklore element in this book plays second fiddle
to the purely factual. This is in line
with the attention currently being
given by social and business historians
to the railroads, which were among
our first big business enterprises and
the milieu of many of our earliest
captains of industry.
Railroad history, however, like railroad
travel, has some slight element
of risk-one may turn into an antiquarian
(Lot's wife for so much look-
ing back suffered a comparable fate), a
hobbyist, or even a ferro-equin-
ologist. From the study of a given local
economy to the study of its
transportation facilities and thence to
the analysis of the freight train
schedules is a progression that could
lead insensibly to collecting ancient
employee time-tables (the only source of
much of the data), at which
point one is hobbyist as well as
historian. How fine the line is between
these various species appears in the
book under review, which offers
nourishment for every type of interest
in the rails.
Included are such varied subjects as
famous train rides, from Nellie
Bly's and Casey Jones's to the Federal
Express that ran into the Wash-
ington station; aspects of early
railroading like "snakeheads," operating on
Sunday, headlights, dispatching,
pre-Pullman sleepers, and wood-burning
298 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
engines; episodes involving railroads in
the Civil War; railroads on the
frontier; vignettes of great moguls like
Gould, the Vanderbilts, Harriman,
and others; and the grand strategies of
their lines.
Under the heading "Vanishing
Types" are described the picturesque,
if not always important, boomers, train
bandits, and hoboes (and how they
steal rides), and the individualistic
short lines. Rail fans of all sorts are
identified, like those who enjoy
shoveling coal on locomotives, those who
ride around on their own miniature
railroads, model railroad builders,
people who go on fan trips, who collect
locomotive pictures, cap badges,
switch keys, lanterns, and so on without
end.
Anecdotes illustrate the work of the
trackmen, the roundhousemen, the
railway mail service, and similar less
glamorized subdivisions of the in-
dustry.
Telegraphing, "whistle talk," locomotive bells, track
torpedoes,
Pullman porter sign language and lingo,
the equipment in a caboose,
railroad slang, pranks, and
hazings--these and many more are here considered.
There are even a few railroad jokes,
most of them worn to a nub from
hard use.
More obviously folklore are the blues,
ballads, and work songs, several
with their scores. A section on music
declares:
In our estimation, the distinctive
feeling of American hot music comes from the
railroad . . .it is the surge and
thunder of the steam engine, the ripple of the
wheels along the tracks, and the shrill
minor-keyed whistles that have colored this
new American folk music.
The Appendix contains more than fifty
pages of brief but authoritative
articles on such topics as locomotives
and their builders; the naming of
locomotives, Pullman cars, passenger and
freight trains; the development of
standard gauge and standard time; the Official
Guide, and the like.
What chiefly emerges from this book is a
realization of the large part
the rail lines have played in our social
as well as our economic history.
One study showing how much they colored
our ways was Frank P. Don-
ovan, Jr.'s comprehensive work of some
years ago, The Railroad in Liter-
ature. The exhibition of the Dayton Art Institute, "The
Railroad in Paint-
ing," in 1949 offered similar
testimony in another area. The
present
volume has no end of evidence
illustrating the fact that in our language,
our thought, our mores, our humor, and
our folk arts, to cite some of the
fields, the print of the iron horse is
unmistakable.
The few errors found in so comprehensive
a work seem minor, and the
trifling nature of some of the material
is submerged in a sea of more im-
portant matters. If one is interested in social history one
can find no
Book Reviews 299
single book that will tell all about
railroads, but this book will tell more
things more agreeably than almost any
other.
Ohioana Library WALTER RUMSEY MARVIN
Until Victory: Horace Mann and Mary
Peabody. By Louise Hall Tharp.
(Boston, Little, Brown and Company,
1953. viii+367p.; illustrations
and index. $5.00.)
Horace Mann's name probably appears on
more school buildings than
Andrew Carnegie's does on libraries.
Mann's name will last longer and
deserves to. His life was spent in an
effort that may be best summed up
in the famous words of his last
baccalaureate at Antioch College in 1859:
"Be ashamed to die until you have
won some victory for humanity."
Mann's early years as student, lawyer,
and legislator in Massachusetts
are of less interest to us as Ohioans
than his subsequent work as the first
secretary of the Massachusetts State
Board of Education, which formed
him for his work as the first president
of Antioch in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
He was a product of austerity in
Massachusetts, and his own life was
austere outwardly and inwardly. Poor and
often in financial difficulties, he
seems, like many New Englanders of the
eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies, to have drawn a concentrated
strength from the troubles and priva-
tions of his life.
With regard to his work on the
Massachusetts State Board of Education,
that exceedingly arduous piece of
pioneering apparently stiffened his fiber
beyond any possibility of bending, for
he had prejudice, ignorance, and
lack of funds (not to mention lack of
teachers) to combat in his efforts
with the legislators and in the schools
themselves, and he won consistently.
As a trained lawyer, he could handle
himself in argument and debate with
the legislature, but as a Yankee with
high moral standards and aims, he
was a hard man to deal with and an even harder man to
defeat. Mann
was a towering figure in education when
he was offered the presidency
of Antioch just after losing a chance to
be governor of Massachusetts.
He was then fifty-seven years old,
tired, and in a poorer than dubious
state of health. Prudence would
assuredly have kept him in New England,
but prudence in the face of challenge
was a pallid virtue to Mann. It
should be said, also, the prospects for
Antioch were presented as bright
as those of Heaven itself. The main
building, as shown in an architect'
drawing in this biography, would have
put the palace at Versailles t??
shame; and the main building, with its
towers and its fountains, was b??
300
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
the outward symbol of the promise and
the glory that Antioch was to be.
If hopes and promises were to be
discounted, Horace Mann was not the
man to do it, in any event.
So he came West, and he spent six years
at Antioch and died there.
He weathered the incredible burden of
work and trouble incidental to
any new enterprise, compounded and piled
up as it was by over-ambitious
planning and promises. Perhaps no one
who had not been tested and
toughened as Mann had, could have done
it. Certainly no one could have
done it if he lacked the fire of Mann's
faith in what could be done and
the conviction that he could do it. His
angular, persistent Yankee strength
was prodigious.
