Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

 

 

 

The Shawnee. By Jerry E. Clark (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,

1977. ix + ⁹⁹p.; illustrations, bibliographical essay. $4.95.)

 

Jerry E. Clark's summary of the most important findings about the Shawnee

is yet another addition to the award-winning Kentucky Bicentennial Book-

shelf, a series subsidized by the National Endowment for the Humanities and

by numerous groups and individuals interested in Kentucky history. Not

intended to be an original contribution to knowledge, The Shawnee was

planned as a reliable short presentation, low in price, that would appeal to

large numbers of serious local historians, whether professional or not. Like

other items in the series it is a suitable memento of the bicentennial observance

at its best. The format is attractive, and the binding is durable.

The author emphasizes the Shawnee's "conservatism" (their resistance to

altering their cultural traditions) and their highly mobile societies (accounting

for their lack of permanent year-round villages) as their most important char-

acteristics. He offers a convincing reconciliation of these two features and sees

their effects in the details of the Shawnee life style as portrayed in quite

interesting chapters on "Social Organization," "Subsistence and Technology,"

"Ideology and Expressive Culture," "Conservatism, Dependency, and Migra-

tion," "Relations with Other Indians," and "Relations with Whites." By keep-

ing the prevailing background themes visible Clark creates a unity of presen-

tation and greatly increases the readability of his book.

His work would be even more appealing to the general reader if it had a

stronger opening. Following Chapter 1, a very brief "Introduction," Chapter 2,

"History of the Shawnee," is tedious and pedestrian. It is not really the tribe's

history, but an account of their migrations and geographic distribution. Con-

taining useful information that was no doubt hard to assemble and organize

for expository presentation, the chapter could have appeared later in the book

or restructured as a series of maps and tables with interpretive narrative for

coherence.

The bibliographical essay is adequate, with one exception. Considering the

author's acknowledgement of his special indebtedness to Erminie Wheeler

Voegelin, the reader would expect a listing of the "several articles" of hers

that were used, particularly in view of the fact that the essay includes detailed

bibliographical information about other articles by other authors drawn upon

for ethnographic information.

Perhaps the most admirable quality of The Shawnee is that Clark manages

to maintain a professional dignity in his account of this important episode in

the love-hate contact between white men and America's stone-age aborigines.

Too many well-meaning investigators in this field have collapsed into melo-

drama-and thus, ironically, have lost the authentic pathos which asserts

itself best in a strictly scholarly presentation. Clark gives his readers credit for

bringing a decent sense of humane values to their reflections upon race relations

in our nation's past. The book is not cluttered with didacticism and propaganda.

At a time of general interest in those Indians who have resisted oppor-

tunities to integrate, it would be useful to have a full set of books like Clark's,

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Book Reviews                                                       337

 

one for each of the groups our forefathers knew, especially if all were as well

authored as The Shawnee.

 

Youngstown State University                       Dorothy Forbis Behen

 

 

Images of the Ohio Valley: A Historical Geography of Travel, 1740 to 1860.

By John A. Jakle. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. viii + 217p.;

illustrations, tables, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $12.50

cloth; $6.00 paper.)

 

This slender, attractive volume, the seventh in the Andrew H. Clark Series in

the Historical Geography of North America, brings a geographer's perspective

to the drainage area of the Ohio River system-a domain extending from

western New York to northern Alabama and from the Appalachian crest to

the Illinois prairie. Its concern is the landscape as recorded by travelers to the

first American "West." Because the main route of travel was the Ohio River

itself, the book brings its sharpest focus to that waterway and the changing

occupation-military, agricultural, commercial and industrial-of the region's

central valley.

Reports, records, journals, letters and recollections of the Ohio Valley have

had the attention of historians for a long time. The evolution from wilderness to

civilization (providing the "images" for Conrad Richter's fiction trilogy The

Trees, The Fields, The Town) might seem too familiar to need repeating. But

the geographer's viewpoint is distinctive. Professor Jakle looks closely at the

travelers, uncovering their motives, biases, and preconceptions. He asks not

only what did these people see, but what did they think they were seeing.

Hence the variety and frequent contradictions in their accounts. With arresting

quotations he makes the travelers speak directly to the reader, and they speak

in many voices. Some synthesis is offered, but, unlike the historian, the geog-

rapher is more interested in specific observation than in the drawing of con-

clusions. The book's epigraph, from Carl Sandburg, puts it pungently: it seeks

"the feel and the atmosphere, the layout and lingo, of regions, of breeds of men,

of customs and slogans, in a manner and air not given in regular history."

Still, like regular history, this book shows change coming at headlong pace

into the Ohio Valley. In a century a dense wilderness was converted to a great

garden, and the primitive trade by canoe and packhorse was succeeded by a

commerce in steamboat, canal barge, stagecoach and covered wagon. Pitts-

burgh, Cincinnati and Louisville sprang to maturity in a single generation.

Change was ineluctable; the huge, restless region was in a state of becoming.

Awareness of change led travelers, as well as occupants, to see the landscape in

terms of their hopes and expectations. Swamps and thickets abounded, but

explorers and landlookers noted "good mill sites," "large meadows," "fine clean

bottoms," and "spacious plains." A striking example of the future eclipsing

the present appears in the Ohio seal-sunrise illuminating a sheaf of wheat in an

endless grain field: this in 1803 when Ohio was nine-tenths forest and its

people were warring with the dark and ancient woods. Raw settlements were

named for great cities. A river traveler passed Manchester, Moscow, Warsaw,

Hanover, Rome, Troy, New Amsterdam and Cairo, along with symbolic

Aurora, Eureka and Rising Sun.

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338                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

In his Introduction Professor Jakle observes that "historians of the Ohio

Valley have tended to ignore the travel journals for what they were: descrip-

tions of place." This statement seems at odds with the great work of R. G.

Thwaites in producing the thirty-three volumes of Early Western Travels (1904-

1907), and, among ready examples, the fact that Allan Nevins began a four-

star historian's career with the "rich panorama of narrative and description"

of his America Through British Eyes. Although many others have worked this

literature, Professor Jakle has looked most closely at the logistics of frontier

travel. His book contains a sequence of maps showing, by period, travelers'

routes and destinations, an extensive bibliography organized by period, and a

number of period pictures of the changing Ohio Valley.

 

Miami University                                      Walter Havighurst

 

 

Atlas of Michigan. Edited by Lawrence M. Sommers. (Grand Rapids: Michi-

gan State University Press, distributed by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,

1977. xi + ²⁴²p.; illustrations, maps, tables, bibliography, index. $24.95.)

 

The Atlas of Michigan is the first such comprehensive publication since

1873. Prepared by various faculty and staff members at Michigan State Uni-

versity under the general editorship of Lawrence M. Sommers, chairman of

the Department of Geography, this lavish volume covers a myriad of special-

ized subjects. The book's basic organization, however, features the natural

environment, people and society, history and culture, economy, recreation,

transportation, and "Michigan Tomorrow."

This reviewer applauds the Atlas of Michigan. Both the layman and the

specialist will find this volume useful and at times thoroughly entertaining.

The maps, mostly isoline and choropleth, are of high quality and, for the

most part, easy to understand. But in any publication with four hundred maps

there are shortcomings. Errors fortunately seem to be few in number, yet

they exist. The map, for instance, on page 128 that depicts the presidential

election results of 1920 shows the Upper Peninsula as having "No Returns,

Unsettled!" One could, moreover, easily quibble with the types of informa-

tion used for particular maps. "Selected Literature with a Michigan Locale"

(p.¹³⁴) is of little value and "Picnic Tables in Local Government Parks"

(p.197) hardly seems essential. It is unfortunate that the transportation and

communication section lacks maps of abandoned rail lines and of the now de-

funct, albeit important electric interurban network (Michigan's inter-city

traction system once totalled 981 miles). Also, the recreation section could

have been improved with a map or maps showing state sites listed in The Na-

tional Register of Historic Places.

While the producers of the Atlas of Michigan were not attempting to write

a literary masterpiece, their narrative is frequently marred. For instance, the

overuse of the highly imprecise "many" and the passive voice is annoying.

Nevertheless, this fascinating collection of maps with its attractive graphics

and photographs should make Michiganders proud of their locally-created

work.

 

The University of Akron                                 H. Roger Grant

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Book Reviews                                                        339

 

Gentlemen from Indiana: National Party Candidates, 1836-1940. Edited by

Ralph D. Gray. (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1977. xx + 338p.;

illustrations, bibliographical essays, index. $8.00 cloth; $4.50 paper.)

