Ohio History Journal

BOOK REVIEWS                                        165

most eccentric and brilliant archaeolo-

gists. The footnotes have been carefully

prepared; the editing has been well done;

the printing is unusually attractive.

CARL WITTKE

Western Reserve University

INDUSTRY COMES OF AGE: BUSINESS, LABOR,

AND PUBLIC POLICY, 1860-1897. By Ed-

ward C. Kirkland. Volume VI of THE

ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED

STATES, edited by Henry David, Harold

U. Faulkner, Louis M. Hacker, Curtis

P. Nettels, and Fred A. Shannon. (New

York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston,

1961. xiv??445p.; illustrations, bibli-

ography, and index. $7.50.)

Few periods in American history suffer

so from myth, error, and neglect as the

Gilded Age, roughly the last generation

of the nineteenth century. The incrimi-

nating title was devised by such notables

as Mark Twain and Vernon L. Parring-

ton, whose dubious theses have been

adopted too readily by the textbook writ-

ers and popularizers. In the present work

Edward C. Kirkland presents the fruits

of a lifetime's study in the rich sources

of that era in what is both a general

review of American economic history

between 1860 and 1897 and a major re-

interpretation of a disputed generation.

Professor Kirkland deals topically with

many problems: business consolidation,

labor, research and invention, natural

resources, cities, governmental economic

activities, and allied factors. He has un-

covered much fascinating new factual

material, which is supplemented by his

own interpretations.

He dwells at greatest length on busi-

ness, and he reminds us of many things.

He clearly shows, for instance, that nei-

ther businessmen, nor the Republican

party, nor the public at large opposed

government subsidies in the economy;

they only opposed government ownership

and control. Thus many pious business-

men had their cake and ate it too, talking

of individualism while accepting sub-

sidies. The age also disapproved of specu-

lators and lauded producers in the

economic world, though to be sure little

was done until late in the century to curb

speculation. Kirkland shows again how

false was the "rags to riches" myth; most

successful businessmen came from stable

homes, equipped with education and often

as not financial help. He also reminds us

of the grave personal and financial risks

confronting the men of this generation in

their business dealings.

Much   of the business community

frankly opposed competition, seeking in-

stead the stabilization of production that

eliminated wasteful competition and set

prices and income. Kirkland seems to

feel that in the long run, efforts to re-

store competition were reactionary and

that the consolidation of big business

brought many advantages, despite its de-

nial of the doctrines which allowed it to

be built up.

The treatment of labor is rather cur-

sory, so that one has little idea of how

organized labor grew or what exactly

were its aims and ideas. Labor faced

formidable opposition from employers

who talked of iron economic laws, a hos-

tile labor force, and an indifferent or op-

posed public. Kirkland rightly holds that

labor cannot be judged in this period by

strikes and violence alone, but unhappily

he does not present much of an alternative

scheme. Beneath labor's drive for higher

wages, shorter hours, and better working

conditions, lay a genuine fear of corpor-

ate impersonality, something which busi-

nessmen did not fear or did not see.

It is easy to complain of the omissions

in such a book and to minimize its con-

tributions.  This reviewer would like

sharper conclusions all the way through;

and the book seems simply to straggle to

166                                          OHIO HISTORY

an end. More information on small busi-

ness would be welcome. The failure to

deal at all with politics leaves the total

picture ill-balanced. A chapter on busi-

ness and politics is really necessary to

understand the questions of corruption,

subsidy, and the reaction of the two ma-

jor parties to economic growth. This re-

viewer also wanted more analysis of the

business ethic, for he remains sufficiently

unreconstructed on the subject to wonder

if Professor Kirkland's implication that

most businessmen were socially conscious

is not overdrawn. The style, while reada-

ble, is not colorful, which is a shame in

view of the era's excitement.

The book shows what a rich and re-

sourceful era this was; to be sure there

was waste and haste, but the solid accom-

plishments remain. This generation passed

on a well-developed nation, a higher eco-

nomic standard of living, more leisure

time, more wealth for social purposes,

and an economic richness that made for

greatness when America stepped on the

international stage.

No review can really dissect the book,

so closely packed are its pages with inter-

esting and controversial material. How-

ever much and in whatever ways one may

disagree with it, it is an important re-

interpretation. No student of the Gilded

Age can ignore it, and its facts and theor-

ies should do much to revise the current

erroneous judgment of the era.

H. WAYNE MORGAN

University of Texas

A FOOL'S ERRAND. By Albion W. Tourgee.

Edited, with an introduction, by John

Hope Franklin. (Cambridge, Mass.:

Belknap Press of Harvard University

Press, 1961. xxviii??404p. $5.00.)

The reissue of this book provides an

opportunity for the social and literary

historian, as well as the intellectual his-

torian, to become acquainted with an all

but forgotten social document dealing

with post-Civil War conditions in North

Carolina. Professor Franklin has care-

fully edited the novel, working from the

first edition, published in 1879. Long

out of print, Ohio author Tourgee's novel

has, like its author, long been relegated

to the dusty, unused back shelves in li-

braries. Perhaps this has been justified

from the strictly critical standpoint; how-

ever, the book sold 200,000 copies in its

first year.

Structurally weak, the plot of A Fool's

Errand deals with the efforts of a well-

meaning carpetbagger, Colonel Comfort

Servosse, to help rebuild the South after

the Civil War. The colonel's experiences

strongly resemble Tourgee's own as a

carpetbag superior court judge in North

Carolina, and the novel is important for

its accurate but biased northern view of

conditions during the period of Recon-

struction. Tourgee criticizes not only the

southern resistance but the federal gov-

ernment as well for the failure to recog-

nize adequately and to handle the prob-

lems which arose in the aftermath of the

conflict. His suggestion for an encom-

passing solution to the many problems in

the South, one which he did not repudiate

until long after he had ceased writing

propagandistic novels, is a national edu-

cational system which would educate all

Americans, freedmen and white. How-

ever, Colonel Servosse, like Tourgee,

finally gives up his attempts to recon-

struct the South, admitting that his has

been a fool's errand. The saving grace

of the novel, and the reason which moti-

vated the Belknap Press of Harvard Uni-

versity Press to rescue this book from

oblivion, is its sometimes microscopic

analysis of post-Civil War life in the

South.

Professor Franklin's biographical in-

troduction is heavily dependent on the

only biography of Tourgee, written by

BOOK REVIEWS                                          167

Roy F. Dibble and published in 1921.

This dependence is to be expected, since,

until recently, there has been compara-

tively little scholarship concerned with

Tourgee's life and writings. One slight

error should be mentioned. The book

jacket states that Tourgee died in 1903,

while serving as American consul in Bor-

deaux. His death, as Professor Franklin

points out in the introduction, actually

occurred in 1905.

Although moderate, the five-dollar

price of the book would tend to keep it

from being used in a sociologically or

historically oriented course in literature

or American civilization. In soft cover,

and at a more moderate price, the book

would serve as an important source of in-

formation concerning the thought of at

least one American involved in the re-

building of the nation.

TED N. WEISSBUCH

California State Polytechnic College

LIST OF NATIONAL ARCHIVES MICROFILM

PUBLICATIONS, 1961. National Archives

Publication No. 61-12. (Washington:

National Archives, 1961. vi??231p.;

appendix and index. Paper.)

