Book Reviews
A Signal Victory: The Lake Erie
Campaign, 1812-1813. By David Curtis
Skaggs
and Gerald T. Althoff. (Annapolis,
Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1997. x +
244p.; illustrations, notes, appendix,
glossary, glossary of nautical terms, bib-
liographic essay, index. $34.95.)
The battle of Lake Erie, in which an
American naval squadron annihilated its
British counterpart on 10 September
1813, was one of two defining engagements
of the War of 1812 in the Old Northwest.
The British-Indian capture of Detroit in
August 1812 and their seizure of
Michigan Territory changed the course of the war
at its beginning. It aborted the
American attempt to invade Upper Canada, ex-
posed the western settlements of the
United States to Indian attack, and humiliated
the arms of the republic. Thenceforth,
Madison's administration threw dispropor-
tionate resources into redeeming itself
in the Northwest, to the detriment of opera-
tions in strategically more significant
theaters further east. It took a year, but
those objectives were effectively
achieved by the desperately fought encounter on
Lake Erie. The battle, and Oliver Hazard
Perry's dynamic leadership, entered
American folklore, but this new study is
by far the best we have.
It is both comprehensive and judicious.
The authors have garnered material
diligently, and in a clearly written and
even-handed analysis tackled almost every
aspect of their subject, from its
overall strategic context to the politics and tech-
nicalities of the competing dockyards.
As a study of the issues governing naval
conflict-strategy, tactics, men, ships,
seamanship, armaments, gunnery, health,
morale, discipline, logistics and the
sheer unpredictability of war-this is a model
for the sailing-ship era. Shipwrights,
dockyard artificers, and contractors justly
find their place in the narrative
alongside the commanders and their men. The
only issue missing, the question of
whether horizontal hull-smashing fire con-
ferred advantages over upward dismasting
fire, did not influence the engagement
on Lake Erie, in which both sides opted
for the British tradition of close-quarter
action and horizontal fire.
Initial British supremacy on the Lakes
played an important role in frustrating
American attempts to invade Canada in
1812, but as this book makes clear the
United States was successful at every
subsequent stage of the naval rivalry on Lake
Erie. In the ensuing year the Americans
built twice as many vessels for Lake Erie
as their opponents. They acted more
quickly, and drew men and materials from a
more resourced hinterland in Ohio,
Pennsylvania and New York. Whereas the
British high command was willing to
sacrifice the Lake Erie front to retain control
of the more vital Lake Ontario, the
American administration drove its building
program forward with greater energy.
Even Noah Brown, the shipwright at Presque
Isle, had a clearer sense of purpose
than his British counterpart at Amherstburg.
He put speed of completion above
quality, observing that "plain work is all that is
required: they [the ships] will only be
wanted for one battle" (p. 72).
On the decisive day, Robert Heriot
Barclay, the British commander, sailed into
action disadvantaged in vessels, guns,
equipment and the proportion of profes-
sional seamen among his crews. The
British flagship even lacked slow matches to
ignite the cannons, and pistols had to
be fired into the gun vents to discharge
them. Although a light wind and a
hesitant performance from Perry's second- in-
command, Jesse D. Elliott, enabled the
British to use a slight advantage in long
Book Reviews 197
guns to reduce the American flagship to
submission, ultimately they were over-
whelmed.
Paradoxically, Skaggs and Althoff
convincingly argue that this most complete
of American victories was also in some
respects a defeat. While it enabled United
States forces to recapture Michigan and
drive the British-Indian army from the
Detroit frontier, it represented a
misallocation of scarce resources to the West.
The Americans should have focused upon
Canada's vulnerable frontier below Lake
Erie. By safeguarding that, and allowing
the United States to indulge itself in the
conquest of a strategically subordinate
arena, Canada survived until it could be re-
inforced by British veterans from Europe
in 1814. In this light, then, the battle of
Lake Erie can be viewed not only as an
overwhelming tactical victory for the
United States, but also as the symbol of
the surer strategy of the defenders of
Canada.
Arnside, Cumbria, England John Sugden
Nathan Boone and the American
Frontier. By R. Douglas Hurt.
(Columbia:
University of Missouri Press, 1998. xii
+ 256p.; illustrations, notes, bibliog-
raphy, index. $29.95.)
Nathan Boone, the youngest child of
Daniel Boone, lived his entire life on the
frontiers of Virginia, Kentucky,
Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma. A hunter, trapper,
surveyor, ranger and dragoon in the
United States Amy of the west, Nathan Boone
left a legacy of his own, "that
helped the army execute both military and Indian
policy and contributed to the settlement
of the frontier" (p. xi). In this volume in
the Missouri Biography Series, R.
Douglas Hurt, who has written extensively on
the American frontier, attempts to
reconstruct the life of the less well-known
Nathan Boone, a task made extremely
difficult since Boone, a poorly educated man
of action, left relatively few personal
letters, diaries or papers. As a result, despite
Hurt's admirable effort, Boone remains
something of an enigma. The author, at
times, is reduced to speculating about
what Boone thought or how he must have
"perceived, sensed or reacted"
to certain events or situations in his life.
In many respects Nathan Boone's life
paralleled the westward movement of the
American frontier from just after the
Revolution to just before the Civil War.
From Virginia, down the Ohio to Kentucky
and eventually eastern Missouri and fi-
nally southwestern Missouri, Boone moved
with the ever-shifting frontier.
Serving the army as a scout, surveyor
and officer in the dragoons, he helped to se-
cure control of the Missouri, Arkansas,
Kansas, Iowa and Oklahoma frontiers for
the United States government. Hurt
credits Boone with playing "an instrumental
role" on the frontier, helping in
the resettlement of the Cherokee Indians west of
the Mississippi, keeping the peace and
paving the way for Euroamerican expan-
sion westward (p. 212). Boone emerges
from these pages as a quietly competent
military officer. Without men like
Boone, the author insists, "the army would
have failed the test of leadership"
on the frontier (p. 193). Although Hurt believes
that Boone developed highly respected
diplomatic skills in negotiating with the
Indians and in carrying out Indian
policy, Boone apparently played no role in
shaping that policy; a policy to which
Hurt devotes relatively little critical analy-
sis.
Indeed, we learn relatively little about
Boone's personal life, which Hurt de-
scribes as "difficult to
trace." During the course of his long marriage, Boone's
198 OHIO HISTORY
wife, Olive, bore him fourteen children.
Seldom home to care for his children or
the family homestead, and a
disinterested, if not inept, farmer and businessman,
Boone spent most of his life on the
move. Hurt's Boone "was a man of action,"
uncomfortable with life at home with his
family and most content hunting, scout-
ing, working as a surveyor or in the
saddle and on the march with the Army (p.
175). A slave owner and defender of the
institution, Boone supported the proslav-
ery faction which called for the
admission of Missouri to the Union as a slave
state. Although elected to the Missouri
Constitutional Convention, he served in-
effectually and failed in his effort to
win a seat in the legislature after Missouri
gained statehood. After his unsuccessful
foray into politics, Boone eventually re-
turned to doing those things he did
best, scouting, surveying and soldiering.
As a guide for William Clark, Boone
played a major role in helping the U.S.
government secure a peace treaty with
the Osage Indians, a treaty which ceded
much of the state of Missouri to the
United States government (p. 77). Hurt is at
his best describing Boone's long years
as an officer in the United States Army, the
long, arduous and sometimes deadly
marches into the Indian country of Oklahoma,
his invaluable service as a surveyor of
frontier boundaries and the difficulties of
army life in frontier army posts and
forts. Hurt's well-written biography, taking a
traditional approach to western history,
should prove of interest to the general
reading audience.
Wright State University Harvey
Wachtell
David Zeisberger: A Life among the
Indians. By Earl P. Olmstead. (Kent,
Ohio:
The Kent State University Press, 1997.
xxiv + 441p.; illustrations, maps,
notes, appendices, selected
bibliography, index. $39.00.)
In 1970 the publication of Carl John
Fliegel's Index to the Records of the
Moravian mission Among the Indians of
North America demonstrated the rich
re-
sources available in the archives of the
Moravian Church at Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, written in
archaic German, many are difficult to use
and have attracted less attention than
they deserve. Not the least achievement of
Earl P. Olmstead's new biography of
David Zeisberger is that he has mastered
much of this material. He has gone further. The process of translating
Zeisberger's diaries was begun long ago
by such scholars as Eugene F. Bliss,
Archer B. Hulbert and William N.