 

Just as Ohio calls itself the "mother of presidents," so Indiana lays claim

to being the "mother of vice-presidents." In a volume designed for distribu-

tion to some 550 high schools and colleges in the state, the Indiana Historical

Bureau has published a set of biographical essays on seven Hoosiers who

sought the office which John Adams called "the most insignificant . . . that

ever the invention of man contrived" as well as five native sons who aspired

to the presidency. Only two Hoosiers, William Henry and Benjamin Harri-

son, reached the highest office of the land, while four, Schuyler Colfax, Thom-

as Hendricks, Charles W. Fairbanks, and Thomas R. Marshall, became vice-

presidents. Only candidates whose political careers were associated with In-

diana are included in this volume. Thus, John P. St. John, a native Hoosier

turned Kansan, is omitted, while half of those represented were actually

born outside Indiana (three in Ohio: Hendricks, Benjamin Harrison, and Fair-

banks). Only those minor party candidates with significant vote totals are

included (George W. Julian, Eugene V. Debs, and J. Frank Hanly).

Editor Ralph D. Gray, professor at the joint Indiana University-Purdue

University campus in Indianapolis, indicates that the purpose of this volume

is to make new evaluations of Hoosier candidates. This aim, in my opinion,

is unachieved. Perhaps this is because eleven of the twelve biographies were

assigned originally to members of the Indiana University-Purdue University

faculty in Indianapolis (including two graduate students). None were spe-

cialists in the political history of Indiana. George Julian's biography was writ-

ten by a Europeanist and John W. Kern's by a Latin Americanist! Even the

Americanists in most cases were writing outside their chronological and topi-

cal fields. The authors sought where possible to synthesize the extant sec-

ondary literature. Only in such cases where it was minimal did the scholars

have recourse to unpublished sources. New insights into Indiana political

history are hardly likely to emerge under such circumstances.

Most Hoosier candidates' political careers spanned the latter half of the

nineteenth century, a time when Indiana was an important swing state. Can-

didates were nominated because of their place of residence and party loyalty

rather than their innate abilities. Despite the best efforts of the authors to

the contrary, the political history of this period necessarily appears dull,

mildly sordid, and uninspiring. From the traditional standpoint, Indiana's

national candidates were mediocrities. William Henry Harrison was "ill

equipped in intellect and relevant experience to bear the heavy burdens of

the presidency" (p.4). Schuyler Colfax was "not in any way a great man"

(p.⁸2). George W. Julian was a doctrinaire rather than a statesman (p.54).

The result is tragic-and unnecessary. Politics in the nineteenth century was

quite different from today and unless a special effort is made to explain the

party structure and voter attitudes, the behavior of the era will appear alien

and dull. Instead of the traditional political narrative made all the less excit-

ing by the recitation of the same basic political chronology by author after

author, the book might have made better use of the sizeable body of litera-

ture by political scientists and new political historians which helps to explain

the politics of the period. Only the essays by James H. Madison and by Pat-

rick J. Furlong and Gerald E. Hartdagen make a serious effort to use the

• 4
 

340                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

lives of their subjects to illuminate the political process of the times. Nor,

despite the increasing popularity of collective biography, does the volume

make an attempt to draw general conclusions about Indiana's national candi-

dates.

This book will be most valuable to those seeking accurate biographical infor-

mation about such individuals as William H. English, Thomas A. Hendricks,

and J. Frank Hanly, who have received little attention from past historians.

Each essay also has a useful annotated bibliography to guide future students

of Indiana politics. The volume's index, however, is much too brief and the

portraits accompanying each essay failed to reproduce well.

 

Ohio University                                         Phyllis F. Field

 

 

Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amend-

ment. By Raoul Berger. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977. x +

483p; bibliography, index. $15.00.)

 

Government by Judiciary by Professor Raoul Berger of Harvard Uni-

versity is an exhaustive analysis of the debates of the Thirty-ninth Congress

and the proposed Fourteenth Amendment. Berger's thesis is that it was never

the intention of the framers and supporters of this Amendment to give blacks

the suffrage or allow them to attend integrated schools. Consequently, Berg-

er's work is a bitter attack on the liberal interpretation of the Fourteenth

Amendment by the Supreme Court and scholars, notably on the issues of vot-

ing and desegregation.

Radical Republicans were mindful that nullification of the three-fifths

clause by the Thirteenth Amendment meant "each voteless freedman

counted as a whole person" and would increase Southern representation,

thereby providing a Democratic majority in Congress and the Electoral Col-

lege. The Republicans, however, felt this possibility could be circumvented

through Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment which reduced representa-

tion proportionally if the right to vote were abridged or denied.

Because they coveted legislative domination, the Radicals found them-

selves in conflict with their moral and political convictions. Realistically,

they recognized Republican dominance could be maintained by enfranchising

blacks, but they were ideologically opposed to black suffrage because they

believed the freedmen inferior. Thaddeus Stevens, for example, declared

"In my county are fifteen hundred escaped slaves. If they are specimens of

the negroes of the South, they are not qualified to vote" (p.⁵⁸). Similar re-

marks were voiced by both Radicals and Democrats. Despite this political

and racial hostility, the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted and ratified by

the states in 1868. Because it clothed blacks in a kind of constitutional egali-

tarianism, the Fourteenth Amendment was very unpopular. Negrophobia was

so strong in Ohio and New Jersey that their legislatures voted to rescind its

ratification. Congress, of course, disallowed their action.

That the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to confer on blacks those

human rights so long denied because of centuries of slavery is a historic fact.

Its equal protection and due process of law provisions are considered by

most constitutional experts as having the greatest impact on the Constitution

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Book Reviews                                                      341

 

since the addition of the Bill of Rights. Despite this legal consensus, Berger

is hostile to the interpretation that the Fourteenth Amendment conferred on

blacks more than the auxiliary rights that protected their life, liberty and

property. He argues that it is a serious threat to democratic society for the

Supreme Court to assume unconferred powers.

The tragedy of Berger's study is his obdurate refusal to accept that the

transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of blacks was

evolutionary not revolutionary. He does not explain why it took over sixty

years before the Supreme Court began interpreting the Amendment's original

intent. Berger does not see anything immoral or unconstitutional in the trans-

formation of the Fourteenth Amendment into an economic instrument for

business and industry. Instead, he is too busy condemning legal scholars who

contend that the Brown v. Board of Education decision was "simple justice"

and a long overdue attempt to help rectify the grievous wrongs inflicted on

blacks. Berger is very opposed to the role of the Supreme Court as a super

legislature on racial matters but is conspicuously silent about its legislative

edicts on other issues. That the Court has functioned as a "continuing consti-

tutional convention" is not new. Despite the invaluable insight Berger has

provided in his examination of the motives of the framers of the Fourteenth

Amendment, he has overlooked one significant and historical fact: "the Con-

stitution is what the Supreme Court says it is."

 

Miami University                                   W. Sherman Jackson

 

 

Liberating Women's History: Theoretical and Critical Essays. Edited by Bere-

nice A. Carroll. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976. xiv + 434p.;

notes. $14.95 cloth; $5.95 paper.)

 

This excellent collection of twenty-three articles-fourteen of them pub-

lished for the first time-addresses itself to the major interpretive issues

raised by women's historians as they have moved in innovative directions to

incorporate the study of women into a history liberated from unexamined as-

sumptions, outmoded models and methodologies, and sexist bias. In a thoughtful

introduction, Carroll discusses the need both for theory and conceptual clari-

fication and for a "broader base of information." The organization of this

finely-edited book conforms to its purpose. Parts I and IV deal with critical

historiography, theoretical questions, and new approaches to women's his-

tory. Parts II and III contain excellent case studies of particular women's ex-

periences across classes, time, and cultures. These monographs, which pro-

vide a basis for intelligent comparative studies, are additionally useful, as

Carroll points out, because they are not devoid of analysis or interpretation

(p.xi).

The first two essays, Ann Lane's critique of Frederick Engels' exploration

of "the world-historic defeat of the female sex" and Carroll's critique of the

rejection of the "myth" of subjugation in Mary Beard's Woman as Force in

History, are well placed, serving as the springboard for the debate over the

uses of the "oppression model" in studying women's history. Almost every

essay touches in some way on this problem, one which raises fundamental

questions of methodology and theory. Since Gerda Lerner's 1969 call for a

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342                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

"new conceptual framework" which goes beyond the "feminist frame of

reference," the debate over women as victim and women as force (contributors

and "social agents") has become increasingly sophisticated and productive.

