Book Reviews
Dangerous Relations: The Soviet Union
in World Politics, 1970-1982. By
Adam B. Ulam. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1983. vi + 325p.;
notes, index. $25.00.)
In a recent study of American diplomatic
historiography Jerald Combs
had some difficulty deciding if Adam
Ulam had revisionist leanings or be-
longed firmly to the orthodox camp. No
such doubts could follow from
Ulam's most recent study, a continuation
chronologically of his Expansion
and Coexistence and the Rivals. Ulam sees a threat both from
Soviet power
and from American inability to
understand its dimensions.
Unlike in the 1950s, the Soviet Union of
the 1970s and 1980s was genuinely
equal to the United States as a
superpower and prepared to challenge the
United States in all parts of the globe
wherever opportunities beckoned. Tur-
moil in the Third World from Africa to
Latin America usually spelled oppor-
tunity for the Soviets as they could
play on the normal anti-imperialist senti-
ments found wherever the Western
influence had been. The United States
as heir to the British and French
empires was inevitably vulnerable to Third
World suspicions. Hence, there appeared
to be a succession of Soviet tri-
umphs in Vietnam, in Angola, and in
Cuba. The latter was valued not only for
its Communist presence but also for its
use as a surrogate of Soviet power in
Africa.
From an American perspective Soviet
power held another and even more
dangerous dimension. The much vaunted
detente ushered in under the
Nixon-Kissinger administration led to
division and weakness among the al-
lies who rushed to accommodation with
the Soviet Union. It also symbol-
ized betrayal as the Soviets
systematically modernized their military system
while the United States relaxed its
guard. The missile crisis of the 1980s,
and the crisis of NATO itself, marked
the success of the Soviet Union in
manipulating the workings of the
Atlantic alliance to its own advantage.
Ulam presents these problems in some
detail. But he shows at the same
time that many of America's troubles
were of its own making. The Soviets
exploited fissures already present,
without their necessarily reflecting a dia-
bolical world plot. As a superpower it
assumed that it had as much right to
be as concerned with Africa as the
United States was and was more puzzled
than annoyed by American outcries
against its behavior. The Soviet leaders
were less cynical about their part in
the Helsinki accords than America rec-
ognized. For them it was an acceptance
of their role as America's equal in the
world and a legitimation of their
control of eastern Europe.
From their perspective the United States
was a disappointing and unrelia-
ble and impetuous partner in diplomacy.
Despite the enormous increase in
power, the Soviet Union's insecurity was
in many ways as great as it had been
in time of material weaknesses. The
Helsinki agreements, even when vio-
lated, internationalized conditions of
human rights in the Soviet bloc, and
exposed the enormous problems the
Soviets had in managing their empire;
Afghanistan in 1979 and Poland in the
1980s are symptoms of a malaise that is
not under control. Moreover, American
reaction to Soviet moves has consis-
186 OHIO HISTORY
tently undervalued the obsessive Russian
fear of China. According to Ulam
much of Soviet foreign policy from the
installation of Cuban missiles in 1962
to the massive arms build-up of the
1970s was designed to intimidate China,
to frustrate a United States-China
connection, and if possible to bring Ameri-
cans in as a partner in their
containment of Communist China. Reasonably,
then, the Soviet Union favored the
election of Reagan in 1980 rather than the
apparently mecurial Carter; for however
hostile the former might be, presum-
ably he would be consistent in his
policies, and perhaps like the Republican
Nixon could work with them in a world of
Realpolitik.
Ulam makes an impressive case for more
sophistication, less emotion, and
particularly less masochism in American
policy. His analysis of Soviet behav-
ior is persuasive. But as an historian
he must be frequently uncomfortable
with his sources, usually Pravda or
at best the memoirs of Western states-
men. He does hedge on his judgments, as
he should. Despite such caveats,
this is as useful a guide to the sources
of Soviet conduct over the past decade
as any American scholar has written.
Kent State University Lawrence S. Kaplan
Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights
of Labor and American Politics. By
Leon Fink. (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1983. xvii + 249p.; tables,
notes, selected bibliography, index. $22.50.)
Recently, social historians have been
criticized for their failure to fully in-
tegrate politics into studies of social
and cultural change. Similarly, critics
have raised questions concerning the
ability to generalize from the events of
single local communities. Fink begins to
address these issues in his able
study of the Knights of Labor, which he
calls the "quintessential expression
of the labor movement in the Gilded Age." By the
mid-1880s, the Knights of
Labor had burst upon the industrial scene.
An all-inclusive movement, it cut
across lines of race, sex, ethnicity,
and craft, to "provide a vast umbrella un-
der which practically every variety of
American workers sought protection."
(p. 13.) In over two hundred towns and
cities, skilled workers joined with un-
skilled and semi-skilled industrial
workers to form independent tickets or la-
bor parties, and extend the struggle for
local power from the shop floor into
the political arena.
To better explain the rise, aims,
achievements and often rapid dissipation
of this movement, Fink focuses on five
communities, differing in size, geo-
graphical location, and economic and
social character. In the New England
towns of Rutland, Vermont, and
Rochester, New Hampshire, the working-
men's electoral victories in 1886
brought the end to the old town meeting,
forcing the local elites to turn to a
two-party system through which they ab-
sorbed labor's demands. Knights in
Kansas City unified the previously an-
tagonistic German, Irish and black communities
to capture the Republican
Party machinery and elect Irish-Catholic
stonemason, Thomas F. Hannan, as
mayor. Drawing on organized labor's
strength, Hannan's administration be-
gan regulating corporations and raised
municipal workers' wages before fal-
tering. The Kansas City study also
suggests answers to why the Populist
movement failed in the cities; Fink
concluding that the People's Party's
Book Reviews
187
agrarian-oriented political program and
Protestant moral-reform character
found little appeal among urban wage earners. Ethnicity
also proved a pivotal
factor in Milwaukee, where the violent supression of
the eight-hour move-
ment in the Bay View Massacre united
German and Polish workers behind a
successful labor ticket. While
"self-conscious class identity . . . receded in
importance as an influence on political
behavior" (p. 203) by the late 1880s,
Fink finds links between the Knights'
political success and that of the Ger-
man Socialists in the early twentieth
century. In Richmond, the Order
seemed the creators of a major social
and political realignment as disaffected
white Democratic workers and black
Republican factory operatives formed a
labor reform slate which swept control
of the municipal election in May 1886.
But this tenuous coalition rapidly
disappeared as ambivalent Southern white
workers succumbed to the taunts of a
white supremacy press.
Fink draws together the community
studies in several fine synthesizing es-
says, two of which have already been
published. He offers one of the best
available concise analyses of the values
and ideology of the Knights, fo-
cusing on their sanctification of work,
their defense of the home, and their
advocacy of self-improvement and
temperance. Instead of dismissing, in the
manner of past historians, the Knights'
political activity as unfocused social
reformism, he correctly places their
characteristic ambivalence towards poli-
tics within a larger Western radical
tradition. Furthermore, along with such
historians as Bryan Palmer and Gregory
Kealey, Fink identifies the domi-
nance of skilled workers within the
Knights. Indeed, as the case studies
demonstrate, their inability to form
permanent links to the unskilled across
racial, ethnic and gender lines made for
fleeting economic and political victo-
ries.
