Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

 

 

A Covenant with Power: America and World Orderfrom Wilson to Reagan. By

Lloyd C. Gardner. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. xv + 251p.;

notes, note on sources and further reading, index. $22.95.)

 

Somehow it seems consistent with the character of this book that the au-

thor tells us his purpose at the end rather than the beginning: "Each chap-

ter is really an 'essay,' or think-piece, and together they form a cluster around

the principal themes of the liberal state, its supporters, and the use of power.

As such, the essays are intended to be exploratory rather than exhaustive,

provocative more than persuasive" (p. 235).

For years, Lloyd Gardner has been among the most respected of those

historians who have applied an economic "Open Door" interpretation to the

history of American diplomacy. One approaches this volume anticipating a

mid-career summing-up of years of diligent scholarship. What one gets is

oddly tentative, weakly conceptualized, and at times downright murky. The

writing is heavily metaphorical (the final chapter is entitled "On Board the

Pequod"), and, especially in the last half of the book, the dominant principle

of organization seems close to stream-of-consciousness.

The theme-the relationship between the twentieth-century American

liberal state and the use of international power-appears especially suited to a

historian of Gardner's interests. Yet trouble begins at the start when the au-

thor fails to give us even a half-definition of that troublesome word "liber-

al." He tells us in a fine-print footnote that the word has many connotations,

ranging from a belief in small government to advocacy of the interventionist

state, from an embrace of the Cold War to a revulsion from it. It is not possi-

ble to eliminate all the confusion, he asserts. "The reader will appreciate the

difficulty, it is hoped, and tolerate the sometimes unstated nuances neces-

sary in any discourse on the topics discussed" (p. xiii).

Gardner then begins a discussion of liberalism and foreign policy that be-

gins with Woodrow Wilson, skips to Franklin Roosevelt, and includes every

presidential administration thereafter. This all-encompassing definition is, in

my view, intellectually defensible, provided the author is using a broad, yet

justifiable, definition of liberalism or the liberal state, but the reader should

not be left to infer first principles.

The general argument runs something like this: From Wilson on, the lead-

ers of the twentieth-century American liberal state have been amenable to

the use of military and economic power in an effort to spread the precepts of

political and economic liberalism to increasingly larger areas of the globe. In

the course of doing so, they have displayed a constantly growing tendency to

feel threatened by different systems and have set themselves in opposition to

revolutionary movements beyond the fringe of the liberal ideal. In conse-

quence they have overreached their capabilities, tilted at imaginary Commu-

nist conspiracies, and endangered the world they wish to protect.

The Open Door approach to American diplomatic history has of course al-

ways stressed economic expansionism. Gardner clearly is most comfortable

when he can rest a point on economics. Sometimes, one wonders at the pur-

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Book Reviews                                                   83

 

pose; he makes much of continual Anglo-American trade rivalries and eco-

nomic differences, but it is obvious that these did not prevent an unusually

close diplomatic relationship between the United States and Great Britain.

At other times, as when he declares that "the balance of payments crisis ...

was worse than Tet" (p. 189) for American foreign policy, he succeeds in be-

ing provocative and forcing a reexamination of more traditional ways of think-

ing about American diplomacy.

Still, the author does not rely on economic interpretation to the extent that

one might have expected. The Open Door seems in fact to loom smaller with

each successive chapter, leading one to the conclusion that the disjointed,

half-thought-out character of this book reflects not hasty writing but the au-

thor's own gropings toward a more complex approach to his field. If so, one

wishes him Godspeed.

Ohio University                                   Alonzo L. Hamby

 

 

An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover. By Richard Norton

Smith. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. 488p.; illustrations, appen-

dix, notes and sources, index. $22.95.)

 

Sir Walter Raleigh once cautioned that "whosoever in writing a moderne

History, shall follow truth too neare the heeles, it may haply strike out his

teeth." And it was Sophocles, as Richard Norton Smith has reminded us,

who observed that "one must wait until the evening, to see how splendid

the day has been." A half-century has elapsed since that cold, raw March

day in 1933 when Herbert Hoover turned over the reins of government to

Franklin D. Roosevelt, leaving his tarnished name and shattered reputation

indelibly linked with this nation's worst depression. And twenty years have

now gone by since that October day in 1964 when the last mortal remains of

the "wunderkind turned scapegoate" were committed to the soil of his native

Iowa, finally enabling the opening of Hoover's presidential and personal ar-

chives to historians and other researchers.

When Hoover left office in 1933, he was "the most hated man in Ameri-

ca." The judgments of most political scientists and historians in the first

years after his departure served only to reinforce that characterization. Paral-

lels were drawn readily and often between Hoover and James Buchanan,

suggesting comparable ineptness and myopic vision in meeting and resolving

the catastrophic crises of their times, in striking contrast to the bold deci-

siveness and courage of the men who followed them in office, FDR and Lin-

coln.

But the judgments of history are not static or immutable. Like the chang-

ing colors and patterns of a kaleidoscope, they are constantly subject to revi-

sion and fresh interpretation. Recent analyses of Hoover's career by Joan

Hoff Wilson and David Burner in the 1970s and by George H. Nash, Gary

Dean Best, and now by Richard Norton Smith in the 1980s have yielded as-

sessments and conclusions in some variance from those reached by earlier

biographers. The cold, uncaring, heartless engineer, rejected and despised

by his own countrymen, has begun to reemerge as a deeply sensitive global

humanitarian.

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84                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

Clearly Richard Norton Smith's An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Her-

bert Hoover is sympathetically revisionist, though it is anything but uncriti-

cal. Primarily based on hundreds of interviews comprising the Hoover Oral

History Project as well as the voluminous personal correspondence and

papers now available at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West

Branch, Iowa, the book was originally intended to focus on Hoover's post-

White House career. Subsequently broadened to cover all of Hoover's life, its

best chapters nonetheless are still those which concentrate on the post-

presidential years. Smith's extensive use of oral history sources has enabled

him to get beneath the facade of public record to probe the private side of

the man who rarely displayed his emotions in the presence of any but mem-

bers of his own family and close personal friends. Revealed to the reader is

the portrait of a highly complex public man whose early hero was Woodrow

Wilson and whose later good friends were Joseph P. Kennedy and Harry

Truman. How ironic that this Republican President had so little regard for

Calvin Coolidge, Alfred Landon, and Thomas E. Dewey and so much con-

tempt for Wendell L. Willkie!

More ironic was the early friendship of Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt

during the time that both served in the Wilson administration, with Roose-

velt himself urging the candidacy of Hoover for president on the Democratic

ticket in 1920. When Hoover declared himself a Republican that year, the rift

between himself and FDR was established, a rift that eventually widened

until the two became irreconcilable adversaries. Much of the book relates to

the ultimate animosity, personal and public, between these two American

presidents, in full flame from 1929 to 1945 when the two were to all intents

and purposes the titular heads of their respective parties. No small part of the

"triumph" of Herbert Hoover was that he lived long enough to head major

commissions on world-wide famine relief and federal governmental reor-

ganization in the administrations of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower

which, combined with his Belgian relief and food administration assign-

ments under Wilson in World War I years, enabled him ultimately to influ-

ence history's judgment of his many positive accomplishments and to erase

much of the pain of the depression years.

Hoover's struggle to vindicate his own name and reputation engaged him

to the end of his life in an intended all-out and unbecoming attack on the

name and reputation of his bete noire, Franklin D. Roosevelt. As example, ac-

cording to Smith (p. 419): "From Douglas MacArthur he got broad confirma-

tion of a substantive Japanese peace feeler seven months before the war actu-

ally ended-on terms almost precisely in line with the ultimate accord. [Had

FDR responded affirmatively to this feeler, Hoover believed that World War

II might have ended without the necessity of dropping the atomic bomb.]

Slowly, in the course of reviewing 350,000 documents, he [Hoover] assem-

bled a vast melange of historical accusations and personal recollection, a

sprawling tapestry of American foreign policy that began with Roosevelt's

recognition of the Soviet Union in 1933 and continued up to Mao Tse-tung's

triumph on the Chinese mainland sixteen years later. There were a dozen dif-

ferent versions of the monumental text, intended to fill four thick volumes

and convincingly indict his Democratic successors in the court of histo-

ry.... Today, the manuscript remains locked up in the Hoover Institution

vaults [at Stanford University]."

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Book Reviews                                                    85

 

Smith's biography of Hoover sheds new light on a much maligned figure

in a controversial era of our history. It merits reading by a wide audience.

Miami University                                    Phillip R. Shriver

 

 

Herbert Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1933-1964. By Gary Dean Best. 2

vols. (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1983. xvi + 522p.; illustrations,

notes, bibliography, index. $75.00.)

 

For many years, we have needed a major study of Hoover's life after he left

the White House. This is the time when the former president became the

elder statesman par excellence-serving as influential party wheelhorse, un-

dertaking major tasks for President Truman, and writing voluminously on his

own career. Yet George H. Nash's definitive and thorough life has only taken

the narrative down to 1914. David Burner's biography devotes only fourteen

pages to this period, while Joan Hoff Wilson's account gives sixty. Far more

coverage is obviously in order.

Gary Dean Best, professor of history at the University of Hawaii (Hilo), is

eminently qualified to fill the gap. Already the author of one book and sever-

al studies on Hoover, Best has come forth with a comprehensive study. The

style is clear, the research well grounded in Hoover's papers. In fact, Best

has drawn from a host of manuscript collections at the Herbert Hoover Presi-

dential Library (West Branch, Iowa) and the Hoover Institution on War, Rev-

olution and Peace (Stanford, California). In addition, he has covered such

papers as Alf M. Landon, Robert A. Taft, and William Allen White, using

them so thoroughly that students of those men should examine Best's book.

In many ways, Best gives us a different Hoover than the one with whom

many of us are so familiar. He notes that Hoover as president-and before-

was always "something of a loner" within his own party. Republican stal-

warts could not forget that Hoover was a key adviser to President Wilson,

had called for the election of a Democratic Congress in 1918, and wanted the

US to join the League of Nations. Because of his long years overseas, many

people suspected he was a closet Englishman.

Best also points out something few know: for some time after he left Wash-

ington, tensions between the ex-president and his party remained. Hoover

felt frustrated by the Republicans in Congress, then by presidential candi-

date Alf Landon, for he did not believe that they were backing his positions

sufficiently or defending his record with enough vigor. Landon reciprocated

by ignoring Hoover in most of the 1936 campaign and fought Hoover's post-

election efforts to organize the party around his leadership.

Turning to foreign policy, Best notes that Hoover was by no means a rigid

isolationist in the cast of Charles A. Lindbergh or Colonel Robert R. McCor-

mick. True, he backed Munich in 1938 and sought to establish himself as the

leader in the fight against intervention. However, Hoover called for sending

the Allies "defensive" munitions, sought a loan for invaded Finland, fa-

vored the destroyer-bases deal, and suggested (in lieu of lend-lease) that

Congress appropriate several billion dollars to Britain. Particularly interesting

is Hoover's peace proposal to Japan. In what could well be a historical scoop,

Best finds that shortly before Pearl Harbor, Hoover called for (1) a six month

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86                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

standstill on all military action, (2) America supplying Japan with civilian

goods, and (3) a Five-Power Conference in Honolulu. Hoover's book The

Problems of Lasting Peace (1942), written with diplomat Hugh Gibson, con-

tained many suggestions for international organization, and he pursued these

avidly in Republican quarters.

Turning to the postwar era; Best gives a detailed picture of the much

touted Hoover-Truman friendship, and in the process notes Hoover's occa-

sional misgivings concerning Truman's steadfastness. Though Hoover's quali-

fied endorsement of the Marshall Plan and frequent call for an air and sea de-

fense have long been known, Best notes Hoover's privately expressed desire

for mutual disengagement of US and Soviet troops from Europe. Best also de-

votes considerable attention to the various reports of the Hoover Commis-

sion, something seldom explored, and he is undoubtedly one of the few his-

torians to see the unpublished version of Hoover's memoirs.