Sheila Johannson, for example, urges historians to move away from the ob-

session with women's oppression, and the study of the recorded attitudes of

men toward women, to consider how women, as individiuals and groups,

"affected the structure, functioning and historical unfolding of their societies"

(p.416). She offers the study of status patterns over time as a new criterion for

assessing women's experiences. Juliet Mitchell proposes that we analyze the

four structures of production, reproduction, sexuality, and the socialization

of children (the "complex unity" of women's position) to determine the actual

condition of women in any particular time and place (p.385). Ann Gordon,

Mary Jo Buhle, and Nancy Dye also want to go beyond institutional, bio-

graphical, and compensatory studies to a social history which connects wom-

en's experiences with historical developments, a history which is sensitive

as well to how women responded to their situations in different times (pp.83-

84). Yet there is the other side of the argument, and Hilda Smith carries it

forward effectively. Emphasizing victimization, Smith argues that a feminist

perspective, one that views women "as a distinct sociological group which

has experienced both overt and covert controls through legal, political, and

social restrictions," is necessary (p.369), for one thing to prevent the kind of

sexist history attacked by the five coauthors of "Historical Phallacies: Sexism

in American Historical Writing." The latter essay is also important in point-

ing to the tendency among some historians to blame women for their own

oppression, rather than recognize "the real social conditions which are the

source of women's problems and rebellion" (p.70).

The debate over the oppression model and the feminist frame of reference

has led to other considerations as well, ranging from the relationship between

gender, class, and ethnicity to the distinction between prescriptive literature

and actual behavior and the nature of women's decision-making in various

times and places. These are broad theoretical and methodological issues, and

there is no concensus. This is evident in Gerda Lerner's own modification of

her 1969 view of women as a sub-group. "It will not do-there are just too

many of us," she wrote in 1975. "No single framework, no single-factor, four-

factor, or eight-factor explanation can serve to contain all that the history of

women is. ... In order to write a new history worthy of the name, we will

have to recognize that no single methodology and conceptual framework can

fit the complexities of the historical experience of all women" (p.365).

The articles in Parts II and III of Liberating Women's History demonstrate

the nature of these "complexities." Those in Part II tend to stress the influ-

ence of ideology and tradition on women's position. Hilda Smith, in "Gyne-

cology and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England," sets the tone for this

section in analyzing the primacy of attitudinal factors in shaping, and restrict-

ing, women's sexual and social roles (in this case the role of mid-wife). Other

articles include Adele Simmons on education and ideology in nineteenth-

century America, Amy Hackett's "Feminism and Liberalism in Wilhelmine

Germany," Ann Pescatello's study of tradition and social change in Iberian

and Latin American cultures, Joyce Ladner on racism and black womanhood,

and Kay Boals on male-female relations in Algeria. While the exploration of

prescriptive norms and women's position is a common thread in these essays,

some, such as Robin Miller Jacoby's "Feminism and Class Consciousness in

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Book Reviews                                                      343

 

the British and American Women's Trade Union Leagues, 1890-1925," also

discuss the relationship between women of different classes. Examining the

conflict between feminist and class attitudes, Jacoby concludes that "class dif-

ferences were not significantly overcome" (p.¹50). While the evidence of

nineteenth-century "sisterhood" is mounting (in studies by Carroll Smith

Rosenberg and Nancy Cott, for example), Jacoby's contribution provides im-

portant insights into the question of what kept women apart, as well as what

brought them together, a question raised by Gordon, Buhle, Dye, and Lerner,

among others.

The concern with class, sex, and social change is examined more specifi-

cally in Part III. The essays focus on such issues as women's work, their

social and economic roles, variations in their status over time, and the reasons

for such changes. Alice Kessler-Harris, for instance, in "Women, Work, and

the Social Order," views the changing needs of the economy as determina-

tive of changes in family structure and women's role. Other articles, which

regrettably cannot be discussed in detail here, include Sarah Pomeroy's study

of matriarchy in the Bronze Age; Kathleen Casey's exploration into the ex-

periences of different classes of medieval women; Asuncion Lavrin's insightful

analysis of the economic and social roles of women in convents in colonial

Mexico; Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz on Weimar women in politics

and work; and Gordon and Buhle's revised study of sex and class from colonial

to nineteenth-century America.

Taken together, the essays in Liberating Women's History represent a body

of scholarship whose significance cannot be ignored. They demonstrate an

increasingly sophisticated historiography, add immeasurably to our under-

standing of the richness of women's experiences, and confirm the importance

of studying women's history and of coming to terms with it. Johannson's

conclusion summarizes what is one of the underlying themes and major

contributions of this book: "I think it is not too much to say that the nature

of long-term social change will never be understood unless the study of

women becomes a part of any attempt to unravel the mysteries of the past and

perceive the dim outlines of the future" (p.⁴²⁷).

University of Toledo                                  Francine C. Cary

 

A Sense of Place: in Centerville and Washington Township. Edited by How-

ard R. Houser. (Centerville, OH: Centerville Historical Society, 1977. x +

229p.; illustrations, maps, appendices, bibliography, index. $12.00.)

 

Researched and written by members of the Landmark Committee of the

Centerville Historical Society, edited by Howard R. Houser, and published

by the Centerville Historical Society, A Sense of Place memorializes in words

and photographs roads, houses and other structures built largely in the first

half of the nineteenth century in Washington Township in Montgomery Coun-

ty. They provide, assert the authors, a sense of place for residents of the

township, one nourishing their "deepest psychological and physical well-

being."

Using deeds, wills, tax lists, and other public records and secondary sources,

the authors describe the origins and early use and evolution of these roads

and buildings. Though their organization of the principal chapters is rather

arbitrary-by quadrants of the township and plats of the village of Centerville

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344                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

-it proves to be quite workable; for in at least three quadrants, distinct

religious or ethnic groups-Quakers, for example-dominated early settlement

and stamped their imprint on the first houses, school buildings, and

churches.

Composing the bulk of the book are accounts of about one hundred houses

and school buildings, selected primarily because they appeared on a pictorial

map of the township made in 1875 and were still standing a hundred years

later. Typically, the accounts comment on the builders of the structures, not-

ing where they came from and what they did, and then describe in some

detail the architectural composition of the buildings. Rather than defining

the houses by style, which often were "simplified versions" of Greek Re-

vival, the authors look more particularly at how a "building's parts are put

together." Among the more distinctive buildings portrayed are the small

houses built in Centerville of limestone quarried in the neighborhood. Gen-

erally, the architectural descriptions are lucid, and the research, particularly

on the houses, is thorough. The introductory section on characteristic ele-

ments of the early domestic architecture in the township is also quite good.

Excellent photographs and sketches accompany descriptions of the build-

ings.

There are, of course, weaknesses in the book. Perhaps because of the reli-

ance on the map of 1875, with its commemoration of successful settlers, it

tends to be elitist in nature. One will learn little from it about where the

plainest people lived. Especially in the opening pages on the history of the

township, a streak of filial-pietism reminiscent of mug books of the late nine-

teenth century appears. Some grammatical slips are evident, and some of

the scholarly paraphernalia, notably the citing of books within the text, is de-

fective. Altogether, though, A Sense of Place stands as one of the outstand-

ing publications of a local historical society to appear in the Midwest in the

past fifty years.

 

Wright State University                                   Carl M. Becker

 

Guide to the Microfilm Edition of Temperance and Prohibition Papers. Edited

by Randall C. Jimerson, Francis X. Blouin, and Charles A. Isetts. (Ann

Arbor: University of Michigan, 1977. xiv + 379p.; illustrations, $8.00.)

 

The microfilm joint publication covered by this guide is another sign that

historians' neglect of the temperance movement has ended. Several books have

recently appeared on the American campaign against alcohol. More are likely

to be written as a result of the publication both of the principal records relating

to national temperance organizations and of this excellent guide which

describes in detail their contents-even to such topics as "laundry lost at

the . . . Convention" (p.255). Such minute analyses should enable re-

searchers readily to locate desired items.

The general introductory essay by Randall C. Jimerson, while mainly good,

is repetitious of the introductions to individual collections. Jimerson's essay is

weakest in its treatment of the formative years of the temperance crusade. It

does not adequately place temperance within the context of the pre-Civil War

reform movement and it portrays the Methodists as leading in a period when

other denominations were in the vanguard. The introductory material as well

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Book Reviews                                                      345

 

as the collections described are stronger for the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries. The Guide points the way to many valuable sources on the

Woman's Christian Temperance Union and its leaders, especially Frances E.

Willard. Those interested in women's history, including suffrage, will find

these series to be especially useful. Unfortunately, the surviving records of the

Prohibition party are much more limited.