In 1948 the Guide to the Records in

the National Archives was published with

overall descriptions of the record groups

of its considerable holdings. For over

twenty years the National Archives has

been engaged in a continuing project

which to date has produced nearly 13,000

rolls of master negative microfilm of se-

lected portions of some 260 of these rec-

ord groups. The present List supersedes

one of the same title that was issued in

1953 by the exhibits and publications

branch of the National Archives.

Entries in this catalog are arranged

according to government departments

and agencies. They include brief descrip-

tions of contents, an indication of indexes

which may have been prepared, and other

pertinent information. If the "microfilm

publication" of a specific body has not

been completed, its projected specifica-

tions are included. Also, notation is made

in instances where the National Archives

has prepared pamphlets which deal with

some of the specific record groups which

have been filmed.

Positive prints of these rolls are all

available at a very nominal eight cents

for each foot of 35-millimeter film and

four cents for 16-millimeter film. Thus a

vast amount of source material is readily

accessible for a modest outlay of research

funds. This may well obviate, in many

instances, the necessity of expensive travel

and sojourn in Washington to utilize re-

search resources of the archives.

The coverage and diversity of the ma-

terials thus obtainable are apparent by

examination of the table of contents, text,

and index of this volume. A few exam-

ples illustrate this point: A student of

the Old Northwest could find much con-

cerning labor, genealogy, the shifting of

population, and numerous other facets of

the region's history crammed into the

schedules of the federal population cen-

suses, many of which have been filmed.

For the current interest in the Civil War,

the service records of the Union veterans

of all branches or of their widows, by

groups of Ohio counties, are available.

Or a researcher could delve into the de-

tailed operations of the collector of cus-

toms for certain periods at Sandusky or

Cincinnati or at other places in the state

in which the United States Department

of Treasury officials were located.

The scope of the subject matter in-

volved is as wide and as detailed as the

official records kept by various govern-

ment agencies and bureaus since the days

of the First Continental Congress. This

catalog of the available microfilm pub-

lications of a generous portion of the

holdings of the National Archives is a re-

168                                          OHIO HISTORY

search aid of obvious worth and necessity

to anyone interested in American history.

DWIGHT L. SMITH

Miami University

ANTISLAVERY: THE CRUSADE FOR FREEDOM

IN AMERICA. By Dwight Lowell Du-

mond. (Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press, 1961. x??⁴²²p.; illus-

trations and index. $20.00.)

This book represents a comprehensive

view of the antislavery crusade in its

many aspects. The author condemns

slavery as originally based on the un-

sound doctrine of Negro inferiority and

follows with an analysis of the attitude

of the generation of the Revolution to-

ward it. He condemns the three-fifths

ratio of the constitution as giving unfair

political advantage to the South, but his

statement that direct taxes were not im-

posed is contrary to the fact that they

were imposed several times during the

early national period.

Attention is paid to the disabilities un-

der which the free Negro labored. The

conclusion is that he was rightfully and

legally a citizen, despite judicial interpre-

tations to the contrary. To the organized

abolition movement much space is de-

voted. The leaders of this movement are

depicted as opponents of colonization,

champions of egalitarian doctrines, de-

fenders of freedom of speech, and advo-

cates of the "Higher Law" in respect to

certain aspects of the slavery controversy.

The Liberty party and the implications

of the slavery question for labor and the

churches, respectively, are discussed.

The principal merit of this work is

that it represents the most extensive

presentation in existence of the moral

point of view against slavery. The author,

however, is very subjective and positive

in his presentation. He pronounces the

fugitive slave act of 1793 "a law which

unquestionably stands alone as the most

flagrantly unconstitutional act of Con-

gress ever enforced by the courts." The

idea that the South was turned from

emancipation and to a defense of slavery

by northern abolitionists is termed "a

monstrous fiction," and "there is no

record of any support in the slave states

at any time for emancipation." He main-

tains that slavery had reduced the South,

"except for slaveholders, to a region of

ignorance and poverty," and that "it

must never be forgotten that slaveholders

fled from the Union in 1860-61 in a last

desperate gamble to preserve slavery."

The abolitionist indictment of the South

is accepted without reservation.

Because the author accepts so implicitly

the abolitionists' characterization of their

northern critics, there is not an adequate

analysis of the northern opposition to

the abolitionists. Mob action against

them was not justifiable, but it does not

follow that all criticism of them was un-

justified. Even some of the authorities

cited by the author himself in defense of

freedom of speech condemned the aboli-

tionists for abuse of it. Channing, as is

pointed out, wrote a defense of freedom

of speech for abolitionists, but it is not

pointed out that he also stated that their

vocabulary of abuse sometimes became

licentious. Harrison Gray Otis is re-

ferred to in a particular connection as

"a strong advocate of freedom of speech

and of the press," but it is not recorded

that this same individual, in 1835, bitterly

condemned the sending of pictorial repre-

sentations and pungent literature into the

South as not in accordance with his con-

cept of freedom of speech. Strangely

enough, the John Brown raid is not even

mentioned.

HENRY H. SIMMS

Ohio State University

BOOK REVIEWS                                       169

INDIANS IN PENNSYLVANIA. By Paul A. W.

Wallace. Illustrated by William Rohr-

beck. (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania His-

torical and Museum Commission, 1961.

xiii??194p.; illustrations, maps, ap-

pendix, and index. Paper, $1.50.)

There is more unflagging and contin-

ued popular interest in the American In-

dian than in most topics in American

history; but surprisingly little has been

done to cultivate this interest. There is

a need for competent, scholarly writers to

bring together the findings of anthropolo-

gists, linguists, historians, and others that

appear in professional journals and

monographic studies, to synthesize these

materials, and to present them to the lay-

man devoid of the technical and special-

ized terminology that often confuses

rather than enlightens.

Probably the most satisfactory ap-

proach to such studies is geographic, on

a regional or a state basis. This is not

necessarily to suggest that geographic de-

terminism is predominant, but it is to say

that more meaningful generalizations and

observations can be made on the Ameri-

can Indians on this rather than on a na-

tional or continental scale. Neither is it

to assert that a state or region can be

isolated, because there were usually inter-

regional relationships and interactions

that must be considered.

An excellent example of this approach

is George Irving Quimby's recent (1960)

study, Indian Life in the Upper Great

Lakes, 11,000 B.C. to A.D. 1800. An-

other, concerned with the Prehistory of

the Upper Ohio Valley, was published by

William  J. Mayer-Oakes in 1955. In

some respects a sequel to the latter, but

concerned with a larger area, is the pres-

ent Indians in Pennsylvania. It should

be noted here that all three of these works

contribute much to a better understand-

ing of the Indians in the Old Northwest.

Nearly one-half of the Wallace volume

is devoted to the Delawares, "a loose con-

federation of Algonkian tribes"--their

physical appearance, dress, houses, vil-

lages, social organization, superstitions,

occupations, travel, warfare, government,

cradle to grave rites and ceremonies, re-

ligion, legends, amusements, migrations,

and related topics. The other distinct In-

dian peoples living in Pennsylvania at

the beginning of the seventeenth century

were the Susquehannocks, the Mononga-

hela people, and the Eries. Much less is

known about them than the Delawares,

and their contact with the incoming Euro-

peans was relatively insignificant.