While acknowledging the Knights'
reliance on historical experience "to
capture alternative images of human
possibility" (p. 13), Fink downplays the
importance of the combined weight of
past political working-class failures as
a cause for a continuing reluctance on
the part of many Knights to pursue in-
dependent labor politics. Similarly, he
ignores the real damage wrought
upon fledgling political initiatives by
the meddling of professional politicians,
an issue explored by Palmer and Kealey
in their study of Ontario. Despite
the variety of the Knights' political
activity, Fink perhaps overstates the
long-term significance of such a
fleeting political movement. It certainly can-
not be viewed as an irrevocable turning
point, for American workers resorted
to independent political action with
even greater commitment and more fo-
cused objectives in the early-twentieth
century. Despite these minor objec-
tions, Fink has produced a fascinating
book that truly advances the under-
standing of the Knights, of
working-class political activity, and of the Gilded
Age more generally. All historians in
these fields would benefit from reading
it.
The Samuel Gompers Papers,
University of Maryland Elizabeth Fones-Wolf
Mr. Madison's War: Politics,
Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American
Republic 1783-1830. By J.C.A. Stagg. (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1983. xviii + 538p.; notes,
index. $50.00 cloth; $18.50 paper.)
188 OHIO HISTORY
This is a major work and a significant
contribution to the historiography of
the War of 1812. Building upon the
insights of Drew McCoy, J.C.A. Stagg has
reached back to 1783 to uncover the
roots of the War of 1812 in Madisonian
ideas about commercial warfare
(retaliation) against Britain, as well as tracing
many of the problems of mobilizing
American society during the war to such
things as a failure to reform the
militia.
Essentially, Stagg finds a unity in the
period from 1783 to 1830, stemming
from British efforts in the 1780s and 1790s to create a
new commercial empire,
by relying more on Canadian and West
Indian trade. Lord Sheffield and
others in Britain saw a British
vulnerability in over-reliance on American
trade. Conversely, Madison and others in
the United States sought to repel a
hostile navigational system through
discriminatory legislation that would not
only damage British commerce but also strengthen
and liberate American
commerce. The growing prosperity of
Canada threatened to undermine Bri-
tain's reliance upon the United States
for "necessaries," as well as Madison's
diplomacy of commercial warfare. Thus
the War of 1812 may be seen, ac-
cording to Stagg, as an effort by
Madison to deprive Britain of its remaining
North American colony, which would also
help break various manifestations
of the British navigational system-the
Orders in Council, impressment, ille-
gal blockades, and the "rule of
1756." Although the sources of war re-
mained after 1815, the British policy of
exclusion was undermined by time
and new patterns of trade. The opening
of the West Indian trade to American
commerce in 1830 ended a policy that had
exacerbated U.S.-British rela-
tions since 1783.
Although Stagg's broad perspective is a
valuable insight for historians of
the War of 1812, approximately
three-fifths of the book is devoted to an anal-
ysis of the conduct of the war. This is
the most valuable portion of the book.
It is the most comprehensive and
detailed account of the administration of
the war yet to appear. There is also a
superb analysis of prewar and postwar
politics. Stagg duly appreciates the
problems that confronted Madison and
his cabinet. The War Department, for
example, was faced with a lack of staff
support, an inefficient recruiting
system, supply problems, incompetent field
commanders, unreliable militia, and most
of all with a lack of money. Given
these and other problems, it is not
difficult to understand the failures of the
War of 1812.
Stagg's treatment is balanced. His
research is exhaustive, and his interpre-
tations are based solidly on facts.
Occasionally, however, he tends to over-
whelm the reader with details. In part,
this may be due to a lack of a unifying
theme for the wartime years to focus his
narrative. There is one strange omis-
sion. This may be the only major work on
the War of 1812 that does not ex-
tensively cite the nine-volume classic
work of these years by Henry Adams.
The Princeton University Press should be
congratulated for publishing a
scholarly work of this length, with
footnotes actually at the bottom of the
page. However, a few illustrations and
maps would have enhanced the narra-
tive. It is regrettable that a
bibliography is lacking. An appendix is included,
but with little obvious purpose.
Finally, there is an infuriating tendency to
drop or sometimes repeat a sentence in
the carry-over from one page to the
next. There are at least seven instances
of this occurrence. Nevertheless, this
is an outstanding book. It must now be
considered the standard work on the
War of 1812.
Memphis State University C. Edward Skeen
Book Reviews
189
Ambivalent Conspirators: John Brown,
The Secret Six, and a Theory of Slave
Violence. By Jeffery Rossbach. (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania
Press, 1982. xii + 298p.; notes,
bibliography, index. $23.50.)
A Matter of Hours: Treason at
Harper's Ferry. By Paul R. Teetor.
(Cranbury,
New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press, 1982. 309p.; illustrations,
appendix, bibliography, notes, index. $29.50.)
The setting of both of these
drama-filled narratives takes place in Harper's
Ferry. Both stories center around
treason or alleged treason.
Professor Rossbach's biography of John
Brown is the twelfth biography
of Brown that has been published since 1969. The author
focuses on the six
abolitionists who conspired with Brown
and furnished him arms and cash,
for the purpose of destroying slavery by
violent means. Rossbach is primarily
interested in the motives that prompted
the Secret Six to enter into the cons-
piracy.
The author differs from biographers of
traditional accounts of Brown who
placed him as a figure on the periphery
of the antislavery movement, or in
the context of the opening of the Civil
War. Rossbach is more in harmony
with Tilden Edelstein in his argument
that Thomas Higginson wanted Brown
to destroy the belief that all slaves
were submissive. Rossbach also agrees
with Stephen Oates who believes that the
Secret Six were motivated by the
opinion that a successful slave revolt
would alter white preconceptions of the
slave's nature. The author disagrees
with the scholars who see Brown as a
man who dominated the members of the
Secret Committee, pointing out that
the Six had been discussing the nature
of slavery and "its effect on the
slave's personality" for some time
(p. 6). Rossbach refuses to accept this view
of the Secret Committee. He finds that
the Secret Committee's relationship
with Brown was based upon their common
social outlook, values and per-
sonal ambitions. All were committed to
the principles of Higher Law but
they were ambivalent conspirators
because all the Secret Committee, except
Thomas Higginson, found it impossible to
act on the principle of Higher Law
in initiating the overt act of violence.
Rossbach argues that the Secret Six
wanted more than a simple liberation
of the slaves. The author says the
Secret Six's "willingness to finance insur-
rection was based" on the belief in
violence's cathartic effect on the slave
personality (p. 9). The conspirators
were concerned with "altering the slave's
nature" as well as "changing
white America's perception of that nature" (p.
8).
The central figure of Teetor's book is
Dixon Miles who was a forty-year-old
regular army officer from the border
state of Maryland. Miles was in charge
of the Union troops stationed at
Harper's Ferry when it fell to the Confeder-
ate forces under Stonewall Jackson in
September, 1862. After the Harper's
Ferry Commission held a hearing on the
loss of Harper's Ferry, they ruled
that Miles was not guilty of
"criminal neglect" and "incapacity amounting al-
most to imbecility" (p. 223).
The central theme of Teetor's study is
that Miles carried out a treasonable
plan by turning over his 10,000-man
force to Jackson under the guise of the
necessity to surrender. Since Miles had
been court-martialed for drunkeness
after the Battle of Bull Run I, the
author sees this as Miles' motivation which
was based on the fact that his career
was marred by the court martial and
190 OHIO HISTORY
he would probably never receive any
future promotions. Teetor explains the
Harper's Ferry ruling as a maneuver to
cover up the treason by Miles in order
to shift the blame of the surrender of
Harper's Ferry to General McClellan as
one basis for removing him from the
Command of the Army of the Potomac.