Schwarze, but in preparing this book Olmstead
caused the diaries for the years 1775 to
1781, the only ones remaining to be trans-
lated, to be deciphered. Olmstead's is,
then, a work of considerable industry. It
deals with Zeisberger's life up to 1782,
and complements his previous book,
Blackcoats Among the Delaware (Kent, Ohio, 1991), which treated the mission-
ary's later career, and both form an
essential companion to the pioneer biography
by Edmund de Schweinitz, published in
1870.
Zeisberger, a founder member of the
Moravian settlements in Pennsylvania, is
best known for his attempts to Christianize
the Delaware and Munsee Indians, a
task to which he devoted more than forty
years of his life. Olmstead gives by far
the best blow for blow account of his
fortunes, and leaves no doubt that Zeisberger
was a man of tremendous energy, courage,
dedication and self-sacrifice. It is also
impossible not to agree with Olmstead
that he loved the Indians, and that his abil-
ity to win trust and accommodate some
aspects of Delaware culture contributed to
his success. That success was
substantial. In 1775 the Ohio missions
of
Book Reviews 199
Schoenbrunn and Gnadenhutten had 414
converts, a significant proportion of a
Delaware-Munsee population of some 2500.
The book would have benefited from a
wider perspective on Delaware history,
and reference to the books by Richard
White, Gregory E. Dowd and Michael N.
McConnell. For example, the success of
the Moravians owed much to the con-
comitant attempts of the Delawares to
consolidate their scattered communities in
the face of British, French and American
interference. It was this which induced
them to invite the Moravian missions to
the Beaver and the Muskingum in the
1770s and to the White River (Indiana)
in 1801. The Indian converts, not the
missionaries, were wanted; commonly, the
Indians quickly tired of the Moravians,
and anti-missionary factions developed.
Similarly, the religious awakening among
the Delawares in the mid-eighteenth
century was worth examining. Smitten by
epidemic diseases, Indians were look-
ing to increase their sacred power to
combat decline. Two contradictory manifes-
tations of this movement developed: one,
nativistic, saw prophets striving to re-
gain spiritual favor by rejecting white
influences and restoring supposed aborigi-
nal culture, the other the interest in
alternative, non-aboriginal, sources of sacred
power, such as Christianity mediated by
the Moravians. The tension between the
two, and the extent to which they
explain the successes or failures of Zeisberger,
would have repaid treatment.
Olmstead is aware of the
"destructive forces" often released by the Moravians (p.
178), but does not probe deeply into
their effects upon Delaware society. A con-
sideration of the extent to which the
missions provided models for economic de-
velopment, divided communities and
families, modified belief systems, and gener-
ated spiritual anxiety by denouncing
sacred ceremonies as "desperate heathensim"
(p. 150) might have prompted a less
charitable view of the Moravian interven-
tion. If they had no interest in land or
profit, and were admirably self-denying, the
Moravians also wanted something from the
Indians, their souls.
Nevertheless, this is a valuable book
about a remarkable man, grounded
throughout in primary sources, and
containing much that will interest students of
the missionaries, the Delaware Indians,
and the American Revolution in Ohio.
Arnside, Cumbria, England John Sugden
Florence Harding: The First Lady, the
Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most
Scandalous President. By Carl S. Anthony. (New York: William Morrow &
Company, 1998. xx + 645p.;
illustrations, sources, notes, index. $30.00.)
On August 2, 1923, President Warren G.
Harding died under mysterious circum-
stances. The personal and public
scandals that broke after his death have earned
him a reputation as America's worst
president. These scandals shocked and dis-
mayed the nation for over a decade after
Harding's death. In the wake of these
scandals various rumors and half-truths
began to circulate, chief among them was
the theory that First Lady Florence
Kling Harding murdered her husband in a San
Francisco hotel room. The alleged motives
vary from retaliation for a mistress to
a misguided attempt to martyr the
President and thus preserve his popularity in the
face of the emerging scandals. Whatever the reality, Florence Harding, the
"Duchess" as she was called,
is best known today as a coldly calculating shrew
who used her chosen vehicle, Warren G.
Harding, to obtain the White House. Like
Warren, she is regarded to be among the
worst occupants of the position.
200 OHIO HISTORY
It is with this reputation that Carl
Anthony must contend as he argues that the
Duchess was a historically significant
person in her own right. Anthony has
taken on a monumental task. Wisely,
Anthony has approached the Harding legacy
with two different assumptions. First,
he makes no attempt to argue that Harding
was a great president, but rather
attempts to understand Harding's rise to power
within the context of the times.
Harding's efforts to "harmonize," which are often
characterized as vacillation on issues
such as the League of Nations, were a call for
tolerance and cooperation. Harding tried
to moderate some of the worst excesses
during a period of racism and
xenophobia. Secondly, he uses the life of Florence
Harding to unravel a story that is often
steeped in the male culture of politics. In
many ways this is the story of a woman
who was not satisfied with the sexual dou-
ble standard of the Victorian period and
was not content to be barred from the male
domains of politics and business.
Florence Kling was the first child of
Amos Kling, a leading businessman in
Marion, Ohio, who desired, above all
else, to have his firstborn be a boy.
Florence disappointed her father in this
respect and spent the rest of her life bal-
ancing efforts to both defy and please
him. Florence ran away (usually referred to
as an elopement) at the age of eighteen
and, according to Anthony, her child with
Pete DeWolfe was born out of wedlock.
Florence returned to Marion to meet her fa-
ther's disapproval and to make her own
way in the world. In 1891 she married
Harding, a rising newspaper editor and
rival of Amos Kling, and thus began one of
the most notorious marriages in American
history.
Those familiar with the Harding story
will know much of what follows. Warren
Harding's adultery is infamous. Anthony
has added new names to the list of
women who were involved with Harding,
and there will be some debate about the
validity of the details. Anthony relies
on a variety of sources for this comprehen-
sive biography and repeats many old
stories, some of which are suspect. The bi-
ography is full of stories from the
papers of Alice Roosevelt Longworth and
Evalyn Walsh McLean. Nonetheless,
Harding's adultery is unquestionable. What
remains is determining with whom and
where. Anthony does use, and quotes, the
controversial and sealed letters of
Carrie Phillips, the mistress who blackmailed
the Republican Party. Most interesting,
however, is reading Florence's reaction
to Warren's dalliances, which reveals
much about the workings of their marriage
and the hurt that the sexual double
standards of the day could inflict. Anthony re-
lies on Florence's newly discovered diary
and he will come under criticism until
the diary, now in the hands of a private
collector, becomes available for inspec-
tion by other scholars.
Carl Anthony has written what will
become one of the standard works on the
Hardings. He has demonstrated that
unlikely subjects can shed new light on old
topics. Florence Harding did not murder
her husband, but she did greatly con-
tribute to the demise of his reputation.
She set about burning his papers to protect
his reputation and hide events from the
public, including the incompetent medical
treatment Harding received at the hands
of Charles Sawyer. In the absence of doc-
umentation or open discussion of events,
suspicion and conspiracy flourished.
Anthony concludes that Sawyer, a
longtime Harding associate, was guilty of neg-
ligent homicide for his botched
treatment of Harding's heart condition. Florence,
if guilty of anything, was guilty of
self-absorption to the point where she was
more concerned with public adulation
than with her husband's failing health. The
Duchess, after August 1923, found
herself removed from power and public life.
Ultimately, Florence's power was derived
from the male world in which she so
much wanted to participate. She might
have been a strong woman and an interest-
Book Reviews 201
ing person, but her power and popularity
came through her relationship with
Warren. In the end, it might not be
possible to separate the two.
St. Bonaventure University Phillip G.
Payne
Changing Plans for America's Inner
Cities: Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine and
Twentieth-Century Urbanism. By Zane Miller and Bruce Tucker. (Columbus:
The Ohio State University Press, 1998.
xiii + 227p.; illustrations, notes, ap-
pendix, index. $32.00 cloth; $15.95
paper.)
Ever since the emergence of residential
neighborhoods as identifiable compo-
nents of the urban landscape, their
definition has reflected the concerns of individ-
uals interested in understanding the
city and shaping its destiny. Changing Plans
for America's Inner Cities represents one of the most recent efforts to explain
the
dynamics of urban definition and
neighborhood action. Focusing on the fate of
neighborhoods located closest to the
city center, Zane L. Miller and Bruce Tucker
found that between 1915 and 1985 slum
clearance became neighborhood conserva-
tion. This shift in orientation, they
concluded, represented a reaction to a wave of
totalitarianism that culminated with the
spread of communism in Europe. The so-
cial engineering ethos that drove slum
clearance grew unacceptable when seen in
the light of authoritarian structures
imposed on the areas under Communist domi-
nation.