Of considerable importance to the his-

tory of the Pennsylvania Indians, as they

were to most of the Indians in the eastern

United States and Canada, were the Iro-

quois nations of upstate New York. Their

military and political genius also made

them important factors in the French-

English struggle for North America. After

their conquests, which resulted in the

dispersal of the Susquehannocks in 1675,

they sponsored the occupation of the

Susquehanna Valley with refugee peoples

--the Conoys and Nanticokes from the

Chesapeake Bay area; the Tuscaroras

from North Carolina; the Tutelos from

the Virginia-North Carolina piedmont; a

band of Shawnees from the Illinois coun-

try and another from the Chesapeake Bay

region.

Land cessions, Indian policy, migra-

tions, the roles of the Indians in the wars

of the whites, and biographical sketches

of the "famous" Indians of the state con-

clude the volume. Seven uncluttered but

ample maps enhance the value of the

book.

The general reader will welcome In-

dians in Pennsylvania. For the special-

ist it is a convenient sketch. And it is an

example that can well be imitated else-

where.

DWIGHT L. SMITH

Miami University

170                                              OHIO HISTORY

FABRIC OF FREEDOM, 1763-1800. By Es-

mond Wright. The Making of America

Series, edited by David Donald. (New

York: Hill and Wang, 1961. xiii??

²98p.; maps, bibliographical essay,

and index. $4.50.)

From felicitous title to scholarly bibli-

ography Esmond Wright, professor of

modern history at the University of Glas-

gow, has produced an impressive sum-

mary of the American experience from

1763 to 1800. Through the use of color-

ful detail and vivid illustration he has

managed superbly the difficult feat of

making a most familiar story sound fresh

and eminently worth the retelling. So

many great themes run through this

period of American history that it would

be easy to magnify some out of all pro-

portion to the others. This temptation the

author skillfully avoids by maintaining

an admirable balance among his many

concerns. If, however, any one portion of

the book were to be singled out by this

reviewer for special praise it would be

the first one hundred pages which re-

count the course of revolutionary fer-

ment to 1776. There is no better brief

focusing of the issues at stake between

mother country and colonies than one

finds here.

It is obvious from the dexterity and

judgment with which Professor Wright

threads his way through conflicting in-

terpretations that he is most conversant

with the sources, printed and manuscript.

An elite corps of historical interpreters

has left its mark on the writing of early

American history, and to the persuasive

arguments of Turner, Beard, Namier,

Fiske, Jameson, Parrington, Andrews, et

al. must be added the more recent theses

of Gipson, Morison, Jensen, Bridenbaugh,

Brown, and many other major contribu-

tors to the historical literature of this

period. Wright, while clearly stating the

position of these authors, is not reluctant

to choose among them or to take rather

positive stands of his own. A random

sampling of his conclusions would show,

among other things, that "the Revolution

was caused by political failures in Lon-

don, seized on by colonial leaders. The

war was lost by the lack of energy at the

center and among military commanders

on the spot" (p. 119); "American suc-

cess owed far more to Washington's

achievement in creating and maintaining

an army than to the entry of France into

the war" (p. 135); "The rivalry of state

against state has never been as important

in American history as the clash of sec-

tions" (p. 169); "The great debate of

1787 was successful in its outcome ex-

pressly because both groups held so many

postulates and so many fears in common"

(p. 187). Occasionally a judgment does

not ring true; for example, listing Bunker

Hill and Guilford Courthouse among a

group of contests that "the British won

easily" (p. 123).

Possibly the most valuable of Professor

Wright's many contributions in this book

is his critical bibliography, marked by

its comprehensiveness    (thirty-three

pages), by its selectivity, and by the help-

fulness of the author's comments in set-

ting individual works in their proper re-

lationship to others. His assessment of

Sir Lewis Namier's work and its influence

is unusually well done. Wright groups

the "voluminous material" on the War of

Independence into seven main sections:

"political" sources, views of the comman-

ders in the field, accounts of participants

who were not in command, material on

the Loyalists, specialized studies on the

strategy, tactics, and campaigns of the

war, diplomacy, and secondary histories.

This book is one of the six volumes

either produced or projected for the

Making of America series under the gen-

eral editorship of David Donald. If the

series can maintain this high standard it

BOOK REVIEWS                                      171

will become a most useful contribution to

American historiography.

GEORGE W. KNEPPER

University of Akron

FORTH TO THE WILDERNESS: THE FIRST

AMERICAN  FRONTIER, 1754-1774. By

Dale Van Every. (New York: William

Morrow and Company, 1961. xii??

369p.; maps, bibliography, and index.

$6.00.)

THE GREAT LAKES FRONTIER: AN EPIC OF

THE OLD NORTHWEST. By John An-

thony Caruso. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-

Merrill Company, 1961. 432p.; maps,

bibliography, and index. $6.50.)

These books are mostly summary inter-

pretations of the printed secondary mate-

rials relating to their subjects -- Van

Every's entirely so, Caruso's with much

use of printed primary material and an

occasional dip into manuscripts and

newspapers. They differ in regard to the

phases of the frontier process included:

in Van Every the first thin line of fur

traders and settlers, in Caruso all phases,

using the arrival at statehood to termin-

ate his treatment of the five lake common-

wealths.

Forth to the Wilderness is essentially

the story of the passage of frontier set-

tlement across the proclamation line of

1763. There is a build-up from the terri-

ble years of the French and Indian War

and the Pontiac War to the fateful days

when "the first crossing" took place fol-

lowing the treaty of Fort Stanwix of

1768. "Now had come the moment when

for the first time Americans were to be-

come truly Americans by beginning to

turn instead [of] to face westward. This

was the most important moment in

American history after Jamestown" (p.

290). This idea is typical of the entire

book, which is really an account of the

opinions of Dale Van Every, who is said

on the jacket to possess "a novelist's skill

and historian's accuracy."

Novelist's skill, perhaps; historian's

accuracy, no. To be sure, he has pieced

together the facts gleaned from the works

of other historians into a lucid narrative

which gives an easily followed story about

a very intricate period. For this, the

maps help, and for this the lay reader will

be thankful. He skillfully clusters his

facts about dominating personalities: the

businesslike George Croghan; the mili-

tarily competent Henry Bouquet; the op-

portunistic William Johnson; the restless

John Stuart; and Pontiac, "the Indian

Hannibal."

But in the process some absurd mis-

conceptions emerge to help give the story

a certain suspense quality. For one thing,

in 1763 "the slow and inexorable advance

of the frontier had come to a halt at the

foot of the mountains." However, there

soon appeared "a force whose imminent

rise could not have been foreseen in 1763

because its faint stirrings were not yet

apparent . . . men and women of a sort

hitherto unknown, The Frontier People"

(pp. 22, 23). If these "irrepressible peo-

ple," who started to cross the mountains

in 1766, "had . . . waited for an ever so

slightly more propitious moment to make

their venture [,] the independence so nar-

rowly won by patriot armies, with the

calculating support of France and Spain,

must have been an independence limited

to the Atlantic seaboard" (p. 263). These

Indian-hating folk had such characteris-

tics as an instinctive "inclination toward

the Indian's way of life" (p. 43); they

starved by the hundreds in 1769 (the date

is important) before they could raise a

first crop (p. 298); and "they were striv-

ing to escape the ordered world behind

them and its clutter of such frustrations

as quitrents, taxes, debts, wages, laws"

(p. 44). Against them were Indians who

had an "age-old . . . proclivity for waging

war on each other" (p. 35), who were

"highly articulate" and "born orators"

172                                         OHIO HISTORY

(p. 37), who spoiled their children and

applauded their every tantrum  (p. 39).