The most promising collections described by the Guide are those of the Anti-

Saloon League of America, its affiliates and its officers. These records are worthy

of the special attention of Ohioans because the Ohio Anti-Saloon League

pioneered this organization's political tactics, because several Buckeyes were

among its national leaders and because its papers still remain at its Wester-

ville headquarters. Historians have frequently credited or blamed the League's

propaganda and partisan endorsements for the enactment of National Prohi-

bition. The Guide presents such relevant records as those of the American Issue

Publishing Company, world's largest purveyor of temperance literature, and of

the League's General Counsel and Legislative Superintendent, the powerful

Wayne B. Wheeler. Anyone investigating the passage, enforcement and repeal

of prohibition should refer to the Guide and to the microfilmed records of the

A.S.L.

Besides the organizational files, which were filmed through those for 1933,

the Guide also includes descriptions of the microfilmed personal papers of

several prohibitionist leaders. The most voluminous and important of these

collections is that of Ernest Hurst Cherrington. Early active in the Ohio and

Washington Anti-Saloon leagues, his papers contain much on temperance

action in those states and later in the national League for which he long wrote

and generally directed extensive propaganda. Because of Cherrington's strate-

gic position at the center of organized prohibitionism, his papers contain abun-

dant material on the anti-alcohol movement in the United States and in

numerous other nations. Among the prohibitionist leaders with whom he

corresponded frequently and intimately was the controversial Methodist Bishop

James Cannon, Jr. The Guide indicates much in Cherrington's files which would

interest students of such predictably related topics as the Methodist Episcopal

Church, nativism in the 1920s, Alfred E. Smith and the election of 1928,

wealthy contributors, and the effects of the Depression. Moreover, it reveals

such unexpected opportunities for research as the records of an Alabama cotton

plantation owned by several officers of the A.S.L.

The Guide also describes several periodicals, of which the major ones are the

W.C.T.U.'s Union Signal and the A.S.L.'s American Issue, both filmed

through 1933. A concluding chapter summarizes unfilmed collections contain-

ing material from the post-prohibition years. A creditable work, the Guide is

instructive as a skeletal history of these temperance groups and as an intro-

duction to collections with great potential for scholarly research.

Kent State University                                   Frank L. Byrne

 

Landmark Architecture of Cleveland. By Mary-Peale Schofield. (Pittsburgh:

Ober Park Associates, 1976. x + 222p.; illustrations, maps, index. $8.50

hardbound; $4.95 softbound.)

 

For those knowledgeable about architecture who are interested in discov-

ering what buildings Cleveland has to offer, this is a first-rate book. For those

• 10
 

346                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

interested in Cleveland's history who want to know what the architecture

reveals about the city, this book will be less helpful. This guide to the architec-

tural heritage of Cleveland is composed of astute, lucid descriptions and sharp,

clear photographs of over 160 buildings of historical, architectural or cultural

distinction. It includes a seven-page review of Cleveland's architectural history

that not only incorporates capsule summaries of the work of Cleveland's leading

architectural firms beginning with that of Charles Heard and Simeon Porter in

the 1860s, but also relates the city's architecture to its overall growth.

To make the book into a serviceable guide for those who will actually visit

Cleveland's architectural landmarks, the author divided Cleveland into nine

areas and devoted a section to each. The preface to each section reviews the

area's general architectural characteristics and is accompanied by a fold-out

map that indicates the exact location of those buildings singled out for photo-

graph and description. The areas considered, defined by logical architectural

divisions, include Public Square, the Flats and The Group Plan and Downtown.

The work encompasses buildings ranging from Greek Revival houses to

churches, schools, factories, warehouses, skyscrapers and intended monuments.

The author's remarkably economical descriptions accompanying each photo-

graph manage to be so partly because the author assumes that readers have a

nodding acquaintance with architectural terminology: such references as "echo

of the Monadnock building" stand without further identification of that 1891

Chicago office building. This is hardly a drawback, however. In terms of

scholarship, organization, efficiency of prose and tight relationship between text

and photograph this work is impressive-more impressive than some of its more

expensive counterparts dealing either with architecture in other Ohio regions

or in the whole state.

One of the author's stated aims is to "present to urban historians some

basic material for more detailed in-depth studies of the history of Cleveland."

Her own scholarship in providing dates of buildings, architects, and owners and

users is admirable. In noting the transformation of two turn-of-the-century

Jewish synagogues on East 55th Street into Baptist churches now, and in her

text regarding the 1909 Wooltex factory-"a reform factory in reform archi-

tecture . . . an illustration of the aims of the Progressive era"-the author

demonstrates her understanding of historians' concerns. However, even her

obvious intelligence and thorough knowledge of architectural history are not

enough to bridge the gap between that history and conventional history.

Although architecture more than any other plastic art is linked to the needs of a

given society, American historians in particular have not yet mapped out what

architecture reveals about a society or how buildings shape it. Whether Cleve-

land's famous and ostensibly Progressive turn-of-the-century "Group Plan"

for civic buildings, so ably summarized by Schofield, altered at all the quality

of life is the sort of question urban historians have not yet answered. Whether

Wooltex workers in their reform factory were any better off than all those in

the anonymous factories which are not architectural landmarks remains

unknown. Because this book is so obviously intelligent and thoughtful and yet

fails to deal with these questions, it suggests what needs to be done. Schofield's

guide to Cleveland architecture is as fine a guide as could be imagined; that

it is weak in relating the shape of architecture to the shaping of the city is

hardly her fault.

 

Hiram College                                          John Strassburger

• 11
 

Book Reviews                                                         347

 

Rainey of Illinois: A Political Biography, 1903-34. By Robert A. Waller.

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977. xii + 260p.; notes, bibliography,

index. $12.50.)

 

This latest publication in the Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences is an

analysis of the public career of Henry T. Rainey, Illinois politician (a "gad-

fly" opponent of boss rule), congressman, majority leader of the Democratic

party, and ultimately Speaker of the House during Franklin Roosevelt's first

term as president. The author's central thesis is that Rainey's career shows

the continuity of the liberal tradition between the Progressive Movement and

the New Deal. Or, in the author's words, "[Rainey] provides a direct connec-

tion between the simple Bryan agrarianism of the 1890's, the broader Wilsonian

idealism of the Progressive era, and the still more complex economic and social

orientation of Roosevelt's New Deal" (p. 212).

As an analysis of the legislative career of an important, but long neglected,

politician the book does raise Rainey from "the obscurity to which he has been

relegated thus far" (Preface). In addition to reminding us of the high points of

Rainey's career, there are a number of interesting but little known events in his

colorful life. Of timely contemporary interest is Rainey's participation in events

in Panama between 1909 and 1912. There is an engaging account of his

important working relationship with President Wilson in conservation projects

on the Illinois River. Waller reminds us of Rainey's unrecognized role in tariff

reform, specifically his work on drafting of the Underwood Tariff. The book's

strongest chapters deal with Rainey's rise to majority leader in 1931, then to the

Speakership. There is a fine account of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering

between Rainey and the southern conservative wing of the Democratic party,

led by John Nance Garrier and Ways and Means Committee Chairman, James

W. Collier of Mississippi. Lastly, the extensive bibliography is up-to-date and

helpful to students of reform politics between the late nineteenth and first

third of the twentieth century.

It is in trying to assess the book as biography, compared to viewing it as a

source of new information on Democratic politics, that difficulties appear. There

is precious little about Rainey's early years and the people and experiences

which molded his character: by page five he has graduated from college!

Granted, that this is a political biography, it need not be a two-dimensional

one, and Waller's study is just that, i.e., largely a chronicle of the man's public

activities and public statements. The author's organization makes it even more

difficult to understand Rainey's personality. Waller's approach to his subject is,

as he puts it, "longitudinal." Each chapter takes a particular aspect of his public

career (local politics, conservation, foreign affairs, friend of the farmer, etc.)

and jumps back and forth from the beginning to the end of Rainey's career. In

some chapters, Waller scans the chronology of events between the 1880s and

the early 1930s in two or three pages (pp.7-9). The end result is that

Rainey comes across to the reader dissected.

From time to time, there are annoying and unsubstantiated overstatements

such as: "Once women attained the right to vote, there is little doubt that the

handsome Rainey capitalized on his physical attractiveness to women in estab-

lishing his electoral domain" (p.¹⁷). The style throughout is a bit stilted. For

example, Rainey would "poke an inquisitive and intelligent nose into foreign

affairs" (p.¹19) and, later on, Waller writes of "the caprice of Dame Poli-

tics" and the need "to navigate between the Scylla of national interest and the

• 12
 

348                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

Charybdis of party gain" (p. 159).

The overall impression of the book is a mixed one. It does serve to remind us

of a significant political figure who has been too long neglected. It does show in

Rainey's career the continuity of the liberal tradition. As biography, however,

it leaves this reader with a feeling that there is much of Rainey he still does

not know.

 

Western Illinois University                             Robert P. Sutton

 

 

"The  Will to Survive": Urbana College, 1850-1975. By Frank Higgins.