Individualism, on the other hand, which acknowledged the right of
Americans to choose and exercise their
right of selection and self-identification,
seemed more appropriate. The shift from
one mode of thought to another, a pro-
cess which accelerated at the
mid-century mark, affected not only the web of be-
liefs that motivated urban planners but
also the arsenal of weapons used by all par-
ties involved in the process.
Focusing on the experience of
Over-the-Rhine, an inner-city community located
at the northern rim of Cincinnati, Ohio's,
central business district, Miller and
Tucker trace the interplay between ideas
and action on the local level. During the
nineteenth century, as Cincinnati spread
throughout the basin nestled at the bot-
tom of the city's many hills, the area
that became Over-the-Rhine attracted a mix
of people and land uses. During the
1850s and 1860s, German immigrants pre-
dominated in this section of Cincinnati
and their "Rhine" (the Miami and Erie
Canal) continued to identify the area
even as the Germans began to reestablish
themselves elsewhere in the city. By
1915, Over-the-Rhine had ceased being a
dynamic neighborhood that served as a
springboard to a more prosperous life for
urban newcomers. It had become instead a
relatively dilapidated community that
housed semi-reputable entertainments
and, as the century wore on, an increasingly
poor African American and Appalachian
population with limited mobility.
After an introduction to Over-the-Rhine,
Miller and Tucker divide their story
into two parts. In "Zoning, Razing,
or Rehabilitation" (1915-1960), they relate
the way in which the prevailing
definition of the city as an interdependent unit in
which individual or group interests were
to be subordinated to a larger public inter-
est was translated into city plans.
Through the manipulation of the social and
physical environment planners promoted
rezoning areas for new uses, slum clear-
ance of tracts of land marked by
physical obsolescence and general deterioration,
and the construction of new low-income
housing in selected neighborhoods.
Through the use of these strategies
planners strove to halt the encroachment of ur-
ban blight and stabilize the
environment. The ultimate goal was the promotion of
202 OHIO HISTORY
a smoothly running, cooperative whole.
The authors trace the emergence of a new
definition of the urban community that
promoted a more individualistic approach
which offered residents the opportunity
to assert control over their
neighborhoods in "New Vision and Visionaries"
(1954-1985). Part of a larger movement
against determinism, the new urban vi-
sion encouraged local activism and
implied a measure of neighborhood autonomy.
Communities, such as Over-the-Rhine
which had survived slum clearance, became
involved in struggles to define what and
who constituted their neighborhoods.
Mobilizing public opinion, participation
on task forces, testifying at public hear-
ings, and utilization of opportunities
afforded by national preservation programs
surfaced as strategies for influencing
the decisions of planners and city officials.
While residents of particular
neighborhoods might consider their relationship
with the city, their goals often had
less to do with cooperation or adherence to a
larger civic vision and much more to do
with separatism and parochialism. The
impact of what the authors call
"cultural individualism" virtually ignored any no-
tion of a larger public interest.
The strengths of Changing Plans for
America's Inner Cities are numerous. The
authors ably demonstrate that urban
definition is not static but related to different
historical periods. Strategies which may
seem to transcend time possess different
meanings in different historical
contexts. Also of note is the examination of the
battle over the use of historic
preservation as a means to conserve neighborhoods,
a local experience which could inform
other preservationists locked in conflicts
over neighborhood identification and
use. More focused attention to the linkages
between the "revolt against
determinism" (p. 44) and its urban manifestations in
the story of the period after 1954 would
have better integrated the local story into
the authors' conceptual structure.
Loyola University Patricia
Mooney-Melvin
The Salmon P. Chase Papers. Volume 4: Correspondence, April 1863-1864.
Edited by John Niven, James P. McClure,
Leigh Johnsen, and Kathleen Norman.
(Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University
Press, 1997. xxiii + 479p.; illustra-
tions, notes, chronology, editorial
procedures, bibliography, index. $45.00.)
Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873) of
Ohio was a major political figure in the
nineteenth century United States.
Lawyer, antislavery activist, governor of Ohio,
and senator from that state, Chase also
served as Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of
the Treasury and as Chief Justice of the
United States Supreme Court. This volume,
the fourth of Chase's selected papers
and the third of his correspondence, covers
the last part of Chase's tenure as head
of the Treasury Department and the brief hia-
tus before he was appointed to the
Supreme Court to replace the recently deceased
Roger B. Taney. As with the two previous
correspondence volumes, this one is
extremely selective, choosing only 269
of the 3,700 letters included in the micro-
film edition for the period. Nevertheless,
the letters included, both to and from
Chase, give a sense of his personal
life, his political desires and maneuverings,
his concern with the war effort and the
well-being of the former slaves, and his fis-
cal responsibilities as Secretary of the
Treasury.
Chase's personal life was never as major
a factor in the correspondence as his
political concerns, yet during this
volume his older daughter, Kate, became en-
gaged to and, in November 1863, married
Rhode Island Senator William Sprague
Book Reviews 203
in one of the social events of
wartime Washington. This volume includes a series
of letters between Sprague and Chase
discussing arrangements and living accom-
modations. Chase, continually anxious
that his daughters do their best, from his
perspective, was almost always critical
of something in every letter he wrote to
them. In a typical chiding missive of
November 23,1863, Chase returned his
younger daughter Nettie's letter with
corrections, telling her that she must im-
prove her writing, and earning in
response a plea that he write her a letter that was
not critical. Beginning in January 1864,
Chase wrote a series of lengthy autobio-
graphical letters-tracing his childhood,
antislavery activities, and work as
Secretary of the Treasury-to John T.
Trowbridge who used the material to write a
children's biography of Chase, The
Ferry Boy and the Financier (Boston, 1864).
Chase, of course, wanted to be elected
president in 1864. Correspondence is in-
cluded which shows the responses of
other people, such as Horace Greeley, to
Chase's desires. The embarrassment of
the "Pomeroy Circular," the failure of the
Ohio Republicans to endorse Chase for
the presidency, and Chase's own reasons
for withdrawing from the presidential
contest are included.
Chase was not pleased with his role in
Abraham Lincoln's cabinet and fre-
quently complained to correspondents
that Lincoln did not consult his cabinet as
he should nor act as Chase would have
him do. Finally, a disagreement over the
appointment of an important Treasury
Department official in New York led to
Chase's resignation at the end of June
1864, which is fully covered in the corre-
spondence.
True to his antislavery background,
Chase was concerned that blacks not lose
their gains so far won. He was a strong
advocate of black suffrage and frequently
mentioned the importance of including
such a provision, for example, in the 1864
Louisiana constitution.
Chase often mentioned war events in
passing and was concerned about the ef-
fects major losses might have on the
financial status of the federal government.
During the spring of 1864 Chase
frequently wrote about the need for Congress to
establish a national currency and to
phase out unstable state bank notes, to pass a
tax bill that would raise revenue to
meet at least half the projected government ex-
penses, and to keep the price of gold
from rising. Chase also often discussed the
various (confusing) bond issues used to
raise funds for the war effort.
The late John Niven and his fellow
editors have done their usual good job of an-
notating the documents. Researchers can
look forward to one final volume cover-
ing Chase's years as Chief Justice.
University of Tennessee, Knoxville Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein
Seeing Reds: Federal Surveillance of
Radicals in the Pittsburgh Mill District,
1917-1921. By Charles H. McCormick. (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:
University
of Pittsburgh Press, 1997. x + 244;
notes, index. $37.50.)
Charles McCormick's Seeing Reds is
an account of the federal surveillance of
radicals in the Pittsburgh mill district
during the World War I era. The story is a
familiar one, but McCormick adds a new
dimension through the use of the declassi-
fied files of the Bureau of
Investigation (the precursor of the FBI), the Military
Intelligence Division and the Office of
Naval Intelligence. These detailed records
give McCormick a window into the
day-to-day activities of federal agents in the
field. The book is a "from the
bottom up" look at domestic intelligence opera-
204 OHIO HISTORY
tions during this period. The main
characters are the agents and the "foot soldiers
of the radical Left" on whom they
spied.