The author has done an excellent and
orderly job. If a man may com-
plain about a woman's writing as woman's
writing, he would ask for a
99 percent reduction in the use of
exclamation points, which give a cast
of girlish archness through the book. It
is good and substantial reading,
however, and timely both for Antioch and
Ohio, since Antioch celebrated
its one hundredth birthday last year as
the state celebrated its one hundred
and fiftieth.
Cincinnati, Ohio NORMAN
L. SPELMAN
Britain's Post Office: A History of
Development from the Beginnings to the
Present Day. By Howard Robinson. (London, New York, and Toronto,
Oxford University Press, 1953.
xiv+299p.; illustrations, appendices,
bibliography, and index. $4.25.)
In 1948 Professor Robinson produced the
handsome volume entitled
The British Post Office: A History reviewed in this Quarterly, LIX, No. 1
(January 1950) 111-113. The merits of
the work, as generally recognized
by the reviewers, so impressed the
British postal authorities that the author
was invited to research further, in the
very atmosphere of the General
Post Office in London and with its
records at hand and specially available.
The work under review is the result of
this additional research and the
re-thinking of the subject. As is
inevitable when the same man writes two
good books on the same subject, there is
a good deal of carry-over, even
of words and phrases, but Britain's
Post Office is more than a condensed
and reorganized version of the earlier
work. It carries new facts, new
illustrations, new and useful
appendices, five in all, which show at a
glance aspects of growth and the form of
modern organization. Aimed
more directly at the general reader, it
adds significant matter at many
Book Reviews 301
??oints, but especially to the story of
the postal services since 1918. New
detail is presented, and statistics are
added upon telegraph, telephone,
wireless, air mail, and postal savings.
As an institution evolving among other
institutions, the post office is
better treated in the newer work, to the
advantage of the general reader
and the general historian of Britain.
But neither work is wholly satisfac-
tory without the other. For careful study
the much fuller bibliography
and the footnote documentation of the
earlier work will be found essential.
The philatelist and specialist in postal
matters, while recognizing that the
new book adds additional matter, is well
(and differently) illustrated, and
gives the better conspectus, will sigh
for the richer illustration of stamps,
post marks, and such delightful
minutiae, as well as the better maps of the
older work.
If it be suggested that the new book be
given priority of reading, it is
only because the old one will certainly
be taken up with heightened ap-
preciation by the interested reader.
Ohio State University WARNER F. WOODRING
Israel Thorndike, Federalist
Financier. By J. D. Forbes. (New York,
The
Exposition Press for The Beverly
Historical Society, 1953. 160p.; bib-
liographical note. $3.50.)
From scattered and often fragmentary
materials, Professor Forbes has
reconstructed the activities of the
Massachusetts merchant and shipper, land
speculator, banker, and manufacturer,
Israel Thorndike (1755-1831). The
son of a Beverly mariner, from whom he
as a lad inherited £1 4s., Thorndike
at his death ranked "amongst the
Dignified and Wealthy Merchants of
these United States," and left an
estate of $1,133,000.
Thorndike's "enterprise burst out
while he was quite young." Growing
up in Beverly, Massachusetts, he not
unnaturally took to the sea, and by
1772, when he was but seventeen, he was
said to be "the proprietor of a
very fair shipping business,"
operating in the fishing and the international
trade. The Revolutionary War offered
opportunities for both trade and
privateering. But it is for the period after the Revolution, and more
particularly for the years 1789-1805,
that the sources permit something
of a detailed account of Thorndike's
activities in maritime trade. During
this latter period, he engaged in trade
with the West Indies and with
Europe, and after 1795, with the
Orient. During most of these years
Europe was at war, and the profits of
successful maritime adventures were
302 Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
high. By 1803 Thorndike was able to report
himself possessed of
Clear and unincumbered
property of upwards of $400,000."
Several of Thorndike's
letters, which are quoted at length, shed con-
siderable light upon
the course and difficulties of trade with the West
Indies, with Europe,
and with the Orient.
Thorndike's maritime
adventures were supplemented by sizeable, but
apparently
none-too-profitable, land speculations in the Western Reserve
in Ohio and in Maine.
And after maritime trade came to be cramped by
the restrictive
measures of the Jefferson and Madison administrations an
by the ensuing war with
Britain, Thorndike concerned himself with in-
vestments ashore, in
bridges, turnpikes, insurance, banks, Boston real-
estate, and, most
important, cotton textiles. By the time of his death in
1831, his holdings in
textile and allied stocks amounted to $453,100, which
exceeded his investment
of $400,000 in maritime trade.
In 1810 Thorndike moved
to Boston, although he retained his country
seat in Beverly, to
which he returned for the summers.
As early as 1788
Thorndike became interested in state politics, but it
was not until the
Republican victory of 1800 threatened "his interests and
his cherished beliefs,
[that] he emerged from his . . . absorption in
business and fought to
keep the [Federalist] party alive in Massachusetts."
Between 1802 and 1815,
with one short interruption occasioned by his
removal from Beverly to
Boston, Thorndike was a member of the legis-
lature and a strong
supporter of Federalist policies. As a Federalist and
a maritime trader he
opposed the War of 1812, but finally overcame his
principles sufficiently
to invest in government securities issued to finance
the struggle. Thorndike
was not chosen a delegate to the Hartford Con-
vention, but there is
some evidence to suggest that had he been, he might
have supported stronger
measures than those taken. His recorded speeches
in the Massachusetts
Constitutional Convention of 1820 reveal him as
opposing any extension
of the franchise or increase of popular participation
in government. His
stand on the Tariff of 1816 reveals the dilemma faced
by one who was both
maritime trader and textile manufacturer: he favored
high duties on woolens,
but opposed duties on cotton textiles as ruinous
to the China trade.
Despite the fact that
there are often gaps in the sources, which make
uniform fullness in
presenting the story impossible, there emerges from
Professor Forbes's
readable account a clear picture of the activities of an
important and eminently
successful merchant and manufacturer during the
period in which the New
England economy was shifting "away from the
Book Reviews 303
sea, and from commerce to
manufacture." Although there are no footnotes,
it has been found possible to embody the
necessary references to the
sources in the text. There is a two-page
bibliographical note, but no index.