The rich amount of data contained in Best's two volumes lead the reader

to a series of intriguing questions. What was the nature of Hoover's critique

of Wall Street? What material did editor Chester Rowell possess that, in

Rowell's eyes, would have made Landon's nomination impossible? What

did Hoover mean when he said in May 1942 that the US should submit to

economic fascism during the war?

We need more evidence for some of Best's claims, such as the statement

that Hoover contributed to "a bipartisan approach to a postwar policy" (p.

272), that his "proposals for peace were largely followed" (p. 437), and that

his military strategy "heavily influenced the American defense posture un-

der Eisenhower" (p. 437). Manuscripts of the major policy-makers might

shed some light as to the degree to which actual influence was involved.

Best's able account serves as a springboard to additional topics, some not

covered in this book. The same Herbert Hoover who in 1938 publicly ac-

cused the Japanese of waging war in the manner of Genghis Khan opposed

applying pressure on them. After visiting Germany in 1938, Hoover praised

the material achievements of the Reich while condemning the brutality of

Nazi totalitarianism. In the same year, he endorsed Secretary Hull's denunci-

ation of international lawlessness and saw an economic conference as the in-

strument to alleviate the world's ills. In 1939, however, he called Britain and

France "imperialistic democracies" and said that the issues in Europe were

basically struggles between "the haves" and "the have-nots." He was par-

ticularly critical of France's behavior in the interwar period. In September

1940, Hoover envisioned most of Europe under totalitarian control at the end

of World War II; he saw a necessity for Latin America to continue its trade

with this continent.

There are more topics to be pursued. The years 1950 and 1951 show him

assuming a variety of positions, some of which-at first glance-appear to be

contradictory. In April 1950, he called for reorganizing the United Nations

without the Communist nations. Yet, once the Korean War broke out, he

said that UN forces should move above the 38th parallel, doing so two

months before his Gibraltar speech, in which Korea would be abandoned.

Yet when General MacArthur (who called for far more intensive US commit-

ment on the Asian mainland) was fired, Hoover found him "a reincarnation

of St. Paul."

But any scholar working in the same material can point to things that might

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Book Reviews                                                   87

 

be covered. Best's book remains an important one that has long needed to

be written. Transcending the given subject, Herbert Hoover, it is essential as

well for understanding many of the controversies surrounding such move-

ments as "conservatism" and "isolationism."

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

 

The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade. By Harvey

Klehr. (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1984. xiv + 511p.; notes, index.

$26.50.)

 

In The Heyday of American Communism: the Depression Decade, Harvey

Klehr gathers an enormous amount of detailed material as he traces the

Communist Party's ideology and its successes and failures in organizing.

Relying on such varied sources as Party publications, FBI files, interviews

with former Communists, and published memoirs, Klehr's double frame-

work takes into account American political and economic change and the

Party's relation with the Soviet Union and the Communist International.

Klehr argues that the Party failed.

He begins with an analysis of the sectarian politics of the Third Period,

1928-1935, when the Comintern believed that capitalism was on the brink of

collapse. The Party devoted much energy to battling its rivals for hegemony

within the left and the labor movement. The rivals, labeled "social fas-

cists," ranged from the Socialist Party to the AFL to A.J. Muste to the

NAACP's Crisis, edited by W.E.B. DuBois. Preoccupied with revolution,

Party leaders scorned immediate demands and were unable to organize or

form meaningful coalitions.

The Party became more successful and influential, however, when it

dropped its rigid adherence to revolutionary theory and began to work in

"popular fronts" for the defeat of fascism. Threatened by the rise of Nazi

Germany, the Soviet Union desperately needed alliances, so the Comintern

ceased to castigate liberals and non-Party leftists and the Party changed its

position on Roosevelt and the New Deal. Klehr praises the accomplishments

of the democratic front, especially the CIO, in which the Party led organiza-

tions with large numbers of non-Communists. Klehr attributes this pinnacle

of influence, activity, and numerical strength to the Party's belated discovery

that revolutionary rhetoric and goals hindered larger coalitions. In other

words, fighting fascism and struggling for liberal reforms was a surer method

of success than revolution. As William Z. Foster claimed in 1938, "Commu-

nism is twentieth-century Americanism."

This brief success, however, was marred by the signing of the Nazi-Soviet

non-aggression pact in 1939. During the popular front, the Party character-

ized the imminent war as between fascism and democracy. Communists sup-

ported collective security in order to defeat fascism. When the Pact declared

that the war was imperialist, the Party changed its line and argued for the

US to stay out of the war. This abrupt about-face did not drive the Party

back to its earlier isolation, but it did result in a drop in membership and an

end to some coalitions. The Party never regained its power despite its patriot-

ism and the wartime alliance between the US and the USSR.

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88                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

As an historian of the Depression and as a leftist activist, I anticipated this

book eagerly. I was disappointed. Klehr lacks the historian's passion for un-

derstanding an experience as it was lived. He analyzes structure and institu-

tions, focusing on leadership, internal power struggles, and relations with the

USSR. While he includes chapters on organizing efforts among Black people,

intellectuals, youth, the unemployed, and labor, his pages lack the heart-

beat of life or the fire of passion. The Communist conspiracy with the Soviet

Union, the staple of my (and his) cold-war childhood, has been reduced to

dull, tedious debates. This unimaginativeness is partly a result of his top-

down focus; most leaders were Party functionaries, not active organizers.

Klehr's emphasis on leaders downplays the mass political activity which he

himself sees as the Party's greatest success. Generally, his book offers little

new analysis.

While Klehr's choice of sources determines his emphasis, he fails to eval-

uate these sources adequately. He neglects major conflicts within the Party

during the 1930s and later. The investigations and prosecutions of the Dies

Committee, McCarthy, HUAC, and the Smith Act; Krushchev's revelation

and denunciation of Stalin's mass murder during the 1930s; and the Soviet

invasion of Hungary in 1956 all divided the Party. The Popular Front which

Klehr praises so highly was later denounced by the Party as revisionist, and

its primary architect, Earl Browder, was expelled. Klehr never summarizes

the positions of his informants on these controversial issues. Do they repre-

sent a single or a variety of interpretations? Klehr also seems unfamiliar with

recent secondary literature on the Party's work among women and among

Mexican agricultural workers in California.

Recent works in many genres illuminate the liveliness of the Party: films like

Reds and With Babies and Banners; autobiographies by Al Richmond, Vera

Weisbord, and Hosea Hudson; popular journalistic accounts, such as Vivian

Gornick, The Romance of American Communism; scholarly histories, such as

Mark Naison, Communists in Harlem during the Depression and Paul Lyons,

Philadelphia Communists, 1936-1956. These works provide a sense of the

conflict, excitement, commitment, and belief in the possibility of social trans-

formation which sparked the Party during the 1930s. I urge readers to con-

sult Paul Lyons' bibliographic essay in Philadelphia Communists which eval-

uates numerous works. Many of them are far more readable and interesting.

Oberlin College                                   Lois Rita Helmbold

 

 

The Goodyear Story. By Maurice O'Reilly. (Elmsford, New York: The Benja-

min Company, Inc., 1983. 223p.; illustrations, bibliography, index. $19.95

cloth; $12.95 paper.)

 

In the epilogue of The Goodyear Story, Maurice O'Reilly states that his pur-

pose in writing this account of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was

to capture the spirit pervading the firm throughout its history. Previously

a public relations director at Goodyear International Corporation, O'Reilly

firmly believes that the complete story of the company can be related in

terms of its spirit. This work, an updated, yet condensed version of Hugh

Allen's The House of Goodyear (1949), is therefore based only on materials

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Book Reviews                                                   89

 

housed in the Goodyear archives and on "what veteran members of the

(Goodyear) clan have said" (p. 217).

O'Reilly begins his chronicle with the founding of the Goodyear Tire &

Rubber Company in 1898 and ends it in 1982. From the beginning, O'Reilly

emphasizes the characteristics of the firm that made it a leader in the Ameri-

can tire industry by 1916 and the American rubber industry by 1926. He de-

scribes how aggressive managers used technological research and develop-

ment to build manufacturing supremacy in periods of rapid economic growth,

a policy that has been repeated by Goodyear throughout the twentieth cen-

tury. The company's officers have been willing to take risks on the promise of

future, as well as short-term, gains in the marketplace. This has meant keep-

ing the firm on the leading edge of invention and innovation, and at the same

time working within the confines of market limitations. A primary example of

this was the introduction, in the late ¹⁹⁶0s, of the Polyglas tire in the United

States to prepare Americans for the steel-belted radial.

O'Reilly relates how the two world wars influenced Goodyear's diversifi-

cation into products other than automotive tires and mechanical goods. In

World War I, the company entered the aviation field through the manufac-

ture of blimps and airplane tires. During World War II, the scope of the firm's

production expanded to include more sophisticated aircraft and war materi-

als. After 1945, the company continued manufacturing some of those prod-

ucts that were usable in a peacetime economy. By the 1960s, Goodyear had

become a diversified, multinational corporation that relied on international

demand for its products as well as for supply of its raw materials.

According to O'Reilly, Goodyear's management and labor force have for

the most part worked together for the good of the company. During the first

three decades of the firm's history, enlightened managers generated in-

creased worker productivity by adopting policies based on corporate welfar-

ism. At the same time, employees were indoctrinated to "protect our good

name" (p. 34). In the 1930s, the company fell prey to the labor strife prevalent

in American mass production industries. The intrusion of an independent la-

bor union that bargained for wages and benefits that had previously been

determined according to the health of the economy altered, but did not de-

stroy, the family orientation at Goodyear.

The Goodyear Story is a useful overview of the history of the Goodyear

corporation. O'Reilly discusses the important accomplishments of manage-

ment and labor and outlines some of their strengths and weaknesses. He in-

cludes a substantial number of photographs to enhance the text. However,

the rapidity with which the author covers Goodyear's history forces him to

lapse into a narrative of upper-level management succession as a means of

describing company progress. He also lists, periodically, technological ad-

vances and products developed or manufactured by the company in order to

"show off" its accomplishments. Only on rare occasions does O'Reilly try to

relate the experiences of the company to its broader economic and political

environment. For the most part, he simply moves from one event to another

without providing sufficient depth or insight into the workings of the firm.

Therefore, The Goodyear Story will be of interest to the popular reader, but

less valuable to the scholar studying the business firm.

The Ohio State University                            Glen E. Avery

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90                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

The Triumph of Sectionalism: The Transformation of Ohio Politics, 1844-1856.

By Stephen E. Maizlish. (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1983. xiv

+ 310p.; illustrations, notes, appendices, bibliography, index. $25.00.)

 

Maizlish revised and abridged his 1978 doctoral dissertation, "The Tri-

umph of Sectionalism: The Transformation of Politics in the Antebellum

North, Ohio 1844-1860" done at the University of California, Berkeley, into

this readable, thorough, case study of the Ohio political scene. He contends

that an understandinng of national politics at the time of the Civil War can

make sense if one can see how the "political values and practices of the Jack-

sonian age were transformed into a new system of political organization and

belief." He uses Ohio "as a case study, since demographically the state con-

tained a number of 'elements common to much of the North.' "

He holds that political parties reflected the "concerns and convictions" of

American society, were the devices that reconciled many different interests

and beliefs, and by examining their successes and failures, "the shifting val-

ues" of the Civil War generation can be revealed. The premise is clear, and

not unlike that of Michael F. Holt in The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New

York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978). Maizlish provides the case study of the sort

Holt might have found useful, but unlike Holt, finds the issue of slavery con-

siderably more important.

