Book Notes
The Synagogues of Kentucky: History and Architecture. By Lee Shai
Weissbach. (Lexington: The University
Press of Kentucky, 1995. xiv + 184p.;
illustrations, tables, appendices,
notes, index.) In this second volume in the
Perspective's on Kentucky's Past series,
professor Weissbach provides a compre-
hensive survey on Kentucky's Jewish
communities and synagogues, and one of
the first works that studies small
Jewish communities outside the major American
urban centers. Presenting information
about an ethnic group not typically
thought of in connection with Kentucky,
this hardbound text provides a detailed
inventory of synagogue buildings built
over the last 150 years. Although never
large numerically, Kentucky's Jewish
population was centered in 12 cities across
the Commonwealth, organized into many
branches and different congregations.
The longer-established central European
Jews, first settling in Louisville in the
1840s, functioned differently than the
more Orthodox, newer Eastern European
congregations that dominated Kentucky
Judaism from 1881-1931. Differences in
synagogue design and interior plan,
including Moorish, neoclassical and domed
Byzantine architectural influences, are
chronologically profiled. A central theme
of the book is the impact post-World War
II suburbanization had on the Jewish
community and synagogue design.
Weissbach explains how the Diaspora away
from the center cities, along with
social changes in the Jewish community, re-
sulted in a contemporary style synagogue
with minimal external iconography. Of
26 pre-World War II synagogues, only 11
are standing, and only 2 are used as syn-
agogues. Generously illustrated with
maps and archival photos, Synagogues of
Kentucky also includes a twenty-page bibliographical essay and a
series of tables
listing the locations, dates, architects
and status of all known Kentucky syna-
gogues.
Ohio Historical Society Steve Gordon
Lincoln's Unknown Private Life: An
Oral History By His Black Housekeeper
Mariah Vance 1850-1860. Edited by Lloyd Ostendorf and Walter Oleksy.
(Mamaroneck, New York: Hastings House
Book Publishing, 1995. 563p.; illus-
trations.) This is a singular account. The
story goes like this: in 1850 thirty-
one-year-old Mariah Vance went to work
as a laundress and domestic for Abraham
and Mary Lincoln in their Springfield,
Illinois, home; she worked for the Lincolns
for a decade, until the new presidential
family moved to the White House; during
her employment, Vance closely observed
the family and witnessed events-in-
cluding Lincoln's secret baptism-that no
one else saw, or at least recorded.
Skip ahead forty years to 1900. In that
year a seventeen-year-old office worker,
Adah Lilas Sutton, met the
eighty-one-year-old Mrs. Vance and became entranced
by her stories of working for the
Lincolns. Over the next four years, Sutton
recorded, in "shorthand
notes," many of Vance's reminiscences. The project ended
when Mrs. Vance died four years later.
Skip ahead half a century. In 1955
artist and Lincolniana collector extraordi-
naire Lloyd Ostendorf placed an
advertisement in Hobbies magazine offering to
purchase Lincoln-related and Civil War
items. Mrs. Vance contacted him, and
Book Notes 117
when he learned of Mrs. Vance's account,
he urged Miss Sutton to transcribe her
notes. "I went over every note
carefully," she recounted, "Many were badly worn,
brittle, and writing so erased that they
were not legible. First I pasted [the legible
notes] on large sheets of paper.
Rearranging as best I could in sequence and ac-
cording to dates of historical facts
which she [Mariah Vance] often mentioned."
Over the next few years, Miss Sutton
wrote out, in longhand, Mariah Vance's rem-
iniscences, based upon the 1900-04
shorthand notes.
Skip ahead forty years. When Adah Sutton
died at age ninety-two in 1976, she
and Lloyd Ostendorf had not found a
publisher. Some years later, Ostendorf teamed
with Walter Oleksy, a former Chicago
Tribune writer, to edit the work. The pre-
sent book contains, along with
introductions by Sutton, Oleksy, and, Ostendorf,
both Oleksy's edited and moderately
annotated version and a facsimile reproduc-
tion of Sutton's 1955-58 handwritten
manuscript.
Ohio Historical Society Christopher S.