College of Idaho LESLIE V. BROCK
The Papers of Wilbur and Orville
Wright, Including the Chanute-Wright
Letters and Other Papers of Octave
Chanute. Edited by Marvin W.
McFarland. Two Volumes. (New York,
McGraw-Hill, 1953. lx+xxvi
+1278p.; illustrations, appendix,
bibliography, and index. $25.00 the
set.)
These volumes are a remarkable
contribution to the detailed study of
the inventive genius that produced the
first successful powered flight in a
heavier-than-air craft. A biographical
work authorized by Orville Wright
was written by Fred C. Kelly and
published as The Wright Brothers (1943).
Wilbur and Orville Wright, however, had
accumulated a vast amount of
material relating to the art and science
of flying and had contemplated a
technical history of it, minimizing the
autobiographical aspects. Wilbur
died in 1912, and Orville, who was not
inclined toward writing, never
brought himself to accomplish the task
of authorship before his death
in 1948.
Some of the Wright papers were edited by
Fred C. Kelly in Miracle at
Kitty Hawk: The Letters of Wilbur and
Orville Wright (New York, 1951),
but in the present endeavor pains and
expense have not been spared in
including all materials of real
significance. The project was sponsored by
Oberlin College, of which Katharine
Wright Haskell, beloved sister of
the Wright brothers, was an alumna and
one-time college trustee, partly
in appreciation of a generous gift to
Oberlin in the will of Orville Wright.
The executors of Orville Wright's estate
saw fit to present the papers to
the Library of Congress, and the
splendid work of editing those deemed
appropriate for inclusion in the published
work has been done by Marvin
W. McFarland of the aeronautics division
of the Library of Congress.
Included are excerpts from thirty-three
Wright diaries (including those
kept by Bishop Milton Wright, father of
the family and a bishop of the
United Brethren Church), notebooks,
family correspondence, and cor-
respondence with many others, especially
Octave Chanute (1832-1910),
a French-born Chicago engineer and
business man who was tireless in his
enthusiasm and activity in the field of
aviation and greatly aided the
Wright brothers.
304 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
The first volume (to 1905) is filled
with much scientific data relating
to their successful experiments in
flying, climaxed by the epoch-making
achievement at Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina, in 1903. The second volume
continuing into the year of Orville's
death, deals with years of public
recognition and contains much
correspondence in connection with the effort
to interest various governments in planes
for military purposes.
Many charts and diagrams, extensive
appendices, 128 pages of half-tones
an elaborate bibliography, and a
complete index make this a monumental
source of materials relating to the
development of aviation. Most of the
material is definitely technical in
interest, but incidental references reveal
much of human interest, including
Orville Wright's curiosity and disillusion- ment regarding spiritualism (p. 1122). In a work edited with such consummate
skill, it is odd that the note American novelist Mrs. Edith Wharton
should be referred to as Mis Wharton (p. 705n). Perhaps Ohioans will find in this record
of the noted Dayton inventor some confirmation of a statement made by
Wilbur Wright in 1910: Ohio stands at the gateway between the
East and the West, and her sons possess the boundless energy and enthusiasm of the
West, and combine it with the salt of con- servation [conservatism?] of the East.
The result is a combination that carries Ohio men to victory everywhere [p. 978]. Ohio State University FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER The Sandy and Beaver Canal. By R. Max Gard and William H. Vodrey Jr. (East Liverpool, Ohio, East
Liverpool Historical Society, 1952. xi+210p.; illustrations, guide,
bibliography, index, and map. $7.50) This is local, grass-roots history, not
at its best but at its most appeal- ing. Many loving hours of research, much
leg-work, endless effort went into this book, along with humor and a
realistic attitude towards its sub- ject. Locally published and printed,
well and profusely illustrated, provided with an exceptionally fine map (scale:
one inch equals one mile), it reflects credit on the community whence
it sprang and is the kind of work we need more of. The story of this canal has wider angles
than purely local history Efforts to attract trade away from Lake
Erie and the waterways of New York were a significant aspect of our
national economic development. In this case the efforts were in the
interests of the Pennsylvania canal system and the merchants of Philadelphia.
Northern Ohio in the early 1830's saw
Book Reviews 305
at least three projects--two canals and
one railroad--with that aim in view.
The railroad in question did not
materialize, but the Pennsylvania and
Ohio Canal and the Sandy and Beaver
Canal were both built. (Hindsight
would say that one would have been
enough.)
The building of the latter canal, as
related in this book, is a good example
of the familiar blend of pioneer booster
spirit and seaboard dynamism
which played an important part in
creating the Midwest's transportation
facilities, both canal and rail. One may
also wonder if the large investments
made in Ohio rail lines by the
Pennsylvania Railroad were not motivated
in part by the hope of Philadelphia
capitalists to recoup the heavy losses
they had sustained a few years earlier
in this canal fiasco.
It is worth noting that construction of
the canal was well under way
when the panic of 1837 brought it to a
halt, along with most of the other
internal improvements in the state.
Unlike the majority, however, this
undertaking succeeded in a few years in
resuming work. It was completed
by a display of courage and enterprise
worthy of a better fate. Sheer
tragedy dictated resumption of the work
at practically the very last moment
before the railroads had unmistakably
gained the upper hand over the
canals.
The canal itself extended for
seventy-three miles from Bolivar on the
Ohio and Erie Canal to Glasgow on the
Ohio River, close by the terminus
of the Pennsylvania canal system. The route generally followed the
valleys of Sandy and Beaver creeks and
included thirty dams and ninety
locks. The total cost seems to have been
about $2,000,000. (The Cope
family of Philadelphia is said to have
lost half that sum in the undertaking.)
As a by-product the canal yielded water
power, used by saw mills, grist
mills, flax seed, paint, and stave
mills. The operation also raised a Florida-
like crop of proposed towns and
villages, with a staggering amount of
land platted for lots. Since the canal
was in more or less complete opera-
tion for only about four years
(1848-52), the boom was short-lived.