Teetor researches the episode thoroughly
and examines the evidence in
detail to prove that Miles was the Benedict
Arnold of the Civil War. He
shows how the multitudes of mistakes
that Miles was guilty of always turned
out to favor the Confederates. Teetor's
strong evidence is that Miles did not
build a blockhouse on the top of
Maryland Heights as ordered by General
John Wool, failed to make the Heights
his main defense of Harper's Ferry,
withheld troopers from the officer on
the Heights and failed to inform the
officers and men that relief was only a
matter of hours away. Admitting that
his proof that Miles was a traitor was
only "circumstantial evidence" (p. 230),
Teetor claims that there were numerous
eye witnesses in the 10,000-man force
to the fact that Miles was killed by a
shell fired by his own troops after the
surrender instead of by a stray shell
fired by the enemy.
Teetor is a lawyer with nearly thirty
years of practice which he puts to
good use in his research that turns up a
massive amount of evidence, but he
failed to relate the Harper's Ferry
episode to the larger interests of the war or
the Battle of Antietam.
Both of these studies are painstakingly
researched and are solid scholarly
contributions to the history of the
troubled years of the 1850s and 60s.
Morehead State University Victor B. Howard
Eisenhower. Volume One: Soldier, General of the Army,
President-Elect,
1890-1952. By Stephen E. Ambrose. (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1983. 637p.; illustrations, notes,
bibliography, index. $22.95.)
Building upon his well-received earlier
works (such as Eisenhower and Ber-
lin, 1945, The Supreme Commander, and Ike's Spies), Ambrose has crafted a
fascinating portrait of the man who grew
up poor on the plains of Kansas but
became one of the most famous military
and civilian leaders of the twentieth
century. Eschewing a "life and
times" approach, the author focuses almost
exclusively on Ike, detailing that blend
of genial personality and rugged good
looks, integrity and dignity, and
organizational skill and intelligence that
made him "a great and good
man." (p. 9.)
Ike's personal relations dominate much
of the book. For example, in the
pre-World War II era Ambrose fully
details Ike's relationship with four domi-
neering generals (Conner, Pershing,
MacArthur, and Marshall) who served
as his immediate superiors. And during
the war years, Ike's wife Mamie, son
John, and Kay Summersby receive as
careful attention as Ike's staff, plans,
and operations. Whatever the precise
relationship between Ike and Kay,
they never had a true love affair and Ike's
love for Mamie never wavered. To
support this contention Ambrose quotes
liberally from the 319 wartime letters
Ike sent to his wife. In the postwar
period, Ike developed ties with "the
gang," a group of millionaires that
befriended Ike and played an important
role in shaping his political career.
The chapters on World War II, which
encompass half the book, are espe-
Book Reviews
191
cially superb as Ambrose effortlessly
weaves Ultra into the narrative and
deftly summarizes complex and
controversial issues, all the while keeping Ike
at the forefront. As a commander Ike had
two great strengths. First, he en-
gaged in positive self-criticism and
thus improved with experience, prog-
ressing from the hesitant and
defensive-minded commander of TORCH to
the confident and offensive-minded commander
of OVERLORD. Second,
Ike masterfully molded an effective
Anglo-American military team. During
childhood he had developed a passion for
teamwork, which, he discov-
ered, could win football games. Now he
found that it could also win wars,
and eventually even a presidential
election. As Ambrose demonstrates, Ike
got along well with all the British,
whether politicians, admirals, or generals,
except for Brooke and Montgomery.
The major themes dominating the
1945-1952 chapters are Ike's evolving
view of the Soviet Union, and the
tension between his yearning for a quiet re-
tirement and his sense of duty, with the
latter always winning. Although tak-
ing a friendly, cooperative approach
toward Russia in 1945, he became in-
creasingly concerned about the Soviet
threat to American security and by
the early 1950s "he was the
complete Cold Warrior, unwilling to trust the
Russians on any issue, suspicious of
their every proposal, determined to turn
back the Red tide." (p. 512.) Meanwhile,
a compelling sense of duty kept Ike
in public service as the head of the
American Occupation Zone in Germany,
Chief of Staff, President of Columbia
University, Supreme Commander of
NATO, and finally President of the
United States. Ambrose argues that al-
though Ike had a Sherman-like attitude
toward the presidency, he never
foreclosed the presidential option,
always leaving the door open just in case
he could be convinced that he had a
mandate from the people and that he
was the only man who could save the
country from isolationism (Taft) or
bankruptcy (Truman). Once convinced, he
prepared for the campaign as
thoroughly as he had planned for
OVERLORD, and again the result was
victory.
For Ambrose's assessment of Ike's
performance as commander-in-chief we
will have to await the next volume in
what promises to be a definitive biogra-
phy. If the second volume matches the
thoughtful analysis and graceful
prose of this first volume, it cannot be
published too soon.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Peter Maslowski
Rebel for Rights: Abigail Scott
Duniway. By Ruth Barnes Moynihan. (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. xv +
273p.; illustrations, notes, appen-
dices, bibliography, index. $19.95.)
While the recent maturation of Women's
History is a development to be ap-
plauded, nevertheless the true
historiographical goal is the integration of the
whole past. Ruth Barnes Moynihan goes
far in accomplishing such an inte-
gration in her biography of Abigail
Scott Duniway, the noted nineteenth
century suffragist and reformer.
Moynihan's tightly woven tapestry exhibits
many bright threads and strands: the
frontier with all of its opportunities
and trails for both men and women,
religion with its competing branches
and differing social views, the alcohol
reform struggle between the forces of
192 OHIO HISTORY
temperance and those of prohibition, to
name but a few. Duniway strode
forcefully through that frontier
landscape, influencing all around her by her
potent, energetic presence as well as by
her speeches, novels, and journalistic
observations.
That the reform movements often took
unexpected turns is the better un-
derstood when seen through the prism of
one bold, bright mind which was
itself full of seeming inconsistencies
and contradictions. A Jeffersonian with a
sincere belief in equality and
democratization, who actively opposed racist
immigration restriction, Abigail
nonetheless could write:
Yet we wish it distinctly understood
that we believe Chinamen to be the means, or-
dained by Providence, to relieve the
overburden of washing and ironing and other
work of menials and scullions from the
shoulders of American women. We long to see
free independent Chinamen, whose highest
aspiration is kitchen work, so plenty in
America that every weary mother who is
enduring the curse of "bringing forth chil-
dren in sorrow" can afford to hire
one....
A person who truly loved the West and
its rural beauties and life-style, she
nevertheless always felt hindered by its
primitiveness and the necessity for
grueling, exhausting physical toil. Very
conscious that the evil of alcohol
abuse frequently led to the
brutalization of women and children and to the
destruction of the family, she continued
regardless to resist vociferously the
rising tide of prohibition in favor of
the more traditional goal of moderation
and temperance. Horrified at the
ill-effects of frequent pregnancies upon
women, she persisted in limiting her
recommendations to self-restraint and
the spiritualization of love, thinking,
as did so many contemporaries, that
contraception was but a disgusting
adjunct to prostitution.
The Abigail Scott Duniway who emerges
from the pages of Rebel For
Rights is a person who was difficult to love, hard to work
with, but easy to
respect. Driven to achieve, she often
found herself in vituperative confronta-
tion with her family and her political
allies as well as with her opponents.
She was "given" to scenes,
thought by others to be paranoid, and was often
to be heard complaining that she was
denied her due recognition. Yet in the
end she kept her newspaper, New
Northwest, going in even the hardest of
times. While coping with the medical and
financial problems of her family,
she toured the Northwest speaking to not
infrequently hostile audiences on
behalf of women's suffrage and social
reform well into the twentieth century.
Moynihan's biography stresses the
positive accomplishments of its subject,
while but hinting at the personality
disorders which a psychohistorian
might glory in.
