Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

 

 

First Lady: The Life of Lucy Webb Hayes. By Emily Apt Geer. (Kent: The

Kent State University Press, 1984. ix + 330p.; illustrations, notes, sources

cited, index. $19.95.)

 

The goal which Emily Apt Geer has set for herself in this book is to evalu-

ate the true character of Lucy Webb Hayes. Was she the intolerant "Lemon-

ade Lucy" that her husband's political opponents labeled her, or was she

the saint-like creature her friends believed her to be? The conclusion rests

somewhere between these two extremes.

In clear and straightforward prose, Geer takes the reader through the

events of Lucy Webb Hayes's life, beginning with her childhood in Chilli-

cothe, where her father was a successful physician and her mother helped

in caring for his patients. Lucy attended Cincinnati Wesleyan Female College,

and was the first president's wife to have a college education. In 1852 she

married future president Rutherford B. Hayes and spent the rest of her life

being a very supportive wife for his political career. Shortly after they were

married, Hayes became governor of Ohio. With her husband, Lucy Hayes

visited prisons and hospitals for the mentally ill. She helped to found an or-

phanage for war orphans and exerted pressure on her legislative friends to

have it made a state institution. She bore children and kept the home fires

while her husband served in the Civil War. When he was hospitalized she

came to his side and also visited other wounded soldiers. As a helpmate to

her husband, she entertained graciously at the White House and is remem-

bered for her temperance policy in not serving wine. She was a tactful and

charming hostess and eased the way for the president in politics, although

her interest was more often in the people than the issues involved. She was a

capable cheerful and prodigious homemaker and the first president's wife to

be referred to as "First Lady."

Aside from her devotion to her husband and family, her commitments

were not very deep. Most surprising, as Geer tells us, the White House tem-

perance policy was not her decision, but that of her husband who believed

alcohol erodes the dignity and efficiency of government officials. Neverthe-

less, the WCTU credited her with the policy, bestowed great honors on her

and begged her to be active in its organization, but she never did much for

the WCTU. She was ambivalent about woman suffrage and did nothing to

support it. She was noncommital about reforms of any kind that had political

implications. She was extremely kind to individuals in need, and active in

church work in her later years. For several years she was president of the

Woman's Home Missionary Society. She regularly tried to resign that posi-

tion, but her husband always persuaded her to continue.

Geer leaves us with the thought that the title "First Lady" was deserved,

and that Lucy Hayes's contributions to the welfare of others and her interest

in politics enhanced the role of women in our society. Quite true. Beyond

that, Geer has missed an intriguing opportunity to place Lucy Webb Hayes in

women's history. Students of women's history delineate the development of

separate but complementary spheres for men and women in the mid- and

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Book Reviews                                                   61

 

late-19th century. Politics, business, law, sports and the tavern were in the

sphere of men, while women lived with the home and children, were pure

and untouched by immoralities. Lucy Hayes is a nearly perfect model of a

woman who lived in the women's sphere, entrenched in the cult of true

womanhood. Even the term "First Lady" fits the model, for she was cer-

tainly the lady of the house and no breath of scandal ever touched her. In

the context of separate spheres, women were expected to be active in reform

movements and many were. Lucy Hayes fails on this count, but may be ex-

cused since she was a supportive wife and her husband was himself ambiva-

lent on reform issues. The interpretation gives strength and consistency to the

character of Lucy Hayes and enhances the validity of the idea of women's

sphere.

It is interesting that Lucy Hayes and Queen Victoria were contemporaries.

They had much in common. Both graced the late-19th century in ways

unique to that era.

Cleveland State University                           Jeanette Tuve

 

 

Hudson's Heritage: A Chronicle of the Founding and the Flowering of the Vil-

lage of Hudson, Ohio. By Grace Goulder Izant. (Kent: The Kent State Uni-

versity Press, 1985. x + 278 pp.; 156 illustrations, map, epilogue, notes, in-

dex. $27.50.)

 

Thirty-two years ago I had the pleasure of reviewing Grace Goulder Izant's

first book, This is Ohio, for what was then called the Ohio Archaeological

and Historical Quarterly. Now, for the same journal, though under new for-

mat and title, I have the privilege of reviewing her fourth and last, Hudson's

Heritage, a handsome volume of substantial quality for which the Kent State

University Press should take justifiable pride.

Grace Goulder Izant is a name familiar to generations of northern Ohioans.

For twenty-five years her stories of Ohio's people and places occupied an im-

portant part of the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Sunday magazine. For sixty

years, from 1924 until her death in 1984, she made her home in the very

heart and showplace of the Connecticut Western Reserve, the village of

Hudson. Given her near life-long penchant for the history of Hudson and the

Reserve, it seems only fitting that her final book center on that which she

knew and loved best.

Hudson's Heritage is not the usual microcosmic history of an American

small town. Rather, it consists of a series of delightfully written biographical

vignettes: of Roger Sherman, the "Shoemaker Senator" of Connecticut, "the

father (in 1786) of the Western Reserve"; of David Hudson, the central figure

in the 1799 founding and subsequent development of the village that would

bear his name; of the Nortons of Goshen, Connecticut-Anna, wife of David

Hudson, and her cousins Birdsey and Nathaniel; of the Browns of Torring-

ton, Connecticut-Owen and Ruth and their six children, including eldest

son John, he of subsequent Harper's Ferry fame; and of another Connecticut

family named Ellsworth, linked to Chief Justice Oliver and numbering such

Hudson luminaries as Elisha, Birge, the village's millionaire benefactor

James, and the polar explorer Lincoln. Included is the story of David Ba-

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62                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

con, a preacher among the Indians who served the Hudson Congregational

Church before founding the steepled landmark church on the Tallmadge

Circle. And included as well are the stories of Benjamin and Heman Oviatt,

of Theodore and Kezia Hudson Parmele, and of the Baldwins-Stephen

and Anner Maria Hudson and Harvey.

For those of us in academe, the account of the founding in 1826, largely

through the efforts of David Hudson, of the Western Reserve College, and

subsequent glimpses of its impact on the life of the community, hold unusual

interest. Like Miami University, Western Reserve aspired to become the

"Yale of the West." Like Miami, Reserve established in the 1830s one of the

nation's first astronomical observatories. Like Miami, the predominant ar-

chitectural mode of the Western Reserve campus (thanks largely to master

builders Lemuel and Simeon Porter) was red-brick Georgian Colonial. Like

Miami's campus in Oxford, collegiate instruction on the Western Reserve

campus in Hudson came to a halt in late-nineteenth century. Like Miami,

when instruction resumed on the Reserve campus it was preparatory rather

than collegiate, the Western Reserve University removing to a new campus in

Cleveland in the 1880s and the old campus in Hudson subsequently serving

the Western Reserve Academy. Unlike Miami, collegiate instruction has nev-

er returned to the campus in Hudson, the Academy persisting to this day.

This reviewer found particularly interesting the account of the schism

among the Western Reserve College trustees, faculty and students in the

1830s over the slavery question, leading to the emergence of opposing coloni-

zationist and emancipationist factions. When sermons preached in the col-

lege chapel by Beriah Green, professor of Sacred Literature and a fiery aboli-

tionist, were subsequently published in William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator,

"Western Reserve College [p. 159] gained national attention." Soon "the vil-

lage was in an uproar. Tempers flared. Now and then fists flew as heated ar-

guments took place on street corners, in homes, and in neighborhood gather-

ings ... At this point, to the consternation of Hudson, Owen Brown resigned

from the board of Western Reserve College and, affronting village citizens

still further, sent his daughter Florilla (John's half-sister) to [the newly

opened] Oberlin."

Memorable as well are the roles of early Western Reserve College presi-

dents Caleb Pitkin, Charles Storrs, and three hundred-pound George E.

Pierce, who "set up a medical department in Cleveland out of which a world

renowned school of medicine developed." Also memorable was chemistry

professor Edward W. Morley, who with physics professor Albert Michelson

of Case gained international acclaim for the study of ether drift in the atmos-

phere and the atomic weight of oxygen.

It was Mrs. Izant's intent to finish her book with the death in 1925 of

James W. Ellsworth, the "rich, powerful, aloof, perhaps lonely, man" (p.

225) who revitalized both the academy and the village in early-twentieth

century. It was he who provided an endowment sufficient to enable the

academy to reopen its doors in 1916 and funds to equip the village with mod-

ern electric light, water, and sewage plants. The village in turn voted out sa-

loons, placed its electric wires underground, and planted thousands of trees.

With her own life in Hudson having spanned the years since the death of

Ellsworth, it seemed fitting to the publishers to include as epilogue an ad-

dress Mrs. Izant had delivered in 1975 as a memoir, filling in "the years be-

tween the end of her history and the present age." It was a happy choice,

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Book Reviews                                                   63

 

providing capstone to a delightful volume and farewell to a charming lady

whose "scenes and citizens" of Hudson, the Western Reserve, and Ohio will

long be remembered.

Miami University                                  Phillip R. Shriver

 

 

The Vietnam War: A Study in the Making of American Policy. By Michael P.

Sullivan. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1985. 198p.;

charts, references, index. $20.00.)

 

Michael P. Sullivan writes a challenging and compelling account of the

American experience in Vietnam that should be required reading for those

seeking to fit the war into the broader pattern of American foreign policy and

international relations in recent times. For far too long American involvement

in Vietnam has either been ignored, treated as an aberration, or viewed in a

narrow, and thus unrevealing, light. Neither American leaders nor the Amer-

ican public have been willing to investigate objectively the reasons why we

lost the war. We have refused to "confront the war as a massive failure" and

instead have treated it as an "aberration" brought about by poor presiden-

tial leadership, or by the containment policy with its "anti-Communist ma-

nia." Others have chosen to ignore the Vietnam experience altogether.

The author widens the field of view by presenting the war as a case study

to test several foreign policy theories of social scientists. He presents several

perspectives on the war: the individual perspectives of Kennedy, Johnson

and Nixon, the factors involved in decision making, long-term trends relating

to the Cold War and the containment of Communism, and the even longer-

term trends involving cyclical patterns in international violence.

Using the Naisbitt-popularized method of content analysis, Sullivan scans

The Papers of the President, Britannica Book of the Year, The Pentagon Pa-

pers, and others, to test theories linking the symbolic rhetoric of the presi-

dents with the escalation of the war. The author also evaluates two dissimilar

explanations, or models, of the decision making process used during the war.

The first, the "rational policy model," offers historical evidence suggesting

that our policy in Vietnam was based on a long-term, solid commitment

dating back to at least Truman's support for the French in Indo-China. The

second explanation, the "quagmire-quicksand-incremental model," argues

that our policy makers were geared to short-term, band-aid solutions, such

as preventing the immediate collapse of the South Vietnamese government,

rather than dealing with long-term goals. Arthur Schlesinger once described

this policy as "one more step" which "lured the United States deeper and

deeper into the morass." Sullivan's purpose is not to lay blame but to assess

the decision makers' judgements.

Citing Frank Klingberg's study of alternating moods in American foreign

policy from introversion to extroversion, Sullivan shows that American policy

in Vietnam went through a radical change at the same time that public opin-

ion shifted toward an introverted, or a "very low intensity and limited," for-

eign policy. At the same time, Sullivan argues that the war did not adversely

affect our relations with the Soviet Union, especially the policy of detente.

Finally, Sullivan deals with the lessons and myths of the Vietnam experi-

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64                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

ence. Admitting that mistakes were made, he nevertheless argues that the

war should not be viewed in the light of "either evil or incorrect decisions."