A professional historian can point in
this book to minor inaccuracies,
omissions of significant information,
haphazard arrangement, and much
crude writing--evidences, in a word, of
its amateur origin. To say that
much and no more would be pedantic and
uncharitable. For this is the
kind of history that appeals to the
heart rather than the head, the kind
that parents and children can share
together, the kind, finally, that is
written not only to be read but to be
thoroughly enjoyed.
Ohioana
Library WALTER RUMSEY MARVIN
306
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
The Territorial Papers of the United
States. Volume XIX, The Territory o
Arkansas, 1819-1825. Compiled and edited by Clarence Edwin Carter
(Washington, Government Printing Office,
1953. xiii+1003p.; map:
and index. $6.50.)
This first of three volumes of Arkansas
territorial papers reveals a part
of the West that, despite traces of its
past under France and Spain and
portents of a future heavily committed
to slavery and the plantation system
may seem more individualistic, more
western perhaps, than the older
territories that preceded it. The old regime left no metropolis and no
considerable Creole population; the new
regime had not yet developed a
planter class comparable to the
aristocracies of pioneer Kentucky, Ohio,
and Mississippi. (Even in the next
decade C. J. Latrobe described Arkansas
as "the sink into which the
offscourings of the more settled parts of
the country precipitated
themselves." The Rambler in North America [2d
ed.; London, 1836], I, 257.) Settlers had poured in far ahead of the
surveyors and far beyond the boundaries
fixed for the Indians. In 1821
and 1822 there were reports that
settlers dissatisfied with the Choctaw
treaty of Doake's Stand (1820) were
moving wholesale to Texas (pp. 319,
432), but actually, in hope of escaping
"the disagreeable necessity of
removing our Citizens," the
government had delayed enforcing the treaty
and eventually revised it (pp. 748-750).
Old Matthew Lyon, serving as
government factor in Arkansas after his
career in Kentucky, warned of the
grievances of the Cherokees: "I
cannot forget the Expence of the long
Indian War of 1790 & so on, North of
Ohio" (p.336). One is re-
minded of both the frontiersmen of an
older West and the new generation
of slaveowners who took Arkansas out of
the Union in 1861.
Those interested in tracing travelers
over this busy highway will find
Professor Carter's lists and indexes
invaluable, as in previous volumes.
His editorship continues to serve widely
varying interests, the genealogist's
as well as the institutional
historian's. The microfilm camera is no substitute
for the critical eye of the skilled
editor. Twenty years ago the first volumes
of Territorial Papers appeared,
and they began to leaven state and local
history as no series has since Thwaites'
Early Western Travels (which
includes Nuttall's description of
Arkansas in these same years). In this
reviewer's opinion, while historians
frequently consult Carter's work as a
standard and indispensable reference,
they have not adequately grasped
the opportunities that it suggests over
the days when most libraries offered
no comparable materials from across
state boundary lines, and when no
collection gave a comparable focus on
the recurring process of shaping
Book Reviews 307
new
settlements into familiar American patterns. Materials pertaining
to territorial administration, which are
emphasized, fortunately fill out the
picture of territorial life on more than
an administrative plane, while also
reminding us of the larger West in other
territories and of the vital con-
nections with the East that western
historians sometimes slight. The
philosophy of the series is the very
antithesis of antiquarianism, though
antiquarians, among others, depend on
it. Both western and national
history have in it the means of larger
perspectives.
University of Oregon EARL POMEROY
Academic Procession: An Informal
History of the American College (1636-
1953). By Ernest Earnest. (Indianapolis and New York,
Bobbs-Merrill
Company, 1953. 368p.;
illustrations and index. $4.00.)
General histories of higher education in
the United States appear so in-
frequently that the publication of a
popular book on this subject must be
considered an event, both literary and
educational. The present book is
an interesting one, and if we may judge
from the title, as we ought, this
is what the author intended. It is what
Paul Shorey would have called
"a readable proposition." How
good it is as history is matter for further
inquiry.
To review the marching and
countermarching, forward and back, of the
academic procession during more than
three hundred years, and to compress
the report into one small book is
impossible. Something has to give.
An honored Ohio scholar, Charles F.
Thwing, tried it in A History of
Higher Education in America but did not get much beyond the history of
the colonial colleges. In scope the
present book is a great improvement
over that one, but it also fails to
cover the subject. The land-grant col-
leges are omitted entirely. This is
unfortunate because in origin, purpose,
and performance those institutions are
far more peculiarly American than
Princeton or Yale; and it was
unnecessary because the sources are abundant.
Perhaps the reason for the omission may
be found, although this is a guess,
in the author's prejudice against
vocational education, as he understands it.
The prejudice is a fact.
The procession does not go far beyond
the Mississippi River. The state
universities of Minnesota, Michigan, and
Virginia, and Oberlin College
receive attention; there are excursions
into the Old South; but far more
than their proportionate share of space
is given to the Ivy League colleges
and their neighbors, and their sisters,
the women's colleges of the class of
308 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Vassar and Wellesley. The scope of the
book may have been determined
by the sources used. Except for the most
recent period, where the mag-
azines and the author's observation
served, the main sources were histories
of individual colleges and published
student diaries. The book would have
profited by attention to D. G.
Tewksbury's Founding of American Colleges
before the Civil War.
Student life is emphasized, including
especially the excesses of the "flam-
ing youth" of the twenties.
Calvinism, college athletics, coonskin coats, and
collegians from the swanky prep schools
arouse the author's ire. The youth
of the depression, N. Y. A., and the returning
veterans are not neglected.
The story is actually brought down to
1953.
The book must be used with caution. Many
of its generalizations are
wild shots, for example, that F. D. R.
became a great liberal through the
Hegelian teaching of Josiah Royce (p.
10); or that "a background of
wide reading is an almost sure
indication of an upbringing abroad" (p. 309).
There are many small errors. Twelve
names are misspelled, including that
of the historian Edward P. Cheyney repeatedly.
Bishop Berkeley's (p. 10)
is one of those names and his title is
given as "Dean." Publishers have a
responsibility in such matters as well
as writers. The book has some docu-
mentation and an index. For those who
know enough about the subject
to use it critically, this is the best
history of the American college yet written.
Ohio State University HARRY G. GOOD
Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers: Folk
Traditions of the Upper Peninsula.