Moynihan's well-researched biography is
thoughtful, painstaking, and
consequently often slow. It is, however,
never tedious, because of the wealth
of intriguing detail, the richness of
the characters portrayed, and the poign-
ant and even occasionally humorous human
scenes depicted in this frontier
drama. When prior to the arduous trip
west to Oregon, Abigail's mother sold
her "gaudy Dutch plates," her
sister Fanny's young man bought them and
returned them to Fanny as a gift, which
survived the trip and eventually
found a new life on the frontier. The
young girls, of necessity walking barefoot
for up to twenty miles a day, still
often ran ahead to admire the scenery and
to avoid the wagons' dust so that at
evening they had to retrace miles of their
steps to find the family's camp. The
misery of Susan B. Anthony when en-
ticed to tackle the wilds of the
Northwest on a two-thousand mile trek with
Book Reviews
193
her frontier hostess is clearly
contrasted to the delight of Abigail in serving
as an "emissary of culture in a
barren land." One final ironic scene shows
Abigail Scott Duniway, who had always
treated quilting as the symbol of fe-
male suppression, being asked to donate
one of her homemade quilts to the
New York World's Fair in 1899. Thought
too precious to leave the state, the
quilt was purchased for the Oregon
Historical Society. Moynihan's comment
explains much:
The quilt is still at the historical
society carefully rolled and hidden from public view.
It provides mute evidence that Abigail
Duniway was both an abominable seamstress
and possibly color-blind! No wonder she
could not perceive the artistic value of quilts!
Michele Hilden Willard
Battleground: The Autobiography of
Margaret A. Haley. Edited by Robert L.
Reid. (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1982. xxxv + 298p.; illustra-
tions, notes, appendices, index.
$22.95.)
Margaret A. Haley (1861-1939), a
contemporary of Jane Addams, William
Rainey Harper, and Big Bill Thompson in
Chicago's educational, labor and
political struggles during the early
years of this century, is an intriguing figure
of considerable importance, whose Autobiography
Robert Reid has now
edited. We are indebted to him for a
superb job of editing, and for re-
minding us of a forgotten figure whose
history does not conform to the com-
monly accepted image of the Progressive reformer.
As the leader of the
nation's most militant teacher's
union-the Chicago Teacher's Federation-
from 1909 to her death in 1939, she
identified with the radical egalitarian
and "democratic" side of
reform. Her efforts contrasted dramatically with
the centralizing tendencies of business
interests and elitist reform groups
which have frequently characterized the
history of the Progressive move-
ment. Her enemies thought of her as a
militant and radical and referred to
her as the labor "slugger."
She herself sneered at Jane Addams' more
peaceful reform efforts, and called her
"Gentle Jane."
Haley is a relevant figure today because
her activities coincide with the
contemporary themes of
bureaucratization, feminism, and professionalism.
She sympathized with the classroom
teachers and opposed the centralizing
and autocratic efforts which eventually
produced the hierarchical system of
school administration led by autocratic
superintendents. In her opposition to
centralization she led her union into
federation with the Chicago Federation
of Labor. The CTF was the first and only
large body of teachers to affiliate
with a large labor group prior to World
War I.
Haley's other efforts to raise the
status of teachers professionally precipi-
tated her struggle for women's rights.
Her union catered to elementary class-
room teachers who were almost totally
female as opposed to the largely
white male high school faculties and to
the entrenched male dominated ad-
ministrative hierarchy. Her union and her
supporters campaigned for related
causes such as "tax reforms,
municipal ownership, teacher benefits, elected
school boards," and most
significantly for "women's suffrage and democrat-
ic school administration."
Eventually beset by the overwhelming
financial problems associated with
194 OHIO HISTORY
Eventually beset by the overwhelming
financial problems associated with
the depression of the 1930s and the
internal divisions between rival teach-
ers' unions, Haley attempted to raise
money for her own union by writing and
publishing her life story. Failing to
find a publisher and faced by declining
health, she abandoned her efforts
shortly before her death. It is Haley's
Autobiography which Reid discovered while doing research for his
doctoral
dissertation in the 1960s. His
thirty-five page introduction is a model of its
kind, and worth the price of the book.
In addition he has added extensive
footnotes to the body of the Autobiography,
lending to it clarity and explana-
tion for the obscure points. One could
only hope that his considerable skills
will encourage him to publish his
dissertation on the professionalization of
Chicago teachers in the period 1895 to
1920.
It may appear to be harping to note that
the press is guilty of a major flaw in
the Introduction. In an otherwise
appealing publication, a hiatus occurs be-
tween pages xxi and xxii. It is so
distracting that it is hoped that the publish-
er might prepare an errata and perhaps
even issue a second printing.
University of Cincinnati Gene D. Lewis
Charles A. Beard: An Intellectual
Biography. By Ellen Nore. (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press,
1983. xii + 322p.; illustrations, notes,
bibliography, index. $24.95.)
The subtitle is apt. Noting that the
sources for a full biography of Beard
are fragmentary, Nore has confined
herself to a consideration of his ideas as
revealed in his writings. We get very
few glimpses of Beard as a person, and
those few add up to a picture that is
shadowy at best. Of course, Beard's
ideas are eminently worthy of study in their own right,
and, since the sourc-
es for a fuller portrait are
inaccessible or nonexistent, Nore's decision to write
a purely intellectual biography is both
understandable and proper. Still, one
cannot help but wish for more purely
personal information, not because one
wants to engage in "village
gossip," as Beard called biography, but because
our understanding of his ideas might be
enhanced by a fuller knowledge of
his personality and experiences.
This is especially the case because the
book, while admirably thorough,
admirably detailed, and admirably
comprehensive, lacks an overall con-
ceptual framework that would serve to
provide a sense of linkage between
Beard's ideas. His very busy
intellectual life spanned half a century. He
wrote an enormous amount on a wide
variety of subjects, including history,
political science, public planning, foreign
policy, and a staggering array of cur-
rent social problems. Sometimes it seems
as though Beard has fragmented
into a number of authors of a number of
disparate works on widely divergent
subjects.
To be sure, Nore does establish some
connecting threads. One is Beard's
activism. Nore points out that he was
not an academic intellectual, but rather
a man committed to using his writings as
a method of educating people to the
desirability of certain changes in
social policy, and that this purpose, in turn,
was based upon his faith in the capacity
of ordinary Americans to under-
stand and make proper decisions upon
public issues.
Another connecting thread is Beard's
consistent-if somewhat eclectic-
Book Reviews
195
radicalism. Nore takes issue with those
who have regarded his highly con-
troversial works on Franklin Roosevelt's
foreign policy and American entry
into World War II as evidence of a departure from his
previous political con-
victions. She makes an impressive case
that Beard opposed Roosevelt and
his policies because he felt Roosevelt
had undermined democracy by cir-
cumventing the public discussion of
issues, which was perhaps its most es-
sential feature, and because he felt
that the consequence of such policies, by
diverting attention from problems that
remained to be solved within the
United States, decreased or even
destroyed the chances for necessary social
change.
Beyond this, however, Nore provides the
reader with little insight into
ways in which what Beard said in one
work is related to what he said in oth-
ers. Neither does she deal as fully as
she might with the impact of Beard's
writings on the development of either
social policy or the writing of American
history. She does discuss the way in
which some of his writings grew out of
contemporary concerns and issues-The Economic
Interpretation of the Con-
stitution, his books on American foreign policy, etc.-but she does
little to
link these developments with broader
currents. She does not, for example,
show how his early works on the economic
interpretation of history, his pro-
motion of the so-called "new
history" in collaboration with James Harvey
Robinson, and his later espousal of
historical relativism are all linked to what
Morton White has termed "the revolt
against formalism."
Still, because of the breadth and
thoroughness of the treatment, this is a
worthwhile addition to the literature on
Beard. It does not supplant older
works such as those by Hofstadter and
Strout and the collection of essays
edited by Beale, but it is a useful
supplement to them.