Granting a lucidly told story, much

accuracy, and a lot of common-sense

frontier "realism," it is probably unnec-

cessary to warn the lay reader to take

with a grain of salt Ray Billington's claim

in the Foreword that Van Every "is un-

excelled in distilling the essence from his-

tory."

Caruso's story is better, although not

the "epic" claimed for it. It has footnotes

and a reliance in some degree on source

material. But this reliance is uneven. The

bibliography lists Carter's Territorial Pa-

pers in seventeen volumes, but there

seems to be only one citation therefrom in

the entire book. Caruso's heavy use of

the Draper manuscripts enables him to

tell superbly the story of George Rogers

Clark and the Ohio Indian Wars. But his

failure to use adequately the Jesuit Rela-

tions (there are only two citations) and

the New York Colonial Documents (not

even listed in the bibliography) is fatal.

The result is that the dominance by the

French-Ottawa Indian Confederacy of the

Great Lakes frontier is entirely missed.

The alleged Anglo-Iroquois dominance is

not promoted, but the published studies

challenging its reality are evidently not

known to Caruso. (Van Every has swal-

lowed the Iroquois claim, line, fishhook,

and sinker: "They had kept every other

Indian nation within a thousand miles of

their New York strongholds trembling at

their every frown" [p. 104].)

However, there are some marvelous

chapters in Caruso's book. Outstanding

are those on Tecumseh and the War of

1812. The former is noteworthy for its

giving William Henry Harrison his come-

uppance for his performance at Tippe-

canoe. The latter makes full, up-to-date

use of the rich research on the War of

1812 by Esarey, Gilpin, Knopf, and oth-

ers. The chapter on Pioneer Days and

Ways is a gem. Reverting to George

Rogers Clark, it is a pleasure to note that

the Clark exaggerators are debunked

without discrediting Clark.

RANDOLPH C. DOWNES

University of Toledo

THE PAPERS OF HENRY CLAY. Edited by

James F. Hopkins and Mary W. M.

Hargreaves. Volume II, THE RISING

STATESMAN, 1815-1820.   (Lexington:

University of Kentucky Press, 1961.

viii??929p.; frontispiece and index.

$15.00.)

There is a well-noted dichotomy in

American political thought. On the one

hand, we admit the need for governmen-

tal power and for elected politicians to

exercise it; on the other, we assume that

public officials inevitably lose a portion

of the pristine honesty they possessed as

private citizens. Thus, the politician who

can maintain an image of disinterested

aloofness, of non-self-seeking innocence,

of quick and easy solutions, of the com-

mon touch, has usually been more suc-

cessful than the politician who accepts

and emphasizes the realities of power.

The classic examples of these two "types"

are Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay.

Jackson was the citizen-soldier turned

president, simple and incorruptible, the

man of principle, who destroyed the

demon Bank because banks, as everyone

knows, are bad. Clay was the Great Com-

promiser, the man of expediency, an out-

standing diplomat, administrator, and

true Jeffersonian; and the American peo-

ple on three occasions refused to reward

him with the presidency.

The ill-feeling between the two west-

erners seems to have been precipitated in

1819, when Clay castigated Jackson for

the summary execution of Arbuthnot and

Ambrister. In a lengthy speech on the

Seminole War, Clay remarked: "It is not

always just to do what may be advanta-

BOOK REVIEWS                                          173

geous. And retaliation, during a war,

must have relation to the events of that

war, and must, to be just, have an opera-

tion upon that war, and upon the indi-

viduals only who compose the belligerent

party. It became gentlemen, then, on the

other side, to show, by some known, cer-

tain, and recognized rule of public or

municipal law, that the execution of these

men was justified. Where is it?" Politi-

cal repercussions were immediate, and

Clay received a warning from Kentucky:

"Your late speech . . . is disapproved of

by some--and some of your friends are

apprehensive that you may lose friends

as a consequence."

Future volumes of The Papers of Henry

Clay should reveal in copious detail the

developing enmity of Clay and Jackson.

The second volume, which covers the

years 1815-20, indicates the seedtime of

that famous competition. Indeed, the

period seems to harbor the sprouts for

many later quarrels. Slavery in Missouri,

the protective tariff, South American in-

dependence, internal improvements, and

the second Bank of the United States (to

name but a few), were problems far from

resolved in the Era of Good Feelings.

With the exception of his speeches on the

Tallmadge amendment which, unfortu-

nately, were not recorded, Clay's rather

consistent positions on these other issues

have been meticulously compiled, chrono-

logically arranged, reprinted in full, an-

notated, and indexed. This volume, then,

maintains the high caliber of exhaustive

scholarship the editors have established

for the series.

MORTON BORDEN

Montana State University

THE RISE OF THE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

OF THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY. By H.

G. Good. (Columbus; College of Edu-

cation, Ohio State University, 1960. viii

^??306p.; illustrations, documentary ap-

pendix, and index. Cloth, $3.00; paper,

$2.00.)

Professor Emeritus Good was a par-

ticipant in many of the historic activities

that he traces from the origin of the

college of education of Ohio State Uni-

versity in 1907 through the following

half-century. Since the college at Ohio

State represents one of the early instances

of the introduction of education as a uni-

versity study (although preceded perhaps

by Iowa and Michigan), Good's account

furnishes an excellent chapter in the gen-

eral educational history of the United

States and also presents specifically the

interesting evolution of the by now well-

known institution at Columbus.

The book is arranged with Good's

usual clarity of organization into seven

epochs; beginning with "The Years of

Preparation" and "Founding the Col-

lege," the development is carried through

"Years of Fulfillment." An enrollment of

forty-six in 1907, with three full-time fac-

ulty members, was magnified to 5,204 in

1957-58, with several hundred instructors,

lecturers, and professors. Yet it may be

considered a strange commentary (al-

though Good nowhere says it in so many

words), that the "high moment" of the

college of education occurred during and

directly following the Age of the Great

Depression--perhaps from 1929 to 1941.

Under the regnancy of George Freder-

ick Arps (dean, 1920-37) a splendid gal-

axy of figures--controversial or otherwise

--came to make the college of education

campus their home. The names of this

aggregation represent a small "Who's

Who" in American education. And while

it cannot be said that progressive educa-

tion was in the saddle at Ohio State, its

fragrance certainly was in the air and

provided an ambrosia that penetrated into

all departments. The headquarters of the

famous Eight-Year Study was located on

174                                             OHIO HISTORY

the Ohio State University campus, and

numerous items of progressive literature

emanated from the faculty and students

of the University School, for example,

Were We Guinea Pigs?

Perhaps a spiritual decline--if this can

be admitted by the faithful--set in with

the advent of "King Numbers" during the

administration of Dean Klein, who while

striving nobly to arrest the current of

disunity, by his own admission, failed.

Caretaker administrations followed, and

at last a brighter day seems assured, but

that period of greatness--during the de-

pression--presents a high watermark in

college of education history, and a chal-

lenge to emulation.