Such a narrow interpretation limits "the lessons to be drawn from a massive

tragedy, and perpetuates the myth that if we had only tried harder, or if cer-

tain decision makers had not been involved, things would have turned out

differently." Current and future foreign policy cannot be constructed proper-

ly if the war is either ignored or treated as a mistake; rather, the war is part of

the dynamic of American foreign policy.

While historians may question the author's modish social science style of

internal noting, as well as his occasional lapses into needless jargon, this does

not detract from a scholarly, intelligent and impartial discussion which con-

cludes with vindication for the historical method. Thucydides suggested

that "an exact knowledge of the past" may aid in "the interpretation of the

future." Professor Sullivan calls upon policymakers to discover the historical

perspectives of the Vietnam War, for "foreign policies cannot be created on

an ad hoc basis, in a tabula rasa fashion." They should read his book!

Youngstown State University                      Charles W. Darling

 

 

Workers On the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinna-

ti, 1788-1890. By Steven J. Ross. (New York: Columbia University Press,

1985. xx + 406p.; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00.)

 

Segmentation, worker culture and Republican ideology are major themes

often covered in recent labor histories. Stephen J. Ross has drawn on each

of them in an effort to explain why Cincinnati's workers did not unite against

the conditions imposed on them by industrialization. Ross' book is an im-

portant local study of nineteenth-century working conditions that compares

favorably with Alan Dawley's work on Lynn and Bruce Laurie's study of

Philadelphia. Based upon newspapers and assorted labor records, as well as

a wide variety of theses and dissertations, Workers On The Edge is a well-

written example of the latest theories and methods employed by labor histo-

rians.

In following the advice of David Montgomery to create "a periodization,

which effectively identifies the distinguishing aspects of the relations of pro-

duction at different moments in the evolution of American capitalism," Ross

has divided Cincinnati's history into three major eras: the Age of the Artisan

(1788-43), the Age of Manufacturing (1843-73) and the Age of Modern Indus-

try (1873-90). Without offering much explanation for specific dates, Ross

traces the transformation of the workforce from independent and skilled

craftsmanship to subservience in the factory.

In the first era Ross sketches a picture of Republican harmony in which

the worker's role as citizen and as an accepted member of the producing clas-

ses created a stable city devoid of class frictions. But Cincinnati's location on

the Ohio River, augmented in the 1830s by the construction of Ohio's canals,

attracted trade that generated mercantile wealth, investment in small manu-

facturing concerns, and a diminishing share of the pot for workers. Although

workers protested by striking and even formed a Workingman's Party, the

merchant capitalists effectively blunted their efforts by suggesting that class

actions violated Republican principles.

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Book Reviews                                                    65

 

The second era witnessed the transformation of Cincinnati into the third

largest industrial center in the nation. In this stage rapidly increasing levels of

production resulted from reorganization of the still highly skilled work force

rather than from utilizing machinery or building large factories. This piece-

meal process produced separation of the workforce into small shop artisans,

factory artisans, factory laborers and outworkers. Although unions were

formed in the 1850s to seek a larger share of the pie, workplace segmentation

and the fact that the workforce was composed of more and more immigrants

whose social and political associations revolved around ethnic and religious

loyalties rather than class considerations reduced their effectiveness. Politics

reflected this division, as native-born workers emphasized the dangers to

America posed by immigrants who drank too much and violated the Lord's

Day.

In the final stage the rapid growth of large-scale manufacturing finally

broke down some of the barriers between workers as higher percentages

flooded into factories. The economic strain produced by the depression pro-

voked workers into joining organizations such as the socialist Workingmen's

Party, craft unions and the Knights of Labor. Strikes increased, and culmi-

nated in a citywide strike for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1886. Ross attrib-

utes the unity among the strikers and their ultimate success to a commonly

shared Republican value of law and order. In the strikers' minds, the em-

ployers were illegally avoiding implementation of the recently passed Haley

Law establishing an eight-hour day. Rejecting the exceptions clause which

permitted individual contracts, workers demanded an eight-hour day with

the same pay, and rigorously protested the mayor's calling in of the National

Guard as a failure to maintain government neutrality. If anything, the mayor's

responsibility was to enforce the eight-hour law, not to interfere with legiti-

mate and peaceful protests. Such worker unity, however, was temporary.

Newly formed class bonds continued to founder, Ross concludes, on the

rocks of competing social, ethnocultural and political loyalties.

Ross has written a fascinating account of the Cincinnati working class. But

there are flaws. The final section is inexplicably limited to a period of 17

years, and rather sparse in coverage of ethnocultural splits. As is characteris-

tic of such works, it overlooks the accumulation of investment capital and a

generally increasing standard of living as factors affecting worker discontent

and unity. Overall, though, Ross' effort is a fine example of the recent efforts

to explain the lack of unity in the working class.

Youngstown State University                       William D. Jenkins

 

 

Brigham Young: American Moses. By Leonard J. Arrington. (New York: Al-

fred A. Knopf, 1985. xvii + 522p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.

$24.95.)

 

Brigham Young, the "American Moses" as Leonard J. Arrington has aptly

described him, was many things to many people during the 19th Century. To

the New York editor and reformer Horace Greeley who interviewed him in

1859, Young was "A portly, frank, good-natured" individual (p. 4). His uncle,

John Haven, whom Brigham Young the missionary sought to convert during

the mid-1830s, saw him as a courageous defender of the Mormon faith (p.

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66                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

55). And Samuel Bowles, a newspaper man from Springfield, Massachusetts,

who heard Young preach at Salt Lake City in 1865, found the untrained reli-

gious exhorter to be brash and provincial (p. 343). Jedediah M. Grant, a fel-

low churchman, described his associate as "the article that sells out West"

-an honest, hard-working man without the pretensions which Grant felt

many Easterners had adopted (p. 409).

Grant's assessment reflects the Brigham Young which Leonard Arrington

has so skillfully written about in this biography. Utilizing the vast materials

of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Archives, which he had

complete access to during his tenure as Church Historian, the author has

rendered the most thorough accounting of Young's life to date. And, most

significantly, he has done it in an unprejudicial manner. Prior biographies of

this most well-known Mormon have generally tended to be antagonistic or

apologetic. While Arrington has the innate bias of a true believer, he still

manages to be first and foremost an uncompromising historian and an excel-

lent scholar.

Following a slow and methodical consideration of the Book of Mormon,

Brigham Young accepted the upstart religion as true and was baptized into

the fold in April 1832. Once his mind had been made up Young was a

committed disciple of Mormonism and follower of the Prophet Joseph

Smith. In 1835, after he had proved his mettle time and again, Brigham

Young was called as an apostle. This new charge placed him among the lead-

ing men of the church and gave him new responsibilities to shoulder. By the

time of Joseph Smith's murder in 1844 Young had risen to the position of sen-

ior member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. Consequently, when the

church presidency was reorganized following the Mormon's expulsion from

Illinois in 1846, Brigham Young became the successor to Smith as prophet. It

devolved upon him to lead the Latter-day Saints in their exodus to the Great

Basin.

During the next thirty years of his life, Young would serve not only as

church leader but also several years as governor of Utah, superintendant of

Indian Affairs for the Utah Territory, and gain his more well-known title of

"colonizer" as he dispatched Mormon pioneers to all corners of the Inter-

mountain West in an attempt to solidify a Mormon kingdom which others

could not penetrate. Arrington's discussions of Brigham Young as a family

man, as a counselor to his followers, and as a protector of the kingdom offer

fascinating insight regarding his role in the settlement of the West and the

growth of the Mormon Church.

While some may criticize aspects of the book which they feel could use

more detail, whether it be Brigham Young's religious life or his attitudes

concerning women or minorities, it must be recognized that Brigham Young:

American Moses is a masterful study. Those interested in Mormon history,

the American West, or just lovers of biography will find this work enjoyable

and enlightening.

Los Angeles County Museum                           M. Guy Bishop

 

 

Herbert Croly of The New Republic: The Life and Thought of an American Pro-

gressive. By David W. Levy. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

xvii + 335p.; illustrations, notes, selected bibliography, index. $32.50.)

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Book Reviews                                                     67

 

Herbert Croly, journalist and philosopher, was one of the seminal twenti-

eth century American social thinkers and intellectuals. A shy and reclusive

man whose personality was hardly exciting perhaps made his contributions

even more surprising. While the influence of his The Promise of American

Life (1909) has been overrated, it still remains one of the great, original works

on American political philosophy.

Croly's editorship of the New Republic beginning in 1914 was one of the

distinguished episodes in American journalism and his columns provide a

primer of American liberal thought, embracing such issues as birth control,

women's and black's rights, and academic freedom. The New Republic, with

the brilliant journalists he gathered around him thanks to the financial and

moral support of Willard and Dorothy Straight, made this journal truly unu-

sual. In addition to such professionals as Walter Lippmann, Croly convinced

thinkers like Charles A. Beard, Van Wyck Brooks, Morris R. Cohen, Theo-

dore Dreiser, Ford Maddox Ford, George Santayana, Rebecca West, and H.

G. Wells to use his pages to develop their ideas.

Croly's defense of a Hamiltonian-like strong central government but with

Jeffersonian people-oriented goals was predicated on his conviction that big-

ness in America was not necessarily badness, and it was this feature of the

Croly ethic that Theodore Roosevelt found most appealing. The corporation

was here to stay and his vision was of the here and now, not to lament the

passing of a less complex past. Big business, Croly reasoned, would be con-

trolled by labor unions and regulation provided by a powerful federal gov-

ernment.

For Professor Levy, Progressivism was a precursor to other liberal-type

programs such as the New and Fair Deals and the New Frontier, and that

Croly was the quintessential expositor of the liberal life of the mind. There is

another point of view, more complicated than that linking progressivism with

liberalism. For example, even Croly was skeptical of such progressive tenets

as electing judges, the initiative, referendum, and recall, increasing govern-

mental power, and anti-trust reform. Also, his attraction for mystics Georges

I. Gurdjieff and A. R. Orage entitles one to ponder the extent of Croly's liber-

alism. Such considerations as these deserve more attention.

One of the most engaging parts of this monograph deals with Croly's par-

ents. His mother, writing under the name "Jenny June," was a productive

journalist, probably the first to be syndicated, and a pioneer advocate of

women's liberation. Father David Croly, also a newsman, was editor of the

New York World, and was even more important for his Real Estate Record and

Builder's Guide. The correspondence between son and father, especially

when the younger Croly was at Harvard, are instructive and delightful exam-

ples of a respectful relationship and a predictor of what was to come from his

pen.

Croly died in 1930 at the age of 60, leaving one to ponder the tantalizing

question of whether he would have felt the New Deal would bring a restored

promise to American life. Certainly the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover era, replete

with such insults to the liberal mind as the Red Scare and the Sacco-

Vanzetti case, brought him severe disillusionment.

Our debt to Levy is a great one because he has provided us with the first

full-length scholarly biography of a real intellectual giant. Croly's contribu-

tion to the scholarly ferment of his time is interestingly described in a clear,

lively, sympathetic, but objective way. Levy affords excellent insights into

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68                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

Croly's development as a thinker and how that was reflected in a unique jour-

nal of thought.

State University of New York at Buffalo               Milton Plesur

 

The Architecture of Migration: Log Construction in the Ohio Country, 1750-

1850. By Donald A. Hutslar. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1986. 558p.;

illustrations, notes, appendices, bibliography, indexes. $50.00.)