Cleveland State University Thomas Hartshorne
The Shawnee Prophet. By R. David Edmunds. (Lincoln: University of Ne-
braska Press, 1983. xii + 260p.;
illustrations, notes, maps, bibliography, in-
dex. $16.95.)
R. David Edmunds' volume details the
life and times of Tenskwatawa,
more commonly known to history as the
"Shawnee Prophet." Edmunds is
correct in pointing out that the
Prophet's life was a microcosm of the Indian
experience in the Old Northwest during
the period 1775 to 1840. Born at Old
Piqua in western Ohio on the eve of the
American Revolution, Tenskwatawa
was forced to adapt to major social and
economic changes in the war's after-
math. Unlike some Indians of this
region, he adamantly rejected accultura-
tion and instead espoused a return to
the traditional mores and an abandon-
ment of the white's ways, especially
their liquor. Tenskwatawa's religious
revivalism in the end failed to mitigate
Indian desperation over white settle-
ment on lands in the Old Northwest;
warfare with whites finally ensued and
removal westward was the fate of the
Prophet and the tribes of his former
homeland.
Tenskwatawa is probably best known as
Tecumseh's brother. He was the
one-eyed, reformed alcoholic and
religious zealot who served effectively as
Tecumseh's mouthpiece in the years
before the War of 1812. Tenskwatawa is
196 OHIO HISTORY
also remembered for disregarding
Tecumseh's stern injunction and engaging
William Henry Harrison's militia at
Prophetstown in 1811 with disastrous re-
sults. The Prophet's defeat at the
Battle of Tippecanoe brought to an end all
hope of a military pan-Indian movement,
led by Tecumseh, which might
maintain control of significant portions
of the Old Northwest for the region's
tribes.
While in agreement with the traditional
interpretation of the consequences
of Tenskwatawa's ill-conceived
confrontation with Harrison, Edmunds offers
a new interpretation of the Prophet's
contribution to this pan-Indian move-
ment: specifically, that Tenskwatawa,
not Tecumseh, was its guiding light.
This interpretation, states Edmunds,
came as a surprise to him; a surprise
that readers will probably share. While
conducting research on the history
of the Potowatomi Indians, Edmunds found
that those primary sources that
discussed their relationship with the
Shawnee brothers contradicted his
expectation; that the evidence would
again demonstrate that Tecumseh
both initiated and dominated the
pan-Indian movement in the years before
the War of 1812. Edmunds contends that
in the years between the Treaty of
Greenville (1795) and the Treaty of Fort
Wayne (1810), it was the Prophet's
religious revitalization movement that
attracted the attention of many Indians
in the Old Northwest. Moreover, Edmunds
argues that only after 1810, as
concern mounted among Western tribes
over the continued loss of land, did
Tecumseh emerge as an important leader,
using "the religious movement of
his brother as the basis for his
attempts to forge a political and military con-
federacy among the western tribes"
(p. 92). Edmunds spends roughly the
first half of his book building the case
for his new interpretation. In the sec-
ond half, he details Tenskwatawa's
unsuccessful attempts to reassert his
leadership during the War of 1812, his
subsequent removal westward with
the Shawnees, and his final years during
which the Prophet's once great
prestige had been reduced into
obscurity. Tenskwatawa, rejected by the
Shawnees from tribal politics, died in
Kansas in 1836.
While generally well written, Edmunds'
chapter on Prophetstown, in
which he details the comings and goings
of envoys from numerous tribes to
confer with the Prophet, is annoyingly
repetitious and detracts from the
pacing established by the book to this
point. The author, attempting to es-
tablish a rousing narrative style,
occasionally falls prey to hyperbole, with
the result that inaccuracies creep into
the book. For example, Edmunds de-
scribes how, following the Treaty of
Paris (1783), "white frontiersmen poured
over into southern Ohio" (p. 3), or
how in that same period "white settlers
already were crowding onto Indian lands
in southern Ohio" (p. 12). In fact,
only a tiny number of settlers had moved
across the Ohio River into Ohio at
this time, and, until 1788, these brave
souls were squatters, illegally occu-
pying federal territory administered by
Congress. Edmunds also takes an-
thropological theory and represents it
as absolute fact when he states that
the Shawnees by the 1650s were living in
southern Ohio and northern Ken-
tucky (p. 7). The Shawnee Prophet also
contains a number of factual errors. He
places the headwaters of the Wabash in
extreme eastern (rather than west-
ern) Ohio, and Fort Recovery in eastern
(rather than western) Ohio (both p.
15). The defeat of Captain William
Crawford did not occur near Sandusky,
Ohio, but nearly forty miles to the
south of that town (p. 12). Also, the Brit-
ish did not build Fort Miami at modern
Toledo; rather it was located at
modern Maumee, Ohio. Perhaps the
greatest deficiency of this volume is
Book Reviews
197
that while Edmunds suggests a major
reinterpretation by investigating Tensk-
watawa's leadership role, he fails to
address the body of literature on Te-
cumseh which tells a different tale. To
this reviewer, this seems an essential
task if one is to accept completely the
thesis advanced by Edmunds. This
volume fails to answer satisfactorily
what Tecumseh was doing between 1795
and 1810, and why other writers have
apparently so badly misread the his-
toric record.
The University of Akron Philip Weeks
Attorney for the Frontier: Enos
Stutsman. By Dale Gibson with Lee
Gibson
and Cameron Harvey. (Winnipeg, Canada:
The University of Manitoba
Press, 1983. xii + 180p.; illustrations,
notes, index. $18.95.)
Biographers of tertiary figures in
American history must struggle with the
difficult problem of locating sufficient
evidence to produce a balanced por-
trait of their subject. They must also
clearly establish the significance of a
once forgotten figure in the context of
regional or national history. In his biog-
raphy of Enos Stutsman, a lawyer,
politician, land speculator, and interna-
tional intriguer during the early years
of Dakota Territory, Dale Gibson does
not completely solve either problem. He
does produce, with the aid of his
associates Lee Gibson and Cameron
Harvey, a workmanlike account of the
life of an extraordinary individual.
Enos Stutsman from his birth in Indiana
in 1826 to his death in Dakota Ter-
ritory in 1874 spent his entire life on
the western frontier. He exhibited many
of the traits associated with
frontiersmen, such as lack of formal education,
physical bravery, a disregard for the
letter of the law, heavy drinking, and
an eye for the main chance. But in one
important respect Stutsman did not fit
the popular image of a frontiersman. He
was born without legs. Gibson re-
strains an impulse to speculate on the
impact of this handicap on Stutsman's
character. It certainly had no negative
impact on his physical mobility or am-
bition.
Stutsman had already entered politics on
the county level as a Democrat
and had been admitted to the Illinois
bar when a land boom drew him to
Iowa in 1855. Although he was initially
successful in the real estate business
there, the Panic of 1857 forced him to
pull out in early 1858 and accept a posi-
tion with a land company at Yankton in
what would become Dakota Ter-
ritory. There he withstood Indian
threats, became a moderate Republican
leader in the territorial legislature,
helped in establishing Yankton as the
territorial capital, gained credit for
framing the territory's legal code, and
served as the governor's private
secretary from 1862 to 1865. Exhibiting an
ability to further his own interests in
the chaos of factional territorial politics,
Stutsman in 1866 won an appointment as a
special United States Treasury De-
partment agent to investigate reported
smuggling across the United States
border from the north. This brought him
to the settlement of Pembina in
the Red River Valley region straddling
the border between the United
States and Rupert's Land, British North
America.