In the Pittsburgh mill district the
federal government ran an elaborate network
of spies, informants and agents
provocateurs whose mission was to identify and
suppress radicals. Their objective was
to ensure a loyal work force and to make
sure that agitators did not disrupt
industrial production during the war. The per-
sonnel who made up this network were so
closely linked to corporate capitalism
that one would not be in error to
consider them as auxiliaries of the steel corpora-
tions. When war broke out many of them
were recruited from the private detective
agencies that had supplied security and
intelligence to industry. Motivated by a
narrow patriotism and relying on
oversimplified and exaggerated ideas about the
nature of radical movements, these operatives
were all too willing to believe in
radical leftist conspiracies among the
foreign-born working populations in the
mill district.
Despite a great deal of time and effort,
the government proved remarkably inef-
fective in catching those who posed a
real threat to society. The Bureau of
Investigation, led by J. Edgar Hoover,
failed miserably at finding the culprits re-
sponsible for the wave of terrorist
bombings that shocked the country in 1919. In
an effort to divert attention from this
failure, the Justice Department launched a
highly-publicized deportation campaign
(the so-called Palmer raids) against the
Union of Russian Workers (a small
fraternal organization of Russian-speaking
mine workers) and the unnaturalized
foreign members of the Communist Party. In
the Pittsburgh district McCormick
observes that most of those rounded up were
"small fish," guilty of little
more than having their names on the membership
lists of suspect organizations.
The names of two men appear prominently
throughout McCormick's book:
Louis A Wendell, the leading federal
undercover agent in the Pittsburgh district,
and Jacob Margolis, the city's most
prominent radical. Using the alias of Louis A
Walsh, and also known as agent 836,
Wendell infiltrated the Pittsburgh left with
ridiculous ease, winning the trust of
local radicals and becoming a leader in
Pittsburgh leftist circles. Margolis, an
outspoken anarcho-syndicalist and paci-
fist, was an attorney and son of Jewish
immigrants from Russian Poland. Wendell
shadowed Margolis throughout the period,
but never proved that he was a member
of the IWW or had committed any act of
disloyalty. This did not prevent the
Allegheny County Bar Association from
disbarring Margolis because of his un-
orthodox opinions.
Those who have read William Preston's Aliens
and Dissenters (1963) will find
few surprises in this book.
Nevertheless, Seeing Reds provides us with a valuable
look at the inner workings of the
federal domestic intelligence operations during a
formative period. The significance of
the story, as McCormick concludes, is that
as "the World War I welfare state
provided a model for the New Deal welfare state,
so did the period 1917-1921 shape the
official response to Reds in later genera-
tions" (p. 204).
Loyola Marymount University Errol Wayne Stevens
Labor's Great War: The Struggle for
Industrial Democracy and the Origins of
Modern American Labor Relations,
1912-1921. By Joseph A. McCartin.
(Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1998. xvi + 303p.; illustra-
tions, notes, bibliography, index.
$49.94 cloth; $18.95 paper;.)
Book Reviews 205
"As wartime conditions disrupted
familiar patterns of labor relations in the
United States, employers no longer
possessed as much power to compel obedience
on the shop floor"(p. 49).
Joseph A. McCartin argues that the
ensuing struggle to attain a new balance be-
tween employers and employees not only
helped to define more clearly the
Progressive era, it helped to lay the
foundation of modern American labor rela-
tions. Employers lost power partly
because of increased federal intervention, but
more important was the struggle between
labor and management to define
"industrial democracy," a term
popularized by Frank Walsh of the United States
Commission on Industrial Relations.
Using the language of industrial democracy,
so closely intermingled with the wartime
rhetoric of political democracy, count-
less workers demanded a greater voice in
their work place. Disagreement over a
satisfactory definition of industrial
democracy was at the crux of labor and man-
agement conflict between 1912 and 1921.
The battle to define industrial
democracy and the increased role of the govern-
ment were not the only factors that
disrupted traditional labor relations. Frederick
Taylor's notions of scientific
management were profoundly altering American in-
dustry. Simultaneously, the composition
of the work force was rapidly changing,
becoming more diverse and radical, which
posed a threat to the AFL. The AFL des-
perately wanted to maintain its
leadership position. Under siege from both the
Left and the Right, the AFL's leadership
continued to advocate increasing the
power of workers through bargaining with
employers, not through government
fiat.
The War Labor Conference Board (WLCB),
co-chaired by Walsh and William H.
Taft, eroded employer control because
its concern was to maintain production, not
the status quo. Consequently, its
rulings often favored employees. American
workers further strengthened their position through grassroots
activities.
McCartin concisely demonstrates how some
workers, led to believe that the gov-
ernment would intervene on their behalf,
engaged in organizing efforts and strikes
without the approval of union chiefs.
This militancy threatened to disrupt both
the government agencies that sought to
regulate it and the union hierarchies that
sought to exploit it (p. 122). Even the
rhetoric of industrial democracy and the
WLCB could not help labor to build
industrial unions strong enough to withstand
the employers' backlash that followed
the armistice.
By the war's end industrial democracy
had so thoroughly permeated American
language, however, that employers had to
grant it some quarter. Employers called
their scheme the American Plan. They
initiated various types of representation
plans that they argued gave workers a
collective voice on the shop floor. Of
course their primary intent was to
thwart unions. By the early 1920s the American
Plan weakened many unions, especially
those most dependent upon the govern-
ment for their growth. Still, the labor
movement was stronger than prior to the
war.
McCartin argues that labor conflicts of
the period were primarily significant be-
cause they gave voice to the widely
expressed demand for industrial democracy.
Although much of what labor gained
proved to be short-lived, its defeats were not
always decisive, as others have argued.
The notion of industrial democracy was so
firmly implanted that all parties paid
it homage. Thus, it laid the foundation for
the postwar struggle over industrial
democracy that changed labor relations.
Labor's Great War is well-crafted, tightly argued, and sheds provocative
new
light on the experience of labor during
this crucial period. It should be read by
students of industrial relations and
anyone interested in the years that surrounded
206 OHIO HISTORY
American involvement in World War I.
Although McCartin does not ignore
women and minorities, the impact of
industrial democracy on these groups re-
mains to be fully investigated. This
should not distract from a very fine mono-
graph.
Framingham State College Jon R.
Huibregtse
American Politics in the Gilded Age,
1868-1900. By Robert W. Cherny.
(Wheeling, Illinois: Harlan Davidson,
Inc., 1997. xi + 167p.; illustrations,
notes, appendix, bibliographical essay,
index. $11.95 paper.)
This is an informative addition to an
ambitious series of brief studies designed,
as the editors emphasize, "for use
in both basic and advanced courses in American
history, on the undergraduate and
graduate levels." Robert W. Cherny examines
what he describes as "the federal
political stalemate that lasted from the mid-1870s
to the 1890s" and "the
political changes wrought during the 1890s that ushered in
important new forms of American
politics" (p. 2).
Cherny clearly defines the two major
political parties. Republicans stood for
"patriotism, prosperity, and
morality" and believed in an active federal govern-
ment. Democrats, on the other hand,
"typically crafted their identity in terms of
what they opposed." As the
legendary Republican Speaker of the House of
Representatives "Czar" Thomas
Reed put it, "the Republican party does things,
the Democratic party criticizes"
(p. 26).
Many white Protestant Republicans
equated morality with the elimination of al-
coholic beverages from American society.
Democrats opposed prohibition or any
attempt by the government to interfere
in social behavior. Cherny acknowledges
the work of Paul Kleppner on analyzing
voting behavior in relation to the issue of
prohibition. Kleppner pointed out, for
instance, that at least 70 percent of
Catholic voters in the North supported
the Democratic Party. As Cherny explains,
"the more strongly a group opposed
prohibition, the more likely they were to
vote Democratic" (p. 27).
Cherny writes at great length about what
he calls the "deadlock" in national pol-
itics between 1868 and 1890. According
to Cherny, all of the presidents in the
period contributed to the stalemate by
failing to provide leadership on domestic
policy. He demonstrates, however, that
each president made some effort to restore
the influence of the office after
Ulysses S. Grant served for eight years as a "weak,
unassertive, easily influenced, even
manipulated" chief executive (p. 52).
Ohioans can relate to Cherny's assertion
that "a disproportionate number of
Ohio Republicans emerged into national
leadership." He cites Rutherford
B.
Hayes as a perfect example of those who
"demonstrated a solid grasp of party poli-
tics and a commitment to Republican
party ideals tempered by an understanding of
the need for compromise" (p. 58).
Nevertheless, Hayes and the presidents who
followed could not break the deadlock.
As one of several useful tables in the ap-
pendix illustrates, Republican
presidents almost always had to deal with a House
of Representatives under Democratic
control, and Grover Cleveland, the only
Democratic president, had similar
problems with a Senate under Republican con-
trol.