 

In this book on log construction Donald Hutslar has accomplished two

things for which anyone interested in folk architecture must be grateful. He

has brought together a substantial number of documents dealing with early

log cabins, and he has presented an amazing number of photographs of ex-

tant log buildings, nearly 250 in all.

This book is actually Hutslar's second treatment of his subject, for earlier

he wrote with his wife, Jean, The Log Architecture of Ohio published in Ohio

History in 1971 (volume 80, numbers 3 & 4). Hutslar begins his book with a

brief summary of the prevailing theories on the origins of log construction in

America. He devotes considerable space to discussing the earliest log build-

ings in Ohio but deals with later historic periods in more summary fashion.

In addition to dwellings, Hutslar also describes public buildings, barns, and

outbuildings. A noteworthy feature is a continual emphasis on methods of

construction, including a chapter on "Tools and Methods" and another on

"Construction Practices." The work closes with a chapter on "The Restora-

tion of Log Structures."

In his discussions of log buildings, Hutslar relies heavily on early written

accounts of various kinds. The early log cabins and the extant log houses

mostly shown in photographs do not have all that much to do with one an-

other, actually. Outside of the fact that they both used horizontal timbers

notched together at the corners, the round-log cabin built hastily for tempo-

rary shelter and the hewn-log house intended as a permanent habitation do

not resemble one another to any great extent. Indeed, when the exterior

walls of hewn-log houses were covered with siding, as they normally were (p.

5 and p. 12, note 1), such houses resembled frame houses of the same period

far more than they did round-log cabins. Hutslar's book, therefore, repre-

sents in the abstract something of an anomaly: the text treats mainly one sub-

ject while the illustrations represent another. Fortunately, the text does give

some information on hewn-log buildings while the annotations to the illustra-

tions give somewhat more.

In the last few years there have been three books published on log build-

ings, attesting to the general interest in log construction and its importance for

the study of folk architecture. Each of the books represents a different ap-

proach to the study of folk architecture. Terry Jordan is a cultural geogra-

pher. His book, American Log Buildings: an Old World Heritage (Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), emphasizes the diffusion and

distribution of many of the traits of log construction. It is based largely on ex-

tensive travel and observation in Europe. My own book, Log Buildings of

Southern Indiana (Bloomington, Indiana: Trickster Press, 1984), ignores early

written sources on pioneer log cabins and, instead, presents a typology of and

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Book Reviews                                                   69

 

a functional description of over 400 extant log buildings, most of which were

built in the nineteenth century. I consider my approach that of the folklife re-

searcher. Hutslar, a historian, concentrates, as previously noted, on the early

written documents describing pioneer log cabins. Extant log buildings from

the nineteenth century seem, to him, to be almost an afterthought since they

are rarely mentioned in his text and appear mainly in the photographs.

All those who enjoyed and benefitted from the Hutslars' earlier work on

log buildings in Ohio will find even more material, especially excellent draw-

ings and photographs, to attract them in this new volume. The author and

the publisher must both be thanked for this addition to our knowledge of

the folk architecture of the Midwest.

Indiana University                               Warren E. Roberts

 

 

The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Volume 11: June 1-August 15, 1864. Edited

by John Y. Simon. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984.

xxvi + ⁴⁹⁷p.; maps and illustrations, notes, chronology, calendar, index.

$45.00.)

The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Volume 12: August 16-November 15, 1864.

Edited by John Y. Simon. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University

Press, 1984. xxvi + 520p.; maps and illustrations, notes, chronology, calen-

dar, index. $45.00.)

 

When Ulysses S. Grant became Abraham Lincoln's choice to lead the

Northern armies against the Confederacy, the general left no stone unturned

to win the war. If one expects heroes to be models of chivalry and honor,

Grant is disappointing as a hero as the war moved into its most deadly cock-

pit. He dispatched General Sheridan into the Shenandoah Valley deliber-

ately to devastate that rich breadbasket of the South. He gave his blessing

to General Sherman for the march to the sea, aware of a new kind of suffer-

ing. He approved the destruction of Georgia cotton to prevent its use by ene-

my agents to improve Confederate economic strength. He discontinued

prisoner-of-war exchanges even as the prisons on both sides deteriorated in

the face of overwhelming numbers. And among his own generals, heads

rolled at his command as he shaped up an army more and more to his own

personal considerations.

These are some of Grant's actions during the last six months of 1864, the

period covered in volumes eleven and twelve of this monumental series on

General Grant. The war was running down, but not its violence or its hatreds.

Those days were the "killing time," and spangles that decorated the shoul-

ders of generals tarnished as the glut of destruction piled ever higher. Gener-

al Lee staggered a bit but held on desperately at Petersburg, still the awe-

some figure to the enemy he had been before. But he seemed to have met

his match?

This is Ulysses S. Grant, the figure of mystery who sits in his command

post at City Point, Virginia, but directs a war across a vast continent. Dark be-

hind beard and dressed in his blue uniform, he increases the anxiety of the

enemy as he promotes the unorthodox as his daily fare. Grant gives up the

personal glory of the battlefield to Sherman, Sheridan and Thomas, while

• 10
 

70                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

he holds onto his besieging army at Petersburg, but the results move on to-

ward success. He prevents Lee from joining the action against Sherman; he

holds the line for Sheridan to do his worst in western Virginia while Lee

holds his large force to their trenches. He listens to a giant bomb explode

underneath the Confederate army with disasterous results for the Union,

but he recovers quickly and holds on.

These two volumes cover some of the most critical days of the Civil War.

Grant seizes his new role as army commander and moves into the greatness

that history has accorded him. Sherman separates his army from Grant, but

ever loyal to his "very good friend," he gains his own fame with a modified

version of the Anaconda play that General Winfield Scott had advocated

early in the war. And General Sheridan rises from obscurity to demonstrate

some of the most aggressive leadership seen in the war as he neutralizes Gen-

eral Jubal Early's cavalry and frees Washington, D.C. from the Confederate

threat.

In these volumes Grant appears as a series of contrasting personalities. In

his family correspondence he is always the father, admonishing his children

to a better life, especially by studying harder. He seems to show excitement

over the new acclaim that results in material gifts for his wife, including new

homes in Philadelphia and Chicago. But his orders to generals on the very

same day direct slashing moves to disable the enemy, and those generals

who do not follow his "game plan" read his wrath in his correspondence.

Although he appears so certain of his field decisions, one still sees the shy

and lonely man of earlier years.

Grant's war plans were basically simple. Use the vast resources and man-

power of the North to subdue the South. It was not a "nice" operation.

Guerrillas, deserters, sutlers and camp followers were of no use to his opera-

tions and they must go. Again the Jewish question arises, but for a moment

only. But against guerrillas from the South and deserters from his own army

he is always unrelenting.

Much of the action in these volumes favors the newly successful Federal

cavalry. These are times of cutting lines of communications and supplies, rid-

ing behind lines for special information on enemy affairs. These are times to

get behind the enemy, to take advantage of his deteriorating man and horse

power. These are times to clean up important pockets of resistance, and Grant

directs his cavalry in all arenas of action toward these goals.

This is a volume in which the general and a President reach the under-

standing that the late T. Harry Williams pointed up so strongly in his Lincoln

and His Generals. These were violent times for a loving father, a friend, and

to those who knew him well. He waited impatiently at times, but patient un-

der challenging circumstances as his troops cut enemy lines, destroyed their

rolling stock, and strengthened their siege lines.

These years of the Civil War have never been covered as well as we see

them in these volumes. Editor John Y. Simon seems to have tightened up his

work, associating materials better, thus giving the reader a better in-depth

view of the complex happenings along several fronts. I still find the small

print irritating at times, but the work continues to stand as a first-rate editorial

job and should lead to new research and interpretation of an historical figure

still much shrouded in mystery.

Wittenberg University                                  Robert Hartje

• 11
 

Book Reviews                                                    71

 

Letters of Delegates to Congress 1774-1789, Volume 11: October 1, 1778-

January 31, 1779. Edited by Paul H. Smith, Gerard W. Gawalt, Ronald M.

Gephart, and Eugene R. Sheridan. (Washington, D.C.: Library of Con-

gress, 1985. xxxi + 587p.; editorial method and apparatus, acknowledg-

ments, chronology of Congress, list of delegates to Congress, illustrations,

notes, index. $18.00.)

 

For students of Congress as an institution, for biographers of individual

members, and for other highly specialized researchers, this well-edited

volume will be very serviceable for many, many years to come, as will the en-

tire series of which it is a part. Indeed, this series, published under the aus-

pices of the Library of Congress American Revolution Bicentennial Program,

constitutes one of the most useful and durable of those innumerable and

seemingly interminable "commemorations" to have been spawned by this

so-called "Bicentennial Era" of ours.

But, in the very nature of things, this is not the sort of book that very many

people - either professional historians or history buffs - will choose to sit

down with and peruse from cover to cover. This is all perfectly understanda-

ble at one level, and yet what becomes immediately apparent to the reviewer

assigned the task of going through the volume far more thoroughly than

most people will is that there are decided advantages to reading all of these

documents in their proper chronological order and in a systematic way. One

is reimpressed, to begin with, with the sheer disorder of lives while they are

actually being lived as compared to that artificial orderliness that is so often

imposed on such lives by historians operating with 20/20 hindsight. In these

pages rumor is rampant and speculation is boundless; but most information is

slow in arriving and is of dubious veracity besides, so that precious little is

known for sure.

And, as always, the future of the country is an open question. The dele-

gates look endlessly for the causes of the country's problems. Richard Henry

Lee of Virginia and Henry Marchant of Rhode Island rail out at "an infamous

set of Engrossers" who are artificially driving up the price of flour and other

commodities essential to the war effort. "Extortioners, & monopolizers must

have a twisted Bitt put into their rapacious Mouths," Marchant declares (pp.

24-25). For his part, Samuel Adams frets about the luxury and extravagance

being reported in Boston, fearing that this symbolizes that the American

people have arrived at "such a Pitch of Levity & Dissipation" as would "ex-

tinguish every Spark of publick Virtue" and undo the infant nation (p. 31).

Cyrus Griffin of Virginia, on the other hand, sees Congress itself as the major

problem. In fact, Griffin tells Thomas Jefferson that Congress may have to be

dissolved shortly because it is so rife with party spirit and with members

prostituting their votes in anticipation of future support for some pet project or

another. "Congress exhibit not more than two or three Members actuated

by Patriotism," Griffin laments (p. 32). In short, judging from these docu-

ments, this Congress of 1778 and 1779 seems to have been a veritable babel

of voices and the fledgling country it represented only a step or two removed

from chaos.

A systematic reading of these documents also reminds us that the personal

and the political parts of our history are not to be so neatly separated as most

secondary accounts would seem to suggest. Here is Josiah Bartlett of New

• 12
 

72                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

Hampshire suffering from headaches but determined nonetheless to carry

on. Here is gouty Cornelius Harnett of North Carolina explaining to the gov-

ernor of his state that "I am too old to be sent here. .... I am now not many

years from 60" (p. 252). Here there are, that is to say, flesh-and-blood hu-

man beings often feeling pain and anxiety and self-doubt and frustration.

Here are men who did not like to be away from home, missing their wives

and children. Here are delegates actually resigning or thinking often of doing

so. Here are men concerned about their reputations. Here are politicians try-

ing to convince each other - and themselves - of the complete worthiness

of their motives. Here are humans trying hard to make the best of things in

what many regarded as some of the worst of times.