Gibson stresses that irregular as it may
have been, Stutsman's legal training
gave him a decided advantage in this
remote area populated by Sioux Indi-
198 OHIO HISTORY
ans, French-speaking (Metis) buffalo
hunters, and Canadian and American
pioneers. Seeking to lay the basis for
successful land speculation, Stutsman
used his federal office to lobby for the
creation of a military post and a terri-
torial court in northeastern Dakota. He
also continued an active career in the
territorial legislature and made a name
for himself in Rupert's Land by easily
winning acquital for his client in a
well-publicized manslaughter trial in 1868.
But he gained his greatest notoriety for
his involvement in a failed attempt a
year later to use unrest in Rupert's
Land to bring about the annexation of
most of western British North America to
the United States.
Gibson for two reasons devotes nearly
one third of his book to this last ep-
isode. First, despite thorough use of
the available manuscript, newspaper,
and secondary sources, the paucity of
material for Stutsman's earlier years is
evident in Gibson's conscientious
tentativeness. Second, Gibson believes
that this is the most important episode
in Stutsman's life and concludes that
had his annexationist scheme succeeded,
"Enos Stutsman would be re-
garded as a major figure in American history
today." But the scheme had lit-
tle chance for success, and Gibson might
have increased the significance of
his book had he placed Stutsman's
willingness to use political office to fur-
ther his own business ventures more
clearly within the context of Recon-
struction politics, had he explained
more clearly the interests represented
by early Dakota's political factions,
and had he established Stutsman as part
of a great tradition of American
annexationist schemers stretching back to
Aaron Burr.
South Carolina State College Stanley Harrold
Correspondence of James K. Polk. Volume VI: 1842-1843. Edited by Wayne
Cutler. (Nashville: Vanderbilt
University Press, 1983. xxxvi + 726p.; illus-
tration, notes, chronology, calendar,
index. $30.00.)
This, the sixth volume of James K.
Polk's published correspondence, cov-
ers only the two years following his
unsuccessful campaign in 1841 for reelec-
tion as Tennessee's governor. After
leaving office he returned to a law practice
in Columbia while at the same time overseeing
Democratic party affairs both
inside and outside the State Assembly.
In 1843, after waging a vigorous cam-
paign, he again lost his bid for the
governorship and his control of the Ten-
nessee party. As the leader of the
Jackson-Van Buren faction of the party, he
hoped to be nominated for the
vice-presidency on a Van Buren-Polk ticket in
1844. But in 1843 his political capital
hit a new low and there was no hint of
good fortune to come his way a year
later when he was to be nominated and
elected to the presidency.
Most of the published correspondence
consists of letters written to Polk,
and the bulk of them concern political
matters. Correspondents discussed
the strategy of both political parties
in the Assembly and Polk's strategy of
attacking the national Whig policy at
all points and reminding voters of the
"corrupt bargain" struck by
Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams in 1824.
Polk, like many other politicians of his
day, was a true believer in Jacksonian
ideals. A policy of partisan absolutism
contributed to his 1843 defeat, a de-
feat that apparently came without
warning. Only a few months before the vot-
Book Reviews
199
ers rejected him Polk wrote his wife,
"My prospects continue to be good,
better than they have ever been."
His optimism outlasted the defeat. After
the election he wrote Van Buren:
"Though temporarily defeated the Democ-
racy of the State are neither conquered
nor subdued, but are ready and will-
ing to renew the contest as they will do
in the Presidential canvass of 1844."
The editing of this and the other
volumes in the Polk correspondence
series is superb and the books are
attractive. These, however, are books for
the researcher rather than the general
reader or even the history enthusiast.
The letters contain a wealth of detailed
information about political events
and they illustrate the importance of
personal contacts at every point of a po-
litical campaign. Polk had to
communicate personally in handwritten letters
with all of his lieutenants and to
travel widely under extremely difficult con-
ditions to speak in hundreds of
communities. He also traveled, often unsuc-
cessfully, in attempts to borrow funds
for his campaign. Such political leader-
ship allowed little time for family
life. Sarah Polk, lamenting her husband's
constant travel and over-exertion, wrote
him: "All my fears are you can not
stand the hard labour of the canvass. I
am not patriotic enough to make sac-
rifices for my country. I love myself (I
mean my Husband) better or more than
my country." Her letters add human
interest that is missing from the bulk of
Polk's political correspondence.
Whenever possible, Polk's correspondents
are identified, as are the indi-
viduals mentioned in the letters. For
each unpublished letter there is a precis,
along with the name of the
correspondent, address and repository where it
can be found. Because of growing
publication costs and dwindling founda-
tion funding, the editors indicate that
the series may be suspended without
completion, and have added a 262-page
retrospective calendar of all Polk let-
ters from the earliest in 1816 through
1843. The calendar makes this volume
especially useful for anyone using the
Polk correspondence. Such a well-
produced labor of outstanding
scholarship and love deserves special com-
mendation and support. All those who
need such a collection of published
materials will be grateful for the
careful editing and production of the Polk
project, which should not be permitted
to remain uncompleted.
Wilmington College Larry Gara
The Rise and Decline of the American
Cut Nail Industry: A Study of the
Interrelationships of Technology,
Business Organization, and Management
Techniques. By Amos J. Loveday, Jr. (Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood
Press, 1983. xx + 160p.; illustrations,
notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.)
As the twentieth century nears its end,
we are coming upon the centennials
of many industries born in those decades that saw the
emergence of the
United States as the world's industrial leader.
Economic and business histo-
ries of product-specific industries are likely to
appear in numbers as we ap-
proach the millennium, and rightly they
should, given the sophisticated an-
alytic and historiographic tools now at our disposal.
The work is like no
other, demanding a mastery of complex mechanical
processes as well as a
stomach for the minutia of business
archives.
A solid demonstration of the art is
found in Loveday's dissection of the cut
200 OHIO HISTORY
nail industry, billed as a national
story but largely embracing the nail mills of
the nineteenth century that rose around Wheeling, West
Virginia. Nails have
received a fair share of historical
attention in recent years, both for what
they can tell house restorers about the
age of a dwelling and for the clues
they provide to the development of the
iron and steel industries of the
northeast. Loveday adds important depth
to existing knowledge with a
thoroughly documented account of the
"why" as well as the "how" of the
nail's evolution from a crude product of
the blacksmith's anvil to the sleek
ubiquitous wire nail of today.
Among the many lesser families of hand-wrought,
cast, cut, rolled, and
drawn nails, Loveday targets the cut
nail for the lessons it can teach us about
how "labor, capital, and market
conditions contributed to the growth of the
nail industry and (how) each had a
relationship to technology" (p. 23).
While presumably an authorized history,
given Loveday's free access to the
records of the existing
Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation, the author's
historical conclusions appear to be
consistently objective, especially in areas
pertaining to the resolution of labor
disputes.
Everything, Loveday argues, had an
impact on the rise and decline of the
cut nail industry in the Upper Ohio
River Valley-workers, management,
iron, steel, community pressures, urban
imperialism, religion, competition.
While undoubtedly true for all other
American businesses not operating in a
corporate vacuum, what impresses is the
methodical way Loveday weaves
these influences into a pattern of
stimulus and response that renders compre-
hensible the business of running a
nailworks in Wheeling between the years
1860 and 1886. Nail-making machines, the
workers who operated them, the
managers who controlled the workers, and
the market conditions that drove
the managers, reveal not only the
integrated nature of all mechanized indus-
tries, but the many inter-relationships
worthy of historical analysis, given a
sufficient body of records.
Loveday's text is dense with the
day-to-day of industrial decision-making.