Since the history related by Professor

Good represents in its second aspect a

universal phase, several generalizations

may be offered: (1) not unique to Ohio

State University is the danger from in-

terdepartmental and intercampus rivalry,

especially the college of education-lib-

eral arts controversy; (2) the fragmenta-

tion of a formerly close-knit faculty due

to excessive specialization represents an-

other and even more serious dilemma in

American education; and (3) the bur-

eaucratic tendency and the overpowering

pressure of "committee work" and "plan-

ning" frequently result in an atrophy of

individual effort as the sterile threshing

of old straw fritters away energies that

might be used better in teaching.

Two points may be raised contrariwise

in respect to Good's almost impeccable

history. First, one may question whether

he has clarified the relationship of Ohio

State University and its college of educa-

tion to the other state institutions of

higher education, two of which, Ohio

University and Miami, antedated the Co-

lumbus university by many years? Sec-

ond, one must report an unwillingness

on the part of Professor Good to speak

anything but good about his colleagues

and friends. This is the weakness of the

house organ. Nor does his most becom-

ing modesty allow more than a kaleido-

scopic glimpse of the part that he himself

played in the rise of the college of educa-

tion.

KENNETH V. LOTTICH

Montana State University

WHITEHALL AND THE WILDERNESS: THE

MIDDLE WEST IN BRITISH COLONIAL

POLICY, 1760-1775. By Jack M. Sosin.

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,

1961. xiv??307p.; appendix, bibliog-

raphy, maps, and index. $6.50.)

Administrative history must bear the

burden of dullness, even when the ad-

ministrators are dealing with the Ameri-

can Indian and the frontier. Whitehall

and the Wilderness cannot escape the fate

of studies devoted to the delineation of

policy at the highest levels which must,

of necessity, rely on the verbal mountain

of letters, reports, memoranda, and other

paraphernalia of the decision-making

process. Nevertheless, Jack M. Sosin, as-

sistant professor of history at the Uni-

versity of Nebraska, has written an im-

portant book which competently describes

the frames of reference governing the de-

velopment of British policies toward the

"Middle West," 1760-75, and which skill-

fully analyzes the evolution and applica-

tion of those policies.

Sosin takes direct aim at Clarence W.

Alvord's Mississippi Valley in British

Politics, published over forty years ago,

and finds Alvord's contribution unique

but wanting. New documentary materials,

monographs, and articles have thrown

additional light on the process by which

successive English ministries attempted

to solve the frontier problems arising

from the war with, and defeat of, the

French in America, and from the ever-

increasing pressure of American col-

onists onto Indian lands in the Ohio Val-

BOOK REVIEWS                                       175

ley. Sosin has done his work thoroughly,

stuck closely to his sources, organized his

material logically (i.e., chronologically),

revised and rewritten extensively, and

produced a work which will undoubtedly

fulfill its professed purpose of offering a

more satisfactory alternative to Alvord

to students of the period. Examples of

his acute scholarship are evident in his

discussion of the proclamation of 1763

forbidding settlement beyond the Alle-

ghenies, in his analysis of the legal opin-

ion of Lord Camden and Charles Yorke

as used by American land speculators to

justify the validity of titles to western

lands purchased of the Indians, and in

his discussion of the relationship between

the repeal of the stamp act and the Eng-

lish government's frontier policy.

Whitehall and the Wilderness will be

relied upon by all who wish to penetrate

into the mysteries of the decision-making

process at Whitehall.

WILCOMB E. WASHBURN

Smithsonian Institution

AMERICAN HERITAGE: THE MAGAZINE OF

HISTORY, Volume XII (December 1960

--October 1961).

The magazine of history, spritely and

sufficiently colorful to decorate any coffee

table, continues in the spirit and format

which has endeared it to the public since

its inception. Although it carries little to

strain the intellect of the average reader,

the magazine politely opens a door to his-

tory to reveal a wide variety of events and

scenes from the nation's past.

The present volume is, like those be-

fore it, fascinating to dip into, to taste

here and there, to enjoy colored illustra-

tions, and to be attracted by a lavish dis-

play of type faces. There are original

documents, selections from American

Heritage books, and Bruce Catton's

"Reading, Writing, and History."  All

this, of course, in addition to contribu-

tions ranging from the political, through

the social and literary, to discussions of

early movie palaces and the science of

keeping house. Among the authors repre-

sented are Charles Ramsdell, Irma Reed

White, Stewart H. Holbrook, Charles

Morrow Wilson, and George Howe.

It would obviously be impossible in a

short review to list and comment upon the

articles of all the contributors, each of

whom, in his own fashion, has helped

make the volume for 1960-61. This re-

viewer, knowing full well that his selec-

tion is extremely personal and subjective,

found the following essays appealing:

Duncan Emrich, "A Certain Nicholas of

Patara," an account of the development

of Santa Claus, based in part upon two

rare juveniles; James T. Forrest, "What

A Sight It Was!" the story of the frontier

artist, William Carey; Lawrence Lader,

"Mad Old Man from Massachusetts," a

book selection relating the manner by

which John Quincy Adams broke the

South's gag law in congress; William H.

Hale, "The Road to Yalta," one of a ser-

ies; Francis Biddle, "Scandal at Bizarre,"

the career of Nancy Randolph of Vir-

ginia; John Lukacs, "Bancroft: The His-

torian as Celebrity," a contribution to the

section, "Reading, Writing, and History."

PHILIP D. JORDAN

University of Minnesota

NORTH OF SLAVERY: THE NEGRO IN THE

FREE STATES, 1790-1860. By Leon F.

Litwack. (Chicago: University of Chi-

cago Press, 1961. xi??318p.; bibliogra-

phic essay and index. $6.00.)

We have just finished the first centen-

nial year, yet the volume of writing about

the Civil War has already overwhelmed

all but the most tireless and dedicated

buffs. And there is more to come. Pub-

lishing houses announce almost daily that

this or that book is nearly ready for the

sweepstakes. Surely there must be now

176                                             OHIO HISTORY

almost as many authors of this conflict

as there were soldiers in it. Though the

quality of the recent work is surprisingly

high, much of it bears the mark of com-

memorative writing. There is a genial

tolerance for both sides and a cordial

sympathy for all the actors caught in the

great drama. In short, the war is gener-

ally seen as a struggle between "good

guys."

Leon F. Litwack's book, North of

Slavery: The Negro in the Free States,

1790-1860, brings a different perspective

to these events. Insofar as the Civil War

concerned the rights and opportunities of

Negroes, it is seen here as a contest be-

tween "bad guys." If the South stood for

slavery, the North stood for freedom only

in the most formal sense. Indeed, in the

antebellum decades northern states busily

erected walls around Negro life in their

own area at the same time that they in-

creased the pressure on Dixie's "peculiar

institution." "In virtually every phase of

existence," Professor Litwack concludes,

"Negroes found themselves systematically

segregated from whites. They were ex-

cluded from railway cars, omnibuses,

stagecoaches, and steamboats or assigned

to special 'Jim Crow' sections; they sat

when permitted in secluded and remote

corners of theaters and lecture halls; they

could not enter most hotels, restaurants,

and resorts, except as servants; they

prayed in 'Negro pews' in the white

churches, and if partaking of the Lord's

Supper, they waited until the whites had

been served the bread and wine. More-

over, they were often educated in segre-

gated schools, punished in segregated

prisons, nursed in segregated hospitals,

and buried in segregated cemeteries" (p.

97).