Duckworth
The Great Road: The Building of the
Baltimore & Ohio, The Nation's First
Railroad, 1828-1853. By James D. Dilts. (Stanford: Stanford University
Press,
1993. xix + 472p.; chronology,
illustrations, notes, index.) James D. Dilts de-
scribes the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad as "the prototypical American railroad dur-
ing the critical period of its formation
and construction" (p. 3). His volume pro-
vides a comprehensive history of the
development of what became America's most
important nineteenth century form of
transportation. Each chapter builds on the
last to provide detailed information on
the combination of personalities, technol-
ogy, environmental influences, and
business and legal intrigue that contributed to
the development of the B&O. Dilts
places the story into the context of the grow-
ing movement for internal improvements
prior to the Civil War. The many pho-
tographs, drawings and maps provide a
visual dimension for the interpretation.
The work is meticulously researched,
relying on the archival materials of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum for
primary documents. Dilts' history cele-
brates what the author clearly sees as a
major feat of engineering and the full po-
tential of human ingenuity. The Great
Road will appeal to scholars and students of
nineteenth century transportation
developments, railroad buffs, and anyone inter-
ested in the evolution of railroad
technology.
The University of Toledo Diane F.
Britton
Cleveland as a Center of Regional
American Art: Symposium presented by the
Cleveland Artists Foundation at The
Cleveland Museum of Art, November 13 and
14, 1993. Edited by Sandy Richert. (Cleveland: Cleveland Artists
Foundation,
1995.
v + 153p.; endnotes, references, authors.) The Cleveland Artists
Foundation, in its commitment to ".
. . preserving the heritage, researching and
exhibiting the work of NE Ohio
artist[s]," has published the proceedings of its
1993 symposium. Begun with the idea to
examine the arts from a regional context
rather than the "art as a
universal" viewpoint, the symposium featured topics such
as Cleveland photographers of the 1920s
and 1930s, an overview of Public Art
and Patronage in the city, and the
environmental influences on contemporary
artists. Organizers were surprised by
the overwhelming response to their call for
papers; the final selections included
presenters such as David Steinberg (Cleveland
118 OHIO HISTORY
Museum of Art), Holly Rarick Witchey
(San Diego Museum of Art), Christina
Corsiglia (Cambridge, England), and
Gladys Haddad (Case Western Reserve
University). So successful, indeed, was
this, the CAF's first symposium, that the
organization has joined with the Midwest
Art History Society to hold a second
symposium in the spring of 1996. Readers
will look forward to the publication of
those proceedings with interest.
Ohio Historical Society Laura A.
Russell
The French and Indian War, 1754-1763:
The Imperial Struggle for North
America. By Seymour I. Schwartz. (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1994. ix +
177p.; maps, illustrations,
bibliography, index.) Based largely on the author's
extensive cartographic collection, this
is a pictorial history of the French and
Indian War. The chronologically arranged
volume includes various maps of east-
ern colonial North America, portraits,
documents, fort plats, battle maps, and per-
spective or landscape scenes, all
explained through a concise narrative and brief
captions. Most date to the
mid-eighteenth century, although a handful of interpre-
tative maps help to clarify some of the
more complex historic charts. The major-
ity of the 118 images are reproduced as
half-tones, and a dozen are recreated in
four-colors. Unfortunately the 7 x 10
inch format of the book makes many of the
reproductions of the large color wall
maps difficult to decipher. So while it is nice
to have the grouping of historic
cartography and plats under a single cover, the
undersized format alone will make
acquisitions librarians wonder if the hefty price
tag of $75.00 is justified.
Ohio Historical Society David A.
Simmons
General Grant by Matthew Arnold with
a Rejoinder by Mark Twain. Edited by
John Y. Simon with an introduction by
the editor. (Kent: The Kent State
University Press, 1995; originally
published in 1966 by the Ulysses S. Grant
Association and Southern Illinois
University Press. x + 58p.; notes.) English
literary critic Arnold's review of
Grant's Memoirs prompted Twain to "review" the
reviewer. His audience loved it.
Ohio Historical Society James K.