Then came the "critical
realignment" of the 1890s. Rapid-fire developments be-
tween 1890 and 1896 left the Republican
Party in power for most of the next
thirty-five years. The emergence of the
Populists proved to be only the first shot
Book Reviews 207
in what Cherny calls the
"Republican Waterloo" of the early 1890s. At the same
time that the Populists drew votes from
the Republicans in the West, an increasing
Republican emphasis on prohibition
alienated more Catholics and others in the
Midwest. The Democrats took over the
House of Representatives by a wide margin
in 1890, then followed with a big
victory in 1892, returning Cleveland to the
White House and winning control of both
Houses of Congress.
As it turned out, the Democrats would
"fail to govern," according to Cherny, and
they self-destructed. With the party in
deep trouble because of the economic col-
lapse that began in 1893, Cleveland
drove a wedge among Democrats with his call
for the repeal of the Sherman Silver
Purchase Act. The Congressional election of
1894 brought Republicans control of the
House of Representatives in a tidal wave,
as they swept almost all seats in the
North.
Republicans put the finishing touches on
the "realignment" in the historic pres-
idential election of 1896. Cherny
credits the team of William McKinley and Mark
Hanna with running a perfect campaign,
attracting Catholics, for instance, both
by denouncing anti-Catholicism and
abandoning prohibition as an issue.
McKinley easily defeated William
Jennings Bryan by emphasizing economic is-
sues and attracting middle-class voters
in the North. As Cherny concludes, "After
1896, no one doubted that the
Republicans were the national majority" (p. 130).
Wright State University Allan
Spetter
Radium Girls: Women and Industrial
Health Reform 1910-1935. By Claudia
Clark. (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The
University of North Carolina Press,
1997. xii + 289p.; illustrations, notes,
bibliography, index. $49.95 cloth;
$17.95 paper.)
Interweaving industrial, medical, legal
and women's history, Claudia Clark has
written a fascinating, albeit
tendentious, account of women workers in New
Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois who
suffered horrifying illnesses as a result of
their employment in factories producing
luminous watches and clocks. To manu-
facture these items which became popular
in 1917 and 1918-a fad partly spurred
by soldiers' use of luminous watches
during World War I-employers instructed
female employees to wet their
radium-soaked brushes with their lips. By 1922 and
1923, some of the women began to die from
radium-induced cancers and the com-
panies ceased to use the lip pointing
method, though deaths and court cases result-
ing from the industrial use of radium
continued right through the mid-1930s.
Clark's book is divided roughly into two
parts. The first section focuses on the
young women employed in Orange, New
Jersey, by the U.S. Radium Corporation
and the efforts by Katherine Wiley and
other members of the New Jersey
Consumers' League to expose the plight
of these employees, to win compensation
for them, to shut down the offending
plant and to prevent such tragedies from ever
occurring again. Clark connects Wiley's
efforts with those of the women-led in-
dustrial hygiene movement which had its
origins during the Progressive Era and
which continued to press health and
safety reform during the more conservative
1920s.
Making use of female-reform networks, members of the New Jersey
Consumers' League worked closely with
Dr. Alice Hamilton, the pioneer of the
movement and the first woman professor
at Harvard University. Though critical,
at times, of Hamilton's cautious
approach, Clark contrasts her favorably with
prominent male scientists, who due to
corporate funding of their research, hesi-
208 OHIO HISTORY
tated about making the public aware of
the dangers of lip pointing.
Clark also contrasts the female and male
victims of radium poisoning. The
young women who painted luminous numbers
on watch faces initially welcomed
jobs that paid relatively well for
women's work and which did not require demand-
ing labor. They even joked when their
clothes glowed and their hair shined in the
dark. Innocent victims, they had no
inkling of the dangers of their job. The same
cannot be said of the male scientists
who also suffered radium-induced illnesses but
who began their work with some prior
knowledge of its dangers and who often en-
gaged in forms of self-denial, once the
first symptoms appeared.
The second part of the book introduces a
wide variety of themes. Clark con-
trasts efforts to gain compensation and
some restitution for the victims in New
Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois. In New
Jersey, a series of court cases resulted
from the assiduous efforts of the
Consumers' League. In Connecticut, which Clark
portrays as the most conservative of the
three states, out-of-court settlements led
to an unsatisfactory denouement.
Illinois, due to the efforts of Florence Kelley
and other turn-of-the-century reformers,
had some of the nation's most advanced
factory inspection legislation which
allowed for more aggressive governmental
action. Clark also describes efforts to
make industrial diseases compensable under
workers' compensation laws, corporate
efforts to shape legislation, the biases of
state labor and health department
officials, the use of radium as an internal
medicine, the far greater governmental
concern for the consumer victims compared
to the employees, and the media's
maudlin portrayal of the suffering women, cov-
erage which took attention away from
corporate culpability for radium poisoning.
At times it is difficult to connect the
different threads as the text jumps from point
to point.
This book needed a good copy editor.
Unfortunately, the University of North
Carolina Press did not provide one or
provided someone who only made minimal
changes in a text that often reads like
a dissertation. The book is marred by poor
syntax, needlessly convoluted sentence
structure, confusing organization and
needless repetition. This will limit its
potential use. This is especially unfortu-
nate given the importance of the topic.
We are now aware of workers who have
suffered from mercury and lead
poisoning, anthrax, silicosis and numerous other
occupational diseases. Only recently,
medical researchers pinpointed the cause of
a "puzzling" outbreak of brain
tumors at an Amoco research facility near Chicago.
We need to know more about a critical
issue Clark poses. When did companies
first learn of these dangers and did
they attempt to cover up the result of their find-
ings?
Cleveland State University David J.
Goldberg
Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson,
Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a
Decade. By Jeff Shesol. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.
xi + 591p.; il-
lustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
$32.50.)
In Mutual Contempt, Jeff Shesol
has focused squarely on the relationship be-
tween Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy.
The author treats the story as a
"Greek tragedy played out on a
nation's center stage" (p. 8). This feud helps to il-
luminate the politics of the period, and
thus this book is must reading for anyone
who seeks to understand the political
dynamics of the sixties. Thoroughly re-
searched, the work is very well written.
Book Reviews
209
Each page sheds light on the strained
relationship, which was complex and
deep. Bobby Kennedy blamed Lyndon
Johnson for the charges in the 1960 pri-
mary that Jack had Addison's disease,
and that Joseph Kennedy was a Nazi ap-
peaser. He concludes that the selection
of Johnson as Jack's running mate ruined
the fragile relationship between the two
men. Shesol disagrees with Bobby's con-
tention that LBJ was offered the vice
presidency with the idea the Texan would turn
it down. One of the ironies of the
relationship was that LBJ had to maneuver
Bobby's cabinet nomination through an
unhappy Senate. The Hickory Hill gang
in a "meanspirited" fashion
made fun of LBJ, and of course this kind of attitude
made its way back to the vice president.
Likewise, Johnson began to complain to
all who would listen about Bobby's
undermining his activities. Basically, Bobby
had become the number two man in
Washington instead of the vice president.
However, all of this changed on November
22, 1963, with JFK's assassination in
Dallas. As the plane arrived in
Washington, Johnson was deeply hurt as Bobby
brushed his way past the new president
to get to Jackie. Bobby also kept Johnson
out of the Oval Office as long as
possible. To Bobby, Johnson had abused Jackie
during this time of personal crisis.
Concerning the notion that Kennedy went to
Dallas to help Lyndon Johnson, the
author notes that it actually was to help JFK.
By 1964 many close to Kennedy admitted
that Johnson went out of his way to be
sympathetic to the Kennedy family, and
many on the Kennedy team were amazed
with Johnson's ability during the
transition. Shesol believes LBJs
"singular
achievement" was the passage of the
Civil Rights Act without compromise, and
that he deserved most of the credit for
passage.
As a second administration approached,
due to rumors of disloyalty, Johnson
came to the conclusion that Robert
Kennedy had no place in the Johnson cabinet.
Yet Bobby "irrationally" hoped
that he might be Johnson's running mate.
Johnson turned frequently to J. Edgar
Hoover, who provided him with anti-
Kennedy information. Ultimately, Johnson
told Kennedy that he was not to be
his running mate, and later embellished
the Kennedy reaction in a Texas story-
telling style in which he portrayed
Kennedy as a "stunned semi-idiot." Thus,
Kennedy turned to the Senate race in New
York, where he managed to get elected,
partially thanks to Johnson's
coattails. Soon after Kennedy became a
U.S.