Thus, while the volume under review is destined to be used primarily as a

reference work by those concerned with the political, military, and economic

aspects of our past, a closer reading of it reveals not a little to illustrate the

more human side of American history.

 

Marquette University                                 Robert P. Hay

 

 

The Star-Spangled Screen: The American World War II Film. By Bernard F.

Dick. (Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press, 1985, ix + 294p.; illus-

trations, notes, appendix, bibliographical essay, indexes. $26.00.)

 

The recent past has witnessed a spate of books about World War II films,

some designed primarily for the layman and movie buff, others for a more in-

tellectual audience. Fairleigh Dickinson professor Bernard F. Dick's Star-

Spangled Screen offers the best of both worlds: on the one hand, an affec-

tionate reminiscence for those who, like Dick, can recall watching these films

in a theater in which "shoes picked up an adhesive popcorn-studded gum,

and nostrils contracted from the odor of disinfectant in the lavatory" (p. 1);

on the other, a scholarly, extensively researched, insightful survey of Ameri-

ca's cinematic assault on the aggresor nations of World War II - Germany,

Japan, and Italy.

To some extent, Hollywood in the late 1930s was quicker to oppose what

would become the Axis, an earlier "evil empire" (Walter Lippmann did in

fact once describe Nazism as "ice-cold evil"), than the American govern-

ment. But even Hollywood moved cautiously, waging until our actual entry

into the war in 1941 a crusade in three-quarter time. For although Hollywood

was not subject to the geopolitical constraints confronting the Roosevelt ad-

ministration, its actions were circumscribed by the demands of the box of-

fice - will it play in Peoria? - and the sensitivities of the foreign market. Ac-

cordingly, filmmakers felt that overtly political themes were to be avoided

and thus adopted Augustus's motto "to make haste slowly" (p. 144) in their

war on Fascism, especially in dealing with the Spanish Civil War. This policy

was not always strictly adhered to - how could it when the studios employ-

ed such prominent leftist writers as Clifford Odets, John Howard Lawson,

and Lillian Hellman? - and some viewers were predictably antagonized. For

example, although efforts were made not to offend the Roman Catholic

Church, largely supportive of Franco's forces, Blockade (1938) incurred the

wrath of the Knights of Columbus and was banned in twelve countries de-

• 13
 

Book Reviews                                                   73

 

spite the appeal of the film's star, Henry Fonda; one of Fonda's emotional

perorations was denounced by the Ohio Knights of Columbus as "Marxist

propaganda, historically false and intellectually dishonest" (p. 20). Indica-

tive of the filmmaker's dilemma, Blockade was in turn endorsed by the Cali-

fornia Council of Federated Churchwomen and the National Council of Jew-

ish Women.

Fighting Fascism while abjuring the political or dealing in particulars re-

sulted in some truly unique films, particularly those westerns produced by

Republic Studios, maker of profitable horse operas geared to the aesthetic

preferences of the callow, the unsophisticated, and sundry other matinee

marauders. To further satisfy the tastes of its audience, Republic produced a

new western genre - fascism on the range. Villains had always been clad in

black. Now, in Range Defenders (1937), added to the black were white light-

ning flashes, resulting in dress suggestive of that worn by Himmler's SS. In

Pals of the Saddle (1938), featuring John Wayne (always an early enlistee in

wars on the celluloid front), alert cowpokes thwart foreign agents. In 1939 Re-

public offered In Old Monterey, a plea for military preparedness starring

America's "Singing Cowboy," Gene Autry. The film's high point, the "piece

de resistance," according to Dick, was "crotchety George 'Gabby' Hayes,

Autry's sidekick, singing 'Columbia, Gem of the Ocean'" (p. 49).

Dick is most perceptive when analyzing those films made after the United

States officially entered the war. He notes the distinction between how the

Germans and Japanese were pictured: Germans came off relatively clean,

their behavior portrayed as lying somewhere between the pathological and

inhuman (this before the horrific full disclosure of the death camps), while

the Japanese, conversely, were seen as flatly subhuman. An occasional good

German, or even a half-decent Nazi, cropped up, but the Japanese were nev-

er even treated as individuals. Films such as Flying Tigers, Air Force, Bataan

(one's childhood memory still retains the image of those shadowy, ghost-

like forms charging relentlessly toward Robert Taylor's last stand), The Pur-

ple Heart, God is my Co-Pilot, and Objective Burma depicted or suggested an

unthinking lower form of life committing heinous atrocities. These films suc-

cessfully mobilized hatred of the Japanese, probably an emotional impera-

tive following Pearl Harbor and other American disasters of the first six

months of the war in the Pacific, but in retrospect are embarrassingly racist

and best left to television's midnight time-slot.

Those films whose goal was to portray Russian and Stalin in a favorable

light after Russia, by necessity, entered the lists against Hitler also receive

thorough coverage. Playing a prominent role in producing this type of film

were a number of left-wing, pro-Soviet, and in some cases genuine Communist

party screenwriters, some of whom would later during the Cold War years at-

tain fame, or notoriety, depending upon ones political predilections, as the

Hollywood Ten. They were encouraged and aided by a government tempo-

rarily suffering from an illusion that would in time permanently govern Ameri-

can perceptions of foreign countries: any country, Stalin's Soviet Union in this

instance, however unsavory its political past or present, is automatically re-

deemed (and blithely declared democratic) upon making common cause

with the United States. Writers such as Lillian Hellman, Paul Jarrico, Alvah

Bessie, Lester Cole, John Howard Lawson, Adrain Scott, and Dalton Trum-

bo were involved with the making of such films as: Sahara, Action in the

North Atlantic, and the "unashamedly Stalinist" Song of Russia (p. 212);

• 14
 

74                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

Tender Comrade, Mission to Moscow - made at the request of FDR, its pur-

pose was "to convert Americans from Russophobia to temporary Russophil-

ia" (p. 158) - and The North Star, retitled "Oklahomaski" by one cynic be-

cause of its depiction of the idyllic life on a collective farm in the Ukraine,

ruined only by ruthless invading Nazis. All of these writers to some degree

or the other sought to palliate Stalin's Soviet Union and its political system.

That the Soviet Union, whatever its political system, did in fact bear the

brunt of fighting the Germans, and that whatever messages the films con-

tained were either harmless or so obscure as to be discernible only to the al-

ready converted, mattered little to later Cold Warriors, most notably mem-

bers of the House Committee on Un-American Activities who would see to it

that these writers paid a price for their political indiscretions.

Star-Spangled Screen is so thorough, so well researched, and so eminently

readable that no brief review can do it justice. Dick's sources, conveniently

listed for the reader, include most of the published works pertaining to his

topic and, more importantly, studio archival collections. This writer found

particularly fascinating his detailed accounts of the evolution of a number of

screenplays and scripts into their final form. Casablanca, "fiction elevated to

fable, then translated into myth" (p. 167), is of course a familiar story. (One

still shudders at the film's fate had it starred, as originally planned, Ronald

Reagan and Ann Sheridan.) But Dick also provides accounts of numerous all

but forgotten movies, including the first, to this writer's knowledge, of the

path taken by Warner Brothers in converting Sigmund Romberg's operetta,

The Desert Song, into a war film in which Nazis replaced French colonialists

as the villains of the piece. Such meticulous research has resulted in a book

of which the author can be proud. It is also that type of quality publication

one has grown accustomed to expect from The University Press of Kentucky.

Ohio Historical Society                          Robert L. Daugherty

 

 

Coxey's Army: An American Odyssey. By Carlos A. Schwantes. (Lincoln:

University of Nebraska Press, 1985. xii + 321p.; notes, illustrations, index.

$22.95.)

 

On March 25, 1894, 122 unemployed marchers and 44 journalists tramped

out of Massillon, Ohio, bound for Washington, D.C. Calling themselves the

Commonweal of Christ, they were better known as Coxey's Army. Five

weeks later, on May 1st, Washington police prevented Coxey from delivering

an address from the capitol steps and, in what is best described as a police

riot, arrested Coxey and two associates for carrying signs on the capitol

grounds and walking on the grass. Convicted, they served twenty days in

jail. Numerous other armies formed in the west, intending to rendezvous in

Washington and join in petitioning Congress for public works employment in

the face of severe depression. Given massive press coverage, the marches

very much lived up to Schwantes' characterization as "an unemployment ad-

venture story" (p. 46).

Good copy in 1894, Coxey is still good copy today. Schwantes sets out to

reconstruct the various marches and place them in the context of the 1893

depression. It is a colorful tale, involving over 50 locomotive thefts, several

• 15
 

Book Reviews                                                   75

 

train chases, clashes between marchers and deputy federal marshals, mass

arrests and mass imprisonments. Stronger on description than analysis,

Coxey's Army is a vivid portrayal of this mid-1890s phenomenon.

Schwantes calls the late-nineteenth century "the golden age of the crank"

(p. 47), a category to which he assigns Jacob Coxey. A prosperous Massillon

quarry owner, Coxey was also a currency reformer and an advocate of better

country roads. After the onset of the 1893 depression, he developed a

scheme whereby the federal government would make what were in effect

interest-free loans to local governments to be used for public improvements,

thereby relieving unemployment. At an 1893 Bimetallic League convention in

Chicago he met California promoter Carl Browne, an outlandish figure who,

clad in Buffalo Bill garb, gave street-corner lectures on currency and econom-

ics. Wintering with Coxey in Massillon, Browne not only conceived of the

march of the unemployed to publicize Coxey's public works schemes, but,

for good measure, converted Coxey to his beliefs in reincarnation as well.

With the idiosyncratic Browne orchestrating what today would be called

a media event, Coxey's ideas received national dissemination and caught the

imagination of countless thousands. The appeal, however, was distinctly sec-

tional: armies formed in the midwest and far west; the south and northeast

were largely unaffected. In the west Coxeyites added federal irrigation proj-

ects to the list of demanded public works.

Schwantes tells us more about the marches than the marchers; we learn

little more than that they were unemployed and represented a wide range of

occupations. On the road they distanced themselves from tramps and ho-

boes, sang patriotic songs, conducted religious services, and would not scab

on local labor. "Marching" from the west coast to Washington involved al-

most insuperable hurdles; Coxeyites and transcontinental railroads engaged

in continuous running battles of wits and wills, with the federal courts coming

down squarely on the side of the railroads. Most likely to supply traveling

armies with food and shelter were communities in which organized labor or

the Populist party were disproportionately strong.

In a larger sense, Schwantes interprets Coxeyism as a first attempt at defin-

ing unemployment as a national problem requiring federal intervention. An

unconvincing solution in the 1890s, large-scale public works, if not interest-

free bonds, became a mainstay of economic policy in the 1930s. And Coxey,

in a fitting sequel, became a depression-era mayor of Massillon. Schwantes

has given us a solid and vivid depiction of a significant episode in American

history, an early milestone on the long road to a greater federal domestic

presence. The research is thorough, the writing excellent. Schwantes cap-

tures the drama inherent in the story. Here is a book that can be read for

pleasure as well as profit.

The University of Akron                            Douglas V. Shaw

 

 

Outposts of the War for Empire. The French and English in Western Pennsyl-

vania: Their Armies, Their Forts, Their People, 1749-1764. By Charles M.

Stotz. (Pittsburgh: Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania and Univer-

sity of Pittsburgh Press, 1985. xii + 203p.; illustrations, bibliography,

notes, index. $34.95).