Essentially, the Jacksonian party system broke down, national politics went

through a period of internal turmoil, and a new, but sectional party system

emerged, which, for the nation, boded ill. Was it the Kansas-Nebraska Act

in 1854 that ended the Jacksonian system, or was it ethnocultural issues a few

years earlier? Neither, in Ohio, Maizlish finds. The system crumbled before

either, as economic issues appeared less important and the fear of slavery

expansion grew. In fact, the Kansas-Nebraska Act proved instrumental in

ending political turmoil and voter apathy by providing a focus for Ohio's

electorate. Maizlish painstakingly carries the reader through the sometimes

confusing labyrinth of Buckeye state political alliances, not especially uncov-

ering anything new, but giving solid proof to his thesis.

His rhetoric is clear, if not exciting; his research is substantial. He used

over ninety manuscript collections, some twenty Ohio newspapers, plus a vari-

ety of pamphlets and government documents, as well as published sources.

Appendix D is an "Historiographic Note" that might better have accompa-

nied the bibliography, as it gives the reader an excellent clue to the secon-

dary literature-not included in the bibliography-that influenced his

thinking. The other appendices include Ohio Presidential and Gubernatorial

Elections, 1840-60, a listing of Ohio Senators for the same period, and a com-

puter analysis of Ohio voter patterns from 1848 to 1856, done by a fellow

graduate student at Berkeley, providing further evidence to support his argu-

ments. As is so common, the notes unfortunately appear at the end of the

volume rather than more conveniently at the foot of the page.

This is an important work, not only for Ohio history, but for national politi-

cal history as well. It is a useful companion for Holt, and students would do

well to read carefully the bibliographic essays of each.

The University of Akron                            Robert H. Jones

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Book Reviews                                                   91

 

A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy: By David M. Oshin-

sky. (New York: The Free Press, 1983. x + 597p.; photographs, notes, bib-

liography, index. $19.95.)

 

In November 1946, Wisconsin voters elected Joseph R. McCarthy to the

United States Senate on the Republican ticket. McCarthy won a seat in the

Senate by conducting a campaign based on innuendoes, half-truths, and

lies, and by refusing to abide by the wishes of party bosses. With a victory

at the polls behind him, McCarthy descended on the nation's capital and

immediately gained national attention by calling a press conference to suggest

the army draft striking coal miners and force them back to work. As an op-

portunist rather than an ideologue, McCarthy craved and needed public at-

tention.

Quickly, McCarthy won the reputation of a maverick who arrogantly and

unpredictably violated the norms of the Senate. He attacked Democrats and

Republicans alike, posed as an expert on any issue, and twisted the facts be-

yond anyone's ability to make them sensible. At the very least he was reck-

less, unsophisticated, and disrespectful. As a result, the Senate tried to con-

trol McCarthy by stripping his major committee assignments from him in

1949. That effort failed because of his own personal drive and because of the

times in which he lived.

In February 1950, McCarthy began to expound his belief that Communism

threatened America from within. Before several whistle-stop audiences he

accused the Department of State of knowingly employing members of the

Communist party in policy-making positions. The Communist threat to Ameri-

can security and democratic institutions was clear to McCarthy, and as the

days and weeks passed, many Americans began to believe him. Thereafter,

for the next five years McCarthy accused hundreds of people of being securi-

ty risks, because they were members of the Communist party. Without proof

for his accusations, McCarthy dominated the headlines and destroyed ca-

reers. As a United States Senator, he made news whenever he spoke. Al-

though his colleagues despised his techniques, they tolerated him because

the Cold War caused many Americans to believe the threats of Communist

expansion and subversion were real and because McCarthy had great voter

support. Consequently, few Senators chose to challenge him. Moreover, Mc-

Carthy made so many charges that it was difficult to prove him wrong on any

one issue before he made still more.

By 1954, however, McCarthy had overextended his witch-hunt. Increas-

ingly, politicians and voters alike realized that he did not have evidence for

his charges. Indeed, he had not uncovered a single, bona fide Communist in

government. In the autumn of 1954, the Senate, afraid and unwilling to con-

front McCarthy about his disrespect for the dignity, loyalty, and honesty of

others, chose to censure him for transgressing the gentlemanly rules of Amer-

ica's most elite club. He was censured, that is, because his conduct was un-

becoming of a member of the United States Senate. Although McCarthy

remained in office for three more years, censure ended his influence. There-

after, his colleagues, the press, and most Americans ignored him. He was an

embarassment for all, and he spent the remainder of his life drinking himself

to death. When he died on May 2, 1957, he left a legacy of fear that only the

misuse of power can bring.

• 10
 

92                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

David M. Oshinsky, Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University

and the author of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the American Labor Move-

ment (1975), has written an excellent narrative of the political life of Joseph R.

McCarthy. Based on thorough research, Oshinsky portrays McCarthy as a

man who was publicly unscrupulous, cruel, and destructive, and who pri-

vately was generous and kind even to his enemies. Oshinsky, however, does

not quite come to terms with the psychological reasons for McCarthy's be-

havior other than to attribute them to his need for attention. Although he

insinuates, for example, that McCarthy was a pathological liar, he does not

clearly say so. Still, Oshinsky is fair in his analysis. He does not portray

McCarthy as a demon, even though that would be easy for anyone to do

who champions the constitutional right to remain innocent until proven guil-

ty. This is a fascinating, well-written book. It will be of value to anyone inter-

ested in post-World War II American history. It will help both scholars and

laymen to better understand the America in which McCarthy lived as well

as this most enigmatic man.

Ohio Historical Society                            R. Douglas Hurt

 

 

Steel Valley University: The Origin of Youngstown State. By Alvin W. Skar-

don. (Youngstown: Youngstown State University, 1983. xi + 288p.; illustra-

tions, notes, bibliographical essay, bibliography. $6.95.)

 

Undeniably, Ohio has figured prominently in higher education. Since the

establishment of Ohio University in 1808, an amazing number of colleges and

universities have arisen in the Buckeye State. A large number, such as vener-

able Franklin College of New Athens, have not survived. One that has

weathered many problems is present Youngstown State University.

Dr. Skardon, Professor of Urban History at Youngstown State, has mar-

shalled his expertise to present that institution's history from its origin to en-

trance into the state system in 1967. Skillfully he has woven together the Uni-

versity's story and urban higher education in general. The very readable

narrative is supported by exhaustive research.

Despite name changes Youngstown State has clung to the author's defini-

tion of an urban university-" . .. a university that is located in a city whose

life is integrated with the life of that city" (p. V). This is understandable be-

cause of the institution's original identity with the Young Men's Christian As-

sociation. In the Mahoning-Shenago River system there appeared by 1888

"Steel Valley," the Youngstown urban-industrial community which was pre-

dominantly evangelical Protestant. For this environment the YMCA insti-

tuted classes in 1888, the so-called "University of the Clerk and the Me-

chanic." As "Steel Valley" expanded, so did these night classes; and in

1900 the YMCA incorporated them as Youngstown Association School, the

elite branch eventually being the School of Law (founded in 1910). Then

with the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties and the granting of degrees in

law, commercial science, and liberal arts, the institution became Youngstown

Institute of Technology in 1920. It was the first YMCA school in the U.S.A. to

be allowed by a state department to confer the A.B. However, the faculties

were part-time, those in the liberal arts coming from nearby colleges.

• 11
 

Book Reviews                                                   93

 

Professor Skardon next deftly carries the story into the depression and

World War II. In 1931 the Institute became Youngstown College, and Ho-

ward Jones took the helm which he held for thirty-six years. Still YMCA

controlled, the college survived, being debtless and rentless, having many

part-time teachers, and paying low salaries to its faculty members who had

large classes and heavy teaching loads. Also described are the problems of

the library and building space, type of student body, social and religious ac-

tivities, student publications, athletics, and the question of the college mas-

cot, the Penguin. The largely apolitical atmosphere dominated, but speakers

on national and international events appeared. A prominent event occurred in

1941: the forming of Dana School of Music by the merger of Dana Musical In-

stitute of Warren, Ohio, with the college's Department of Music.

The year 1944 proved decisive. Through the sole action of its Board of

Governors, Youngstown College severed its connection with the YMCA. It

was the first institution to do so and served as a model for others. The action

resulted from the North Central Association's refusal to accredit the college

"as long as the YMCA Trustees owned its buildings, kept its books, and

controlled its funds" (p. 160). The all important accreditation came in 1945.

The ending of World War II saw the institution, which became Youngstown

University in 1955, enter "the Affluent Society." However, in 1957 low enroll-

ment and accreditating demands caused the Law School's demise.

In 1967 this private institution became Youngstown State University. Inade-

quate private donations, need for costly equipment and highly trained facul-

ty, and the burden on Youngstown taxpayers, who were paying taxes to sup-

port the expanded state university system while trying privately to maintain

Youngstown University, caused the momentous action.

The author claims that in the period 1925 to 1967 "there can be identified

only three cases where there was an apparent infringement of academic free-

dom" (p. 265).

Excellent print, nine illustrations, bibliographical essay, and bibliography

are noteworthy, but there is no index.

University of Dayton                           Erving E. Beauregard

 

 

Portable Utopia: Glasgow and the United States 1820-1920. By Bernard As-

pinwall. (Aberdeen, Scotland: The Aberdeen University Press, 1984. xviii

+ 363p.; illustrations, notes, appendices, bibliography, biographical list.

£18.50.)

 

As we know, eighteenth-century Scottish philosophers greatly influenced

American statesmen and educators and, in the nineteenth, Scottish immi-

grants thrived in the United States. Now Bernard Aspinwall, an English his-

torian at Glasgow, enlarges upon the "common transatlantic culture in which

Glasgow played an important, even at times," he argues, "a decisive role" (p.

xi). Preeminently "the American city of Europe" (p. 164), Glasgow seemed

more American than any actual American city, as though the better halves of

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia had been spliced together: evidently a model

worth emulating.

So thought many of the visitors between Scotland and America whose

• 12
 

94                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

comings and goings Aspinwall catalogues. They were particularly concerned

with educational reform, feminism and abolitionism, temperance on the

American model, and finally municipal government, as Americans of the Pro-

gressive era marveled at the Glasgow tramway system. The people and places

covered by the book's transatlantic, twenty-state bibliography and sixty

close-set pages of notes apparently overwhelmed any attempt to provide an

index; the thousand-odd individuals in the seventy-five page biographical

list are only a fraction of those mentioned in the text. The latter struggles up-

stream through a torrent of personal detail, much of it tangential and yet repe-

titious, chronologically jumbled, and occasionally inconsistent.

Simplistic generalizations along the way divert rather than channel the

flood. Much the same conditions that Aspinwall says made Glasgow "a

utopia, . . fluid and dynamic, . . democratic, mercantile and mobile"

(p. xv), somehow presented American cities with critical problems. Or, cas-

ually turned around, American "wealth, self-improvement and sobriety,"

though no less characteristic of Glasgow, put to shame "the general poverty,

squalor and drunkenness" (p. 8) of what an American lady called "the most

dismal place I ever saw" (p. 100). Some Scots did speculate on how Kansas-

style prohibition might improve Glasgow, though they also suspected that

"Americans keep their evils more out of sight than we do" (p. 133). Ameri-

cans who admired Glasgow for the Protestant Anglo-Saxon homogeneity

that they managed to see there were wearing the same blinders that enabled

them, at home, either to disregard or to reject their own Irish Catholics.

Only so could they pronounce Glasgow an "inspiration," "a guide to the fu-

ture," even "the New Jerusalem" (pp. 151-52).