By Richard M. Dorson. (Cambridge, Harvard
University Press, 1952.
305p.; illustrations, bibliographical
notes, and indexes. $5.00.)
This review of Bloodstoppers and
Bearwalkers is certainly one of the last
that will appear. The book, which was
published in 1952, was discussed
in most folklore journals a year ago and
has generally had "rave notices."
Thelma James's opening comment, in the Journal
of American Folklore,
"Here is the pattern for regional
collections and studies in American
folklore," is typical of the
printed reaction to Dorson's study. And even
in private conversation one hears none
but enthusiastic remarks about this
readable collection.
Such praise is deserved, too. Dealing
with the traditions, tales, and
superstitions of the many racial and
occupational groups that make up the
population of Michigan's Upper
Peninsula, the book serves as a wonderful
guide to the art of collecting folklore
in twentieth-century America. In its
Book Reviews 309
pages the reader is able to go hand in
hand with one of the world's top
collectors to gather material from the
Chippewas, Finns, Swedes, Cornish,
French, and Yankees as they reminisce or
comment on the miners, lakers,
lumbermen, and townsmen of the immediate
past. And the reader is able
to hear Dorson talk folklore,
historiography, and collecting each step of
the way. In this manner, in steady contact
with one of those rare indi-
viduals--a collector who is also a
scholar--one experiences in Bloodstoppers
and Bearwalkers the "thrill of the field" as no other book I
know can give it.
But these are things all critics have
recognized about the book. More
important for a reviewer at this late
date are the implications of a study
of this sort in the areas of local
history and modern collecting.
There is an almost incredible amount of
local history circulating and
stagnating in every region, county, and
town in American today. Much
of it is fascinating, and many so-called
"local historians" make investiga-
tion and fondling of it their hobby.
However, most of these "local his-
torians" are not scholars, and
their work is propelled without technique by
enthusiasm and love. Yet, as local
history has great value to sociologists,
folklorists, and
"international" historians, the material needs critical and
scholarly treatment. Bloodstoppers
and Bearwalkers is significant in that
it brings to local history the
techniques of a good researcher and a man
who understands the often ignored
disciplines of folklore, anthropology,
and psychology and their relationship to
historical patterns. Any amateur
or professional historian could profit
by reading Bloodstoppers and Bear-
walkers once through with no idea but to see the way in which a
locality
should be approached and analyzed.
The book also brings into focus one of
the central problems of American
folk studies today: how long should
something survive in oral traditon
before it is worth collecting as folk
material? It follows, I am sure, that
for material to be considered folklore
it must show an ability to survive
in oral tradition. This is the great
distinction between folk and formal
literature and is a cardinal point in
every definition of folklore I know.
Thus, it also follows that other
material for one reason or another will not
survive for long in oral tradition or
will be so greatly modified by oral
tradition as to be said not to survive.
And such rejected matter is only of
value in that it is rejected.
Many twentieth-century folklorists, in
their enthusiasm to gather material
and to make sure the discipline doesn't
die from want of an adaptable
definition, continually lay claims to
material as folklore that has not stood
the test of oral survival. This is the
error that certain individuals make
310 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
when they try to call labor or hillbilly
music modern folksong; it is the error
local historians often make concerning
legends and tales of their pet regions;
it is the error the commercial presses
make almost every time they publish
in this field; and it is an error that
Dorson 'at least borders on making in
Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers. Surely much of the matter he has pub-
lished from Michigan is not old enough
to be folklore (it has not demon-
strated its ability to survive) and will
have died out of circulation before
long. Such material is worth collecting,
but only to have so that one (or
others) can go back in later generations
to see if it has lived or died.
Some of this matter must die out and
should not be confused with the
genuine folklore that will stand the
test of time. It is the collector's task
to note such distinctions and to
indicate them in his book. Most modern
American collectors are incapable of
doing--or are unwilling to do--this.
In their enthusiasm to gather the old
genuine lore before it is lost forever,
they frequently don't give "oral
tradition" a chance to work at all. If they
continue, the element that keeps
folklore unique from formal literature,
oral survival, will cease to be a
factor. And then where will we be?
But, if Dorson sins along these lines it
bothers no reader but the
"definition hungry" scholar.
And for all, Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers
is a most interesting and
thought-provoking book, another feather in the
author's colorful headdress.
Denison University TRISTRAM P. COFFIN
Guide to the Manuscript Collections
in the William L. Clements Library.
Compiled by William S. Ewing. (Ann
Arbor, Michigan, Clements Library,
1953. ix + 548p.; index of names.
$4.00.)
This guide brings down to date the 1942
edition compiled by Howard H.
Peckham. The general plan is the same.
Collections are arranged alpha-
betically by name, with notes on their
size, subject matter, history, and ap-
pearance in print. All writers of
letters and authors and signers of docu-
ments are listed. Nearly half the book
is given over to a general index
of names, with dates supplied whenever
these are known.
Entries of collections number 304 as
against 172 in the first edition,
showing a steady growth during the last
decade. While enough information
is given to cover essential facts, many
of the accounts are condensed from
longer ones in the Peckham guide and
references are often made to these
fuller statements. The older work may
add data, such as those relating
to previous owners and sales, which
would be of great interest to a possible
Book Reviews 311
user of the library. The topical and
chronological list of the collections
has been dropped, along with Lloyd
Brown's appendix on manuscript
maps. Photolithography has replaced the
sumptuous printing of the first
edition, no doubt to keep production
costs within reasonable limits.
The Clements manuscript holdings are
still, as from the beginning, most
distinguished for their coverage of the
British side of the American
Revolution. Recent acquisitions,
however, show marked attention to other
interests. Papers of Henry Goulbourn
relating to the proceedings at Ghent
in 1814 are important for diplomatic
history. American public figures
represented by new collections are Lewis
Cass, Theodore Roosevelt, and
James Wilkinson. The Civil War material
collected by Aaron J. Cooke is
notable for that period. Among other
Mexican items are papers of Porfirio
Diaz and a section of the archives of
the province of Zacatecas. Historians
make a strong showing with papers of
Randolph Adams, Edward A.