• 16
 

76                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

The late Charles M. Stotz of Pittsburgh was an architect, museum design-

er, author, trustee and officer of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylva-

nia, and one of the leading authorities on 18th century fortifications in the

United States. His career as an architect stretched from 1922 to 1971 and in-

cluded the design of facilities ranging from houses to research labs. For this

work he was recognized as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Notoriety as a restoration architect came from work on some forty buildings,

including the historic village at Old Economy in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

For our story, however, his greatest accomplishments were the design of the

reconstruction of Fort Ligonier at Ligonier, Pennsylvania, and the partial re-

building of Fort Pitt at Pittsburgh.

Stotz became thoroughly involved in the study of frontier fortifications in

the mid-1940s when he was commissioned to prepare plans and specifica-

tions for the reconstruction of Fort Ligonier. Thereafter it became a lifetime

ambition to research the physical location, construction, and appearance of

French and Indian War forts in eastern North America through local, nation-

al and international archives. As an architect, Stotz strove to produce studies

comprehensive enough to actually make it possible to physically recreate a

frontier fort. Where historic drawings or documents lacked adequate detail,

he filled in with information gained from a careful study of manuals written in

the 17th and 18th century as a guide to neophyte military officers. For archi-

tectural minutiae he relied on his knowledge of log buildings erected during

the late-18th and early-19th centuries in western Pennsylvania.

Outposts of the War for Empire represents the culmination of Stotz's almost

40 years of study of frontier fortifications. It is in essence an architectural his-

tory of the 24 forts built in western Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania

between 1749 and 1764. This time frame begins with the Celeron expedition

and follows the English, French, and Indian struggles through Bouquet's

campaign into the Ohio country. The volume is divided into three parts.

First is a narrative of the events which surrounded the erection of the forts.

Almost half the volume is a review of the structural history and appearance of

the forts themselves. Finally Stotz included a detailed chronicle of the re-

construction of Fort Ligonier complete with his construction drawings and

photos of the work in progress. The latter is an adaptation of material pub-

lished in 1974 in the Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology.

The first question to ask is how Stotz chose this particular group of forts for

his study. No clear answer is found in the text except the obvious interest of

a life-long Pittsburgh resident and the Historical Society of Western Pennsyl-

vania in that geographical area. While there are certainly many other frontier

forts of the French and Indian War outside this area that are worthy of

study, Stotz and his publisher should probably be forgiven their provincial-

ism, if for no other reason than in recognition of the great labor inherent in

the author's approach to each fortification. Stotz gathered not only original

plats and drawings of these forts, but for nineteen of what he considered

"the most important installations," he prepared meticulously detailed

"bird's-eye" perspectives from a 45-degree aerial angle. The assemblage of

these historic and modern reconstructive drawings, which are handsomely

reproduced in an oversize format, are clearly the major contribution of the

volume. But the limited scope led, unfortunately, to several erroneous state-

ments. The claim that the siege of Niagara in 1759 was the only example of

the use of European siege tactics in North America was caught by the editors

• 17
 

Book Reviews                                                    77

 

and corrected in the caption for an illustration, but remained in the main text.

This ignores, of course, any number of occurrences elsewhere, not the least

of which was the British siege of Louisbourg in 1758. The assertion that a

porch was rare on frontier forts could only result from a lack of familiarity

with the numbers of military quarters with porches built at frontier forts on

both sides of the Appalachians from the Revolution through the War of

1812.

A more serious organizational flaw came from the separation of the histori-

cal narrative from the physical history of each fort. This necessitates flipping

back and forth between two sections to get the whole story on any one struc-

ture. Separate as it is, the historical narrative is merely a brief rehash of

ground historiographically already well trod and better covered. If it had

been put with the appropriate text on each fort, it would have measurably

expanded the understanding of the architecture that was Stotz's real focus.

My prime disappointment as a historian is Stotz's missed opportunity to

compare and contrast the architecture he so intimately described. Even

though the forts were arranged according to the French, Maryland and Vir-

ginian, Pennsylvanian or English origin of their builders, the author never

presented any analysis of what he spent 40 years gathering. His personal

viewpoint as an architect could have, for example, been used for a discussion

of the design characteristics common among or unique to each nationality.

While a section is provided on "the builders of the forts," it is little more

than a series of biographical sketches with little reference to the actual types

of structures they created.

Outposts shows the careful attention to detail which has become the

hallmark of the editing of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania,

and the quality of the production and design is exemplary. In addition, the

overall quality of Stotz's drawings are first-rate. In fact his perspective draw-

ings of "the parts of a fort" and "typical walls of the frontier fort" are the

most descriptive and clearest of any that I have seen. Furthermore, the crea-

tion of "birds-eye" views of nineteen "outposts" provides information and a

perspective which have been lost ever since the mid-18th century. Many of

these places did indeed figure large in the frontier history of the Ohio Val-

ley. A mental image of their appearance was previously possible only after

laboring over any number of contemporary descriptions found scattered

throughout the literature and archives. Stotz has made it possible to exam-

ine these places in detail with uncommon ease from our 20th century vantage

point. Together the author and publisher created a remarkable research tool

for those interested in military architecture and engineering in particular, as

well as those intrigued with the 18th century Ohio Valley frontier in general.

My main regret is that the author, who died in the spring of 1985, did not re-

ally finish the job he started.

Ohio Historical Society                           David A. Simmons

 

 

 

America Enters the World: A People's History of the Progressive Era. Volume

Seven. By Page Smith. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985. xiii

+ ¹⁰⁸⁹p.; index. $29.95.)

• 18
 

78                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

In the 19th century, patrician amateurs dominated the craft of historical

writing and produced pietistic narratives for the educated public. These ex-

tensive narratives focused on the formal institutions of political life, elections,

legislation, and, of course, war. The first professional historians shared this

emphasis on political history, narrowly defined. "History is past Politics and

Politics present History," read the slogan above the seminar room at Johns

Hopkins University, an important center of the new profession in the late-19th

century. At the turn of the century, however, a group of talented and imagina-

tive young historians challenged the profession's narrow emphasis. The pro-

gressive historians, especially Turner and Beard, dramatically enlarged the

scope and methods of historical research to include demography, statistics,

economics, and sociology. Not content with a superficial examination of polit-

ical institutions, the progressives searched for social and economic determi-

nants of political behavior.

The progressives shaped the modern historical profession and are respon-

sible for much of its strength. But they also bequeathed to the profession

two difficult and related problems. Despite their own talent for narrative and

synthesis, the progressives' emphasis on underlying factors and the scientif-

ic methods of uncovering them led the profession towards the ever more ob-

scure and technically complex monograph. The decline of narrative and syn-

thesis has isolated the profession from the broader educated public and,

moreover, has made it difficult even for specialists within the profession to

find common ground for debate. Page Smith has attempted to resolve at least

the first of these problems. Since the 1970s when he distanced himself from

the profession and the university, Smith has endeavored to return American

history to the American people. In America Enters the World, the seventh

volume of his People's History of the United States, Smith has brought the

narrative skill of the 19th-century historians to the enlarged scope of modern

historical writing.

As a narrative Smith's volume succeeds very well in a difficult task. Smith

forswears a narrow perspective, treating such varied topics as the founding of

the IWW, the Greenwich Village literary renaissance, and the influence of

Freudian psychology on American intellectuals; yet his narrative holds to-

gether. The dominating personalities of Roosevelt and Wilson shape the

work, but not to the exclusion of all else. Smith's impressive gift for storytell-

ing works equally well in rendering TR's penchant for testing foreign diplo-

mats with strenuous feats of endurance and Big Bill Haywood's strange so-

journ in Mabel Dodge's salon. More successfully than in earlier volumes,

Smith has integrated the history of workers, blacks, and women into his nar-

rative (though he would have benefited from a closer examination of some

important monographs in these fields). Abandoning the professional's quix-

otic quest for objectivity, Smith brings a judicious moral sensibility to his

task. Thus he can acknowledge the sincere, if shallow, moral vision of Wil-

son's Fourteen Points, while also detailing the hypocritically illiberal sup-

pression of wartime dissent. A work at once serious and entertaining, Smith's

narrative deserves and will satisfy a wide and educated audience.

As a synthesis, however, Smith's book is less successful. Perhaps it is un-

fair to say that his book disappoints the professional historian, since Smith is

not writing for the professional. But we need works of synthesis, especially on

the much studied but ill-understood Progressive Era, and Smith is capable

of such a work. The problem is not that he avoids central themes; the war

• 19
 

Book Reviews                                                   79

 

between capital and labor, the emergence of America as a world power, the

expansion of governmental power, and the development of an intelligentsia

are central themes in his work. What Smith fails to do is to explore the re-

lationships between his themes. Was America's increasing involvement in

world affairs partly an attempt to resolve or limit the conflict between capital

and labor? How great a role did the intelligentsia play in the growth of feder-

al power and progressive reform? Such questions are central to professional

debates, but they are also questions which the reading public should be

asked to consider. Smith has combined a traditional political narrative with

an entertaining and informative catalog of economic, social, and cultural top-

ics. What remains to be done is to explore the relationship of one to the oth-

er.

Xavier University                                 John D. Fairfield

 

 

The First Suburbs: Residential Communities on the Boston Periphery, 1815-

1860. By Henry C. Binford (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

xiv + 304p.; illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $25.00.)

 

The 1980 census figures indicate that the United States is no longer pre-

dominately a rural or an urban nation; more of the country's population now

lives in suburban areas than in central cities or the countryside. Surprisingly,

historians have paid relatively little attention to the origins of this phenome-

non. Sam Bass Warner's classic Streetcar Suburbs is now over twenty years

old and, while there have been some important journal articles in the inter-

vening years, there have been few book-length studies. The drought seems

to have ended, however, with the publication in 1985 of two important

works: Kenneth T. Jackson's Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the

United States and, the subject of this review, Henry C. Binford's The First

Suburbs.

While Binford's focus (on the Boston suburbs of Cambridge and Somer-

ville during the antebellum decades) is narrower than Jackson's national

overview, his monograph nevertheless is an important addition to the litera-

ture of American urban/suburban history. Indeed, his conscious decision to

probe deeply into the local history of these two communities has enabled

him to identify, and to describe more fully than anyone to date, the exis-

tence of a complex stage "between preindustrial village and residential dor-

mitory" (p. 5). He argues convincingly that such an investigation demon-

strates the inadequacy of viewing suburban history as "a linear, accelerating

process beginning about 1850 and leading to Levittown" (p. 3).

A common conception is that the suburbs resulted principally from urban

expansion, the "take-off' coming in the late-nineteenth century with the ex-

tension of street railway service. For some cities this may be an accurate de-

scription. Binford shows, however, that a "fringe" population and economy

flourished on the Boston periphery during the first third of the century. Per-

forming services for the urban market-services best performed outside the

city-the region exhibited a "city oriented but not citified way of life" (p.

19). Between 1845 and 1860 this "fringe" gradually developed into some-

thing recognizably "suburban," a transformation the author analyzes in

• 20
 

80                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

great detail. His discussion of the growth of commuting is especially valua-

ble, since changes in the nature and use of public transportation were, in-

deed, crucial to the process. But it is among Binford's contributions to show

that the "old" suburban residents, not just newly out-migrating Bostonians,

played a crucial role in beginning the commuting process and led the way in

promoting the local transportation revolution.

These "first suburbs," therefore, were "not just artifacts of city expansion

but products of a community-building process .. ." (p. 2). And it was as a re-

sult of this on-going "process of social and political redefinition" (p. 154) that

a majority of those living on the periphery came to define their communities

in residential, rather than commercial or industrial, terms. This victory of the

domestic ideal over the entrepreneurial vitality of the "fringe" created the

modern suburb.