Senator, the war in Vietnam escalated,
and by the spring of 1965 Robert Kennedy
began calling for a bombing pause.
Thereafter, Kennedy spoke out strongly
against the Johnson acceleration.
Therefore, Vietnam became another major issue
in the split. Ultimately, a waffling RFK
began to assume leadership of the antiwar
Democrats, and LBJ became more paranoid
about the senator from New York. The
feud would dominate the debate over the
Vietnam war. On March 16, 1968, RFK
announced his candidacy for the
presidency, and Vietnam was his issue. Finally,
to Kennedy's surprise, LBJ pulled out of
the race, but on June 5, Robert Kennedy
was mortally wounded in Los Angeles.
Even with the death of one of the protago-
nists, the feud did not end, as Johnson
unsuccessfully attempted to find ways to
keep Robert from being buried in
Arlington.
Shesol concludes this balanced,
fascinating account by pointing out that Robert
Kennedy "won the hearts of
Democrats," but LBJ continues to "battle for their
souls."
Marshall University Robert F.
Maddox
210 OHIO HISTORY
Jefferson's Declaration of
Independence: Origins, Philosophy, & Theology. By
Allen Jayne. (Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press, 1998. xiii
+
245p., illustrations, notes,
bibliography, index. $39.95.)
Still another study of Jefferson is
hardly occasion for celebration. Only Julius
Caesar, Jesus, Shakespeare, Washington,
and Lincoln have generated more books.
Allen Jayne has ventured into a well-worn
subject, seemingly, which has little
more to divulge. Moreover, as an
intellectual historian, Jayne does not deal with
such popular subjects as Jefferson's sex
life nor his ownership of slaves, and he
ignores entirely post-modernist
theoretical perspectives with their jargon and at-
tention to gender, race, and class. Jefferson's
Declaration of Independence looks
at a familiar subject in conventional,
even traditional intellectual terms. Even so,
it is fresh and valuable.
Jayne argues that Jefferson and the
Declaration of Independence have shaped
American democracy and by implication
modern democracy. According to him
previous scholars have reduced
Jefferson's thought to either watered-down ver-
sions of John Locke, emphasizing the
primacy of individual right at the cost of
communal responsibility, or they have
distanced Jefferson from Lockean liberal-
ism and, instead, tied his thought to
classical republicanism rooted in the Italian
Renaissance with an emphasis on civic
responsibility. Jayne finds these two ap-
proaches narrow and distorting. Just as
disturbing, he insists that both fail to ad-
dress Jefferson's theological views and
epistemological grounding. Jayne insists
that Jefferson's most important
influences came from the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment, especially the
theological and epistemological ideas of Lord
Bolingbroke, Lord Karnes, and Thomas
Reid whose thought Jefferson encountered
as a student at the College of William
and Mary.
Prior to the American Revolution,
according to Jayne, the British North
American colonies adhered to a Christian
orthodoxy that affirmed the existence of
one God, one morality, and the frailty
of human rationality. Far from being a free-
thinking, independently minded people,
Americans believed that humans received
God's truth through authorized agents
such as ministers, priests, or rabbis.
"Colonial American religions
stultified individual determinations of morality, re-
ligious opinion, and politics on the
part of their own members and followers" (p.
18). The Declaration of Independence
marked a watershed in American thought. It
institutionalized in American political
culture Jefferson's radical theology which
rejected the orthodox ideas of original
sin, predestination, biblical infallibility,
and miracles. Through the writings of
Bolingbroke, Jefferson encountered the
scientific revolution, and from Locke he
adopted the notion of natural rights and
individual equality. In the Declaration
of Independence, Jefferson replaced the ar-
bitrary and vengeful God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Moses with an orderly and ratio-
nal law maker. Nature's God gave all
humans the right to life, liberty and prop-
erty, not simply God's chosen people.
Unlike Locke, however, Jefferson did not
restrict knowledge to a highly educated
elite. Instead, he borrowed from the
Scottish jurist, Lord Karnes, the belief
that all humans possessed an internal moral
sense, a conscience which enabled them
to determine right from wrong, truth from
error. Such a universal and inherent
moral sense allowed humans to perceive natu-
ral truths and qualified them for
political power. It provided the epistemological
foundation for democratic society.
According to Jayne, Jefferson rejected the skeptical currents of the
Enlightenment that denied the validity
of all knowledge whether based on ortho-
dox religion or scientific
empiricism. Following the lead of
Thomas Reid,
Book Reviews 211
Jefferson insisted that human
perception, without any mediation, could discrimi-
nate between truth and error. Common
sense enabled humans to make reliable and
just choices as long as they remained
open to rational argument, verifiable evi-
dence, and new insights. Jayne points out that such a belief informed
the
Declaration of Independence, Jefferson's
endorsement of public education and his
support for the secular curriculum of the University of Virginia. These
Enlightenment ideas led Jefferson to
affirm freedom of religion and speech, sepa-
ration of church and state, scientific
knowledge, public education, and political
democracy. Institutionalized in the Declaration
of Independence and the Bill of
Rights, these ideas challenged
Americans' orthodox religious beliefs. Jayne ar-
gues that without religious freedom and
the separation of church and state, democ-
racy, as Jefferson envisioned it, cannot
survive.
Whether or not you agree with Jayne's
assertion, his scholarship has several
problems. First, Jayne has replaced
Calvinist orthodoxy with a Jeffersonian or-
thodoxy. Jefferson was, after all, only
a man and a man of his time. His ideas are
tantalizing and influential, but they
remain Jefferson's. A sovereign, democratic
people are no more bound by the beliefs
of their founders than they are by despotic
monarchs. Further, while Jayne offers a coherent and plausible outline of
Jefferson's thought, it is an idealized
construction that ignores the contradictions,
confusions, and historical ambiguities.
In his introduction Jayne tellingly quotes
Paul Conkin that it is "impossible
to determine Jefferson's world view because it
always ended up with such an eclectic
mix of ideas as to defy systematic ordering"
(p. 7). Quite likely, Jefferson would
find Jayne's construction attractive and flat-
tering, but in his own lifetime
Jefferson refused to emancipate his slaves, ex-
pressed profound racial prejudice,
described Virginia's white majority as a
"rubbish heap," and failed to
adopt the radical feminism of his contemporary Mary
Wollstonecraft. He would have failed
contemporary definitions of political cor-
rectness. Jefferson's Declaration of
Independence would have benefited from
greater familiarity with the historical
context and with contemporary theory.
Still, this is a powerful study, well
organized, clearly written, and convincingly
argued. It should be required reading
for all students of American history and cul-
ture.
Kenyon College William B. Scott
Like Men of War: Black Troops in the
Civil War, 1862-1865. By Noah A.
Trudeau. (Boston: Little, Brown, and
Company, 1998, xxii + 548p.; illustra-
tions, notes, bibliography, index.
$29.95.)
One of the gaps in the current
literature on African Americans in the Civil War
has been a detailed account of their
combat activities. In Like Men of War, Noah
Trudeau has mainly met this need with an
interesting narrative of all of the battles
and skirmishes that the United States
Colored Troops participated in.
Trudeau divides the book into five
parts, basically corresponding to the years of
the war. In the first section he
describes the creation of the first black regiments
in Kansas, Louisiana, and South Carolina
and the difficulties that their leaders had
in receiving official sanction for them.
The second section focuses on 1863 and
the actions of the now official black
units. Trudeau provides a detailed description
of the attack by the 54th Massachusetts
on Fort Wagner. He notes that the
Confederates refused to give full
military honors to the dead black soldiers, an in-
212 OHIO HISTORY
dication of one of the major problems
that faced the USCT. Following a two-page
discussion of the issue of unequal pay,
Trudeau describes the other battles of 1863,
including small skirmishes in North
Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The
well-written battle narratives are
fleshed out with quotations from official reports,
excellent maps, and the words of many of
the participants. The next two sections
(1864-1865) of the book follow this
pattern. Trudeau provides a good account of
the Fort Pillow and Poison Springs
massacres. He also describes skirmishes
where the USCT themselves took no
prisoners. Another topic that Trudeau pre-
sents is the attitude that Union commanders
took toward using the USCT units un-
der their command. Many Union officers,
such as Sherman, generally did not want
to employ their black soldiers in a
significant combat role but exploited them to
free white soldiers for more active
duty. In the final brief section, Trudeau notes
that after the war the contributions of
the black soldiers were quickly forgotten by
most white people.