Freeman, Peter Force, Jared Sparks, and
Claude Van Tyne. The orderly
book on the Bouquet expedition (104A) is
a very recent acquisition touch-
ing on the history of Ohio. These
examples give some idea of the quality
and variety of the material that has
been added.
The Clements Library is to be
congratulated for meeting so successfully
the need for an up-to-date description
of its manuscripts, in a form which
will make easy the transfer of the
entries to union lists as they develop.
Ohio Historical Society GEORGE KIRK
American Constitutional Custom: A
Forgotten Factor in the Founding. By
Burleigh Cushing Rodick. Foreword by
James T. Shotwell. (New York,
Philosophical Library, 1953. xx + 244p.;
notes, bibliography, and index.
$4.75.)
Billed as "a pioneering work"
in historical analysis and interpretation,
this extended essay is essentially a
review and an interpretation of the forces
which shaped the American constitutional
system. The story, therefore, is
largely familiar and the conclusions,
though offered with a "caution and
moderation" worthy of an
investigator working in an uncharted area, are
those reached by an earlier school of
writers. Seven short chapters examine
the Anglo-American constitutional
tradition, the American administrative
system from 1689 to 1829, and
traditional forces in the American Revolution,
the federal convention, and the early
constitutional period.
Presumably to point up the issue
involved, Professor Rodick opens the
book with Lord Bryce's statement that
"there is little in the Constitution
312
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
that is absolutely new; there is much
that is as old as Magna Carta," and
then cites the contrary opinion,
advanced by Wilfred E. Binkley, the Ohio
historian, and Malcom C. Moos, that the
constitution is "so positively native
to the American soil . . . that it is
surely an American institution if there
is any such thing." This prelude suggests that the discussion
might
pivot on the Turner thesis argument
about the uniqueness and/or imitative-
ness of the American experience. To an
extent this is true, but Rodick
tries to evade the major pitfalls of
that argument by stressing two sources
of the American political and
constitutional heritage: European, or more
particularly, English traditions, and
American customs of colonial and
early national days. He quickly concedes that some constitutional
de-
velopments "were more or less the
product of our American political climate,"
but his statement on page 1 sets the
central theme of the book: "There
is scarcely a single important feature
of our American political system,"
he writes, "that does not bear the
imprint of an earlier European tradition."
Later he concludes that there were few
habits and political customs before
1800 which were definitely indigenous to
America (p. 101).
Essentially, then, Rodick asserts that
the American constitution is based
on precedent, tradition, and old
concepts. To the extent that he stresses
the theme that the United States is an
old nation with a long heritage of
wrestling with such timeless, and
therefore still timely, problems as feder-
alism, freedom and authority, and
majority rule and individual rights, he
performs a valuable historical service.
But what he seems to forget in
surveying the "forgotten factor in
the founding" is the difference between
theory and practice, between
conceptualization and actualization. It is true,
of course, that few, if any, of the
"self-evident" principles of the American
Revolution were new. The basic concept
of popular government, which
has since evolved into democracy; the
principle of equality ("that all men
are created equal"); the concept of
limited government, restrained from
impinging upon human liberties; and the
principle of federalism--all these
principles had long histories as
concepts. The peculiar contribution of the
founding fathers was that they acted
upon them; they tried to actualize
them by putting them to the acid test of
experience in what Carl Becker has
called "an experiment in
democracy." Starting with the fundamental prin-
ciple of popular sovereignty--that
government rests on the consent of the
governed--they institutionalized the
revolutionary concept that government
originates with the people by perfecting
constitutional conventions, both
state and federal. By prescribing
governmental limits with a written con-
stitution, with built-in checks and
balances, and with an additional bill
Book Reviews 313
of rights insisted upon by the rank and
file, they broke with the monolithic
concept of governmental sovereignty and
actualized the principle of limited
government. At the same time, they
divided the indivisible; by splitting
sovereignty they established a workable
federal system.
Obviously these actions had antecedents,
and Rodick performs a worth-
while service in probing their earlier
history. He is on his strongest
ground when he stresses the impact on
American constitutional develop-
ment of such English and colonial
precedents as the theories of natural
rights and social compact, the
separation of powers, the common law, and
judicial review, from Bonham's case on.
His failure to define custom,
however, allows him to use it
interchangeably with habit, tradition, prac-
tice, principle, use, usage, and
institution, and to cite as "customs" such
diverse things as feudalism (p. 13),
"salutary neglect" (p. 42), opposi-
tion to centralized executive power (p.
57), international power politics
(pp. 71 and 114), colonial indebtedness
to British merchants (p. 74), paper
money agitation (p. 80), weak nations
being at the mercy of the strong
(p. 95), personal liberty (p. 97), the
English republican tradition (p. 105),
and the exercise of civilian control
over the military (p. 114). This list
indicates that such a grab bag of
customs yields a precedent for practically
anything and everything. Where there is
no specific American constitutional
practice to trace back to an earlier
custom, moreover, the author sometimes
resorts to the convenient generalization
that such an omission followed the
British tradition of allowing policies
to evolve out of habit. In discussing
federal administrative practices, for
instance, he observes that "since the
founding fathers knew that British
administration had largely evolved by
custom and tradition, they may have felt
that it would be best to trust to the
growth of custom in this functional
field."
This last sentence also reveals the
author's technique of trying to make
his points by incantation. He early establishes the habit of
customarily
using the words "custom,"
"habit," "tradition," and "precedent" as often
as possible (seven times on page 1),
until the custom becomes traditional
(thirteen times on page 134).
Incantation can lead to negation. Imprecise
use of terms, moreover, saps them of
meaning and leads to hazy general-
izations. In discussing Jeffersonian
opposition to the Alien and Sedition
Laws, the author cites the
Democratic-Republicans as defenders "of the
Anglo-American bill of rights." No
one will deny the relation of the
English bill of rights to the first ten
amendments to the American con-
stitution, but in 1798 there were
fundamental differences between the
British definition of freedom of speech
and the press and the Jeffersonian
314 Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
concept. The Federalist authors of the repressive
legislation specifically
relied on Blackstone's
common law definition, which the Republicans just
as flatly
repudiated. Thus, the Jeffersonians
distinguished between the
Anglo and the American
bill of rights, basing their definition on American
experience, not on
British precedents. This statement,
though refuting
Rodick's
generalization, corroborates his major thesis; both parties cited
precedents. It also
indicates a major weakness of his discussion, for he
nowhere makes the
fundamental inquiry of who stressed which precedents
and why, nor does he
probe the reasons why some traditions continued,
though usually in
modified form, while others were altered or discarded.