Superficial impressions predominate. Many Americans only glanced at

Glasgow en route to the romantic Trossachs. Jane Addams did come to

Britain expressly to inspect the Glasgow "cleansing department, the family

home, the municipal lodging houses, the civic improvement trust houses,

the settlements and the Peoples Palace .... Unfortunately the visit fell

through...." No bother: "Glasgow-at least in a secondhand way-was

part of that experience [which] guided her" (p. 176). The gaps between in-

consequential evidence and sweeping conclusions Aspinwall bridges by such

offhand phrases as "it is perhaps significant that" (p. 74), "can hardly have

been unaware of" (p. 139), and "whatever it was" (p. 50). When, by 1920,

Glasgow rejected American prohibition, while private enterprise steered

American cities away from Glaswegian municipal trams, it was not so much

the end of a hundred-year era as confirmation that the reciprocal influences

had always been weak. Any parallels between Glasgow and Cleveland or

Toledo (mayors Tom Johnson, Samuel Jones, and Brand Whitlock all came

over) were mainly due to comparable causes that deserve more intensive

study than Aspinwall gives them; few of the transatlantic similarities, as per-

ceived by would-be reformers, can have decisively caused each other.

The new technology of publishing may be to blame for the subminimal

punctuation and proofreading, though not for the syntax: a bishop who

"built a model school and taught himself" (p. 28); women who were "voted

down from speaking" (p. 91); "endemic epidemics" (p. 113). Odder yet,

Robert Bruce becomes Robert Burns (p. 166); Will Fyffe's "I Belong to

Glasgow" is attributed to Harry Lauder (p. 165n.); a poet named Felix Mark-

ham writes "The Man With The Rake" (p. 25).

• 13
 

Book Reviews                                                    95

 

The title of the book reminds one that there are two traditional ways of

vocalizing bagpipe music: canntaireachd, in which particular syllables pre-

cisely represent each note on the scale, and, far looser, meaningless "mouth

music" or puirt-a-beul. "Portable utopia" echoes the latter.

Washington University                              Rowland Berthoff

 

The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire 1900-1934. By Lester

D. Langley. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1983. viii +

255p.; illustrations, maps, notes, bibliographic note, index. $26.00.)

 

This volume offers a general survey of United States military interventions

in the Caribbean-Central American Region, stretching from the administra-

tion of Theodore Roosevelt, when the United States first entered the World

stage and assumed the role of a regional power, to the administration of

Franklin D. Roosevelt, when the United States adopted a "Good Neighbor

Policy" which included a pledge to avoid the use of military force through-

out Latin America. The account broadly describes the military actions in-

volved in Yankee interventions in Mexico, Cuba (twice), the Dominican Re-

public, Haiti, and Nicaragua (twice).

Relying on published materials regarding the administrations involved

and the diplomacy of the era, the author focuses strongly on the military as-

pects of the interventions, providing only a broad overview of the diplomacy

involved. The documentary sources employed to augment the secondary

works which constitute the volume's principal foundation are almost entirely

from U.S. War and Navy Department records and the private papers of mili-

tary officers involved in these campaigns. The volume views the era through

the eyes of the military officers on the scene, describing their decisions and

actions.

Throughout the narrative, the emphasis is placed on the degree to which

military commanders were allowed to exercise control in the occupied na-

tions. Paradoxically, the Yankee view that such interventions were temporary

left the military men to act independently, as there was no Ministry of the

Colonies to provide supervision or policy guidelines, and no bureaucracy to

replace the military commanders. Hence officers sent into nations without

any training or preparation, and with limited forces, were left on their own. In

this situation, the attitudes and prejudices of the officers involved proved

highly important. Their racism, lack of appreciation of and respect for the lo-

cal culture, and ignorance of the local political situation, often affected the

course of events. The military men focused on peace and order and engaged

largely in physical projects, such as sanitation and infrastructure develop-

ment. In this sense, the military men left their mark in the region. Yet be-

cause these actions ignored the local culture and practices the projects were

seldom continued after the troops were withdrawn, and the Yankees invaria-

bly inspired a negative local reaction in spite of the undeniable benefits of

their health and developmental efforts.

The author notes that decisions to land troops were often based on factors

such as concern for the safety of Americans or Europeans rather than on

broad policy. Indeed, each intervention proceeded almost independently,

• 14
 

96                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

with little coordinated effort to dominate the region. Investment did not al-

ways follow the flag, for in some instances there was little Yankee capital in

the nations involved both before and during the occupation. Yet the United

States did act to replace Great Britain as chief lender to the region, and the

landing of troops was often designed to forestall similar action by the Europe-

ans.

While the focus on the military officers adds a valuable dimension to the

study of United States actions in this region, the diplomatic aspects receive

little attention. Although the volume demonstrates the differences among

the officers and the effect of intraservice rivalries, there is little discussion of

the strong rivalries between the military commanders and the diplomats on

the scene who often struggled unsuccessfully to assert control over the inter-

ventions. There is no mention of the important transition during the adminis-

tration of Warren G. Harding who instituted the practice of detaching mili-

tary commanders from their respective services and placing them under the

jurisdiction of the State Department, thereby assuring the supremacy of dip-

lomatic considerations rather than military ones. Harding's decision facili-

tated negotiations to arrange for troop withdrawals.

This study will be useful to the general reader and for use as a supplemen-

tal reading in courses desiring to provide a broad overview of U.S. interven-

tions in the Caribbean region and the role of the military in these incidents,

when used in conjunction with existing studies which examine the diplomat-

ic negotiations that accompanied the use of military force.

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh                     Kenneth J. Grieb

 

 

Roughneck: The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood. By Peter Carlson. (New

York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983. 352p.; illustrations, notes on sources,

index. $17.50.)

 

Peter Carlson's Roughneck: The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood is a

sprightly journalistic account of the acknowledged tactician of the Industrial

Workers of the World. It is written to catch the attention of the reader and to

make Haywood "come alive," as it were. To this extent it is successful. As

Carlson notes, "Haywood was the kind of colorful character the American

press thrives upon" (p. 16). The author tries to develop Haywood as a person

more complex than his past popular, stereotyped caricature. Yet it is here

that Carlson does not quite probe with the depth of understanding requisite

for an approach rich in texture. Carlson's attempt to describe Haywood is suc-

cessful, but the biography is less successful in coming to grips with a richer,

fuller understanding of Haywood as an IWW radical and with the workers

he tried-unsuccessfully-to influence. The biography is anecdotal, lively,

and colorful but somehow lacks the dimension to place Haywood concep-

tually and analytically within the context of the tensions and contradictions

of the American labor radicalism of the eclectic Industrial Workers of the

World and the working classes it wanted to represent.

Carlson gives an interesting, detailed account of Haywood's youth and

marriage, and vividly conveys the drama of the tumultuous courtroom trials

which highlighted and propelled Haywood into public light. It is here

• 15
 

Book Reviews                                                   97

 

where the author gives his strongest account of the personal, private side of

Haywood. Yet somewhere, Haywood is not quite fully accounted for. Admit-

tedly, Carlson's task is a tough one. Even though Carlson tries to touch the

heart of the matter on pages 195 and 196, dealing with Haywood's inconsis-

tencies and his sometimes contradictory positions-and here Carlson is per-

haps at his best-the author gives the impression that Haywood was the

IWW and that the IWW was Haywood. It is here that the biography falls

short. The complex history of the IWW transcends the personal charisma,

dynamism and, indeed, romantic impulses of Haywood. The IWW stood for

more than Bill Haywood. If we are to take the book for its purpose, it deals

with the life and times of Haywood. For all his description of "the rough

and tumble" existence of Haywood and his America, Carlson minimizes the

existence of the IWW within the context of an America which was changing

into a bureaucratized, ordered, structured, society. At the same time, Carl-

son also seems to have missed the tactics of the IWW at the local, grass-roots

level.

While his descriptions of the strikes at Akron, Lawrence, and Patterson,

among others, are vivid, they lack the precision and historical insight neces-

sary for a fuller understanding of the working people Haywood wanted to in-

fluence. The IWW was not inextricably bound with Bill Haywood. It was, in

part, bound with working classes in the United States who were growing, de-

veloping, and changing and with their responses which varied within the

cultural, ethnic, and class specifics of time, geographical locale, workplace,

and industry. The author succeeds in his goal of "attempting to tell Bill

Haywood's story in an accessible and popular style" (p. 331), and to this end

will assist in conveying aspects of American labor to the general reading pub-

lic. But greater depth of understanding is still needed for the IWW and for

those who were its members. Joseph Conlin's Big Bill Haywood and the Radi-

cal Union Movement (1969) still remains the best work on the topic. Yet odd-

ly, neither this study nor the anthology At the Point of Production: The Local

History of the IWW (1981) were mentioned by Carlson in his note on sources.

Perhaps an examination of these sources might have assisted the author.

Still, Carlson is to be commended for taking on an ambitious and elusive

topic and for doing so with verve and spirit.

Kenyon College                                       Roy Wortman

 

 

Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership. By R. David Edmunds. (Bos-

ton: Little, Brown and Company, 1984. viii + 246p.; note on sources, illus-

trations, maps, index. $14.95.)

 

R. David Edmunds has provided the first modern and thoroughly objec-

tive biography of the Shawnee chief Tecumseh. For too long Tecumseh had

been pictured as the greatest of all Indians who, virtually without flaws,

personified everything Americans always wanted an Indian to be. Edmunds

effectively shows how even during his lifetime Tecumseh achieved almost

legendary status. As a result, the folk hero has overshadowed the real

Tecumseh ever since. Edmunds conclusively dismisses many of the legends

about Tecumseh that have added to the noble savage stereotype. Tecum-

• 16
 

98                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

seh, according to most accounts, was always brave, honest, strong, and ded-

icated. It was said he was of mixed blood and fell in love with a white girl,

tragically giving her up when forced to choose between white and Indian so-

ciety. Neither of these stories can be supported by hard evidence. Yet the

nineteenth century romantic view of Tecumseh has persisted among twenti-

eth century writers and receives even greater creditability with the impres-

sive outdoor drama presented each summer in Chillicothe, Ohio.

The Tecumseh that Edmunds describes was equally great, but from an In-

dian rather than a non-Indian perspective. An orator and warrior who skill-

fully negotiated with and made war against William Henry Harrison, Tecum-

seh is no less the hero in Edmunds' interpretation. But he was not the only

important Shawnee leader of his time. He shared leadership with his broth-

er Tenskawatawa, the Prophet, who actually initiated the Indian movement

among the Shawnee and neighboring tribes. In fact, Edmunds shows clearly

that the Prophet was also a forceful orator who dominated the Indian move-

ment from 1805 until 1809. Only after the Treaty of Fort Wayne did Tecumseh

become more prominent and even then he used his brother's religious move-

ment for his own political and military purposes. But the Prophet has always

been the villain in the romantic interpretation, an unattractive charlatan who

was never a warrior and, even worse, was flawed by alcoholism. Unlike

Tecumseh who died the way Indians are supposed to die-in battle, Tenska-

watawa died quietly and without glory many years later. It was Tecumseh,

the magnetic leader, who commanded the loyalty of thousands, the fearless,

dedicated, yet humane patriot chief who achieved legendary status while

the Prophet was dismissed as a pathetic, misguided misfit. In pointing out

the Prophet's importance, Edmunds in no way diminishes Tecumseh's

achievement and significance. The biography does a masterful job of placing

the brothers in proper perspective.

Edmunds also succeeds in writing a biography which is in large part

Indian-centered history. His first chapter effectively summarizes the most

important aspects of Shawnee culture before the coming of Euro-Americans.

Throughout the remaining pages, Edmunds keeps the Indian perspective in

the forefront. As a part of the Little Brown series, The Library of American

Biography, the study is kept relatively brief, a factor that makes it highly ap-

propriate as supplementary reading in undergraduate courses in American

history. Although not documented, it does include a useful essay on the

most significant primary and secondary sources. Unfortunately, it will take

more than the superb effort of R. David Edmunds to undo close to two cen-

turies of distortion. Nonetheless, he has provided a truly significant interpre-

tation of the best known of all Indian leaders.