This thoroughly researched, engagingly written, and well-produced vol-

ume suggests several new lines of inquiry. It also whets the appetite for

comparative work in other communities in order to answer the inevitable

question: How representative is this original case study? But Binford's ac-

complishment in this book is substantial, and students of the American city

will need to be familiar with his findings and interpretation.

Indiana Historical Bureau                         Robert G. Barrows

 

 

Law, Alcohol, and Order: Perspectives on National Prohibition. Edited by

David E. Kyvig. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1985. xiii +

218p.; notes, index. $35.00.)

 

The Eleutherian Mills Historical Society in Wilmington, Delaware, hosted

a conference in April, 1983, to contemplate the implications of Prohibition's

repeal fifty years earlier. This volume contains eleven essays delivered at, or

written as a consequence of, that conference.

There is a nice balance among the essays between the general and the spe-

cific. David Kyvig's keynote address presents a concise summary of alcohol's

role in American history, together with "Myths and Realities" about the

Prohibition experience that recent scholarship has uncovered. Mark Keller's

"Alcohol Problems and Policies in Historical Perspective" traces cultural atti-

tudes toward alcohol back to ancient times, and summarizes scientific inter-

est in the subject since repeal. Other essays are more narrowly focused. One

examines pre-Prohibition medical attitudes toward alcohol's therapeutic

value. Another investigates Prohibition decisions rendered by one of the

federal government's ten appellate circuits.

Given the diversity of participant backgrounds-history, political science,

law-the papers at times complement each other surprisingly well. Clement

Vose places in broader perspective Kyvig's summary of state ratification con-

ventions leading to repeal. Attorney Rayman Solomon's examination of the

Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals' Prohibition decisions reveals, in part, judi-

cial concern about the proper behavior of federal prohibition officers. This

dovetails nicely with Paul Murphy's finding that the Supreme Court's deci-

sions involving alcohol showed increasing concern for federal protection of

individual rights.

• 21
 

Book Reviews                                                    81

 

Scholars have a penchant for finding legacies in commemorative occasions.

Humbert Nelli and Mark Haller agree that repeal was key to the post-World

War II development of Las Vegas gambling. Nelli, however, sees bootleggers

as a continuation of criminal syndicate activity that dotted American cities

since Reconstruction. By contrast, Haller stresses the individual and en-

trepreneurial roots of Las Vegas gambling lords, who learned business,

investment, and management techniques as bootleggers. Kyvig fears that

Prohibition and repeal have made Americans more reluctant to change the

Constitution. Murphy dates the beginnings of an organized concern for civil

liberties in the prohibition era. To Mark Lender, repeal cleared the way for

nontemperance solutions to problem drinkers, represented by private and

later public institutional support. Incidentally, Keller's essay, based upon a

half-century of involvement in alcohol studies, outlines the process by which

that focus ultimately turned to a narrower concern for alcoholism.

Nuala Drescher advances the most original legacy of Prohibition. She ar-

gues that, in severely weakening the United Brewery Workers' union, nation-

al Prohibition stifled the most powerful liberal voice within the American

Federation of Labor. Without Prohibition, the UBW's size and passionate

devotion to socialism and to race and gender equality might have advanced

a sense of class consciousness within organized labor.

Unfortunately, some scholars could not resist the temptation to find les-

sons in history. Prohibition, we are told, shows that human nature resists

change by fiat. The Constitution is no place to legitimize change based upon

shifting scientific judgments. As a constitutional experiment, Prohibition was

a "gaudy failure." (Most of these "lessons," contradicted by recent scholar-

ship, have alleged contemporary ramifications in such issues as abortion,

drug regulation, and mandatory prayers in schools.) For those seeking a

quick fix for liquor problems Keller offers the most sobering lesson of all:

"The people who succeeded in substantially reducing their alcohol prob-

lems did so through a cultural agency-specifically, religion" (pp. 170-71).

This volume has a little something for everyone. The Kyvig and Keller es-

says present a nice overview for novices to the topic. There is some grist for

those interested in the political and constitutional process. Specialists in alco-

hol history will welcome Lender's impressive agenda for further research on

post-repeal issues. Whether all of the essays will appeal to all of these groups

remains problematic.

University of Kansas                                Lloyd Sponholtz

 

 

President Washington's Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-

1795. By Wiley Sword. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. xvi

+ 400p.; maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95.)

 

The United States' conquest of the native Americans and British allies in

the Old Northwest has long been great interest to midwesterners because of

its critical import to the development of their region. Wiley Sword treats this

familiar tale in a reasonably well-researched and competently written de-

scriptive history of the encounter between white and red men that makes few

additions to the literature of the age.

• 22
 

82                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

Essentially the Sword version is flawed in three ways. First, while he has

explored most of the primary sources relating to the age, he has hardly

tapped any of the vast array of recent secondary materials that would have

given his account the depth of analysis we should expect. For anyone to

write of this period without consulting such essential works as Richard

Kohn's Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Es-

tablishment in America (1975), Charles Royster's A Revolutionary People at

War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783 (1980), and

James Kirby Martin and Mark Edward Lender's A Respectable Army: The

Military Origins of the Republic, 1763-1789 (1982) means that some of the most

critical insights about the relationship of the army to the citizenry of the re-

public are ignored. While one cannot have expected him to have consulted

Paul David Nelson's recent biography of Anthony Wayne, surely several of

Nelson's articles on this topic should have been utilized. The net effect of

these omissions is that Sword's study was outdated at the time of its publi-

cation. In particular, his interpretation of the militia's combat effectiveness is

woefully behind current scholarship as is his analysis of the Militia Act of

1792.

Second, despite the careful analysis of many primary sources, the writing

and the logic behind many arguments, descriptions, and conclusions are

questionable. For instance, General Josiah Harmar is criticized for training

his troops in a regular manner, while General Wayne is praised for doing the

same thing. His descriptions of St. Clair's Defeat on November 4, 1791 (it

should truly be called Little Turtle's Victory, but one cannot expect the tra-

ditional title to be modified any more than one can expect the same to occur

regarding what we call Custer's Last Stand), do not conform to the actions

illustrated on the accompanying map and are confusing. Much the same can

be said about the analysis of the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Moreover, the fail-

ure to delineate the provisions of the Fort Harmar Treaty of 1789 means that

the reader never sees their importance to the Greeneville Treaty of 1795.

Finally, the whole book is too narrowly focused. Despite its title, it is not

about President Washington's conduct of the war (something we truly need);

it is rather another account of Generals Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne in oppo-

sition to Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, Joseph Brant, Simon Girty, and Alexander

McKee. As such it is reasonably satisfactory. However, Sword fails to com-

prehend Washington's role in directing the overall Indian policy of the Unit-

ed States, the influence of the Indian troubles on the southwestern frontier

upon that policy, the limits that the Whiskey Rebellion imposed upon Feder-

al action, and the options other than war that confronted the native Ameri-

cans.

For those wanting an introduction to the first campaigns in the Old North-

west this is a solid place to begin. However, I would suggest one also read

Paul David Nelson's Anthony Wayne: Soldier of the Early Republic (1985) for

a more thorough and imaginative account.

Bowling Green State University                   David Curtis Skaggs

 

Nashville The Occupied City: The First Seventeen Months-February 16,

1862, to June 30, 1863. By Walter T. Durham. (Nashville: Tennessee Histor-

ical Society, 1985. xv + 307p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.

$18.95.)

• 23
 

Book Reviews                                                   83

 

The first of a projected two-volume study of Nashville under Union rule,

this book is a modest addition to the small body of Civil War literature that

deals with occupied portions of Confederate territory. The months covered

here were traumatic for Nashville's citizens, who were overwhelmingly pro-

southern. The fall of Fort Donelson, Joseph E. Johnston's decision to retreat

without even trying to defend the city, and the approach of Yankee troops ig-

nited a panic among Nashvillians. Rioting occurred and many prominent se-

cessionists fled for their lives. The arrival of Federal forces and (several

weeks later) of Military Governor Andrew Johnson placed the Tennessee cap-

ital under a "dual siege." One siege was political, as Johnson tried to consoli-

date his grip on Nashville and build loyalist support. Hampering his efforts

was the other siege, a military one conducted by Confederate cavalrymen

John H. Morgan and Nathan B. Forrest, by organized partisans and ad hoc

guerrillas, and by the Army of Tennessee's lingering threat.

The author of seven other historical works about Tennessee, a past presi-

dent of both the Tennessee Historical Society and the Tennessee Heritage

Alliance, and a former chairperson of the Tennessee Historical Commission,

Durham has unearthed an abundance of factual data about both sieges. Re-

garding the internal siege, he presents a vast amount of information about the

administration of loyalty oaths, the military arrest of civilians, spying and

smuggling, the city's distressed economy, the influx of refugees, the use of

private property for Union hospitals and headquarters, Yankee troops be-

havior that ranged from attending the theater to consorting with prostitutes,

the effort to maintain municipal services-in short, about virtually every as-

pect of the war's effect on an occupied city. And, concerning the Confederate

military siege, he duly discusses every threat to Nashville, whether real or

only rumored.

Unfortunately, the book lacks the organization and broad, integrating

themes that would tie all of this detail together. Many topics, such as loyalty

oaths and spies and smugglers, discussed in one part of the narrative pop up

again-and again and again. The chapter structure conveys some sense of

this disorganization. For instance, Chapters XIV ("Living With The Yan-

kees"), XV ("Smugglers, Spies, and The Loyalty Oaths"), and XVI ("Garri-

son Town") all deal with the first half of 1863. Moreover, the author has

made little effort to show how events in Nashville had a larger importance for

the nation as it wrestled with wartime Reconstruction problems in occupied

southern territory. The book's rambling style and narrow focus detract sub-

stantially from its potential significance.

In trying to reconstruct events in occupied Nashville, the author made ex-

cellent use of the Official Records, wartime newspapers, and the collections

of the Tennessee State Library and Archives. His research in collections in

other state repositories and in the National Archives is less thorough and,

especially surprising, the author is apparently unaware of relevant disserta-

tions, such as Edwin T. Hardison's on Johnson's tenure as military governor,

John Cimprich's on slavery in Tennessee during the Civil War, Stephen V.

Ash's on blacks in Middle Tennessee between 1860-1870, and May Alice

Ridley's on the black community of Nashville between 1860-1870.

Since historians should always indicate any possible source of bias, read-

ers of this review should know that in 1978 I published a book on wartime

Nashville. However, even if Durham's book had dealt with a different occu-

• 24
 

84                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

pied city, I believe that I would have come to the same conclusions about it:

extremely detailed; solid, though not exhaustive, research; deficient in or-

ganization and analysis.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln                       Pete Maslowski

 

 

Men of Patriotism, Courage, & Enterprise! Fort Meigs In The War of 1812. By

Larry L. Nelson. (Canton, Ohio: Daring Books, 1985. xiv + 156p.; illustra-

tions, notes, appendix, bibliography, index. $5.95 paper; $15.95 cloth.)