The author does not suggest, however,

that the shabby treatment of colored peo-

ple in one section justified slavery in an-

other. The difference between the black

above the Mason-Dixon line and the en-

slaved below was important. "Above all,

the northern Negro was a free man; he

was not subject to the whims and dictates

of the master or overseer; he could not

be bought and sold; he could not be ar-

bitrarily separated from his family." In

addition, "he could--and on several occa-

sions did--advance his political and eco-

nomic position in the antebellum period;

he could and did organize and petition,

publish newspapers and tracts, even join

with white sympathizers to advance his

cause."  Moreover, Professor Litwack

demonstrates that while Negroes were

largely confined to menial jobs, some did

accumulate property and own successful

businesses. And others began the long

climb up the educational ladder, though

most had to do so in segregated schools.

But the central theme of the book is

the troubles rather than achievements of

free Negroes. The author carefully traces

the exclusion of Negroes from northern

life--the paring down of his political and

judicial rights, the growing segregation

of public facilities and conveniences, the

increasing separation of the white and

black worlds. Behind this proscription

was the same notion of white supremacy

that underlay southern racial views and

provided the rationale for slavery. Col-

ored Yankees did not tamely submit to

this indignity, but the forces arrayed

against them were powerful and persis-

tent. Part of Professor Litwack's story is

the moving struggle of Negro leaders

against these frightful odds. Yet in 1860

the anguished black could throw a curse

on both the North and South. "The poor

Negro, although the cause of this agita-

tion, is denied by both parties as having

any rights common with humanity. They

both worship at the shrine of Avarice and

Cupidity, and sacrifice the rights of men

to propitiate their gods" (p. 274).

BOOK REVIEWS                                      177

Professor Litwack's book is, then, a

necessary corrective to the excessive to-

getherness that characterizes much writ-

ing on the origins and conduct of the

Civil War. Only the brave will dispute

the burden of this volume, for the author

has done a careful job of examining the

voluminous, if scattered, sources on his

topic. He has not only used the more

obvious material -- travelers' accounts,

Negro memoirs and newspapers, aboli-

tionist publications and manuscripts, state

and federal statutes--but he also worked

through the speeches and proceedings of

all kinds of meetings and conventions,

white as well as colored, where racial at-

titudes might be expressed. It is an im-

pressive performance, and the results are

clearly and lucidly presented.

Like so many good books, North of

Slavery opens up additional areas of in-

vestigation. Professor Litwack's approach

has been determined in large part by the

magnitude of his task. He chose to cover

all northern states through seven decades,

a scope that necessarily demanded gen-

eralization rather than detailed analysis.

The result is a somewhat formal history

of Negroes in the North, that is, a treat-

ment which emphasizes the public status

rather than private life of the colored

community. The context of this approach

is law, custom, and the public relation-

ships between whites and blacks. These

are, of course, matters of the first im-

portance. Yet, beyond them are the day-

to-day conditions of life. Where in the

cities did the Negro live; where and at

what did he work; how did he get be-

tween his residence and the job? What

kind of an existence could he contrive

outside of the hostile regulations of the

state and the prejudices of his neigh-

bors? What kind of organization, formal

and informal, provided the meaningful

social contacts for blacks and their fam-

ilies? In short, what was the texture of

life for colored people in a white man's

society? The answers to these questions

must be constructed out of the extraordi-

narily complex records of many localities

where real estate conveyances, tax rolls,

daily newspapers, jury proceedings, and

police blotters contain the clues to the

more intimate aspects of Negro life out-

side of the South. We are now ready for

this kind of a study. And it is now pos-

sible to have it because Professor Litwack

has given us the broad framework into

which such detailed work can be placed.

RICHARD C. WADE

University of Chicago

A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

WEATHER BUREAU. By Donald R. Whit-

nah. (Urbana: University of Illinois

Press, 1961. ix??267p.; illustrations,

bibliography, and index. $6.00.)

As stated in the Preface the major

purpose of this historical study is to

present the story of public services pro-

vided by the United States Weather Bu-

reau from the time of its inception in

1870 to the present. It does more than

that. The author reaches back to the days

of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson,

Henry Thoreau, Meriwether Lewis and

William Clark, and Navy Lieutenant

Matthew F. Maury and their early at-

tempts at collecting weather data system-

atically.

Initially a Ph.D. dissertation, A History

of the United States Weather Bureau is

a story told in some 240 pages of the

political battles, power struggles, appro-

priation fights, personalities, and private

competition behind the present weather

bureau. For his comprehensive history

the author has drawn upon such pub-

lished materials as congressional reports

and documents, official reports of the

weather bureau, and other published

books and articles, as well as journals

and diaries of explorations.

178                                           OHIO HISTORY

Although several states encouraged

weather bureaus in the 1800's, it was in

the period of the War of 1812 that the

first federally financed meteorological or-

ganization was initiated at a number of

army camps by Dr. James Tilton, physi-

cian and surgeon general of the army.

Although lacking complete equipment the

system included ninety-seven army camps

by 1853.

In 1849 Professor Joseph Henry of the

Smithsonian Institution organized a wea-

ther reporting service through the tele-

graph companies. From 150 stations dur-

ing this first year the voluntary network

grew to 500 stations in 1860. The syn-

optic chart, first cited in 1849, became

during 1854-61 a regular daily feature

only to be disrupted, as was all weather

reporting service, by the Civil War.

In 1870 a national weather service

under the army signal service was au-

thorized by congress. From a coverage

of the Great Lakes, and the Atlantic and

Gulf coasts it was quickly expanded to

cover the country in 1872. In 1891 the

national weather bureau service became

a civilian agency under the United States

Department of Agriculture and was re-

named the "Weather Bureau." The serv-

ices of the weather bureau expanded

rapidly and because of its increasing

service to aviation the weather bureau

was transferred to the United States

Department of Commerce in 1940.

Today the weather bureau provides a

variety of public services from the daily

weather map and automatic telephone

forecasts, to frost, flood, and severe storm

warnings. It engages in international

cooperation, and includes among its in-

struments space rockets and satellites.

These cooperative efforts involving the

weather bureau, other federal units, and

meteorological organizations of other

countries are discussed, as are federal-

state joint undertakings which are mu-

tually rewarding to the bureau, business

and industry, and the general public.

ROBERT M. BASILE

Ohio State University

THE TWILIGHT OF FEDERALISM: THE DIS-

INTEGRATION OF THE FEDERALIST PARTY,

1815-1830. By Shaw Livermore, Jr.

(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University

1962. x??292p.; bibliography and in-

dex. $6.00.)

Although there has been renewed inter-

est during the last decade in the origins

and development of the two-party system,

evidenced by the careful and suggestive

studies of Noble Cunningham and Joseph

Charles, there has been no monograph

until now addressing itself to the problem

of what happened to the once-creative,

once-honored Federalist party. In his

Twilight of Federalism, Professor Shaw

Livermore fills in the historical lacuna

and tells the story of the decline of the

Federalists after the close of the War of

1812.