(Urbana, OH: Urbana College, 1977. 168p.; illustrations, notes, biblio-

graphic note. $10.00 cloth; $3.95 paper.)

 

Many religiously oriented colleges have experienced major struggles before

developing into mature institutions. Some have even faced serious threats to

survival during unusually difficult periods such as the Great Depression. Few,

however, have tottered near the brink of demise so continuously as has Urbana

College, a Swedenborgian institution located in the west-central Ohio town

from which it takes its name. Appropriately, then, the theme of chronic crisis

appears throughout this 125th anniversary history of the college written by

Frank Higgins, a doctoral student of Lawrence Kaplan at Kent State Uni-

versity.

Problems appearing frequently in Higgins' narrative include interpersonal

conflicts, inadequate financing (which finds relief only occasionally as in the 1920s

when a $150,000 gift from millionaire alumnus T. Coleman DuPont sparked

a successful fund drive), and internal disagreements on institutional purpose

and organization (e.g., how much should the church and its teachings influence

the school, and should the institution operate primarily as a preparatory

school, a junior college, or a senior college). The major Urbana problem,

however, has been its chronically and drastically low enrollment. The 1855

registration of 128 students in all divisions served as a school record for over a

century. The New York Daily Tribune in 1907 identified Urbana, with its three

college-level students, as the smallest collegiate institution in the country. As

late as 1947, the school's forty-four students gave it a ranking far below the

next smallest Ohio college (Bluffton, 333).

Fortunately, Higgins balances his tales of woe with discussion of the less

somber aspects of the Urbana experience, including the college's periodic but

significant efforts to develop an unusually stimulating learning environment.

The leaders of these creative endeavors acquired much of their inspiration from

Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), the well-known Swedish scientist and

religious mystic whose followers in 1787 organized the denomination (Church

of the New Jerusalem) which sponsors the college. The most dramatic educa-

tional innovation came in the late 1950s when with the college ready to close

because of low enrollment, Ralph Gauvey, the new president (1957-1963),

and Carolyn Blackmer, the wife of a former president, led in the creation of an

instructional program which provided a "free academic environment" where

each student "was ultimately responsible for his own education." Similarly,

the students developed their own dormitory rules, participated in the manage-

ment of the dining hall, and determined the extracurriculum. The new pro-

• 13
 

Book Reviews                                                       349

 

gram-and the massive recruitment campaign to promote it-worked! What had

been the smallest college in America became the fastest growing one. Enroll-

ment zoomed upward from seven full-time students in 1956 to 140 in 1960 and

731 in 1971. This growth in registration led to program and plant development

which in turn culminated in North Central Association accreditation in 1975.

By most standards of measurement Higgins has presented the Urbana story

with skill and effectiveness. His research is thorough and carefully documented

both in footnotes and in a helpful bibliographical essay. The narrative is clear,

well developed, insightful, and unusually engaging. The omission of a table of

contents and an index detracts from the book, however. Also, one might wish

that the college had printed most of the copies of the volume with a hardcover

or at least in a better quality paperbound edition. Yet, perhaps, the cheaper

version is appropriate as a symbol of the severe historic limitations of the

school. Regardless of its physical appearance, the book now gives Urbana a

full-length history that at least in literary quality matches or exceeds the

published record of many larger and more recognized educational isti-

tutions.

 

Taylor University                                 William C. Ringenberg

 

 

Catholic Activism and the Industrial Worker. By Neil Betten. (Gainesville:

The University Presses of Florida, 1976. x + 191p.; bibliographical essay,

notes, index. $10.00.)

 

Neil Betten notes in his preface that "although Catholics constituted the

bulk of the industrial work force, the largest religious segment of American

union membership and of labor leadership, and that Catholic leadership

vitally concerned itself with labor, labor historians and economists virtually

ignored post World War I Catholic labor activities." Betten hopes that his

study will "fill at least part of the historical vacuum" (vii).

No adequate theory of industrial unionism in America will be possible

without a thorough understanding of the Catholic Church, not only as an

extremely complex institution with a formal dogma, but also as an aggrega-

tion of widely varying social practices and world views formed in diverse

social and economic settings throughout Europe and the United States. Given

the relative scarcity of material on so vital a subject, Betten's intentions have

to be applauded, even though his work is often disappointing.

Betten's primary focus is Catholic activism, not the industrial worker. His

book consists mainly of studies of key Depression-era Catholic reformers and

reform movements concerned with labor. Among those included are Father

Charles Coughlin, "labor priests" Charles Owen Rice and John P. Boland,

the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference,

the Catholic Worker Movement, and the Association of Catholic Trade

Unionists (ACTU).

What unifies these diverse figures and movements is that virtually all con-

sidered themselves disciples of "Social Catholicism," a strain of thought

derived from the writing of Thomas Aquinas and revived in the modern era by

two papal encyclicals, Leo XIII's 1891 Rerum Novarum and Pius XI's 1931

Quadragesimo Anno. While defending private property and attacking social-

• 14
 

350                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

ism, both encyclicals rejected the greed, individualism, exploitation and class

conflict that lie at the center of economic liberalism. Instead they called for a

system of "social justice" that recognized the right of workers to a living wage

and the obligation of capital to act in accordance with the dictates of the com-

mon good. Antagonistic relations of class would be replaced by a harmonious

partnership of labor and capital, organized along functional lines. Within

this general framework coexisted political perspectives ranging from Msg.

John A. Ryan's progressivism to Coughlin's late 1930's fascism and Peter

Maurin's anarchistic agrarian utopianism.

Betten discusses both the general development and outlook of his subjects

and their explicit involvement with labor, but his stress is on the former. This

is unfortunate, since there are already several studies of Social Catholic

thought, including David J. O'Brien's excellent American Catholics and So-

cial Reform: The New Deal Years, to which Betten adds little. When Betten

does trace various activists' participation in labor affairs, his discussion is

often thin. For example, only three of twenty-five pages devoted to the Cath-

olic Worker Movement deal with the group's actual associations with unions,

strikes and organizing efforts. Likewise, the account of ACTU's role in UE

factionalism is far too brief and dependent on too limited a range of sources.

Matles and Higgins' Them and Us, for example, is never used, in spite of

Matles' central role. Small but basic factual errors-naming James Carey's

replacement as Thomas Fitzpatrick instead of Albert J. Fitzgerald (p.138),

calling the Transit Worker's John Santo John Santy (p.136), stating that the

1949 formation of the IUE was sponsored by the AFL-CIO (p.144)-indicate

either a lack of thorough familiarity with the events discussed or the need for

a more competent editor. The treatment of the post-World War II activities

of profiled "activists" is short to the point of being cryptic and not without

errors.

Betten concentrates on viewing the industrial worker through the eyes of

the reformer. But an adequate understanding of the complex Church-labor

intersection also requires seeing Catholic activism from the viewpoint of the

rank-and-file worker. Here the local priest and diocesan newspaper may turn

out to be more important than the national reformers. Such a study will be

difficult since it will have to penetrate the many different ethnic and social

groupings that made up the Catholic industrial work force of the 1930s. But

until it is done, a large "vacuum" will remain.

 

Rutgers University                                         Josh Freeman

 

 

The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. By Al-

fred D. Chandler, Jr. (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University

Press, 1977. xvi + 608p.; tables, appendices, notes, index. $18.50.)

 

This study, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for history, is a superb analysis

of the origins, rise, and development of big business in America. The Visible

Hand is a masterly synthesis of Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.'s, earlier work, his

recent research, and the work of other business historians. Throughout his

history Chandler focuses upon how "modern business enterprise took the place

of market mechanisms in coordinating the activities of the economy and allo-

• 15
 

Book Reviews                                                       351

 

eating its resources" (p.l). As the title of the work suggests, Chandler is con-

cerned with explaining how and why "the visible hand of managerial direction

replaced the invisible hand of market forces" in the production and distribu-

tion of goods in the American economy (p.286).

Chandler begins by describing the traditional business world as it existed in

the United States before 1840. He points out that, while the American econ-

omy experienced considerable growth between 1790 and 1840, commercial and

industrial enterprises remained single-unit businesses managed by their

owners who continued to rely upon time-honored accounting methods. In the

mid-nineteenth century the development of new energy sources (most impor-

tantly anthracite coal in Pennsylvania) and improved communications (the

railroad, telegraph and, later, the telephone) shattered established business

practices. As the nation's first truly big businesses, railroads, in particular,

brought innovations in financing, accounting, and technology. Most impor-

tantly, they developed new techniques of management. As Chandler demon-

strates, the Pennsylvania Railroad and some other lines became decentral-

ized, multi-divisional firms with clearly differentiated line and staff officers. To

run their companies railroad owners came to depend on salaried professional

managers-a situation which Chandler views as a hallmark of modern business.