Richards
Towboat on the Ohio. By James E. Casto. (Lexington: The University Press of
Kentucky, 1995. x + 189p.;
illustrations, glossary, bibliography, index.) The
Ohio River carries more commercial cargo
than the Panama Canal. Yet many who
live along its banks know little more
about it than about the Panama Canal. To
get a personal view of what the Ohio
River and its tributaries are all about, James
Casto, a veteran newspaperman and native
of Huntington, West Virginia, spent
eight days on the Blazer, a
commercial towboat owned by the Ashland Oil
Company. Written as a first-hand account
of a working trip, Casto synthesizes
historical narratives with present day
views of labor, business, industry and gov-
ernmental operations. We are introduced
to river life through the daily routines of
the pilot and the crew of the Blazer.
Boats, bridges and navigation, ever-present
components of river lore, and the
ongoing development of a lock and dam system
Book Notes 119
designed by the Army Corps of Engineers,
are just some of the subjects chronicled
in this informative volume. Yet Towboat
is much more than stories and the his-
tory of commerce-it is a reporter's
colorful account of the characters and commu-
nities that help make the Ohio River a
lure to many readers.
Ohio Historical Society Steve
Gordon
To Appomattox and Beyond: The Civil
War Soldier in War and Peace. By Larry
M. Logue. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
xiv + 168p.; a note on sources, index.)
A title in the publisher's American Ways
Series, this curious little volume is tanta-
lizing but ultimately disappointing. In
an admirably lucid and straight forward
prose style, the author synthesizes
recent scholarship in order to posit a yardstick
of values and aspirations against which
the nineteenth-century citizen soldier
measured himself and by which he
interpreted his experience. An analysis of that
experience, also based on secondary
sources, follows. The result is a series of
generalizations that seem, too often, to
rest on inconclusive evidence. The fault
lies, perhaps, with the series format;
the task undertaken is far too formidable to
be accomplished convincingly in a book
of this length. Happily, for the reader
content with the discovery of starting
places, it is ripe with possibility.
Ohio Historical Society James K.
Richards
The following books which have been
received might be of interest to Ohio
History readers:
The Ohio & Erie Canal: A Glossary
of Terms. Compiled by Terry K. Woods.
(Kent: The Kent State University Press,
1995. 44p.; glossary.)
Four Dead in Ohio: Was There A Conspiracy
At Kent State? By William A.
Gordon. (Laguna Hills, California: North
Ridge Books, 1995, 301p.; illustra-
tions, notes, appendices, chronology,
annotated bibliography, index.)
REPRINT.
In Common Cause: The
"Conservative" Frances Trollope and the "Radical"
Frances Wright. By Susan Kissel. (Bowling Green: Bowling Green
University
Popular Press, 1993. iv + 175p.; notes,
works cited, index.)
Majestic in His Wrath: A Pictorial
Life of Frederick Douglass. By
Frederick S.
Voss. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1995. xxiii + 104p.;
notes on sources, for further reading.)
A Community of Memory: My Days with
George and Clara. By Jeff Gundy.
(Champaign: The University of Illinois Press, 1996. xvi + 158p.;
illustrations.)
Plague of Strangers: Social Groups
and the Origins of City Services in Cincinnati.
By Alan I Marcus. (Columbus: Ohio State
University Press, 1991. xxiii +
287p.; notes, index.)
Hayes of the 23rd: The Civil War
Volunteer Officer. By T. Harry
Williams.
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1994. xii + 324p.; illustrations, notes,
index.) REPRINT.
History of Women in the United
States: Historical Articles on Women's Lives and
Activities: Social and Moral Reform (2 volumes). Edited by Nancy F. Cott.
(Munich, Germany: K. G. Saur, 1994. xv +
795p.; notes, illustrations, index.)
120 OHIO HISTORY
Colonel Grenfell's Wars: The Life of
a Soldier of Fortune. By Stephen Z.
Starr.
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1995. vii + 352p.; notes,
bibliography, index.) REPRINT.
The Shaker Experience in America: A
History of the United Society of Believers.
By Stephen J. Stein. (New Haven,
Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1992.
xx + 554p.; illustrations, notes,
suggestions on further reading, index.)
The Archaeology of Frontier Taverns
on the St. Louis-Vincennes Trace. By
Mark
J. Wagner and Mary R. McCorvie.
(Springfield: The Illinois State Museum and
The Illinois Department of
Transportation, 1993. vii + 56p.; illustrations,
notes, additional readings, picture
credits.)