The answer to these
questions would have strengthened Mr. Rodick's
implicit premise that
American history is a part of the seamless web of world
history.
Ohio State
University
JAMES M. SMITH
A History of Ohio. By Eugene H. Roseboom and Francis P. Weisenburger.
Edited and illustrated
by James H. Rodabaugh. (Columbus, Ohio State
Archaeological and
Historical Society, 1953. xiii+412p.; illustrations,
maps, bibliography, and
index. $6.50.)
In 1934 Professors
Roseboom and Weisenburger of Ohio State University
published A History
of Ohio in the Prentice-Hall History Series of which
Carl Wittke was the
editor. Late in 1953 appeared a revised and exten-
sively illustrated
edition of this work. Revision included the rewriting of
the sections on the
Indians, the enlargement and division of chapter eight,
and the addition at the
end of a description of the events that have
taken place since the
writing of the first edition. The
second of these
changes resulted in a
new chapter entitled "Social and Cultural Life in
Transition." The
new last chapter, "From the Great Depression to the
State
Sesquicentennial," also includes social developments. Consequently
the volume contains
cultural history as well as political. The bibliography
has also been extended
and revised.
The most noticeable new
features are the change in format and the
illustrations.
Originally an octavo in size, it is now a quarto. At first
it contained a few
maps, but now its enlarged pages contain over three
hundred photographs and
cuts, some of them full-page in size. Almost
without exception they
have been well chosen. If one may criticize such
excellent work, the
lack of page references in the text to the various
illustrations or the
failure to include the titles of the pictures and cuts in
Book Reviews 315
the index is to be regretted. Either of
these methods should have increased
the usefulness of the illustrations. The
pictures, however, are so interesting
that they will in all probability be
studied by the readers and will add
to their pleasure and understanding of
the text.
The volume also deserves praise as an
excellent brief history of Ohio.
The authors have written other works and
articles and are well known
in their field. Often the reader would
prefer that they had not been quite
so brief. Generally they have been very
successful in describing an impor-
tant and complicated story in few words.
Errors in writing or in fact
are all but nonexistent. The last
sentence on page 242 contains an insig-
nificant one, where the personal pronoun
appears to have as its antecedent
the wrong person. One of the problems in
writing state history is the
extent to which the state may take
credit for the accomplishments of its
natives who have moved to other states.
In this connection, a resident of
Indiana must remind the authors that
although Kin Hubbard may have
been born a few miles east of the
Indiana-Ohio boundary, he was a citizen
of Indianapolis when he discovered Abe
Martin down in Brown County,
Indiana.
Over a quarter of a century ago
Professor Elbert J. Benton commented
on the "monumental evidence of the
backwardness of Ohioans in writing
their own state's history." Since
then the History of the State of Ohio in
six volumes edited by Carl Wittke and
published by the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society
and the present History of Ohio have
appeared. Ohioans need no longer chide
themselves, for they are envied
by their neighbors.
Indiana University JOHN D.
BARNHART
Narrative Journal of Travels through
the Northwestern Regions of the
United States, Extending from Detroit
through the Great Chain of
American Lakes to the Sources of the
Mississippi River, in the Year
1820. By Henry R. Schoolcraft. Edited by Mentor L. Williams.
(East
Lansing, The Michigan State College
Press, 1953. vii + 520p.; map,
tables, appendices, bibliography, and
index. $7.50.)
Following the pattern of systematic
explorations of the western wilderness
of the new nation, with such notable
precedents as the famed Lewis and
Clark expedition to the upper reaches of
the Missouri Valley and down the
mighty Columbia River to the shores of
the Pacific and the thrilling exploits of
Zebulon Pike up the Mississippi River
and later to the headwaters of the Ar-
316 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
kansas River and on to Pike's Peak,
there set out from Detroit in late May
1820 another venture destined to achieve
fame. The man who dreamed of the
idea, sold it to federal officials, and
then led the project to a most success-
ful culmination was Lewis Cass, governor
of Michigan Territory.
From Detroit a flotilla of soldier-
voyageur- and Indian-manned canoes
traveled northward across Lake St. Clair
and up the St. Clair River into
Lake Huron. Along Huron's western shore and into Lake Superior to
follow Superior's southern shore the
intrepid explorers paddled westward.
Overland by forced marches, across
portage paths, and on dangerous streams
the party went on to the upper reaches
of the Mississippi River. Down that
river and up the Wisconsin-Fox
system they progressed to Green Bay.
From there the party journeyed along
Lake Michigan's western shoreline to
Chicago. Here the expedition split, with
one part moving directly on to
Detroit, and the other following the
lake around the lower peninsula of
Michigan into Lake Huron again and back
to Detroit. Some four thousand
miles and one hundred and twenty-two
days later the venture came to
an end.
The members of the expedition exploited
their opportunities to the
utmost, and the results were
tremendously successful. Literate and
keen
observers that they were, they added a
vast fund of knowledge about a
hitherto little known area of the United
States. Their discoveries and
observations of flora, fauna, minerals,
weather data, and topographical in-
formation were encyclopedic in scope.
Their recommendations for defense
purposes and their conjectures about
possibilities of settlements and ex-
ploitation of the natural resources of
this area were valuable to the govern-
ment and the pioneer alike. It is from
this expedition that scientific in-
vestigation of the Indian begins.
This venture was well reported to the
lay public in newspapers and
periodicals of the day. One of the best
accounts is that written by Henry
Rowe Schoolcraft in the present Narrative
Journal. It is a highly readable
and fascinating account. Things omitted
or not observed by this scientifi-
cally-minded member of the expedition
are hardly worthy of mention.
The description of an Indian canoe (pp.