This work has many strengths and some
weaknesses. Trudeau certainly fills a
gap in the literature on the
African-American soldier in the Civil War. Previous
accounts, such as those by Joseph
Glatthaar and Dudley Cornish, dealt with their
activities in a general sense or looked
at the USCT in terms of other issues.
Trudeau has focused on combat. Anyone
interested in the contributions of black
soldiers to the Union victory can turn
to this book to read a very detailed account
about all of the battles. In addition,
Trudeau has done a great deal of research to
give us the voices of the soldiers. This
focus on the battles is also part of the
weakness of the book, because the battle
narratives become repetitious. Instead of
being able to describe in depth a whole
campaign or a particular general, Trudeau is
forced to skip from theater to theater
and leader to leader. In addition, other issues
of interest, such as leadership, racial
attitudes of white officers, and pay disparities
are only mentioned or ignored. While
these are topics that Trudeau did not intend
to cover, their absence does detract
from the overall effect. The works of other
scholars must still be consulted to help
provide a complete picture. Finally, it
would have been useful for Trudeau to
attempt some assessment of the quality of
the African-American soldiers in combat,
but he ignores the opportunity.
Noah Trudeau has written an interesting,
though somewhat limited, book which
explains in great detail the battlefield
activities of the United States Colored
Troops. It should make the reader aware
of how much they did to help gain their
own freedom.
Ohio University
Marvin Fletcher
The Life and Death of Pretty Boy
Floyd. By Jeffery S. King. (Kent,
Ohio: The
Kent State University Press, 1998. vii +
242p.; illustrations, notes, selected
bibliography, index. $28.00.)
In The Grapes of Wrath novelist
John Steinbeck depicted the Dustbowl "Okies"
as secular, quasi-socialist partisans of
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Five
decades later journalist Dan Morgan
wrote a "rebuttal" to Steinbeck. In Rising in
the West, Morgan's "Okies" were stoic individualists
and fervent Pentecostals
who disdained labor organizers and New
Deal bureaucrats. Now librarian Jeffery
King has given readers yet another view
of the 1930s "Okie." In The Life and
Death of Pretty Boy Floyd we are introduced to an "Okie" subculture in
which shift-
less men abandon their wives, engage in
promiscuous sex, and kill without re-
Book Reviews 213
morse. Regardless of which author has
captured the authentic "Okie," one must
conclude that Oklahoma was an
interesting place to be in the Great Depression.
Charles Arthur Floyd, a.k.a.,
"Pretty Boy" Floyd (1904-1934), is best remem-
bered for his role in the 1933
"Kansas City Massacre." Never one to consider the
consequences of his actions, Floyd
developed a rash plan to liberate gangster
Frank Nash from federal custody.
"Pretty Boy" simply blasted away at the law en-
forcement agents who
were escorting Nash to a federal penitentiary.
(Paradoxically, he killed Nash.) The
"Kansas City Massacre" earned Floyd a place
on FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's
"Most Wanted" list and his name quickly be-
came associated with the other great
sociopaths of the Depression Era: John
Dillinger, Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker,
and George "Machine Gun" Kelly.
Hoover vowed to "exterminate"
such "vermin."
Although he had a few accomplices, Floyd
never built a sophisticated crime
ring. He was, at best, a small-time bank
robber and cop killer who tore up and
down the "honky tonk" trail
from Oklahoma to Ohio. Floyd could have become a
member of the venerable Kansas City,
Missouri, Mafia. "Pretty Boy," however,
did not have it in him to be a team
player. He lacked the patience to work his way
up through the ranks of the Kansas City
Mob and its political wing, the
Democratic Machine of Boss Tom
Pendergast. This perhaps explains why team
player and Machine loyalist Harry Truman
became President and Floyd met his
maker in East Liverpool, Ohio, at the
age of thirty.
The Life and Death of Pretty Boy
Floyd is an action-packed read.
Indeed, at
times the pace of King's prose reminds
one of the rata-tat-tat of a machine gun.
(And I mean that in a good sense.) , do
believe, though, that King could have fur-
ther developed the historical context.
In particular, readers who know very little
about American history-a good share of
our students-might not understand why
bankers were so unpopular among poor
farmers in the early years of the
Depression. Also, the author could have
explored the "honky tonk" culture that
the hardest drinking, most self-destructive
ethnic Welsh and Scotch-Irish migrants
planted in the Appalachians, the
Alleghenies, and the Ozarks. Floyd and his
"cousins," the Hatfields and
the McCoys, were products of a culture of "social dis-
organization." Seen in this light,
it is not so strange for an "Okie" bandit like
Floyd to make his last stand in eastern
Ohio, In all of his travels, Floyd never re-
ally left home.
Quibbles aside. The Life and Death of
Pretty Boy Floyd, used in conjunction
with other texts, would be ideal for
courses in criminal justice, advanced offerings
on Depression Era America, and, perhaps,
a film history class devoted to
Hollywood's depiction of law and order.
("Bonnie and Clyde" and "The FBI Story"
might make good companion pieces.)
Ohio University Kenneth
J. Heineman
A Shining Thread of Hope: The History
of Black Women in America. By Darlene
Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson. (New
York: Broadway Books, 1998.
355p.; illustrations, endnotes,
bibliography, index. $27.50.)
Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen
Thompson's A Shining Thread of Hope signals
yet another example of the coming of age
of black women's history. Uniquely
written, this book covers the historical
experiences of black women from the west
coast of Africa to the present. Unlike
most historical overviews which tend to
214 OHIO HISTORY
provide one with a general story with
little depth, Hine and Thompson offer inti-
mate details of the lives of individual
black women throughout the pages of their
book. Using this style, the reader is
treated to many wonderful stories that when
complemented by historical
documentation, truly bring black women's history
alive.
Three major themes emerge from the book;
accomplishment, cultural expres-
sion, and resistance to oppression. The
authors state that "these three characteris-
tics distinguish the history of black
women in America" (p. 29). These themes
characterize Hine and Thompson's style
and set their work apart from the only
other comprehensive book on black women
in America, When and Where I Enter
by Paula Giddings.
With the first theme, accomplishment,
Hine and Thompson provide numerous
historical examples of black women who
achieved fame, wealth and/or profound
respect against societal odds. They cite
examples such as black women in colo-
nial America like Lucy Terry Prince who
along with her husband achieved so much
prominence in Deerfield, Vermont, that
they were treated equal to whites (p. 22).
Or the fourteen sisters who in the early
1800s were charter members of the
Philadelphia Antislavery Society, the
first biracial women's abolitionist group in
the country (p. 38). The inclusion of
women of accomplishment in the book chal-
lenges the uninformed reader who may
have previously viewed black women's ex-
periences in the past as both uniform
and degraded. It also educates those who be-
lieve that there were only a few black
women, such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet
Tubman, who were able to achieve high
levels of respect. Hine and Thompson's
sophisticated discussion of cultural
expression takes on many forms. They place
the foundation of black women's culture
in West Africa in the first chapter of the
book and discuss the blending process
that occurred as many cultures came into
contact over time. More time is later
given to the immense cultural production
that occurred in the antebellum quarters
of enslaved Africans where black music and
dance became both entertainment and
resistance. In later decades and into the
twentieth century, cultural expression
is documented by famous black women mu-
sicians, singers, writers, and those in
the performing arts. The authors provide
many descriptions of black women as
cultural producers is written in a way that
places black women in the center of what
is and has been considered "American"
culture.
As for the other two themes in this
book, examples of black women's resistance
to oppression are numerously documented.
The authors discuss the many forms of
resistance black women took to the
institution of slavery, sexual abuse, exploita-
tive working conditions, political and
economic disenfranchisement, and social
and legal prejudice. Individual
resistance by women such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett,
and collective activism such as that
which was done by the thousands of black
women who formed the "black women's
club movement," or those who worked
behind the scenes during the Civil
Rights Movement, bring to life the constant
pressure black women have placed against
a system that sought to deny their hu-
manity and liberty. In Hine and
Thompson's work, black women are not viewed
solely as victims, but as agents against
oppression.
There are many enjoyable aspects to this
book. The writing style is unique in
that it is sophisticated, yet easy to
understand. It is also creative with its use of
fictionalized stories, historical
documentation, and the actual words of black
women in America's past. This blend
brings the experiences and voices of black
women alive in an entertaining yet
informative manner. Hine and Thompson must
also be credited for synthesizing many
of the arguments and historiography of
Book Reviews 215
both black women's history and
African-American history in a way that has not
been done before. This book is useful to
a wide audience of scholars, teachers, stu-
dents, and those who simply want one of
the least-heard voices of the American
experience.