While relatively few firms were to follow this example in the nineteenth cen-

tury, many would in the twentieth.

Of greater immediate significance for the growth of big business was that

railroads allowed businessmen to tap the newly created national market for

their goods. Changes were, perhaps, first apparent in the mass distribution of

products, as commodity dealers, wholesale jobbers, and mass retailers (depart-

ment stores, mail order houses, and chain stores) increasingly linked pro-

ducers and consumers, often eliminating middlemen in the process. Changes in

production came more slowly. When they did occur from about the 1880s on,

they were even more far reaching. Spurred by technologic innovations, espe-

cially those in the utilization of energy, and enticed by the desire to exploit the

national market, many manufacturers turned to mass production. Some next

integrated mass production with mass distribution to try to assure a high velo-

city of throughput in their factories. In this way market and technologic de-

mands led to the creation of vertically integrated companies. Horizontal inte-

gration also occurred, as cartels and pools became trusts, trusts became hold-

ing companies, and, if the combination was to enjoy long-term success, holding

companies developed into operating firms. With these changes, America's

business system had assumed its modern form by 1917. As Chandler shows,

multi-unit firms dominated many fields of distribution and production, and

much of American industry had become oligopolistic. As fully integrated con-

cerns, these businesses substituted managerial for market control of much of

the nation's economy. Market decisions had been internalized within individ-

ual firms.

Even as they developed new firm structures, businessmen instituted new

techniques to manage them. Because their corporations were still somewhat

less intricate than railroads, most businessmen, Chandler argues, initially

opted, not for decentralized, multi-divisional management, but for centralized,

functionally departmentalized management. Only in the 1920s and later, as

they developed new products and entered new markets, did any significant

number of corporations, led by DuPont and General Motors, adopt de-

centralized, multi-divisional management. This type of management and the

• 16
 

352                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

development of a corps of professional middle-managers (an important topic

long neglected by most historians, but one which Chandler describes in de-

tail) have increasingly become standard for today's complex, multi-unit firms.

Chandler's study is a model of good institutional or organizational history.

It is thoroughly researched, tightly organized, and ably written. The tables and

extensive footnotes provide a wealth of information. By the very nature of its

approach this work does, however, have some shortcomings. Businessmen re-

main shadowy as people; individual personalities do not usually emerge. The

reader learns much about economic forces, but little about the characters of

the businessmen actually making the decisions. More importantly, Chandler

focuses a bit too closely upon simply the economic forces behind the rise of big

business. As Chandler himself suggests in the closing pages of his work, social

attitudes and political decisions may have been significant factors as well.

The Visible Hand is an outstanding study which deserves an audience be-

yond business historians. It should be read by anyone interested in the busi-

ness, economic, or industrial evolution of the United States.

 

The Ohio State University                           Mansel G. Blackford

 

 

Boston: The Great Depression and the New Deal. By Charles H. Trout. (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1977. xviii + 401p.; illustrations, notes,

index. $15.95.)

 

The central theme of Trout's impressive study is that the New Deal, at least

as it unfolded in Boston, approached the limit of what was politically possible.

At the onset of the Depression Boston enjoyed several distinct advantages: its

economy was diversified with little reliance on durable goods industries; the

city maintained, by the standards of the 1930s, excellent private and public

relief systems; and taxpayers supported the cost of local government at a

higher rate than any other American city. These factors, coupled with the

conservative influence of Brahmin leadership and Cardinal O'Connell's Cath-

olic hierarchy, engendered stability. Thus the city's wealth and social tradi-

tions sheltered it from the immediate impact of the Depression. Spared the

need to improvise frantically in 1930 and 1931, Bostonians supported Franklin

Roosevelt in 1932-but issued no clear call for urban reform.

Political conditions in Massachusetts were an even greater obstacle to ef-

fective federal action than the lack of a mandate for reform. As the Roosevelt

Administration began to implement its programs through local political machi-

nery, considerable opposition developed over the control and funding of New

Deal measures. Certainly Boston and the Commonwealth welcomed federal

funds, but because their legislatures never shed their own fiscal and social

orthodoxy, projects which relied on local planning and matching funds seldom

realized their full potential. Moreover, the factionalism which had always sur-

rounded James Michael Curley poisoned governmental relations within the

state and frequently led to the blocking of needed programs to gain political

advantage. Hence the inescapable conclusion that "through most of the De-

pression Bostonians lagged behind the New Deal. Had the New Deal been

more radical than it was, the probability is that Boston would have trailed even

further behind" (p.321).

• 17
 

Book Reviews                                                       353

 

Secondary themes examine continuity and change in Boston over the De-

pression decade. Politically, the New Deal neither destroyed bossism by erec-

ting a welfare state nor created a powerful Democratic machine with unlimited

federal patronage. As in the 1920s, Boston's electoral contests continued to

hinge on shifting personalistic and ethnic coalitions which were often imper-

vious to national parties and issues. Similarly, the city's craft unions withstood

the challenge of the C.I.O. and preserved Boston as an "old labor" town. The

Depression did not leave the city unaffected, though, as the characteristics

which slowed the economic collapse also retarded recovery. Light industries,

in search of lower production costs, renewed their flight from the city. Con-

sequently, the legacy of the 1930s included nagging structural unemployment

and a deteriorating urban core as well-early signs of impending decay.

Quantifiers may be disappointed with Trout's book, as it is admittedly not

the "new social history." This limitation notwithstanding, the work serves as

a model for urban research on the period. The author's questions are carefully

posed and exhibit a thorough understanding of the status of New Deal histor-

iography, the narrative is clean and direct, and the research exhaustive. Fur-

ther, the constant comparisons with other cities places Boston's experience

with the Great Depression in a national perspective. As the author of the first

study of an individual city in the 1930s to make the difficult adjustment from

dissertation to monograph, Professor Trout has set an extremely high stan-

dard.

 

Bowling Green State University                         John N. Sobczak

 

A Critical History of Police Reform. By Samuel Walker. (Lexington, MA: Lex-

ington Books, 1977. xv + 206p.; notes, index. $17.95.)

 

A Critical History of Police Reform is a well-written, superbly organized,

solid, scholarly, and much needed contribution to police history in particular

and urban history in general. It is a remarkable achievement, especially since

Samuel Walker's broad interpretation of the interaction between police and

reformers during the first four decades of this century in fact precedes (and

should stimulate and inform) serious monographs on urban police develop-

ment. It is perhaps worth noting that Robert Fogelson, working independently,

published a study shortly after this book that basically agrees with the major

contours uncovered and conclusions reached by Walker.

Walker's book is based upon an extensive survey of primary and secondary

sources, and in a refreshing and valuable way the author has examined a num-

ber of large American cities, not only those on the east or west coasts. For

such a condensed analysis, that necessarily centers on national trends, Walker

supplied a surprising amount of detail. Moreover, he carefully notes significant

variations and studiously avoids simplistic summary. One especially fine ex-

ample can be found in his discussion of police intervention in labor disputes,

which differed so much by cities that neat generalization is not possible. Sim-

ilarly, he rejects three popular, major modes of interpretation in police history-

the heroic, social-control, and Marxist-as basically incompatible with the evi-

dence and elects for an analysis of police reform on its own terms.

Thus, as the subtitle indicates, Walker chooses the concept of professional-

ism, which was the clarion call of reformers, as the organizing motif of the

• 18
 

354                                                        OHIO HISTORY

 

book. This is an appropriate choice, although he exaggerates in claiming the

history of police becomes intelligible in terms of halting progress along a scale

of professionalism. After correctly describing turn-of-the-century reform as an

elite attempt to break the power of political machines that dominated the police

(i.e., as part of a series of Progressive reforms), the author describes the es-

sence of the emerging notion of professionalism-professional knowledge and

autonomy and the service ideal-and its gradual acceptance by the police after

strong initial resistence (much later, Walker notes, the police would use the

concept to combat efforts to impose community control on their organization).

Professionalism early embraced two distinct goals; the streamlining of admini-

strative procedures and the adoption of crime prevention through a social work

model. The latter aspect of reform, which included employment of police wo-

men, establishment of juvenile units, and the Cleveland "golden rule" policy

among other experiments, was abandoned during the 1930s, when a new gen-

eration of reform-minded police administrators, rather than elites outside the

department, succeeded in redefining the police role and shaping a new image

of crime-fighter. According to Walker, virtually no new reform ideas surfaced

after the period he covers; changes in policing instituted from the 1940s

through the 1960s simply followed lines already well established.