Youngstown State University                       Frederick J. Blue

 

 

The Rise of Industrial America: A People's History of the Post-Reconstruction

Era. Volume Six. By Page Smith: (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company,

1984. xvi + 965p.; illustrations, index. $29.95.)

 

In the sixth volume of his People's History, Page Smith presents the reader

with a much broader treatment of his subject than the title suggests. Al-

• 17
 

Book Reviews                                                    99

 

though many of the book's forty-three chapters deal with some aspect of

"the war between capital and labor," this is a social rather than an economic

history of the United States between roughly 1876 and 1901. Smith's work is

a peoples' history both in the audience he is writing for and the approach he

takes to his subject. The general reading public is the audience Smith is ad-

dressing and he illustrates his narrative primarily with the words of the peo-

ple, both famous and obscure, who observed and often helped shape the

events of their day. While this book does provides a fairly good analysis of

the period, its real strength lies in Smith's ability to impart to the reader a

vicarious feeling for the times through his skillful use of such intimate pri-

mary materials as letters and diaries.

Overall, the book is loosely organized around two themes: the war be-

tween capital and labor, and the popularization of science in general and Dar-

winism in particular. Since one of Smith's goals is to " 'untidy' our past, to re-

veal it as the strange, crude, and often violent event or congeries of events it in

fact was" (p. 908), he makes no attempt to overstate the importance of his

general themes to the subjects he raises. Each chapter is a more or less inde-

pendent essay dealing with a particular movement, event, family or personali-

ty of the late-nineteenth century. An extremely detailed index is included as

are five pages of illustrations which appear at the end of Chapter Seventeen

for no apparent reason.

The first five chapters deal with "the Indian problem" and cover such di-

verse topics as the Sand Creek Massacre, the government's attempts to de-

velop a workable Indian policy and the fate of a number of aborigine tribes.

Roughly fifteen of the remaining chapters deal primarily with the war be-

tween capital and labor. As with the other topics covered, Smith's treatment

is well-balanced and wide-ranging, with an effective combination of generali-

zations and detailed description of segments of such events as the Great

Strikes of 1877, the importance of technological changes, the development of

big business and the changing conditions of labor. The chapters on reform,

the New Journalism, and the free thought and anarchist movements are well

connected to both the book's major themes. The remainder of the essays

are evenly divided between descriptions of the importance of "science" on

areas such as religion, education and elite thought and miscellaneous sub-

jects of interest or importance, including sports, the free love movement and

American literature.

Although scholars specializing in a few of the areas covered by Smith will

find some of his interpretations dated or his generalizations questionable, he

has nonetheless collected a remarkable variety of primary sources which tell

an always compelling and often insightful tale. The greatest failing of this

book is the lack of either footnotes or bibliography. Serious scholars would

have benefited from Smith's meticulous research as would general readers

interested in further reading in this area. The necessarily brief treatment af-

forded each topic because of the wide scope of this book makes this prob-

lem even more serious. Despite these few flaws, Smith's book is one of the

most informative and useful general histories that has been produced recent-

ly. Readers interested in any area of this period should not be dissuaded

from reading this book because of its considerable length. Smith has man-

aged to produce a book that continually holds the reader's interest.

The Ohio State University                           Thomas S. Dicke

• 18
 

100                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Joseph Brant, 1743-1807: Man of Two Worlds. By Isabel Thompson Kelsay.

(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1984. xii + 775p.; illustrations, notes,

selected bibliography, index. $35.00.)

 

When Joseph Brant, the Iroquois warrior, leader and statesman was born

in 1743, his people were the dominant Indians in eastern America. They held

western New York as their own and the shadow of their power spread south-

ward and well beyond the Ohio. By 1807, the Six Nations were a spent force,

their fabled unity smashed and their homelands and influence largely gone.

Brant himself would die that year in Canadian exile. Brant's story is the

poignant one of a man who fought most of his life for failed dreams; it, too, is

the story of the Iroquois' collapse. The career of Joseph Brant also has an im-

portant place in the larger history of white-Indian relations. Isabel Thomp-

son Kelsay in her exhaustively researched biography deals masterfully with

all these dimensions of Brant's life.

Brant belonged to the Mohawk Nation, the most pro-English of the Iro-

quois, and Kelsay details how Joseph became one of the most anglicized of

his people. Virtually adopted by the legendary Sir William Johnson, Brit-

ain's Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Brant obtained a smattering of white

culture, a usuable command of English, and became one of Johnson's

trusted supporters in his relations with the Iroquois. Joseph saw the English

as the Iroquois' friends and protectors and their religion and way of life as

having some value for the Indians. With the American Revolution, Brant

helped win over most Iroquois to the British cause and he, himself, fought

continuously, most notably leading a band of Iroquois and Loyalists in a

series of guerrilla raids that kept the New York frontier in turmoil throughout

the war. Profoundly shocked and disillusioned when the British not only

lost but made no provisions for protection of Indian lands in the peace treaty,

Brant came to believe that the Indians would have to work out their own sal-

vation. He now tried to create a large, truly unified Indian confederation,

comprised especially of the Iroquois and the Ohio Indians. Brant no longer

wished to fight, but believed such a confederation could impress the Ameri-

cans sufficiently to agree to an effective border between Indian land and the

United States. In one of the most interesting parts of the book, Kelsay de-

scribes how Brant labored hard but futilely for his dream of unity. After

Fallen Timbers, Brant turned most of his attention to caring for some of his

own Mohawks with whom he had found refuge in Canada, trying to con-

vince them to assimilate enough white culture to survive as Indians in a

changed world and attempting to obtain enough money from the Canadian

authorities and from judicious land sales to stay alive economically.

The main outline of Brant's career has been related before and Kelsay's

account is not significantly different in general form, although she does pre-

sent the fullest, most complete picture yet of the Mohawk leader. The book

is clearly written, moves the reader easily through its 658 pages of text and is

securely anchored in an awe-inspiring amount of resource material. Occasion-

ally, the reader would appreciate more analysis, especially in connection with

Brant's Revolutionary War military activities and in his attempts to accultur-

ate his people in Canada. Kelsay might also do more with Brant's personali-

ty; he does not quite come to life, although one must quickly add that her

characterization is still sharply etched. She dismisses the noble savage im-

• 19
 

Book Reviews                                                  101

 

age that has often obscured Brant and portrays him as a recognizable human

being with strengths and weaknesses, a man who was and who would

remain a Mohawk and yet would be different because of his exposure to

white society. Kelsay also skillfully presents the larger world in which Brant

moved, delineating the political and social complexities of the Iroquois and

other Indian peoples as well as lucidly following the tangled Indian policies

of the British. So well does she treat these topics that the book could stand

on them alone. But it does not have to stand so because of the depth,

breadth and sensitivity of her portrayal of Joseph Brant.

Denison University                                  Clarke Wilhelm

 

 

Drink and Disorder: Temperance Reform in Cincinnati from the Washingtoni-

an Revival to the WCTU. By Jed Dannenbaum.(Champaign: The Universi-

ty of Illinois Press, 1984. xii + 245p.; illustrations, notes, index. $22.50.)

 

Recently, after decades of neglect, the temperance movement of the nine-

teenth century has attracted the attention of historians and has enjoyed at

least a partial rehabilitation of its reputation. Several works have presented

the temperance crusade not as elitist repression but as a sincere effort by

those associated with American modernization to eliminate King Alcohol's

regressive dragging power. Dannenbaum's book is part of this historiographi-

cal trend. Indeed, for its background it draws heavily on the new studies of

temperance and other aspects of American society. While providing some-

thing of a synthesis of the current literature, this book's heart is a case study

of the temperance movement in Cincinnati, a city important as a center for

both alcohol and its foes. The study's foundation is laid firmly on research

in the original sources, including newspapers, periodicals, tracts and a more

limited array of manuscripts. Directly supporting the text is a generous num-

ber of unusually apt contemporary illustrations.

Dannenbaum begins with a brief survey of a hard-drinking America prior

to the start of the temperance movement. Here and throughout he often

deals with conditions and events outside Cincinnati to such an extent as to

weaken his focus on the subject of his case study. Moreover, he might be

more skeptical of statistics and anecdotes on alcohol consumption whose ulti-

mate sources were often opponents of strong drink. Nonetheless, he gives a

convincing explanation of how urbanization caused a relocation of both work

and play from the family and the small community to a more anonymous set-

ting in which alcohol seemed to many to present a threat to order. In reaction

to this danger arose a movement whose central theme Dannenbaum sees as

having been "that of order and control-the control of the behavior of oth-

ers and the control of oneself" (p. 10). While the author rather stresses the

latter aspect, his evidence also indicates considerable interest in social con-

trol; perhaps more than he is willing to acknowledge.

After a brief discussion of the origin of the anti-spirits movement among

the elite of New England, Dannenbaum turns to what he considers to be the

crusade's first major phase. He argues that in the 1830s journeyman artisans

and young entrepreneurs began to take control of the movement and use it for

their own self-improvement. These men insisted on proscribing the wine of

• 20
 

102                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

the rich as well as the spirits of the poor. In the 1840s they turned to

Washingtonianism, which Dannenbaum acutely analyzes as a secularization

of the techniques of religious revivalism. First informally and later through

such lodges as the Sons of Temperance and the Good Templars, the Wash-

ingtonians sought to persuade drinkers to cease and others not to start and

thus soon made a distinct change in the habits of many middle-class Ameri-

cans. The discussion of this social temperance movement is generally con-

vincing and yet a caveat should be entered. Cincinnati's leading Washingto-

nian differed in several respects from Dannenbaum's pattern. Samuel F. Cary

was seemingly a member of the elite, having been a lawyer long interested in

reform and a man of inherited wealth. As the only Cincinnati temperance fig-

ure of truly national status (with the possible exception of Abby Leavitt), he

might well have been examined more closely and completely.

In the 1850s, the movement turned to the political phase of prohibitionism.

While understating earlier interest in legal measures, Dannenbaum skillfully

demonstrates the relationship between the intensified support for prohibi-

tion and the fears of disorder aroused by the heavy influx of Irish and Ger-

man immigrants. In Cincinnati and elsewhere in Ohio, political realignment

based on temperance, anti-Catholicism and nativism helped to undermine

the Second American Party System. Out of the turmoil came eventually the

Republican party which deemphasized prohibition in an attempt to appeal

at least to the non-Catholic Germans. The chapters on these complicated

events, with much specific evidence on Cincinnati, are the book's best.

The third phase of the temperance movement, according to Dannenbaum,

was female-dominated. Women had early become involved in the move-

ment; its shift in the 1850s to prohibition and politics induced some of the

voteless women to turn to direct action, including attacks on saloons. Espe-

cially revealing is the author's demonstration of numerous links between

earlier female confrontations with liquor-sellers and the origins of the Wom-

an's Crusade of 1873-74 against saloons. While Cincinnati was not at the Cru-

sade's forefront, the city's press helped to encourage its spread by reporting

its victories in Ohio's smaller towns. More use of information from the Cru-

sade's opponents, including the German press, would have been helpful.

Out of the Crusade grew the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. As

Dannenbaum shows, the WCTU professed to protect the home, woman's

traditional shrine, while simultaneously facilitating her increasing involve-

ment in politics and other public activities. In discussing the opposition of a

minority of WCTU members to political activity, the author might have given

more consideration to some opponents' interest in defending the Republican

party from defections to third party prohibitionism, showing that the women

opposing a political stand were also becoming politically active. All criticisms

aside, this book is valuable to students of temperance, politics, women and

general social history.

Kent State University                              Frank L. Byrne.