While heavily footnoted and occasionally
anecdotal, little relief is available
in the form of pictoral illustrations, a
resource clearly called for in this subject
area. As Chief Curator of the Ohio
Historical Society, Loveday surely had
access to a broader array of nail
engravings and factory views than is sug-
gested in the few line drawings that
appear in the text. The circumstance of
this work being published pretty much as
Loveday typed it for his Ohio
State University dissertation does not
make the absence of good illustrations
more forgivable. It does cheapen the
high quality of his writing. The care
and attention now being given to
institutional collections of historical illustra-
tions has brought them off the coffee
table to make them a vital part of even
the most scholarly study. Visualizing
Burden's rotary iron squeezer or the
comparative penetrations of cut and wire
nails in wood-both the subject of
widely placed period
advertisements-would aid all who read this book.
While the definitive history of nails,
or even of cut nails, has yet to be writ-
ten, Loveday makes a lasting
contribution to the effort with his emphasis
upon the economic rationale behind the
decisions of the nail mills. Few in-
dustries have received such scrutiny
this early in their histories. Credit also
must be given to the enlightened leaders
of the present steel corporation who
did not incinerate Loveday's primary
documents years ago, as so many firms
are wont to do with records no longer
considered useful.
Since the British nail, pin, and chain
industries have been studied more
Book Reviews
201
thoroughly than any American effort
until Loveday's, it is somewhat surpris-
ing that he did not address the British
experience. English confrontations
with nail-making mechanization and the
wire nail's ascension differ meaning-
fully from American events.
Nevertheless, for what Loveday sets out to do
with his source material, it is
difficult to quarrel with his results-results that
have a message for our modern
basic-metals industries: minimizing a compa-
ny's industrial-research work increases
the risks of industrial obsolescence.
Smithsonian Institution David H. Shayt
Old Franklin: The Eternal Touch. A
History of Franklin College, New Athens,
Harrison County, Ohio. By Erving E. Beauregard. (Lanham, Maryland:
University Press of America, 1983. xii +
253p.; illustrations, notes, appen-
dices, index. $11.75 paper; $22.50
cloth.)
Old Franklin is the compassionate story of one of the many Ohio
private
colleges, founded in the nineteenth
century, which did not survive the twen-
tieth. Begun as the Alma Mater Academy,
in 1819, in New Athens, Ohio, the
institution was chartered in 1825 as
Alma College, "the third oldest college
in the state" (p. 7). A year later,
in 1826, it was renamed Franklin College, in
honor of Benjamin Franklin.
A small, struggling school with the
usual rigorous academic standards as-
sociated with a number of
religiously-inspired frontier colleges, it managed to
endure for nearly a century, closing at
the end of the 1920-21 academic year.
In 1927, Franklin was formally
"merged" with Muskingum College, New
Concord, Ohio, some 45 miles to the
west. In addition to Franklin's charter,
the college archives and library were
also transferred to Muskingum.
In origin, Franklin was largely a
Scotch-Irish Presbyterian venture, al-
though it had no formal church
relationship, and by state charter was to be
interdenominational in character. From
1826 to 1918, the college granted 776
baccalaureate degrees. Of this number,
348 became clergymen (mostly Pres-
byterian); 113, educators; 75, lawyers;
and, 47, physicians. A number of
graduates became highly influential in
political circles. Nine graduates en-
tered the U.S. House of Representatives,
and eight became U.S. Senators.
This wider outreach of service to both
church and state accounts for the au-
thor's use of "The Eternal
Touch" in the title of his work.
Like other small, private colleges
engaged in a continuing struggle for sur-
vival, Franklin has its predictable
heroes-the founding ministerial fathers,
some extraordinary presidents, and
memorable faculty members. It also
has its bete noire, if the author's
account is close to accurate. E. M. Baxter,
Franklin president from 1912 to 1916,
attempted to save the faltering college
through big-time football (after the
trustees had vetoed a proposal to move
the college to an urban area and
rejected the president's suggestion that
honorary degrees be granted to President
Woodrow Wilson, "to gain nation-
al attention" (p. 179), and Andrew
Carnegie, to gain financial support). Foot-
ball did not turn out to be the
hoped-for panacea, even though President
Baxter apparently had provided a
more-than-generous stipend to the col-
lege's football players, and in 1915 had
also provided the players with
"cheerleaders" [author's
quotes] for the five away games that year. Baxter
202 OHIO HISTORY
was dismissed in 1916. He apparently had
left several months earlier, taking
the Franklin charter with him, and
leaving a long list of unpaid bills.
Old Franklin offers significant insights into Presbyterianism (in
its many va-
rieties) on the frontier, the Civil War
era in Ohio (Franklin, an "immediate
abolitionist" college, fervently
blessed "The War of the Rebellion"), and
higher education in the Mid-West in the
nineteenth century. Historians of
education will readily recognize the
sequence of events leading to the demise
of Franklin.
While the dissertation style and
occasionally stilted language may be dis-
concerting to some, the author's
extensive research, attention to detail, and
personal involvement make the book a
work which is both interesting read-
ing and a sound contribution to
scholarship. The computer-generated lists in
the appendices have mixed value. Some
are extremely helpful. Others ap-
pear to be mostly "fluff" and
add little to the work as a whole.
Findlay College
Richard Kern
The Indiana Years 1903-1941. By Walter B. Hendrickson. (Indianapolis: Indi-
ana Historical Society, 1983. 260p.;
illustrations, index. $4.00 paper.)
Walter B. Hendrickson, Professor
Emeritus of History at MacMurray Col-
lege, has authored works on scientific history (such as
David Dale Owen: Pio-
neer Geologist of the Middle West). But this volume, a Publication of the
Indiana Historical Society, is not about science, or
even Indiana per se. In-
stead, it is the personal memoir of
Hendrickson's youth, a middle-class life in
the Indianapolis of the 1900s. The result is, simply, a
delight.
The eldest son of a bookkeeper,
Hendrickson grew up in a loving if none
too prosperous home. Indeed, Father was
constantly involved in side proj-
ects to earn extra money: once the manufacture of face
cream (a venture in-
volving the whole family); another time,
the sharpening of razor blades. As
the elder Hendrickson's career improved,
however, so did the family's
lifestyle-and homes. These were happy
years, and nearly half the book of-
fers vignettes of an urban childhood: the inside of a
city drugstore; sledding
on the 39th Street hill; a trolley ride
to a city park. In straightforward prose,
Hendrickson evokes the sights and sounds
of a world now slipping away.
(The old-fashioned "ice box"
or the vegetable peddler may seem familiar;
but how many recall the coffee, tea and
spice man?). It was a simpler life, yet
more formal too. A time in which Father,
even on vacation, wore a blue serge
suit and starched collar, while Mother
slaved over a washing machine and
its mangle to keep the vacationers in
sparkling white clothes.
Life changed abruptly in 1914 when
Hendrickson's father became bed-
ridden. One is reminded of the terrible
strain for a family troubled with sick-
ness in the days before welfare or
company insurance. Walter plunged into a
series of jobs, which became more
important when Father died-leaving a
widow with little money and two boys to
raise. Hard times indeed. But Wal-
ter learned from his experiences, first
in a pharmacy, then the gas works, at
last in grocery stores (and all the
while going to school). His memoirs de-
scribe each in detail, a valuable
contribution to our knowledge of small busi-
ness and middle-class society in the
prewar years. Walter also became a
Book Reviews
203
leader in the Boy Scouts. His account
gives an interesting sidelight to our
knowledge of Indianapolis scouting-so
important to many middle-class boys
in those years.
College days followed (Butler and
Purdue); hardly glorious, but introduc-
ing Hendrickson to his future wife.