 

Larry Nelson, in his preface to this story of Fort Meigs, made perhaps the

most perceptive statement in his book when he said regarding victory and

defeat in the War of 1812, "the tribes of the Indian nation were . . . the ulti-

mate losers in the conflict. For enemy and ally alike, the dream of Indian au-

tonomy was swept aside by the rush of westward expansion at the war's con-

clusion." The Indiana frontier was populous enough to become a state in

1816; Illinois was added in 1818. As for the British and Americans who

fought, this reviewer remembers the Canadian historian who appeared at

Ohio Northern University some years ago who proved conclusively (at least

to his own satisfaction) that Canada had won the War of 1812. There is

something to be said for his viewpoint, and certainly there were men of patri-

otism, courage and enterprise on his side as well as among the Americans at

Fort Meigs-and for the same reasons. Nevertheless, when the war was over

the boundaries of the United States and Canada were precisely where they

were when the war began and, as Nelson observes, the substantive issues

which had led to the war were ignored. It is difficult to find much victory in

a situation of that kind for British (Canadians) or Americans. But the Indians

had clearly lost.

Nelson has done well with the primary sources which he so often quotes

to establish the patriotism, courage and enterprise of the men of Fort Meigs.

He also shows how those sterling qualities can be thrust into the back-

ground, as happened during the regime of General Leftwich in March of

1813. Patriotism, courage and enterprise can turn into selfishness, complaints

and near disaster when leadership deteriorates. While Nelson considers the

emotional side of military service his overriding interest, he has very effect-

ively told us the broad story of military events as well, going beyond Fort

Meigs itself and treating the whole Western campaign-Fort Stephenson,

Perry and Lake Erie, and the Thames. This puts Fort Meigs in true perspec-

tive as the base from which military things happened in the West from the

American point of view. We even get glimpses at times of the problems that

Proctor and the British were facing, and they were fully as troublesome as

those faced by General Harrison, the American commander.

One can legitimately ask whether the patriotism, courage, and enterprise

displayed at Fort Meigs and in the West in the War of 1812 were superior to

that demonstrated by servicemen elsewhere or at other times. Nelson does

not claim that they were. Then why the emphasis upon these traits in this

volume? Nelson in his final sentences concludes that "Emotional involve-

ment was denied, repressed and abandoned, replaced with a stoic resigna-

tion and numbness." Certainly that statement could describe the reaction to

the scenes of war of other servicemen in other places and at other times. It is

• 25
 

Book Reviews                                                   85

 

not, however, a universal reaction. The existence of the Veterans of Foreign

Wars and the American Legion testify that many veterans look back upon

their service with satisfaction, and some of them glory in their patriotism,

courage and enterprise. Nelson does not say that his book is a condemnation

of all war, but in view of his concluding statement one could reach such a

conclusion. Then why the title of the book? Would it not have been better to

have reversed the title and subtitle?

Mr. Nelson has produced a readable account of the Western campaign in

the War of 1812. He has used his sources well. Where military events are

concerned there is clarity without too much depth for the casual reader and

he treats the men involved with sympathy. With the emotionalism of his title

he is, in this reviewers mind, ambiguous. Many people are, where war is con-

cerned.

Ohio Northern University                           Boyd M. Sobers

 

 

Sympathy & Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine. By Regina

Markell Morantz-Sanchez. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. xii

+ 464p.; notes, bibliography, appendix, index. $24.95.)

 

Sympathy & Science examines the role of women physicians in the United

States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, documenting their profes-

sional and personal lives, as well as the institutional and academic milieus in

which they studied and worked. Drawing on new interpretations in social

history, the history of medicine, and women's history, Morantz-Sanchez

makes a significant contribution to our understanding of professional and

public attitudes toward women's involvement in this field and the mecha-

nisms that women professionals developed to cope with such problems as

systematic discrimination on the part of medical schools and hospitals.

In the decades preceding the Civil War, public concern, particularly

among the reform community, led to the increased interest and involvement

of women in medical practice. Viewing health care as a corollary to their tra-

ditional domestic functions enabled these pioneers to justify their entrance

into the formal profession. Morantz-Sanchez argues, however, that this line

of reasoning, while probably helping women physicians in the nineteenth

century, was to work to their detriment in the twentieth century, as they

found themselves tracked into specialities, such as public health work and

preventive medicine, which bore an obvious relationship to women's tradi-

tional nurturing role.

A comparatively open environment for education and clinical experience

existed in the nineteenth century with the establishment of such institutions

as the Woman's Medical College of New York Infirmary, New England Hos-

pital for Women and Children, and the Woman's Medical College of Penn-

sylvania. By the early twentieth century, however, several factors led to a

decline in the number of women medical students and practitioners. As edu-

cational standards tightened and were tied to the presence of clinical and re-

search facilities, many of the women's schools closed; yet traditionally male

schools were reluctant to admit more than a token number of women. Women

professors were not hired, leading to an absence of role models for women

• 26
 

86                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

students, while the positive, supportive aspects of single-sex institutions were

lost in the transformation to the contemporary pattern of medical education in

teaching hospitals. The increasing shift of medicine from being a healing art

to being an exact science may also have led to a lessening of women's interest

in the profession. As Morantz-Sanchez notes, "The vigorous, detached, al-

most godlike figure of the twentieth-century physician-a product of the tri-

umph of scientific medicine-kept all but the most determined of [women

physicians] from challenging cultural barriers."

In the 1920s the decline of old-line feminism and the rise of companionate

marriage, with its implications for balancing family and career, dealt further

blows to women wishing to play an active role in the profession. Only since

the advent of the contemporary feminist movement have women once more

begun to play a significant role in the medical profession. Indeed, twenty-

five percent of today's medical students are women. The full impact of this

change, however, cannot be assessed until these students have had a

chance to vigorously test their skills in the professional arena.

Morantz-Sanchez presents her material with the ease that comes only after

years of immersion in a subject and its sources, and her bibliography dem-

onstrates how thorough her research has been. Especially strong is her abil-

ity to draw analogies between the individual and the general, as in her chap-

ter on Elizabeth Blackwell and Mary Putnam Jacobi's divergent attitudes

toward "scientific" and "moral" medicine. Statistical analysis is balanced

with anecdotes about individuals, and throughout the book the author suc-

ceeds in presenting a balanced, nonpolemical, yet appropriately revisionist,

view of the subject. Ohio readers will find references to such institutions as

Oberlin College and the Western Reserve Medical School of interest, al-

though the scope of the book is truly national. This is perhaps the best his-

torical study to yet appear on the topic of women and medicine. Morantz-

Sanchez sets a high standard that is worthy of emulation by all historians.

National Historical Publications and Records Commission  Nancy Sahli

 

Slavery in the Courtroom: An Annotated Bibliography of American Cases. By

Paul Finkelman. (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1985. xxviii +

312p.; notes, illustrations, appendix, selected bibliography, index. $12.00.)

 

In this book Paul Finkelman has furnished scholars with an invaluable an-

notated bibliography of materials focused upon American courtroom cases

relating to slavery. The publications summarized in the collection are drawn

from the holdings of the Library of Congress, from the extensive Trials Col-

lection of the Law Library as well as from other divisions of our great national

depository. The period covered ranges from the colonial era to the years of

the Civil War. The author has provided a guide to the resources of a particu-

lar library but has also offered a most useful account of American law as it re-

sponded to the challenge of slavery. Finkelman's approach is developmental,

showing the impact of trial decisions upon future cases and revealing how the

courtroom position of blacks was altered by changes in the place of slavery

within American society. The legal history we have here tells us much about

the provisions of statutes, but we also learn about the social context within

which statutes were interpreted.

• 27
 

Book Reviews                                                    87

 

Slavery In The Courtroom gives a sense of the human drama that charac-

terized the struggle over slavery. As the cases are outlined there appear the

conflicts that gave rise to them, the will of blacks to attain freedom and the

hard determination of slaveholders to cling to their property. Along with the

confrontation of legal issues there is also the test of will and intellect between

the legal advocates of slavery and those who would use the law as a vehicle

for freedom.

The volume presents many, if not all, of the cases that were turning points

in the legal history of slavery. Beginning with the British case of Somerset v.

Stewart, the book includes such important cases as Commonwealth v. Aves,

Dred Scott v. Sandford, Prigg v. Pennsylvania, In re Thomas Sims, United

States v. Hanway, In re Anthony Burns, Commonwealth v. Brown and United

States v. The Amistad. Court proceedings touched on a number of the key as-

pects of slavery, the status of the system in a free jurisdiction, the legal posi-

tion of fugitive slaves, the role of abolitionists, slave revolts, and the African

slave trade, and these questions are amply reflected in the author's annota-

tions.

Several themes emerge quite clearly from the book. 1. The struggle over

slavery encompassed every section of the nation, reaching into courts North

and South, as bondage could not exist without the support of legal institu-

tions. 2. The courtroom history of slavery reveals no inclination on the part of

slaveholders as a class to voluntarily abolish the institution. The plantation

owners were zealous and uncompromising in their insistence upon property

right in persons. 3. Prior to the Civil War the Federal Government was most

often a basic component of the machinery enforcing slavery, as perhaps most

clearly shown in the government's protection of slavery in the District of Co-

lumbia. 4. The law was an essential element of the ideological conflict be-

tween defenders and opponents of slavery, and the records of courtroom

cases made effective anti-slavery propaganda in the hands of abolitionists.

Generally, the legal critics of slavery had the better of the argument. The

courtroom history of slavery aids in understanding why the slaveholders in

the end lost all patience with electoral and legal debate and resorted to the

brute force of secession. The evidence supports the view that law reflects the

relationship between the contending classes of society and that those seek-

ing to change the social order must redefine the law.

This is a piece of scholarship that has been done with careful attention to

detail and an eye for broader implications. The author does not intrude upon

the evidence but rather simply and clearly outlines the background of events

and what happened in the legal cases. Serious students of American slavery

and of the history of American law will find this a book of enduring worth.

University of Cincinnati                             Herbert Shapiro

 

The Black Heart's Truth: The Early Career of W. D. Howells. By John W.

Crowley. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985. xv +

192p.; notes, index. $19.95.)

 

John Crowley, a professor of English at Syracuse University, titles his book

after something William Dean Howells wrote to Mark Twain, his old crony, in

1904. "I'd like immensely to read your autobiography," said Howells. "You

• 28
 

88                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

always rather bewildered me by your veracity, and I fancy you may tell the

truth about yourself. But all of it?.... Even you won't tell the black heart's-

truth."

Professor Crowley's psychoanalytical biography and literary criticism of

Howells discerns some buried truths unrecognized by Howells himself. The

Black Heart's Truth reveals no lurid villanies in the decent and high-minded

Ohioan, but finds him to have been victim of more than his share of Oedipal

and other complexes.

Crowley is not the first scholar to find neurotic obsession in young Will

Howells and his earlier books. He has been preceded, in one way or anoth-

er, by Edwin Cady, Kermit Vanderbilt, Kenneth Lynn, George C. Carring-

ton, and Elizabeth Stevens Prioleau. Profiting from their insights, Crowley

has pushed on to more detailed and precise analyses than theirs. Unlike Ms.

Prioleau's recent The Circle of Eros: Sexuality in the Work of William Dean

Howells (Duke, 1983), Crowley denies himself clinical jargon and sensational

exaggeration, and he is more persuasive than she.

The general reader of Howells, if any remain nowadays outside the univer-

sities, may well be puzzled to learn that Howells' seemingly bland, "unevent-

ful" novels have proved to be catnip to the Freudians. What kinks or psy-

chic tensions could be found beneath these smooth, cool, serene fictions?

Plenty. Crowley's analyses are detailed and technical, but we may sample

the main features of his principal exhibit, A Modern Instance (1882), Howells'

first major novel and possibly his best.