Professor Livermore's book, based on

an extensive reading of the manuscript

sources, is a study in political frustra-

tion and futility. Clinging to an archaic

view of society and contemptuous of

democracy, the Federalists never recov-

ed from their ill-advised sponsorship of

the Hartford Convention. Divided by

petty internecine rivalry, eroded by long

proscription from national office, the

party never regained the cohesion neces-

sary to offer a real opposition to the

dominant Jeffersonians. Federalism,

equated with monarchism which was

equated with treason, had in fact become

an epithet calculated to frighten straying

Republicans back into the fold of their

party. (If you don't behave, the Federal-

ists will get you!) Federalism had become

a convenient Republican whipping boy to

justify the maintenance of the caucus and

BOOK REVIEWS                                         179

spoils systems. The deceitful Federalists,

according to the Republican leaders, had

stirred up the witches' brew of the Mis-

souri crisis. (Professor Livermore dem-

onstrates, as Glover Moore did before

him in his Missouri Controversy, that the

"firebell in the night" was not the result

of a Federalist conspiracy.)

The Federalists had bartered their

votes with John Quincy Adams (himself

a late and "insincere" convert to Repub-

licanism) during the house election of

1825, and they had received their thirty

pieces of silver in the form of a minis-

terial appointment for Rufus King. (Pro-

fessor Livermore shows convincingly that

all of the presidential candidates--Adams,

Jackson, Calhoun, and Crawford--were

equally guilty of the "sin" of currying

Federalist support.) The Federalists were

aristocrats; they depreciated the hallowed

principles of states' rights. They were

extravagant; they were not to be trusted

even because of their "powerful talents,

extensive learning and . . . great weight

and influence."

There is something ironic, even pa-

thetic, about the death rattle of the Fed-

eralists. If their commitment to a cor-

porate society and their fear of the egali-

tarianism of Jeffersonian America was

sincere (and I have no doubt that it

was), they did not hesitate at the same

time to sacrifice principle in the hope of

federal preferment. They resented the

stigma of the Hartford Convention ironi-

cally occurring during the same month as

the signing of the treaty of Ghent. They

applauded with a little too much smug-

ness the adoption of the Federalist pro-

gram by the postwar Republicans, their

self-satisfaction perhaps blinding them to

the fact that Federalism had lost thereby

its purpose and direction. Eagerly ap-

proving of James Monroe's words of

conciliation, they impatiently writhed as

the president's appointment policy belied

his promises. Exacting from Adams the

Webster "pledge," they continued as spec-

tators rather than participants in the

national administration. In various states

they swallowed pride and preached amal-

gamation with one or another wing of

the Republican party, but they received

pathetically few rewards for submission

and support. In the end, and this is the

final irony, it was President Jackson, the

proverbial "hero" of democracy, who

appointed more former Federalists to

office than both Monroe and Adams.

Professor Livermore's book suffers

from some of the confines of the story

he must tell. He admits that the great

issues of the 1820's--the tariff and in-

ternal improvements--were decided not

according to party but by geographical

orientation. He demonstrates conclusively

that Federalism remained an issue in

state politics, but however shrewd the

Republicans were in raising it, Federal-

ism was dead and the quarrel was nuga-

tory. His chronicle of the almost unre-

mitting decline of Federalist fortunes

lacks, therefore, the elements of drama

and surprise; more basically his study

is no more than a tangent to the political

history of the inappropriately named

Era of Good Feelings.

DAVID L. STERLING

Ohio State University

AMERICAN IMMIGRATION. By Maldwyn Al-

len Jones. Chicago History of Ameri-

can Civilization Series. (Chicago: Uni-

versity of Chicago Press, 1960. vii??

³⁵⁹p.; illustrations, selective bibliog-

raphy, and index. Paper, $1.95.)

The author was born and educated in

Great Britain and now lectures on Ameri-

can history and institutions at the Uni-

versity of Manchester. In 1951-52 and

1958-59, he was in residence at Harvard

University, so he has had opportunity to

sense the attitudes prevalent both in the

Old World and in the New World toward

180                                              OHIO HISTORY

immigration to the United States. He

deals concisely with the period before the

American Revolution when newcomers

were deemed "colonists" rather than im-

migrants. He proceeds to cover the years

of the numerically small migration from

1783 to 1815, the rise of the mass migra-

tion from northern Europe during the

period from 1815 to 1860, the upsurge

of nativism, and the relation of immi-

grants to the Civil War. Then, he deals

with the great contributions of the im-

migrant to industrial America from 1865

to 1920, the movement for restriction

from 1882 to 1924, and the consequences

of restriction from 1924 to 1959. A brief

concluding chapter summarizes his evalu-

ations. A list of important dates in the

immigration movement and notes on

suggested readings are included.

In general, the treatment is a balanced

one. The author exhibits no patience with

the prejudices of "racism," but he can-

didly acknowledges that mass migration

confronted the United States with "new

problems of pauperism, disease, and crim-

inality" (p. 132). He does not fall into

the errors common to writers discussing

a country which they have merely visited

for extended periods, but he is somewhat

inaccurate regarding the French settle-

ment at Gallipolis, as he states, "By 1792

the whole project had utterly failed and

the Gallipolis site was deserted" (p. 70).

A true picture of the situation there is

presented by Beverley W. Bond, Jr., in

The Foundations of Ohio (Columbus,

1941), pages 304-5, 311, where he shows

that by the end of 1790 "the settlement

had become an established one," though,

because of the small number who con-

tinued to live there, its permanent influ-

ence was to be negligible. Furthermore,

Professor Jones did not seem to be wholly

appreciative of the merits of Carl Wittke's

We Who Built America: The Saga of the

Immigrant (1939), which he evaluates

as a "vast storehouse of information with

little attempt at interpretation or general-

ization" (p. 325). Wittke actually pre-

sents sound historical facts with many

implicit or explicit interpretations, but

professedly he eschews subjective evalua-

tions based upon unproved sociological

conjectures. Yet, on the whole, Professor

Jones has given us a convenient, informa-

tive summary of the history of immigra-

tion to the United States and its impact

on the national character.

FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER

Ohio State University

THE TOADSTOOL MILLIONAIRES: A SOCIAL

HISTORY OF PATENT MEDICINES IN

AMERICA BEFORE FEDERAL REGULATION.

By James Harvey Young. (Princeton,

N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961.

xii??282p.; illustrations, source notes,

and index. $6.00.)

At a time when President Kennedy is

requesting more food and drug controls,

by congressional action, for the protection

of the consumer, it is cheering to pick up

an extremely able history of the role that

patent medicines played in American life

prior to the first federal regulatory leg-

islation. Professor Young, author of The

Toadstool Millionaires, long has been in-

terested in the fascinating nostrums to

which Americans are devoted and the

wealth amassed by the producers of

worthless remedies.

The volume, divided into fifteen chap-

ters, begins with a survey of English

patent medicines in colonial America,

continues through the Civil War and re-

construction periods, moves on to a dis-

cussion of the pattern of patent medicine

appeals and of the medicine show, de-

votes a section to the pure food and drug

act of 1906, and concludes with an epi-

logue which concerns the contemporary

period. The epilogue catches up contem-

porary fads such as the widespread use

BOOK REVIEWS                                      181

of not only Father Francis' Herb For-

mula but also the tranquilizing drugs. It

is fortunate that the author makes clear

the place that many drugs for the use of

older citizens now play in the lives of

those who are being hoodwinked by

quack medicines designed for the geri-

atric trade.