Walker's analysis of police reform movements is an important contribution

in its own right, but the real strength of the book is the close and critical at-

tention paid to the consequences of change. Walker not only examines inves-

tigating committees, crime commissions, and the FBI; he takes a good look at

police departments as well. He is able to see that many changes in policing

owed a good deal to developing technology as well as to the reformers. The

author, trained as a labor historian, is perhaps at his best in discussing police

unionism, which he feels was an inevitable response to the idea of profession-

alism. Throughout the book he makes judicious use of case studies of urban po-

lice, and in the example of unionism he unearths the heretofore neglected Cin-

cinnati police strike of 1918 as a useful comparison to the more famous Boston

strike of 1919 to suggest that the fate of police unionism could well have been

very different.

Although impressive changes in policing occurred in this century, Walker

concludes that professionalism has remained more an ideal than an accom-

plishment. In fact, his history is intended to show how far short of the goal the

police now stand and to underline the point that most changes really were the

result of bureaucratization-i.e., emergence of more complex, elaborate organi-

zations governed by impersonal rules of procedure. The principal effect of re-

form was to transform police departments from decentralized, loosely con-

trolled, distinctly unmilitary bodies to hierarchial, semi-military units. And

this, Walker argues, contravened the essence of true professionalism.

The author plainly feels that the legacy of police reform was a mixed bles-

sing. Much was accomplished in elevating police work to the level of a career

with a commitment to abstract ideals of public service, an obligation to edu-

cation and training new practitioners, and possibly a body of scientific

knowledge about policing. Reform also had a number of unanticipated and un-

wanted consequences. Not only did reformers exaggerate the meliorative ef-

fects of their proposals, but often their prescriptions called for an ominous ex-

tension of state intervention in the lives of private citizens. By this he seems to

mean a qualitatively different intervention for each citizen; I would say it

means intervention of the same kind for a larger number of citizens. Walker

• 19
 

Book Reviews                                                      355

 

particularly dislikes the displacement of the social work model by the crime

fighter role, a development he calls "portentous" and "useless" since the bulk

of police work in this century has been devoted to noncriminal, service duties.

Throughout the book, but especially at the beginning and end, Walker is de-

liberately didactic, urging an audience primarily of criminal justice specialists

to avoid pitfalls of the past. This will be an important book for police consul-

tants, administrators, and rank-and-file union officials and members. It surely is

a significant contribution to students of American history generally.

 

The Ohio State University                              Eugene J. Watts

 

Labor and Communism: The Conflict that Shaped American Unions. By Bert

Cochran. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977. xiv + ³⁹⁴p.; illus-

trations, notes, index, appendices. $25.00.)

 

Twenty years ago the analysis of American Communism achieved the sta-

tus of a minor industry within the universities. The "Communism in Ameri-

can Life" series edited by Clinton Rossiter produced a few outstanding studies

-Theodore Draper's Roots of American Communism and his American Com-

munism and Soviet Russia were easily the best-and many more poorly-re-

searched, intellectually vacuous polemics which lent only an academic re-

spectability to the then-current Cold War mentality. As Bert Cochran notes,

the academics' contribution to the understanding of Communism and American

labor was particularly thin. The Congress of Industrial Organization's purge

of "Red" unions had been too recent in memory, and too little scholarly ground

work had been established for a subject which, unlike the study of the rela-

tively small American Communist political movement, demanded a wide-

ranging knowledge of trade union history and a balanced assessment of the

Communist contribution to labor's attainment of a new stage in its develop-

ment-industrial unionism. Since the 1950s the historical wheel has taken a

grand turn. A handful of sympathetic memoirs have appeared, joined by the

emerging monographs of a newer scholarly generation too young to recall the

bitter partisanship, unafraid to place American Communism within the family

tree of the Left.

The tragedy of Cochran's Labor and Communism is that a veteran trade

unionist, outstanding journalist (Cochran's magazine, The American Social-

ist, in the 1950s called for a "New Left"), and scholar of American radicalism

should return to the old, vindictive treatment of the Communists' role. Un-

questionably, Cochran provides an astute study of such low points in Com-

munist labor policy as the defense of the No-Strike Pledge during the Second

World War, the abrupt and confusing Communist change of strategy a bit

later, and the Party's contribution to the destructive, often unprincipled power

struggles in such unions as the United Auto Workers. Those readers who wish

a factual compendium of Communist labor policies will not now find a better

general work. But Cochran's prosecuting-attorney approach to what he calls

variously a "Hydra," a "decidedly deviant order," blinds him to so much tex-

ture, so many subtleties in the development of events, that his factual dili-

gence is badly undercut. The book's very survey character, which compelled

Cochran to pick and choose a few selected events and institutions for closer

scrutiny, reinforces this weakness.

• 20
 

356                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

One would never know, from Labor and Communism, how the social net-

work supporting Left (and CIO) trade unionism grew out of Finnish, Hun-

garian, Ukrainian and Slav as well as Jewish neighborhoods; or how individual

Communists risked their health and lives so willingly and often to sound the

trumpet for unionism, most especially in those far-flung sectors like agri-

cultural labor where Communist hopes for bureaucratic power were dim. Or

again, how intensely American thousands of Communists believed themselves

to be in the era when CIO unions appeared the social battering ram of a better

order. To speak of "Stalinist drill masters," to picture espionage as an impor-

tant element of the Party's role in America, to describe the Party's relation-

ship to the Russian leadership without analyzing the historical conditions

which have since the 1870s repeatedly made American radicals look abroad for

political guidance-this is not so much history as caricature.

When Cochran concludes Labor and Communism with a tribute to the John

R. Commons school of trade union history, out of which the labor variant of

"consensus" scholarship has for decades drawn its mental resources, he re-

veals more than anything else a pessimism toward the radical tasks that his

generation once undertook. A more thorough and balanced treatment of the

subject awaits scholars able both to give more attention to historic detail and to

free themselves from the either/or attitude toward the Communist experience

that the Cold War forced upon all political partisans.

 

Oral History of the American Left                          Paul Buhle

Tamiment Library, New York University

 

 

Truman and the Steel Seizure Case: The Limits of Presidential Power. By

Maeva Marcus. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. xiv + 390p.;

notes, bibliography, index. $14.95.)

 

This book should give a jolt to those who believe that history is "irrelevant."

The author connects an episode from the past with the Watergate experi-

ence of our day. Residents of Ohio and their neighbors who suffered through

the coal strike of 1977-1978 will find yet another meaning in the steel seizure

of 1952.

The book, which began as a doctoral dissertation at Columbia University and

now appears as part of William E. Leuchtenburg's Contemporary American

History Series, deals with a brief but important episode in 1952. It took place

when the nation was fighting in Korea and a threatened steel strike seemed

likely to disrupt production of an essential commodity. The Congress of 1947

had given the president a weapon for such situations-the injunction provision

of the Taft-Hartley Act, but Truman disliked it, regarding it as unfair to labor

and ineffective. Encouraged by two decades of expanding presidential power

and convinced that a strong president was the key to successful government

and that he must maintain both the flow of supplies to his troops and the health

of the economy, he chose to seize the mills to keep them functioning. He justi-

fied his move with a claim that he had "inherent power" in national emer-

gencies to take such action. The steel companies, backed by public opinion

that had lost confidence in the president before the event, challenged him in

the courts, and the Supreme Court, rather than back off, moved quickly and

• 21
 

Book Reviews                                                        357

 

surprised Truman and most observers by invalidating his action, ruling that

he must act as Congress had prescribed or not at all. Truman, in turn, accepted

the Court's decision and returned the mills to their owners; the workers went

out on strike; the President declined once again to use Taft-Hartley; Congress

did not give him the authority he requested to seize the mills a second time

and did not direct him to use the injunction, and the strike closed the industry

for fifty-three days but did not create a steel shortage. The decision had an im-

pact on subsequent cases, including several involving President Nixon's claims

of inherent powers.

Maeva Marcus, who is presently at work on a documentary history of the

Supreme Court in its early years, makes large contributions to the literature

of the Truman period in two areas: the domestic side of the Korean War and

the constitutional aspects of those years. Both are important and badly in need

of work of the sort she has done. She begins with broad surveys of the war-

time economy, Truman's relations with the labor movement, the steel industry

and the steelworkers before exploring the episode in detail and in depth. She

has explored the sources thoroughly, but her contributions depend upon much

more than strenuous labor. Above all, she knows how lawyers and judges work

and demonstrates that in brilliant analyses of the legal arguments, the alter-

natives available to the Court, the opinions of the Justices, the reactions to

them and the significance of the decision. In dealing with significance, she is

concerned with both the Truman period and our own time, and she enables us

to see that the case was a major, not a minor, event. It proved to be "an impor-

tant foundation for the reaffirmation of the proposition that the President is

not above the law" (p.248). Because of this splendid book we can now see

the place of this case in the history of the Truman years and of constitutional

law.