Anyone who can read is aware that A Modern Instance is a sexually intense

story, and it is well known that Howells suffered a breakdown-physical,

psychological, and literary-in his struggle to map out the ending of the nov-

el. His breakdown was apparently the result of havoc caused in his psyche

by identifying with his novel's characters.

There was, first, what Freudians term the incestuous implications for How-

ells in his heroine's over-close attachment to her father-and what this

meant in the secret soul of Howells, himself the father of a troubled daugh-

ter. There was also his ambivalence toward his tragic antihero, Bartley Hub-

bard, a young journalist based in part on Howells himself at the same age. In

Howells' sympathy, yet hostility, toward Bartley Hubbard, Professor Crow-

ley sees Howells subconsciously defending, yet also punishing, the "criminal

element" in himself. Crowley also sees Howells confused by the tangle of free

will and psychological determinism in his hero and heroine-that is, in their

degree of responsibility for themselves, morally and ethically, as adults.

Howells was probably unaware that in writing his tedious and puritanical

last chapters of A Modern Instance he was reversing, or unwriting, what he

had built up in the strong main part of the novel. He stands convicted in this

case of violating his own critical dictum: "The novel ends well that ends

faithfully."

The present reviewer has been skeptical of Freudian readings of Howells

heretofore, but Professor Crowley explains young Howells' psychological

problems better than previous critics. General readers will find The Black

Heart's Truth technical and specialist, but any sound and sensitive under-

standing of Howells from now on must study Crowley's admirable case histo-

ry.

University of Illinois at Chicago                  James B. Stronks

• 29
 

Book Reviews                                                    89

 

A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia. By Craig M.

Simpson. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. xviii +

450p.; illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.)

 

We know Henry A. Wise chiefly as Governor of Virginia during the 1859

trial and execution of John Brown. Now appears Craig Simpson's examination

of the life of his Virginia congressman, governor and Civil War general. In the

preface, Simpson announces his intention to meet the "traditional tests of bi-

ographical relevance-representativeness and significance." Simpson's biog-

raphy meets the former test more successfully than the latter. For, as repre-

sentative of Southern moderates who tried to dislodge the South from its

dangerous obsession with slavery during the troubled pre-Civil War dec-

ades, Wise certainly warrants the thorough, scholarly treatment he receives

at the hands of Simpson. Regarding Wise's significance, Simpson claims that

his subject "made a difference." However, it is difficult to see what real ef-

fect Wise had in energizing Virginia's potential, in restraining Southern hot-

heads in the 1850s, and in producing a solution to the problem of slavery.

Three themes dominate Simpson's study: Wise's political ambition, his in-

consistent policy toward slavery, and his devotion to Virginia. Maintaining an

appropriate distance from his subject, Simpson studies Wise's vacillations

throughout his tortuous political career (not unusual behavior for Americans

in the mid-nineteenth century). Elected in 1833 as a pro-Jackson Democratic

Congressman, Wise joined the Whigs in 1837, and while still in Congress

served as informal advisor to President John Tyler. After three years as Min-

ister to Brazil, Wise returned to the Democratic Party in 1847 and was elected

Democratic Governor of Virginia in 1856. Finally, in the 1870s Wise leaned to-

ward Grant and the Republicans. Immersed in these policy shifts and con-

tradictions, the reader looks for more narrative. For example, regarding John

Brown's trial, Simpson plunges into a discussion of both Brown and Wise.

Granted, all readers are familiar with this fateful event, but before the ex-

tended analysis of the two men, one would like to know Wise's immediate re-

action to Brown's raid and why he decided to have Brown tried in a Virgin-

ia, not federal, court. Similarly, after describing Wise's election, Simpson first

evaluates the Governor's national impact before going on, in the next chapter,

to specify exactly how Wise governed Virginia. A more extensive portrayal of

Wise's personal life, his attitude toward his three wives and his seven surviv-

ing children, could also have shed further light on Wise the human being.

Only in the last two chapters, dealing with the Civil War and Reconstruction,

do we come to understand Wise as the failed and frustrated brigadier gener-

al and later the unreconstructed Southerner.

How was Wise "a good Southerner"? Simpson states that he calls him

good "because he would have wanted it that way" (p. xi). By Southern

standards Wise could be classified as "good." He was a humane slavehold-

er who saw slavery as a doomed institution, one that in turn doomd his be-

loved Virginia. Wise manifested deep loyalty to Virginia, seeking to improve

her economically, to make her once more lead the United States. Yet, at the

same time, Simpson undercuts Wise's ethical conduct with thorough scruti-

ny of Wise's lifelong motive: maintaining power. After describing Wise as

slaveholder, Simpson concludes, "Once having projected the persona of a

good slaveholder, Wise increasingly fitted his pretentions to reality" (p. 223).

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90                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

Although Simpson is not explicit, his emphasis on motive suggests that the

adjective good applies to Wise only ironically. And irony is appropriate.

Besides meeting the tests of representativeness and significance, a biogra-

pher should blend narrative with interpretation. As a biography, Simpson's

study could narrate a clearer chronological story of Wise the husband, the

father, the man. As historical interpretation, A Good Southerner offers valua-

ble analysis of Virginia politics and the plight of those Southerners who

wanted Southern policy to become more than a defense of slavery.

Pomona College                                Beverly Wilson Palmer

 

 

The Mood/Interest Theory of American Foreign Policy. By Jack E. Holmes.

(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1985. xiii + 238p.; figures,

tables, notes, bibliographical essay, index. $24.00.)

 

Jack Holmes introduces his work with the charge that Frank L. Kling-

berg's 1952 article on American foreign policy mood has received insufficient

attention. He promises to redress past academic neglect and reemphasize the

important role mood plays in the foreign policy process with publication of

The Mood/Interest Theory of American Foreign Policy.

The mood/interest theory is based on six sequential propositions: 1) public

mood is a dominant force in American foreign policy and limits governmental

action; 2) American foreign policy moods are expressed and channeled by

American liberalism and fluctuate between extreme introversion and extro-

version with intervening periods of moderation; 3) the United States has gen-

erally definable foreign policy interests, although there are clear regional var-

iations; 4) there is a fundamental conflict between the moods manifested in

the liberal American ideology and the dictates of U.S. politico-military inter-

ests; 5) application of the theory suggests that the Executive plays a strong

role in periods of extroversion, while Congress takes the lead during periods

of introversion; and 6) the possibility of a return to extreme introversion is

more likely than commonly recognized.

The author presents an interesting analysis of American Lockean liberal-

ism, allowing him to divide the public into reform and business liberals.

However, many of his assertions about liberalism, mood and interest conflict

are unconvincing. For example, Holmes asserts that the American liberal ori-

entation "includes an aversion to power, and, therefore, an aversion to the

notion of pursuing politico-military interests." These politico-military con-

cerns define the national interest- economic and humanitarian elements are

secondary and their pursuit is not subject to fluctuating mood. Having limit-

ed the American national interest to the politico-military arena, Holmes states

that national/global interests have been reflected in two ways: "attempting to

maintain freedom of the seas, and, since 1945, preventing a nuclear, chemical,

or biological exchange." Despite this extremely limited definition of national

interest, the mood/interest theory is built around the proposition that Presi-

dents elected during introvert periods, reacting to public mood, have con-

sistently failed to do enough to protect the national interest, and, in an at-

tempt to redress the balance, "extrovert" Presidents have done too much.

These evaluations are offered with little or no examination of the international

context.

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Book Reviews                                                   91

 

A second, more fundamental problem stems from the failure to clearly ex-

plain what constitutes "mood." Holmes builds his theory on Klingberg's

contention that mood has vacillated between twenty-one year periods of in-

troversion and twenty-seven year periods of extroversion. Despite the propo-

sition that mood is a dominant and limiting force in the creation of policy,

there is no clear definition of liberal mood, no convincing or consistent expla-

nation of what forces lead to the cyclical change, and no discussion of how

the public makes its mood manifest to foreign policy makers. (Public opin-

ion is merely short-term fluctuation and frequently does not reflect overall

mood.) Holmes merely accepts Klingberg's 21-27 year paradigm, asserts that

mood determines policy, and then counts the number of incidents when

policy-makers concluded treaties, used force, or annexed territory to prove

that an introverted or extroverted public mood existed.

The mood/interst theory is an ambitious attempt to create a macroanalysis,

free from the "overly sensititve attention to detail" that plagues contempo-

rary studies. However, by ignoring the economic, humanitarian, and ideolog-

ical components of U.S. foreign policy, it delivers rather less than more.

SUNY, Fredonia                                      Lynne K. Dunn

 

George Washington and the American Military Tradition. By Don Higginboth-

am. (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1985. xii + 170p.; illustra-

tion, notes, index. $16.50.)

 

Readers who have come to expect work of high quality from Don Higgin-

botham will not be disappointed by this slender volume. Based on his La-

mar Lectures at Mercer University in October 1983 and his Harmon Memorial

Lecture at the U.S. Air Force Academy in March 1984, the book is obviously

a product of many years of research, teaching, and contemplation. Academic

experts and Washington buffs will find little new in the work, but they can

still admire Higginbotham's thoughtful synthesis of primary and secondary

material.

Higginbotham skillfully uses Washington and a comparison of Washington

with George Marshall to identify a number of important elements in the

American military tradition. Perhaps the most significant has been the fusion

of civilian values with those of the professional military. Although the syn-

thesis has been only partial at times, Washington and Marshall represent the

highest achievement of the ideal. Higginbotham concluded that no officers

were their equal "in effectively bridging the gap between the civilian and the

military." They "understood" as well as accepted civil control, and "their

occasional dissent from governmental decisions was a part of the American

military tradition worth preserving. To be loyal is not always to be silent."

Nor is being professional the same as being isolated. Washington, Marshall,

and other officers have benefitted from "a healthy diversity of experiences

with the civilian sector of American life." The combination of European prac-

tice and American experience added another important element to the Amer-

ican military tradition, pragmatism.

The challenges facing Washington clearly represent negative aspects of the

American military tradition. The Revolution was not the only war in which

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92                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

Americans would fail to unite, nor would it be the only conflict in which

"historic militia attitudes" would make discipline and organization difficult.

Higginbotham's book reminds us that a military tradition is not all positive,

and the American way of war contains many problems as well as virtues.

The book also reminds us that good leadership is essential in military af-

fairs, and Higginbotham's Washington was a superb leader. He was accessi-

ble to subordinates, exhibited a flair for the dramatic, and had a host of

additional qualities that "brought out the best in others." Washington's

greatest contribution as a leader, however, may have been his demonstration

"that a professional army was not incompatible with civil liberty."

Higginbotham's portrait of Washington is a sophisticated one, although

some readers will find it insufficiently critical. Arguing that "too much has

been made of Washington's military limitations," Higginbotham portrays

him as a man who "had taken his military education seriously." Although

he could also be petty and self-serving, particularly as a young man seeking a

British commission, he matured with age, and the Washington selected

as commander of the Continental army was a more controlled individual.

"Tough, tenacious, brave, perhaps even inspirational," he was a perfect

choice. Higginbotham admits, however, that Congress supported Washing-

ton "because its members knew and trusted him as a legislator, not as a sol-

dier."

George Washington and the American Military Tradition should provide

enjoyable reading for anyone interested in either subject. The book provides

a concise overview of Washington's many attributes as a military leader as

well as a number of insightful comments on the subject of military profession-

alism in America.

The College of Wooster                              John M. Gates

• 33