Deciding against engineering, he em-
barked on a business career, at last
ending up with L. S. Ayres, a major
department store. A good job, it gave
him work during the worst of the De-
pression. But Walter sensed he was not
meant for business, and the book
closes with his return to college and
graduate work at Indiana University and
Harvard (he studied under such teachers
as R. C. Buley, Curtis Nettels and
Arthur Schlesinger, Sr.). He finally
moved to MacMurray in 1941, at last an
Illinoisan; but always, he remarks, a
Hoosier.
As with all memoirs, trivia sometimes
threatens the reader. Those living
in Indianapolis will not need
Hendrickson's detailed account of the city's
streets; those outside will not care.
But his recollections quickly get back on
track, and reward the historian with a
sharply etched picture of Indianapolis
several generations ago. The book will
prove useful to social or economic his-
torians, but will fascinate others. At
one point Hendrickson compares a back-
yard scene to Booth Tarkington's Penrod.
Indeed so: he lacks Tarkington's
literary skill, much less the
introspection of a Henry Adams. But this account
offers sharp, piquant images, nor are
they of a past long gone. Hendrickson's
childhood days rang familiar to a
reviewer raised forty years later and a
thousand miles away. Children, after
all, remain children, with the world
created afresh for each one. The
Indiana Years touches on a unique, yet com-
mon past. There is nostalgia here,
certainly-but not just for the family of
Walter Hendrickson.
Midwestern State University Everett W. Kindig
The Great Depression: America,
1929-1941. By Robert S. McElvaine.
(New
York: Times Books, 1984. xiv + 402p.;
illustrations, notes, index. $19.95.)
Many readers may lay this book aside
before finishing the first chapter
believing they have either picked up a
political polemic designed to aid the
1984 Democratic Campaign or they have
started reading a personal testament
masquerading as a history of the Great
Depression. Those who are so tempt-
ed would miss an interesting work.
Most historians have been taught to
avoid every manifestation of the first
person pronoun. Professor McElvaine does
not follow this rule. On page 6, he
inserts himself into the text with an
"I have" and continues with an occa-
sional personal reference through the
book to a final ". . . we would be bet-
ter off . . ." on the last page.
Whether a reader cares for this style or not is
beside the point. Knowing where the
author stands explicitly rather than
implicitly may be a point in the work's
favor. Certainly such usage should not
be an excuse to give up on the book.
Ronald Reagan is first challenged on
page 14. "But the point here," McEl-
vaine observes, "is that what
Reagan . . . remembers about the twenties is
also misleading." Reagan, supply
side economics, 1981 tax laws and many
other aspects of the current
administration's policies come in for constant,
204 OHIO HISTORY
and usually negative, analysis. One
wonders at times if Reagan loses in No-
vember whether this volume will have any
continuing value. It will.
The bulk of this work provides a useful,
critical, though brief, synthesis of
the depression years. McElvaine became
sensitive to the plight of the ordi-
nary people hit by the depression by
reading thousands of their letters to
the Roosevelts and publishing 173 of
them in Down & Out in the Great De-
pression (University of North Carolina Press, 1983). Though he
uses this
source often in the present work, his
focus is still on the major leaders.
Herbert Hoover and Eleanor Roosevelt are
sketched in a balanced way, but,
not surprisingly, Franklin D. Roosevelt
receives the most attention. F.D.R.'s
image is readily recognizable: master
politician, opportunist, country squire,
conservative but left-of-center, often
behind public opinion, ambitious for
power. Indeed, though there are a few
novel hypotheses about the causes of
the depression, the appearance of a new
morality and compassion born of
hardship, and the reasons why the New
Deal gave new hope to the nation
but didn't end the depression, this
volume does not come up with much
which is new. So, where is its value?
The Great Depression should be recommended to intelligent non-
historians who wish to have some insight
into why many historians have se-
rious reservations about the philosophy
guiding the present administration.
McElvaine brings the useful perspective
of historical mindedness to his
work, which is a refreshing change from
the present mindedness found in
the top reading of those who aspire to
success in the current competetive
American society.
If it is true, as I believe it to be,
that each generation writes its own history,
then this book will have its usefulness
in the twenty-first century. When seri-
ous students in the next generation wish
to know how an able historian writ-
ing in the 1980s viewed the Great
Depression and its impact on his times,
they may turn to this analysis for one
thoughtful answer no matter who wins
the election of 1984.
Ohio University George H. Lobdell
The Republican Right Since 1945. By David W. Reinhard. (Lexington: The
University Press of Kentucky, 1983. xi +
294p.; notes, index. $25.00.)
David Reinhard, formerly the American
Historical Association Congres-
sional Fellow in 1981-82 and now a
Capitol Hill worker, has taken what began
as a dissertation at Pennsylvania State
University and made of it a very good
book. But scholars of American politics
will have to accept it on its own
uncompromising terms. It is not an
analytical, quantitative examination of
voters and election returns. It is not
an exhaustive, explanatory study of the
philosophical beliefs of the Republican
Right since 1945. It is not a socio-
economic tract of the origins and
development of the Republican Right out of
the changing American society. No
argumentative, thesis-ridden monograph
here. Rather, Reinhard has written a
broad-gauged chronological narrative
history of the Republican Right built
around election year opportunities,
campaigns, and results as well as the
beliefs and actions of major Republican
politicians. Four-fifths of the
narrative covers the period between 1945 and
Book Reviews
205
1965 and the remainder of the book races
quickly from the latter date to
Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.
Interspersed are short treatments of old-
time Republican Right doctrine grounded
in anti-New Dealism, McCarthy-
ism, the rise of the Radical Right, the
new Cold War issues, the tension be-
tween Eisenhower's "Modern
Republicanism" and the Republican Right,
the New Right and the influence of the postwar
conservative intellectual
movement on the Republicans. These
topical concerns are always subsumed
by Reinhard's announced goal-a
full-scale treatment of the Republican
Right to fill what he sees as a large
gap in the literature. The book has many
virtues. Reinhard has a spritely and
smooth style which consistently holds
reader interest. He uses quotes deftly.
He digs his material from 40 manu-
script collections as well as
appropriate books, newspapers, and magazines,
particularly those favored by the
Republican Right. He manages to portray
vividly the ideological fervor of the
Republican Right and their prickly view
of the nation's affairs in an admirably
objective way. The politicians come
alive and speak for themselves. Reinhard
never intrudes upon them.
The book's best contribution to
understanding the Right comes in three
areas. Reinhard is able to rise above
the petty problem of definition and
most readers will accept his
delineations of Republican Party divisions at any
one time. Adroitly he snips the Radical Right from the
Republican Right, a
point that could be blurred by someone
less skillful or less objective. Im-
pressively, he condenses Joe McCarthy's
turbulent career as a Republican to
understandable dimensions and relates
forthrightly the dangerous embrace
of the Republican Right with the Senator
from Wisconsin, the darling of the
Radical Right. He particularly explains
well the Republican Right's compli-
cated, and often stormy, marriage to
Dwight Eisenhower's Republicanism.
He does not subscribe to the current
fashionable Eisenhower revisionism-
the hidden-hand presidency of powerful
impact. He argues that Eisenhower
did not stop the march toward the right
that would come in the 1960s and
1970s. "Modern Republicanism,"
Ike's politics, was to the Right a "blun-
der" and a "flop." The
two chapters that concern Barry Goldwater's rise to
power and defeat are outstanding.
Goldwater's massive defeat, Reinhard
writes, actually strengthened the
Republican Right in that it shifted power in
the Republican party to the South and
the West, the basis of Republican
Right victories in the 1970s and in
1980.
General readers will find this an
entertaining and thoughtful survey. As a
paperback it would make an excellent
supplemental book to a course on
American history since 1945. Even
scholars of postwar American politics,
who will find nothing startlingly new,
will welcome its occasional use of a
fresh quotation or a sharply turned phrase
or summary.
College of Wooster James A.
Hodges