We have, as this book reminds us, suffered from presidents who have-monop-

olized power in crucial areas and sought to consolidate it in their own hands;

yet, as the recent coal strike reminds us, we do need strong presidents capable

of serving national interests effectively. One of the intellectual and political

tasks of our time is the careful redefinition of the president's role, a task that

should force us to take into consideration the full range of relevant historical

experiences as well as the words of the Constitution. This book supplies valu-

able assistance in that enterprise.

 

Indiana University                                  Richard S. Kirkendall

 

 

Electing Black Mayors: Political Action in the Black Community. By William

E. Nelson, Jr., and Philip J. Meranto. (Columbus: Ohio State University

Press, 1977. 403p.; tables, index. $20.00.)

 

In this informative but ideologically weighted volume, the authors analyze

the way in which Richard Hatcher and Carl Stokes achieved election as

mayors of Gary and Cleveland in 1967 and more briefly evaluate their perfor-

mance in office.

While there were differences in personal style and in the particular contexts

in which the two men worked, similarities in the ways in which each man at-

tained his goal were far more striking and significant. In both cases the chang-

• 22
 

358                                                       OHIO HISTORY

 

ing demographic character of the city raised the hope that a black could be

elected mayor; in both cases the civil rights movement of the 1960s provided

a seedbed of heightened black militance that, the authors maintain, greatly

facilitated the political mobilization of the black community-a mobilization

that was the most important single factor responsible for the electoral success;

in both cases traditional black politicians, particularly precinct men, backed

the machine, especially in the primary; in both cases the candidates benefitted

in the primary from divisiveness and multiple candidates among the whites; in

both cases the race issue became highly salient in the general election; yet in

both cases, with blacks a minority of the registered voters, success depended

not only on solid black support and a large Negro turnout, but also upon a cru-

cial white minority who provided enough votes to elect the black candidate to

office.

There were differences. For example, the incumbent white mayor in Gary

had been a strong supporter of civil rights legislation and provides an inter-

esting case study of a white politician caught between racist white voters and

blacks insisting on electing a Negro, while Mayor Ralph S. Locher in Cleveland

had antagonized the blacks who had previously voted for him. On the other

hand Stokes did not face the implacable opposition of the Democratic ma-

chine that forced Hatcher to appeal to the federal courts and the Democratic

administration in Washington to guarantee a fair election. Once in office both

men were faced with the dilemmas of black mayors everywhere, who, given the

lack of resources available in the decaying cities, the opposition of city coun-

cilman and Democratic machine functionaries, and the resistance of the muni-

cipal bureaucracies, have found it impossible to inaugurate fundamental im-

provements in the lives of the black poor. Ironically, although Stokes began

with greater white support and with a less hostile Democratic machine, it was

Hatcher who proved the more durable politician.

There can be no quarrel with this basic line of analysis, even though one could

wish for fewer lists of names and more specifics on interpersonal dynamics

(as, for example, in the case of the fascinating conflict Hatcher had with the

vaguely-described "black establishment" of Gary). In other respects, serious

problems of analysis arise. The authors seek to place their findings in the surge

of civil rights militance and black nationalist consciousness of the 1960s. Yet

the fact is that the whole process of black accession to the office of mayor in

Gary and Cleveland does not seem very different from that by which Negroes

had earlier, in the context of favorable demographic changes, achieved city

council, state legislative and congressional seats in northern cities from the

1920s on. Despite all the attention given to the civil rights movement of the

late 1950s and early 1960s, the process by which this kind of militance was

transformed into political activism is never made clear. Again the authors go

into painstaking-and sometimes boring-detail describing the specific tech-

niques utilized in mobilizing black voters, but fail to demonstrate the validity

of their thesis that the process was made any easier by the nationalism of the

late 1960s. These are critical matters that astute interviewing would have done

much to clarify and illuminate. It is unfortunate that the authors fail to place

these two successful efforts to mobilize black communities in a historical con-

text that would indicate what if anything was significantly different and new

about the 1960s. Moreover, the nationalist perspective seems an inadequate

mode of overall interpretation and analysis, given the fact that in both cases

victory could not have been achieved without a critical minority of white votes.

• 23
 

Book Reviews                                                      359

 

This ideological commitment of the authors to black nationalism-and it

seems to revolution-mars the policy recommendations made in the "Conclu-

sions and Lessons." Even assuming that a "policy" orientation properly be-

longs in what appears to be a work of scholarly analysis, one is astonished at

the authors' seeming surprise at the limited changes likely to occur in the

American political process. Emphasizing the shortcomings of the political pro-

cess in a capitalist society for the attainment of basic socioeconomic changes

and utilizing a vague rhetoric of liberation, they align themselves with the

black marxist-nationalist James Boggs, rather than offering realistic proposals

for utilizing the possibilities latent in the interest-group politics of the Ameri-

can political system. Impressed with the hostility of blue-collar white workers

in the two elections studied, they seem to have no faith in the potential of black

and white workers uniting on matters of common interest-though this would

seem to fit with their radical critique of capitalist society. At the same time,

this radical perspective seems to prevent them from advising exploitation of

alliances with elite white groups in the fashion of the black-white business

elite alliance that dominated Atlanta politics for so many years. Instead the

authors are reduced to the rhetorical solution of "forming linkages with other

Third World communities within the United States and progressive white

people who are struggling to overcome economic exploitation and racism"

(whoever they might be).

It is fortunate that by and large ideological considerations are confined to

the preface and conclusions, and that-although one is often left hungering for

details about the dynamics behind specific events-the empirical descriptions

of the electoral strategies of Hatcher and Stokes are a workmanlike contri-

bution to the growing literature on black politics in America.

 

Kent State University                                     August Meier

 

 

Southern Newcomers to Northern Cities: Work and Social Adjustment in

Cleveland. By Gene B. Petersen, Laure M. Sharp, and Thomas F. Drury.

(New York: Praeger Publishers, 1977. xxxix + ²⁶⁹p.; tables, notes, appen-

dix. $22.50.)

 

In 1967 and 1968 the authors of this important statistical study interviewed

1,299 recent migrants to Cleveland from the South. Four years later they

diligently sought out as many of these people as possible and re-interviewed

them. Their purpose was to analyze the effects of migration on the occupa-

tional and social adjustment of the migrants, using 414 "long-term" residents

as a control group. The most valuable aspect of this book is its comparative

dimension. In each chapter blacks and whites, males and females, and earlier

and later migrants are compared and contrasted. The authors avoid generaliza-

tions drawn from one race or sex alone, an approach from which historians

could learn.

Many of their conclusions are not unexpected. Blacks tended to be unem-

ployed more often than whites; they tended to have lower status jobs and to

work at lower wages; they were more prone to be on welfare. The differentials

between white and black males in most cases, however, were far less than be-

tween females, and one of the main themes of the book is that the status of

• 24
 

360                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

black women in urban areas is much worse than that of the black men. By no

means, however, did the experiences of the two races always diverge. Unlike

the migrants of earlier decades, most newcomers to Cleveland during 1967-

1972, whether black or white, brought some skills with them; this may have

eased their adjustment to urban life. Despite problems of sporadic unemploy-

ment, both blacks and whites advanced in income and occupation during the

period studied; and although black income never quite caught up with white

income, it increased at a faster rate because the pre-migration wages of blacks

were lower.

This volume should provide food for thought for the many historians who

have portrayed the migration of blacks to urban areas in a totally negative light.

True, interviews with black migrants (and their opinions differed little from

white migrants) revealed many fears about financial problems, health, educa-

tion, and urban life. Nevertheless, the average black migrant believed he had

bettered his condition considerably in moving North. Seventy to 90 percent of

the black migrants were "somewhat satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their

new jobs. Most migrants correctly believed that they had improved their own

lot over that of their parents, and an "overwhelming majority in each group

. . .indicated that in about five years they would be higher on the ladder of

life than they were when interviewed for the first time" (p.235). Surpris-

ingly, one-half of all blacks (like their white counterparts) still accepted the

old individualistic notion that people were poor due to "their own fault."

Whether these optimistic attitudes would be reflected today is questionable,

but their existence as recently as five years ago indicates that life in the black

ghetto has been more ambiguous and complex than outside observers believe.

This study is a straightforward analysis of quantitative data, written in a

tedious style, and utterly lacking in historical background or reference to

earlier ghetto studies. Still, it contains a wealth of useful information, and

those historians with the fortitude to plow through 141 statistical tables should

find it enlightening.

 

Temple University                                   Kenneth L. Kusmer

• 25