56-57) is unrivaled; the report-
ing of the native method of catching
whitefish (p. 96) is excellent; the
word picture of an Indian grave (pp.
112-113) is superb; and the account
of a sturgeon fishery (pp. 120-121) is
detailed and clear. These examples
are typical of the reporting of
Schoolcraft. To be sure, he borrows heavily
from other previous observers and
explorers, but he is always careful to
check the accuracy and validity of their
observations and to give them credit.
Book Reviews 317
In reviving the Schoolcraft Narrative
Journal for the present-day scholar
and lay reader, Mentor L. Williams, its
present editor, has rendered a
notable service. But this reviewer would
quarrel with the editor because
he has chosen to omit a large number of
Schoolcraft's footnotes and to
take other liberties with the journal
which, in such cases, an editor should
not be granted. Further, it would seem
that an occasional footnote of the
editor is trite and without place in a
scholarly endeavor of this sort. Aside
from these observations, editorial
comment is valuable to identify geographic
and scientific materials in the
Schoolcraft account. A drawback, perhaps
for reasons of economy, is the small
print of the entire book. This will
tend to discourage other than the most
persistent reader. The map, the
source of which is not indicated, but
which is probably a photographic
reproduction of a Schoolcraft map, is so
small as to be of little value to
the present edition.
Of considerable value are the
appendices, which take up almost one half
of the volume. Letters, treaties,
reports, other journals, news notices, and
scientific papers of members of the
expedition and government officials are
included. The volume then consists of a
valuable, though selective, col-
lection of documents concerning the 1820
venture.
Miami University DWIGHT L. SMITH
To Keep Us Free. By Marguerite Allis. (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1953. 344p. $3.50.)
The chief ambition of Ashbel Field,
Continental Army veteran, was
"to take part in making workable
this revolutionary concept of a govern-
ment by and for free men." To this
end, he left his home in Connecticut,
"the land of steady habits,"
and, with his wife and family, worked his
passage on a packet west down the Ohio.
Although his property was in
Cleveland, he preferred to settle his
family in Marietta, where his children
could attend Sabbath and day
school. "Good education is
essential to
good citizenship," Ashbel often
soberly said, and Cleveland was then just
newly surveyed with little promise of
settlement. Even the urgings of Dr.
Edward Tiffin, whom Ashbel met on the
packet, to settle in Chillicothe,
or of Thomas Worthington, who carried in
his saddlebags plans for Adena,
failed to dissuade him.
How Ashbel strove to "school"
his children, even to sending his oldest
to Yale; the measures of citizens they
became; the measures of soldiers;
when they fought the Indians in the War
of 1812; other births and deaths;
318 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Ashbel's own contributions toward
building Ohio--all combine to make
this an interesting, readable tale.
Historic figures like Return Jonathan
Meigs, Rufus Putnam, Edward
Tiffin, Thomas Worthington, William
Henry Harrison, and others, don't
stalk in and out merely to add dignity
to the story. They live and move
with a fair degree of credulity. It is evident that long and proper re-
search was done by Miss Allis; she could
never have worked them into her
story to the extent she has if she
wasn't on sure ground. The Blenner-
hassetts figure in some of the most
colorful chapters of the book and are
drawn with no illusions, yet with
respect and compassion.
Ashbel's wife, Faith, is perhaps the
most sensitively real of all the char-
acterizations. It is her grief we
share when her only girl child is killed,
when her son runs off to sea, when her
youngest son does not return from
the wars; her joy when another
daughter is born; her pride when she opens
her Cleveland home years later to
wounded soldiers, and yet later takes
into her family a renegade lad in place
of her lost son.
But for all this, it is not entirely an
absorbing book. There are some
strong, real, moving episodes, such as
the siege of Fort Meigs; others that
add little to story movement or
characterization. As frequently happens
with many of today's novels, there is
overindulgence in detail and side
play which does little more than
encumber the story. The pace is moderate,
often slowed and confused by allusions
to events of an earlier book, Now
We Are Free, to which this is a sequel.
Columbus, Ohio ARDIS HILLMAN WHEELER
BOOK REVIEWS
Howells & Italy. By James L. Woodress, Jr. (Durham, N. C., Duke Uni
versity Press, 1952. [xiv]+223p.;
frontispiece (portrait), bibliography
and index. $3.50.)
Of late years there appears to be a
trend toward a strong revival of in-
terest in the life and writings of
William Dean Howells, an Ohio boy
whose first years were rooted in
journalistic experience on various Ohio
newspapers, including his father's, and
particularly with the Ohio State
Journal in Columbus.
In this first book-length study about
Howells to be published since 1924,
Professor Woodress, who is both teacher
of English and reviewer of books,
has elected to show the impact which the
four years that Howells spent in
Venice had upon him. The biographer's
thesis is "a thorough treatment of
Howells's Italian interest on his
literary, as well as his personal, life."
Professor Woodress achieves this
admirably. He does it by describing
Howells' experiences abroad and by
illustrating the result of these experi-
ences in Howells' subsequent books. He demonstrates the effect which
Italian friends, writers, and especially
the dramatist Carlo Goldoni had
upon the evolution of Howells' special
brand of realism for which he
became noted.
Having written a campaign biography of
Abraham Lincoln, Howells
sought and obtained a political
appointment from the president in 1861 as
United States consul at Venice. At
Venice his consular duties were light
and he was able to study, travel, take
notes, and write. While in Italy,
he rounded out his personal life by
marrying Elinor Mead of Brattleboro,
Vermont, daughter of Larkin G. Mead and
a cousin of President Rutherford
B. Hayes; and their first child,
Winifred, was born there.
After Howells returned to the United
States in the latter part of 1865,
he published his first book about Italy,
Venetian Life, which received high
praise from many of his literary friends
including Longfellow, Lowell, and
Bayard Taylor. His book and articles in
the North American Review,
Nation, and several newspapers, established him as an authority
on things
Italian, and launched him solidly on his
extensive literary career as writer
and editor.
"Statistically," summarizes
Professor Woodress, "the Italian content of
Howells's work tells a convincing story.
[William M.] Gibson and
[George] Arms in their bibliography list
approximately two hundred books
which he wrote wholly or in part during
his vastly productive lifetime.
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