 

 

Little Flower: The Life and Times of Fiorello LaGuardia. By Lawrence Elliot.

(New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1983. 265p.; bibliogra-

phy, index. $13.95.)

• 21
 

Book Reviews                                                  103

 

Lawrence Elliot, author of Little Flower: The Life and Times of Fiorello

LaGuardia, accurately notes that this subject, the fascinating reform mayor

of New York City, has "received only spotty biographical attention" (p. 243).

Unfortunately, Little Flower offers little to fill this gap. There are simply too

many problems with this attempt at popular biography.

Despite a scholarly apparatus, which includes a bibliography and numer-

ous references to leading LaGuardia scholars, such as August Heckscher,

Arthur Mann, and Howard Zinn, the lack of footnotes, even for direct

quotes, is puzzling. A simplified end-of-book form would have sufficed.

More importantly, the scholarly literature has not been sufficiently integrated

into Elliot's work. Rather than an analytical biography, even one based on

secondary sources, Little Flower is chattingly anecdotal and intensely person-

al.

Excepting the introductory chapter, which concentrates on LaGuardia's

last day in office, the book has a chronological organization, following our

most famous Italo-American politician from cradle to grave. Yet, there is an

imbalance to the narrative, with the mayoral period, that which interests

readers most, being restricted to the last one-sixth of the volume. And again,

much of the discussion of city government in the thirties concentrates on

LaGuardia's stormy relationships with those within his official family (such

as Robert Moses), as well as those outside (such as the Roosevelts), instead

of developing our understanding of LaGuardia's unique contributions.

One of the difficulties with the biography is its press-agent prose, at least

in reference to LaGuardia. His stewardship of the city is termed "twelve

years of the best reform government in American municipal history" (p. 11);

of his cabinet, Elliot writes, "Never before had such strikingly qualified ad-

ministrators been chosen to govern a major American city" (p. 210). So much

for Tom Johnson and "Golden Rule" Jones! Yet, these paeans of praise are

never really documented or supported. Furthermore, with LaGuardia on the

side of the angels, his opposition is depicted in various shades of ineptitude:

inept, more inept and most inept. In a way that is reminiscent of his subject,

but not appropriate for a historian, Elliot has turned LaGuardia's career and

life into a morality play, pitting the fiery and moral "Little Flower" against

the forces of evil, principally Republican establishment types and Tammany

hacks.

Finally, the book is not without some merit or interest. The writing is lively

and often engaging, and the point of view is clear. Most of all, the subject is

genuinely fascinating. Fiorello LaGuardia had an unusual ability to see issues

clearly and when he chose his words carefully, they were telling. In response

to the violence of the Bonus March of 1932, for example, when the Hoover

administration unleashed the Army under the command of General Douglas

MacArthur against the thousands of impoverished World War I veterans,

LaGuardia sent the following telegram to the White House: "Beans are bet-

ter than bullets and soup is better than gas." The man who wrote those

words deserves a better biography than the one at hand.

State University College at Brockport              Kenneth O'Brien

• 22
 

104                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

Henry Kissinger: Perceptions of International Politics. By Harvey Starr. (Lex-

ington: The University of Kentucky Press, 1984. xiv + 206p.; illustrations,

tables, notes, appendix, index. $23.00.)

 

How do you enter Henry Kissinger's head? If you are Marvin or Bernard

Kalb you do this by poring over press clippings, talking with the host him-

self, examining such artifacts (artifices?) as he is good enough to share with

you, and then distilling it all into something called Kissinger. If you are

Seymour Hersh you must interview around the host who will not see you,

but you pore and talk and distill just the same. But where you arrive is some-

where else again. The Kalbs' super-statesman of noble purpose is now a

pathetic power monger of malevolence seldom surpassed, the destroyer of

Cambodia and killer of Allende (by what Richard Barnet calls "bureaucrat-

ic homocide"), the man who brought war (not peace) to the Middle East

and dollar-a-gallon gasoline to the United States.

The difference derives of course as much from the distilling as from the

matter distilled. The Kalbs are not Hersh and neither is or would dare be

Kissinger. Only idealists in the mold of R.G. Collingwood would dare be

Kissinger. So it reduces to the Kalbs' idea of Kissinger and Hersh's idea of

Kissinger. Or call it White House Years and it is Kissinger's choice idea of

Kissinger.

All of which reducing is as old as Charles Beard but to the point. For if

you are Harvey Starr you deliver us of this relativists' conundrum by comfort

of some theory and method on which Ole Holsti long ago delivered unto us

the head of John Foster Dulles. To begin, decision makers "can act only in

terms of their image of the world" (p 44). From this it arrives that decision

makers' "willingness" to address such "opportunities" as their "environ-

ments" (p. 15) present relates functionally to their image. Which means that

in order to build an understanding of, say, Nixon/Ford foreign policy (and,

on replication, a theory of international politics) it is necessary (by hypothe-

sis) to know the image or "belief system" held by the chief architect of the

policy. And to know that, confident that it will not change much if you are

Hersh or the brothers Kalb instead of Starr, you use "systematic methods of

collecting and analyzing data about Henry Kissinger" (p. 6).

Starr executes these well. In Part I (of II), a rich and profitably read collec-

tion of chapters partly in summary of the biographical and psychobiographi-

cal literature on Kissinger and partly in analysis (operational code) of Kissin-

ger's academic writings, Starr identifies the belief system Kissinger brought

with him to the Nixon White House. From this, in Part II, Starr generates

eleven hypotheses which he tests using evaluative assertion analysis (the

technique of content analysis Holsti directed at Dulles). Five of these hy-

potheses describe perceptions alone, culled from Kissinger's public state-

ments while a senior foreign-policy decision maker. The other six add be-

havior, from the COPDAB events data sets. Of the first five, four stand

confirmed: so that Kissinger's belief system was more open and his evalua-

tion of the Soviet Union more positive than Dulles'; so that Russia, by virtue

of its power and reach, was the salient object in Kissinger's system; and so

that China was perceived as an "informal 'coalition partner' " (p. 120). How-

ever, none of the latter six hypotheses is confirmed, so that it is "apparent

• 23
 

Book Reviews                                                    105

 

that Kissinger's images are not congruent with American foreign-policy be-

havior" (pp. 141-142).

These are the bones alone, where the flesh is handsome and vital. Starr's

Kissinger is indeed first-rate scholarship. But to where does it deliver us?

Were I to submit, say, that the four hypotheses confirmed describe relation-

ships already known, I suppose I would be chided for confusing a measure-

ment with a guess. Very well. But "fair's fair," my six year old counsels. And

a guess is a guess. And it is necessarily Starr's guess that Kissinger's public

statements reveal consistently his "image of the opponent" (p. 77) and not,

from this, an image he was busy cultivating. And if Robert Jervis is correct

that statements (even memoranda) are inadequate guides to beliefs, then

Starr's is not a very good guess. We are back at the start.

Wescosville, PA                                      John V. Garrett

 

The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870-1900. By Jon C.

Teaford. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. xiv + 370p.;

notes, index. $14.95 paper; $28.50 cloth.)

 

Teaford's book is at once both impressive and disappointing. It goes into

stunning detail explaining the political figures, governmental structures, and

technological advancements associated with American city government be-

tween 1870 and 1900. Disappointingly, however, the book's organization

obscures the central dynamic of urban government-the political process

itself-and, unfortunately as well, Teaford does not fully appreciate the impli-

cations of the unheralded triumph emphasized in his analysis.

Teaford's thesis is interesting, though hardly original. He contends that

late-19th century American cities have received an undeserved reputation for

being despotically governed, inadequately serviced, and corruptly adminis-

tered. On the contrary, by the beginning of the 20th century, the American

city was a triumph in engineering achievement and governmental organ-

ization. Thus, its alleged failure has been more a failure of image than of

substance. During the 1870-1900 period, the American city made extensive

public improvements, embraced professionals and businessmen into its gov-

ernment, developed sound fiscal and financial management, created modern

governmental structures, and opened up the political process to a variety of

groups. Thus, the image of the city as a morally bankrupt center of political

corruption and governmental mismanagement is largely undeserved.

Urban scholars have long recognized this theme, but none have so skill-

fully assembled such an intricate array of evidence to support it, at least not

until now. Teaford goes into considerable detail compiling the demographic

characteristics of city aldermen, mayors, and civil servants, comparing and

contrasting their respective class backgrounds, as well as the paths the vari-

ous office holders took to their positions. He is similarly precise in chroni-

cling the essential features of state-city relationships, interpreting the duties

and responsibilities of a variety of city office holders, or chartering the rise of

municipal regulatory organizations. Teaford perhaps is at his best in the last

third of the book, where he exhaustively compares American and European

cities in terms of their engineering feats, social services, and municipal fi-

nances.

• 24
 

106                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

Along the way Teaford quashes some popular misconceptions about turn-

of-the-century city government. For instance, urban "bosses" were not des-

pots but brokers, who had to contend with competitors for their positions.

Or, cities were not malleable creations of the state governments; instead, leg-

islators acceded to the suggestions of a city's delegation in the writing of laws

affecting that city. Or, American cities actually were superior to European

ones in terms of the availability of parks, transportation networks, and sewer-

age and water services.

Despite the brilliant detail Teaford brings to his subject, one element is

missing, or at least treated in a lackluster, subdued manner: the political

process itself. The book's encyclopedic organization probably is at fault, ob-

structing one's vision into the vitality of urban politics at the turn of the centu-

ry. Teaford describes aldermen, mayors, urban professionals, businessmen-

reformers, ward bosses, technological developments, social services, and

municipal finance, but all in separate chapters, which in turn he divides into

equally separate subsections. Unfortunately, he fails to draw the proper con-

nections among the chapters and subsections. For instance, the chapters on

urban infrastructure and social services clearly reflect on the work of various

professionals: public engineers, public health officials, park superintendents,

public librarians, and other civil servants. Yet 92 pages separate the chapter

on professionals from the chapters describing the policies they fomented.

Consequently, the reader fails to obtain a clear grasp of the relationship be-

tween those individuals who produced change and the change itself. Or, to

put it differently, Teaford does not adequately explain the dynamics of the

process that spawned the technologically competent and ably administered

city he reveres.

More importantly, however, Teaford fails to address a larger question: If

the late-19th century city was a triumph in engineering and governance, in

what sense was it a triumph? Or, whose interests did the triumph serve? The

American city, above all, has been a center of profit, designed to serve the

private interests of insurance underwriters, financiers, merchants, and indus-

trialists who have used the city as their economic base. At the turn of the

20th century-a time of immense social, economic and technological change

-political structures altered, public policies changed, new technologies

emerged. Such achievements could be considered triumphal, but scholars

need to recognize that these changes occurred largely to maintain the city's

usefulness as a center of profit. Thus, for instance, as Teaford relates, insur-

ance underwriters urged reforms that produced fire codes and professionally

staffed and administered fire departments. Such policies were in the interest

of insurance companies. Similarly, businessmen-reformers fought the ward

bosses because the ward politicians were overly concerned about maintain-

ing themselves in power and protecting neighborhood interests; they were

inadequately prepared to oversee city government as an entity. Businessmen-

reformers battled the bosses-with whom they had previously cooperated

-because the bosses were not sufficiently competent to run the city efficient-

ly, that is to protect the city as a center of profit.

The relevance of the profit motive is vital to demonstrating the interests at

stake in late-19th century cities. Profit compelled the unheralded triumph

which Teaford suggests, a triumph insofar as it protected the interests of an

urban bourgeoisie. Unfortunately, he misses this argument, even though the

facts are on hand. Instead he concentrates on listing and describing various

• 25
 

Book Reviews                                                    107

 

atoms in the urban milieu and fails to analyze the energetic force-the capi-

talistic impulse-that bound these particles together.