Ohioans, of course, will be interested

in the discussion of Samuel Thomson's

system of botanic medicine, for the state

was overrun with Thomsonian physicians

during the 1840's. Although nothing

appears which Ohio historians of medi-

cine, such as Jordan and others, have not

recorded, the essay on Thomsonian prac-

tice is an excellent summary. Ohioans

may be disappointed, however, in that

Mr. Young does not make much of the

fact that the Buckeye State in 1913 was

the first to pass a bill banning false ad-

vertising in the newspaper press. This

was based on a model statute offered by

Printers' Ink. Within a few weeks after

the Ohio bill was signed into law, the

state of Minnesota passed a similar one.

Nor does Mr. Young pay sufficient at-

tention to the formation of vigilance com-

mittees of municipal advertising agencies,

such as the one which was organized

shortly after the turn of the century in

Minneapolis and was the forerunner of

the Better Business Bureau of Minne-

apolis, Inc. Indeed, city better business

bureaus could have received much more

space. This points up a major fault in the

volume--it would have been better, in

this reviewer's opinion, to have closed

the account when the Wiley law was

passed. The material is rich and abundant

in the early period--of sufficient wealth

to make a book in itself. The epilogue,

although the author carefully describes

it as such, is far too sparse and thin. It

omits much of an essential nature that is

deserving of greater attention in more

detail.

One can only hope that the author,

with his skill and knowledge, will expand

his last chapter into a full-length volume.

It is sure, if it follows the pattern set in

The Toadstool Millionaires, to be not

only a success but also a contribution to

a field which long has needed an inter-

preter.

PHILIP D. JORDAN

University of Minnesota

A VIRGINIA YANKEE IN THE CIVIL WAR:

THE   DIARIES  OF  DAVID   HUNTER

STROTHER. Edited, with an introduc-

tion, by Cecil D. Eby, Jr. (Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press,

1961. xx??²⁹⁴p.; index. $6.75.)

Literally hundreds of diaries and jour-

nals of the Civil War have been published.

While many of these are of questionable

historical value, there is no doubt about

the significance of the Strother diaries.

They rank with the half dozen best. David

H. Strother wrote his diaries during the

smoke of battle, and they convey a defi-

nite feeling of contemporary events. In

addition to recording Strother's unique

personality, these diaries reflect the mood

of the time in which they were written--

from the general overconfidence of 1861

to the dull despair of 1864. Strother's

previous experience as a journalist and

a free lance writer enabled him to write

an outstanding diary.

As editor, Cecil D. Eby faced the prob-

lem of selection but seems to have solved

it remarkably well. About one-fourth of

the total journal is included in this book.

The editor has written an illuminating

introduction to each chapter, and has

added footnotes that identify important

personalities and principal events.

The diaries are weighted with meticu-

lous detail, they abound with delightful

humor, and they are freighted with little

incidents which add zest to the journal.

Real descriptive talent is repeatedly re-

182                                             OHIO HISTORY

vealed. For example: "I have been struck

with the seedy, old-fashioned appearance

of the whole people here [in the valley

of Virginia]. They look as if they had

just come out of the Ark" (p. 7). When

General George B. McClellan entered

Frederick, Maryland, in September 1862,

the diarist wrote: "The whole city was

fluttering with Union flags. From windows

and balconies handkerchiefs were waving,

while faces beaming with excitement

filled every opening. The sidewalks were

crowded with citizens of every age, sex,

and color. No formal cheering, no regu-

lated display, but a wild spontaneous

outcry of joy. Old men rushed out and

barred the passage of our cavalcade to

grasp the hand of McClellan. Ladies

brought out bouquets and flags to deco-

rate his horse. Fathers held up their

children for a kiss and a recognition" (p.

105).

It was not until July 1863 that Strother

confided to his diary his succinct opinion

about the causes of the Civil War: "The

idea that this war is caused by slavery is

fallacious. Nothing could have worked

more prosperously and more smoothly

than the two systems together, each assist-

ing the other. The spirit of party heated

by ambitious demagogues was the cause

of the war and Slavery and Anti-Slavery

the watchwords used by crafty and ambi-

tious men to fool the simple" (p. 194).

In March 1862, Strother was walking

along the turnpike near Charles Town

with his wife and "met the Henderson

girls in their carriage. They passed with-

out saluting us. Nothing can exceed the

infatuated insolence of these miserable

people. But the cup of sorrow and hu-

miliation which they have prepared for

themselves and which they must drain to

the dregs is not yet fully tasted" (p. 18).

Five days later he wrote that he "consid-

ered the Old Virginia people as a deca-

dent race. They have certainly gone down

in manners, morals, and mental capacity.

There seems to be nothing left of their

traditional greatness but a senseless pride

and a certain mixture of dignity and

suavity of manner" (p. 22).

Interspersed throughout the diaries are

graphic sketches of the military leaders.

For example, Strother thought General

McClellan was "the most capable man we

have in military affairs. His head is clear

and his knowledge complete. He wants

force of character and is swayed by those

around him." Those about the general

were "the most ungallant, good-for-

nothing set of marinets [sic] that I have

yet met with. . . . Not a man among them

is worth a damn as a military adviser."

McClellan's very "mildness of manner,

voice, and deportment show him unfitted

by character to wield successfully a great

power" (p. 129).

Not even President Lincoln escaped

the diarist's analytical pen. In October

1862, Strother's opinion of Lincoln was

that he "is representative in all points of

the tastes, manners, ideas, and capacities

of the American people. He is American

internally and externally, mind and per-

son. He is neither great nor small, but

a fair, average man of the race. He is

the result of our system--and that sys-

tem is entirely responsible for the manner

in which he fulfills the duties of his office.

If he fails, the system has failed con-

clusively and there will be an end of it"

(pp. 121-122).

Where can a more vivid on-the-spot

contrast between northern and southern

statesmen be found than this one written

in 1863? "The Northern people were too

busy getting rich to study statesmanship.

The best minds and best men of the

country were occupied with other matters

than public affairs. The political men in

power were either paltry thieves with no

more capacity than to invent petty tricks

to plunder the Public Treasury or fanati-

BOOK REVIEWS                                       183

cal idealogists more dangerously bent on

turning the government into a machine

for carrying out their silly and imprac-

tical conceits. The Southern men in public

life . . . were men of power and sagacity,

natural leaders of people. Ambitious and

unprincipled, but still strong men" (p.

150).

Numerous other quotations could be

given to illustrate Strother's uncanny

ability as a diarist. Enough have been

given to indicate the high quality of the

journal and to show what a rich store

of historical information the diary con-

tains.

GEORGE OSBORN

University of Florida

JAMES FORD RHODES: THE MAN, THE HIS-

TORIAN, AND HIS WORK, WITH A COM-

PLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS

OF JAMES FORD RHODES. By Robert

Cruden. (Cleveland: Press of Western

Reserve University, 1961. xiii??290p.;

appendix and index. $6.00.)

Professor Cruden has succeeded won-

derfully well in recovering James Ford

Rhodes from library bookshelves and re-

storing him to humanity. At the same

time, despite a normal attachment to his

subject, he has not been able to revive

Rhodes's former eminence as an histo-

rian. Because he recognizes that the one

thing is the clue to the other, Cruden

has performed a notable service to Amer-

ican historiography.

Born into a middle-class family of New

England stock and raised in a Calvinist

home--"Victorian" perhaps might be a

more meaningful epithet--Rhodes was

directed by his father into a business ca-

reer. To say that the whole of the future

historian's thought and work was pre-

determined by his family and his busi-

ness experiences would be to oversim-

plify Professor Cruden's thesis, yet