Thus, on one level Teaford admirably presents a factual description of

American city government from 1870 to 1900, presenting it as a triumph of en-

gineering and organizational achievements. Yet on a different level, he fails to

recognize that the triumph was a victory for profit and was attributable to po-

litical dynamics deeply rooted in the city's very nature as a center of capitalis-

tic ventures.

The Ohio State University at Lima               William D. Angel, Jr.

 

 

History of Agriculture in Ohio to 1880. By Robert Leslie Jones. (Kent: The

Kent State University Press, 1983. x + 416p.; maps, tables, notes, bibliog-

raphy, index. $15.00.)

 

For much too long there has been a shortage of nineteenth century Ameri-

can agricultural regional histories. Fortunately, this study of Ohio farming

partially remedies the deficiency. By focusing upon the growth of crop and

livestock production from the initial settlement around 1790 through the

post-Civil War era, Robert Leslie Jones successfully illustrates the transition

from a frontier to a more complex agricultural system.

Jones challenges several commonly accepted views of frontier life. Contrary

to the general belief that all settlers immediately became landowners, he

points out that farm tenancy was quite extensive in Ohio primarily because

many arrived without sufficient capital to purchase property. Furthermore,

he states that subsistence farming was a myth, for though most farm opera-

tors produced a substantial portion of the goods they consumed, none were

totally self-sufficient. Jones also indicates that much like the present time,

the more ambitious farmers quite frequently supplemented their incomes by

taking jobs outside of their own operations.

During the era covered by this volume, grain-growing became the chief oc-

cupation of Ohio crop producers. Though oats, rye, barley, and buckwheat

were raised, their production was overshadowed by corn and wheat. As in

other frontier regions, corn was the first crop planted. Utilized primarily for

consumption, the gourdseed, flint, and dent varieties were often marketed in

the form of beef, pork, or whiskey. However, the extension of the "old

wheat belt" westward from Pennsylvania caused that cereal grain to emerge

as the primary commercial crop in the state, particularly after canal and rail-

way systems opened connections with the Atlantic Coast. Indeed by 1839

Ohio led the nation in wheat production. This dominance was fleeting, how-

ever, for acreage in the commodity began to decline during the Civil War as

increases in land values convinced farmers to shift from an extensive to an in-

tensive agricultural system.

In his discussion of the beef cattle industry Jones notes the impact of out-

side influences. On the prairies of the western counties, experienced cattle-

men from Virginia and Kentucky established a range grazing industry which

ultimately depended upon livestock being imported from states both to the

west and the south. In the corn-growing area of the Scioto Valley, feeders

who patterned their operations after those practiced in the South Branch of

• 26
 

108                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

the Potomac River region in Virginia fattened cattle for consumers in the

urban east. Outside these specialized areas, the bulk of Ohio cattle which

were grown in a happenstance manner originated in New York, Pennsylvania,

Virginia, and Kentucky. Improvements in quality occurred as groups like the

Ohio Company for Importing English Cattle contributed to the importation of

such breeds as Shorthorn, Hereford, Devon, and Ayreshire. Furthermore,

from the beginning of the cattle drives around 1800 through the extension of

the railroads in the 1850s eastern markets determined the prices producers

received for their livestock. After the Civil War, competition from western

cattlemen weakened the sales' returns, thus reflecting the continued effects

of outside influences.

A particularly interesting aspect of this book is the attention given to spe-

cialty agricultural enterprises. Among those mentioned is tobacco whose pro-

duction of such types as yellow leaf, burley, and seed leaf annually exceeded

twenty-five million pounds on the eve of the Civil War. Also, the apple indus-

try became commercially important despite the inferior trees distributed by

John Chapman, also known as Johnny Appleseed. Such other individuals as

Nicholas Longworth, who promoted strawberries in the Cincinnati area, and

Lorenzo Langstroth, a clergyman at Oxford, who encouraged beekeeping

through the introduction of an improved hive and the importation of Italian

bees, added to the diversity of the agricultural system.

In this meticulously researched and clearly written book, Jones has taken

a wealth of materials and presented them in a readable form. Though the

historical continuity suffers because of the organization by commodities, this

is not a serious defect. Indeed, this fine work sets a high standard for future

regional agricultural historians to emulate.

West Texas State University                          Garry L. Nail

 

 

Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the 19th Century. By

Nancy A. Hardesty. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984. 176p.; appendix,

index. $11.95.)

 

This book is not intended for the professional historian. There are no foot-

notes, and the bibliography lists few primary sources and many familiar sec-

ondary works. Also familiar is Nancy A. Hardesty's search for the origins of

nineteenth-century feminism, already pursued by Barbara Leslie Epstein,

Ruth Bordin, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, and Barbara Berg, among others.

Hardesty's thesis is that "Nineteenth-century American feminism was

rooted in evangelical revivalism," especially as this was personified by

Charles Grandison Finney. Finney indeed is the central and unifying figure in

this book (and the subject of Hardesty's doctoral dissertation from which

the book springs), and it is Finney who is supposed to provide the causal

links between evangelicalism and feminism. The links are sometimes interest-

ing and plausible. For example, Finney's "common sense" interpretation of

the Bible perhaps facilitated the use of the Bible by feminists like Antoinette

Brown. Finney's advocacy of a non-professional ministry perhaps encouraged

the ordination of some women and the licensing of many others to preach.

Far too often, however, the causal connections between Finney and femi-

• 27
 

Book Reviews                                                  109

 

nism are far too casual. As examples, Finney's presence at Oberlin College

while Lucy Stone was a student there and his conversion of Henry B. Stan-

ton prove nothing about his impact on feminism, and Stanton's wife, Eliza-

beth Cady, was in fact repelled, not converted by Finney, as Hardesty sug-

gests.

Also central to Hardesty's argument is Frances Willard. Willard's connec-

tions with the Methodist Church and with evangelist Dwight Moody are in-

controvertible, but it is difficult to make the leap from this evidence to

Willard's feminism unless we take as the gospel truth, as Hardesty apparently

does, for the incident is recounted twice, Willard's claim to have been in-

spired "'while alone on my knees one Sabbath'" by a voice which de-

clared, "'You are to speak for woman's ballot as a weapon of protection to

her home and tempted loved ones from the tyranny of drink.' " We might

also question how accurately Willard's advocacy of the "home ballot" fits

Hardesty's own definition of "feminism" as "a belief in and commitment to

the moral and social autonomy of individuals."

Hardesty also blurs the definition of "evangelical." Identifying it first with

Finney and Methodism, she also includes in her descriptions of "evangeli-

cal" feminists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Quakers, Unitarians, Uni-

versalists, Free Methodists, and members of the Evangelical Free Church in

America, the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the Pilgrim Holiness Church,

the Assemblies of God, and others. At any rate, simply to identify a suffra-

gist, for example, as a Methodist or a Congregationalist, says nothing about

the motives behind her politics, since the middle-class women who made

up nineteenth-century feminism would very likely be members of one of the

Protestant denominations.

A safer argument, although not a novel one, would have been simply to

make the connection between evangelical Protestantism and an expanded

role and consciousness for nineteenth-century women. An excellent example,

which Hardesty never mentions, is the Young Women's Christian Associa-

tion, springing directly out of the urban revivals of 1857-58 and moving from

its original goal of evangelical missionizing to urban benevolence to full-

fledged and far-ranging reform, including suffrage.

The book concludes with a brief chapter about the decline and recent re-

vival of evangelicalism as a force for reform and feminism, a movement in

which Hardesty herself is active.

John Carroll University                           Marian J. Morton

 

The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontier,

1630-1860. By Annette Kolodny. (Chapel Hill: The University of North

Carolina Press, 1984. xix + 293p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.

$28.00 cloth; $9.95 paper.)

 

There are all too few scholarly books that break new ground. Annette

Kolodny's The Lay of the Land (rape as metaphor in the American westward

movement) was one of these rare landmark books a few years ago. Her latest

work, The Land Before Her, is another scholarly achievement of special note,

the first volume in an ongoing study of women's "fantasy and experience of

• 28
 

110                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

the American Frontiers." This is not revisionist history, as Dr. Kolodny cau-

tions us in her Preface, nor is it intended to be a study in social or literary his-

tory. Instead, she perceives the "landscape as a symbolic realm" resonant

with meaning which gave rise to a "sequence of fantasies through which

generations of women came to know and act upon the westward-moving fron-

tier." Although these fantasies often differed strikingly from the realities of

the difficult frontier experience, she explains, "Our actions in the world . . .

are shaped by the paradigms in our head." The richness and provocative-

ness of this study lies, then, in its exploration of female paradigms which

serve as a counterpoint to the dominate male metaphors in American litera-

ture and thought of the New Adam and the isolate hunter-hero (Daniel

Boone and Leatherstocking, for example).

As Dr. Kolodny points out, the imagery of the Virgin Land exemplified

male erotic conquest of the feminine landscape and the compulsion to discov-

er new, still-virgin territory by pushing the frontier further westward. In stark

contrast to this impulse toward "erotic mastery" of the land, the intricate

fantasies of women over a lengthy period of time came to center on the spirit

of renewal, the unbounded generosity of nature, the domesticated and tran-

quil gardens they would create out of the wilderness. The cumulative female

fantasy is not to discover a New Eden uncontaminated by civilization, but to

turn the raw landscape into a home, to domesticate paradise, to nurture the

best human values transported from civilization to the frontier, to forge the

ideal human community.

Ironically, the popular male fantasy of the Adamic lone hunter allowed no

real place for women. But the westward movement could not, in fact, take

place without the labor and energy of women who literally carried the roots

of home and human society with them in the cuttings and seeds from their

eastern gardens. Such domestic concerns, and their surrounding fantasies,

assured women that the female experience of the wilderness would not

harden them; as they accommodated to the frontier by planting their gar-

dens, they would retain their feminine and "ladylike" qualities. Such fanta-

sies promoted (and were intended to propagandize) the exemplary model of

the wife who followed her husband into the wilderness in order to create

the garden and home, to establish the bastions of morality and stability

which might ultimately draw the isolate, mythic male back to the morally re-

newed human family and community in the role of yeoman farmer and towns-

man. (That the lone male myth continued to dominate popular imagination

speaks volumes about our cultural preoccupations.)

The idealized female fantasies were far removed from the drudgery, pov-

erty and terror of the frontier's reality. Yet these fantasies were essential in

fulfilling several purposes: they gave women a distinctive place in the west-

ward movement, promoted the settling of the frontier by reluctant help-

meets, and gave pioneer women an acceptable paradigm that made familiar

the unfamiliar wilderness. By creating gardens out of the wild landscape and

taking on the role of domestic gardeners-by attempting to make the fantasy

real-they made the westward settlement possible.

The complexities of Dr. Kolodny's analysis can only be suggested in this

short review. Ranging through three centuries of fiction, poetry and personal

narratives of the frontier experience, her study also analyzes the Indian cap-

tivity accounts, tracing parallels between those and the recurrent captivity

imagery-the log cabins and the dense woodland as female prisons, for

• 29
 

Book Reviews                                                  111

 

example-in the other frontier materials. Such darker and more troubling im-

ages contrast with the fantasies of the contented female gardener. She por-

trays too the changing social and class background, the chaos of the Civil

War, the emergence of the industrialized urban East, and the gradual liter-

ary shift away from romanticism to realism in fiction. Consequently, this

volume does not simplify female fantasies or experiences, but is richly sug-

gestive of the contradictions of both. Carefully and exquisitely, this volume

builds the foundation for more expansive historical, social and literary stud-

ies of the westward movement as seen through the eyes of pioneer women.

University of Maine at Farmington                Judith A. Sturnick

 

 

A Woman's Place: The Life History of a Rural Ohio Grandmother. By Rose-

mary O. Joyce. (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1983. xiii +

²94p.; illustrations, charts, notes, appendices, list of works consulted, in-

dex. $20.00.)

 

This life history of a fifth generation resident of rural, southeastern Ohio is

the result of interviews Rosemary Joyce conducted, beginning in 1972, with a

woman she calls Sarah Flynn Penfield. The title, A Woman's Place, indicates

the controlling theme of the interviews with Penfield (and with her sisters,

children, and grandchildren) at the point when Joyce decided to use them

as the basis for her dissertation. Just what a woman's place was, and is, is

clearer to researcher/interviewer Joyce, informed by a feminist conscious-

ness, than to her consultant, Sarah Penfield. Ironically, that is precisely one

of the appealing features of the book: the life, the actions, the views of

79-year old Sarah Penfield cannot be neatly categorized. Her life and her

views reveal an ongoing ambivalence between the ideal and the real, be-

tween ideology and behavior. Though not inarticulate, she is a doer, not a

steady reflector.

Sarah Penfield holds very traditional views regarding the role of women,

especially mothers, as nurturers responsible for the welfare of children, and

grandchildren. At the same time, she has been a remarkably energetic,

competent, take-charge woman, as were her female ancestors. There is less

surprise in this-active independence and self-sufficiency and devotion to

family-than the author suggests throughout. Joyce does, correctly, under-

score the seeming duality between thought and action, the ideal and the

real, often inherent in strong, independent, dependable women in general.

According to the dialogue included, Sarah Penfield did not wish to ad-

dress the question of "woman's role" directly. She was not reluctant, howev-

er, to discuss her family and her work. Nor did she hesitate to point out that

women worked equally as hard as men, and, at times, even harder; she and

her sisters had to work outside as well as inside the home. She insists,

though, that the ideal role of woman is primarily that of bearer and nurturer

of children. Exhausting as the physical labor she expended, and continues

to expend, was, it is merely a matter of course: hard work, within the family,

is woman's place.

The author is indeed sensitive to this, although she strains at times to

make it otherwise. Joyce admits that she "imposed form" on the interview

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112                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

materials. This has both positive and negative results. Often, there seems too

much forcing of Sarah Penfield's words into the author's analytical and inter-

pretive framework. Yet, Joyce's analysis in the last chapter of the "dimen-

sions, turnings, and adaptations" of Penfield's life is in many ways the most

successful and informative part of the book.

Joyce's examination of her subject from a number of perspectives, too, has

positive and negative results. It allows a fuller view than otherwise, but the

rather lengthy explanations of methodology and approach seem more appro-

priate for a dissertation or a book intended solely for an academic audience.

Women's Studies scholars are already familiar with the necessity for an

interdisciplinary approach in examining women's experiences. And the gen-

eral public for whom the book may find its most receptive audience would

find the detailed methodological explanations cumbersome.

The author's attempt to place Sarah Penfield in the cultural context of

southeastern Ohio and the larger context of state and national economic,

technological, and industrial developments is admirable. One wishes, how-

ever, that the focus were more on Sarah Penfield and her reading of context.

This is true, also, because Joyce has included dialogue of Penfield's sisters,

children and grandchildren. However selective and imperfect Sarah Pen-

field's memory, she is the subject of the life history; at times there are too

many voices and one wonders which views are truly hers.

"Does Sarah's life have pertinence for other women?" the author asks.

Her life documents the important role of women in rural society, which is a

welcome addition to the growing scholarship on urban women's lives. The

importance of family is a shared concern, as is the prevalence of traditional

attitudes in the face of change. Sarah Penfield's reverence for her mother

and her devotion to her children and grandchildren underscore the role of

"linking generations" that women often play and elicit appreciation for that

role in a society characterized today as rootless. She and the other women in

her family do indeed embody conflicting views and actions regarding the

value of continuity and the necessity of change over time. Penfield's words,

and the author's interpretation, indicate an ambivalence toward the role of

women-ideally and in reality-that Women's Studies scholars have been

studying and writing about for almost two decades. A Woman's Place is an

interesting life history of a rural Ohio grandmother; it has pertinence, too, for

other women, and for men.

Skidmore College                         Joanna Schneider Zangrando

 

 

 

Shades of Gray: Old Age, American Values, and Federal Policies Since 1920.

By W. Andrew Achenbaum. (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1983. xv

+ 216p.; illustrations, notes, index. $14.95.)

 

This book, a volume in the Little, Brown series on Gerontology, is de-

signed as a brief history, "a synthesis," as the author says, "of the litera-

ture," rather than a work "based on extensive research into primary sourc-

es." There is nothing wrong with writing such a book, if it is well done, and

certainly Professor Achenbaum has no reason to feel apologetic. He has in-

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Book Reviews                                                  113

 

deed produced a useful guide that tells in brief compass what an intelligent

reader would wish to know about a complicated subject.

He shows that programs for the aged have for the most part been impro-

vised. Social Security programs were influenced by "happenstance" (p. 47).

Conflicting groups affected development. As Achenbaum points out, "They

used, misused, and abused their power to different ends with varying de-

grees of efficacy." Looking back over the past half-century, he says that pub-

lic programs have always been "inadequate" (p. 64). This reviewer also got

the impression that so-called "specialists" on aging do not really know very

much. It is as if they were all undergoing on-the-job training (pp. 66, 88).

The efforts made during the '60s he finds a failure. Lyndon Johnson in-

sisted on speed. There was no time to develop programs with "incremental"

effect (p. 89). Nevertheless, Achenbaum reminds us that Johnson's adminis-

tration was one of the most fruitful periods of social legislation, ranking with

Wilson's first administration and FDR's 100 days. The aged did benefit.

Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965. In Achenbaum's opinion, the

objectives set forth in Title I of the Older Americans Act were "potentially

more revolutionary in scope than any other war-on-poverty measure" (p. 96).

The "Great Society" was not the New Deal "reshuffled" (p. 97).

Somehow, though, things did not work out as they were supposed to. In

most cases pensioners did not have the economic resources to enjoy their lei-

sure. The Great Society's effect on the elderly, Achenbaum concludes, was

"mixed at best and regrettable at worst" (p. 105).

Despite this, Achenbaum does not dismiss the Great Society as a sham.

Americans did benefit from Johnson's programs. Unfortunately, the pro-

grams could not accomplish what they were supposed to do. Planners exag-

gerated their ability to solve problems (p. 109). The Vietnam War drained off

funds that should have been used not only to deal with problems of the

aged, but of domestic problems in general, with the resultant social turmoil

during the latter part of the decade. In general, Achenbaum is rather harsh

on Johnson, however well-intentioned the President might have been.

Nor is he better disposed toward Johnson's successors. Towards Ronald

Reagan Achenbaum is thoroughly disenchanted. He does not object neces-

sarily to the fact that Reagan has reversed government policy to such an ex-

tent that it is unlikely that anyone would favor a return to Johnson's policies

(p. 141). His objection lies in the fact that Reagan's programs for the aged are

not well-conceived either. They are short-sighted and "designed in a vacu-

um" (p. 166). Just as the liberals' effort to wage "war on poverty" did not

succeed, so he feels that the neo-conservatives will also fail (p. 169).

Of the author's learning and scholarship there is no doubt. Only a man of

such abilities and thoughtfulness can produce a useful synthesis of research

in a field.

Kent State University                              Harold Schwartz

 

 

 

Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy. By Alexander M. Haig, Jr.

(New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984. xiii + 367p.; illustrations, in-

dex, $17.95.)

• 32
 

114                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

This book is "a personal memoir" (p. xiii) of Haig's tenure as secretary of

state. Haig observes that when Ronald Reagan became president, the U.S.

no longer held the economic and military preponderance it had enjoyed

through the 1960s. Its relative decline was partly caused by the growth of

the Soviets' military power and their aggressive expansionism, including

their support of widespread "Marxist insurgencies" (p. 26). The "Carter ex-

periment in obsequiousness" had stimulated uncertainty among our allies

and friends (p. 29). Since America is still a superpower, it must avoid creating

"conditions of the greatest danger for itself" (p. 26) by doing what we can

"to arrest Soviet imperialism" (p. 107). The general was certain, before 20

January 1981, that "in a broad way" (p. 14) he and Reagan shared a similar

view of the world. He was not dismayed by the fact that the president-elect

"had not revealed to me . . . a profound knowledge of international issues"

(p. 14).

Their similar view included a putting together of "the Greek Civil War,

Korea, the Berlin Blockade . . . the Cuban revolution, Vietnam, Prague,

Afghanistan and .. . El Salvador" (p. 27) in the tentacles of the Soviet octo-

pus. "To arrest Soviet imperialism" (p. 107) "Moscow must control its client

Cuba, especially in this hemisphere" (p. 108), so Reagan and Haig agreed.

Yet the ex-secretary neglects to explain why, after El Salvador's junta in 1980

"announced a land reform program" (p. 126), native insurgents kept on fight-

ing.

In seeking, to cope with international problems, Haig was frustrated by

White House aides Edward Meese, Richard Allen, Michael Deaver, and

others. They prevented him from obtaining Reagan's signature to the docu-

ment delineating responsibilities among those concerned with foreign affairs.

This resulted in confusion and "scuffles for personal advantage" (p. 355).

With no "single voice on foreign policy, The Administration was . . . a sort of

Babel" (p. 86). Neither NSC advisor Richard Allen nor Haig was allowed

"direct, regular access to the President" (p. 82) to learn what his precise

views were.

The White House aides wielded power by controlling "who the President

would see," as well as "what documents he would read and sign and . . .

through manipulation of the press which policies and servants of the Presi-

dent should be advanced and which defeated" (p. 150). White House leads

to the press "nearly wrecked" (p. 285) Haig's secret negotiations with Lon-

don and Buenos Aires over the Falkland Islands war. Haig laments that

"these men" overruled his (p. 130) recommendation for strong action against

Cuba over El Salvador as they wanted no action that would alienate voters.

One wonders if they knew of his effort in 1975 "to persuade President Ford

to resist" (p. 120) when North Vietnam overran South Vietnam and dis-

trusted his judgement. On the other hand, the aides and others sometimes

prevented Haig's sounder diplomatic judgement from prevailing, as when his

recommendation to gradually escalate sanctions against Russia over Poland

was thrust aside. Instead, as Mrs. Thatcher told him, by going "the whole

hog at once" (p. 256), the U.S. left the Soviets with no incentive not to in-

vade.

Haig failed to convince Reagan and his advisers that all communists were

not the same and that the Chinese fear of the USSR in Asia meant that

American cooperation with them was in the national interest. Although Rea-

• 33
 

Book Reviews                                                  115

 

gan eventually agreed to a compromise over Taiwan, it was the China ques-

tion, above all, that convinced Haig "that Reagan's world view was indeed

different from" (p. 195) his own.

The President's advisers, and some cabinet members, perceived Haig's ef-

fort to obtain written clarification of his responsibilities as "a novel attempt to

preempt power" (p. 355). He precipatated his downfall by giving Philip Habit

instructions for negotiations about the Lebanese war without waiting for pres-

idential approval. At Reagan's request, he undertook to mediate this war

himself while waiting for his successor's confirmation. Then, just as the sec-

retary was "on the verge of achieving peace in Lebanon" (p. 351), the presi-

dent dismissed him.

Haig's book shows that he is sometimes inconsistent. He concludes it by

urging Reagan to espouse "a policy that demands a world of peaceful change,

the defense of human values,. . . and the advancement of social justice" (p.

357). Yet he rejoiced that such friends as South Korea and Argentina would

hear no more lectures "from the United States on human rights" (p. 90).

His book, however, proves an illuminating inside account of his role in of-

fice under the man he still believes deserves a second term.

Miami University-Hamilton                        Edward B. Parsons

• 34