The Ohio State University Siri Briggs
Brown
Cowan Pottery and the Cleveland
School. By Mark Bassett and Victoria
Naumann.
(Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer
Publishing Ltd., 1997. 372p.; illustrations,
notes, appendices, index. $69.96.)
The authors of what is unquestionably
the definitive history of Cleveland's
Cowan Pottery have wisely approached
their task in terms of the artists who for a
few brief years in the 1920s and early
1930s created some of the finest and most
original art pottery produced in
America.
Beginning with a biographical sketch of
R. Guy Cowan that skillfully inter-
twines relevant aspects of the history
of the Arts and Crafts movement and the art
scene in Cleveland, the book proceeds to
a series of sketches of the major Cowan
artists, including their prior and
subsequent histories.
Fittingly, R. Guy Cowan (1884-1957) was
born in East Liverpool, Ohio,
though his ceramic apprenticeship began
at Syracuse, New York, where his father
was chief decorator at Onondaga Pottery
Co. At Alfred University young Cowan
fell under the influence of Charles
Fergus Binns before moving to Cleveland,
Ohio. Blessed with the cooperation and
knowledge of the Cowan family, the au-
thors have provided an ample account of
Guy Cowan's life and work.
Biographical accounts of other Cowan
artists necessarily vary in fullness; un-
derstandably there is much more
information available on the likes of Wayland
Gregory than more retiring or elusive,
lesser-known artists such as Whitney
Atchley; but for each, the extent and
nature of their relationship to the Cowan
Pottery, as well as its influence on
them, is made clear.
This book stands leagues ahead of the
horde of "collectors' books" that vie for
the attention and the dollars of pottery
dealers and collectors. In terms of scholar-
ship, detail, and insight there are few
competitors, and it more than holds its own
when compared with, say, Reich's study
of Redwing art pottery and Anita Ellis'
volume defining Rookwood pottery in
terms of glaze lines. Perhaps influenced by
Ellis, for example, the authors include
in the second part of their book, which is
designed as a "collector's guide,
11 detailed descriptions and ample illustrations of
Cowan's many glazes and shapes. This
section obviously will be of the most in-
terest to collectors of Cowan pottery. A
third section describes Guy Cowan's ca-
reer after the failure of his Rocky
River pottery and traces his influence and legacy.
One of the most impressive and original
elements of this history is the relatively
brief concluding section describing and
illustrating examples of the work of other
potteries influenced by Cowan.
While many of these potters worked
successfully in more than one medium,
most continued to be recognized for
their work with Cowan and their subsequent
work in ceramics. Exceptions are Edris
Eckhardt, who later turned to glass as an
artistic medium, and Thelma Frazier
Winter, who with her husband specialized in
enameled metal. These, together with
other major ceramic artists such as Victor
Schreckengost, Walter Sinz, Paul Bogatay,
and Wayland Gregory, may loosely be
said to have formed a "Cleveland
School," although nowhere in this comprehen-
216 OHIO HISTORY
sive work is this term clearly defined.
Among Guy Cowan's talents was the ability
to attract other talented potters and
accomplish a genuine sharing of knowledge
and ability.
Organization and indexing of the book is
a bit idiosyncratic, the index being
confined to proper names and divided
into six sections: Cowan Pottery Artists and
Designers, Cowan's Family, Cowan's
Staff, Other Artists and Potters of "The
Cleveland School," American Potters
and Potteries Outside Cleveland, and
Noteworthy Events, People, and Places.
There is also a shape guide which serves
as a partial index to the illustrations,
if one knows the shape number. But one
cannot, for example, readily find
illustrations of Cowan's well-known Sunbonnet
Girl bookends or even Victor
Schreckengost's famous Jazz Bowl, other than by
leafing through the volume. It must be
said, in this respect, that leafing through
the volume is a pleasure in itself, for
with few exceptions the photography is ex-
cellent, and the lapses are generally
clearly due to conditions beyond the authors'
control. Not only the quality of the
photography is noteworthy but the sheer
number and variety of the illustrations
also merit remark.
Granted that the Cowan Pottery Museum at
Rocky River Public Library has
served as a focal point for gathering
not only Cowan Pottery but a diverse collec-
tion of Cowan data and memorabilia, the
scope, detail, and accuracy of the authors'
investigative work is remarkable.
Specific errors noted are relatively minor and
extremely few: the Winterich Pottery
was located in Salineville-not
Salinesville- Ohio, for example. It is a
bit misleading to refer to Paul Bogatay's
"patented photostatic
process," for while Bogatay and Walter Ford collaborated in
the brief Columbus, Ohio, venture known
as Ford Ceramic Arts, family members
agree that the several photoceramic
processes developed by this company were
those of Ford, while the work of design
was Bogatay's. In any event, the patents
are in Ford's name.
Patient and methodical study of trade
journals and other primary material, aided
by interviews of Cowan family members
and the few surviving pottery artists and
artisans, has produced an exemplary and
scholarly study not only of the Cowan
Pottery but the national shift from
studio pottery to industrial art in general. The
authors are to be commended for
producing a detailed history of an important phe-
nomenon and tradition in American
ceramic history, a work as expressive in its
own way of a knowledge and love of
ceramics as are the products of the Cowan
phenomenon it documents.
The Ohio State University Jim Murphy
Tecumseh: A Life. By John Sugden. (New York: Henry Holt and Company,
1997.
xi + 492p.; illustrations, notes, appendix, bibliography, index.
$34.95.)
British author John Sugden has lavished
extensive research and intensive criti-
cal scrutiny on the achievements of a
Shawnee warrior and chief who won fame for
masterminding a pan-Indian confederacy
that between 1805 and 1813 tried to de-
feat American efforts to establish
hegemony in the Old Northwest. Sugden ac-
knowledges that Tecumseh was not
original; Shawnees and their fellow tribesmen
had been failing in similar projects
since the 1740s. Tecumseh himself fought in
the post-revolutionary pan-tribal
alliance that lost its cause in the Battle of Fallen
Timbers of 1794, and that alliance
remained his model.
Book Reviews 217
After the defeat, Tecumseh's eloquence
and his skills as a warrior and provider
won him a village following, but his
leadership of a pan-tribal movement began
only after 1805, when his younger
brother, a drunkard and ne'er-do-well, had vi-
sions that turned him into The
Prophet. The prophetic message combined
Christian views of hell and monogamy
with separatist insistence on sobriety,
land retention, and rejection of both
intermarriage and the weapons, clothing, an-
imals, and religion of the intruder.
This message, and his Dance of the Lakes, won
converts from all directions. The
Prophet himself preached peace; he expected a
future cataclysm to remove the whites
and return the game. Tecumseh took up the
message that land was the common
property of the tribes and should not be sold,
but tried peaceful negotiation to avert
catastrophe. A practical man, he wore a
deerskin shirt but kept his woolen
leggings, his gun, and his silver jewelry. He
also solicited agents, traders,
blacksmiths, and ammunition from the United
States.
Sugden argues that negotiation in good
faith might have prevented war.
Instead, Americans credited Tecumseh
with militant intentions more clearly mani-
fested by tribes to the west of him.
Only after what Sugden takes to be a gratuitous
1809 treaty-cum-land-grab, did Tecumseh
seek a defensive alliance with the
British. In 1811 he traveled west and
south in a sometimes successful search for
allies, bringing tribes such as the
Sioux and Winnebago to their first connection
with an eastern confederation. During
his absence, the Prophet committed those
who stayed behind to a premature
conflict with the Americans. He communed with
spirits who told him the Indians would
be bullet-proof, the Indians attacked
American troops, and those troops sacked
and burned Prophetstown. The
Prophet's mistake, and his abstention
from the fighting, discredited him, and
Tecumseh on his return became the
acknowledged leader of the pan-tribal confeder-
ation.
When war broke out in 1812, he led an
Indian army to the initially successful de-
fense of lower Canada. But once the
Americans took command of the Lakes, the
British abandoned Fort Maiden and very
nearly abandoned their allies.
Tecumseh, who died in battle at the
Thames in 1813, made the political reputa-
tions of many of those who fought him.
The Prophet stayed in Canada until Lewis
Cass summoned him to engineer Shawnee
removal to Kansas. Sugden clearly has
scant regard for the Prophet, who may
have revitalized the Shawnees but remained
himself incapable of Tecumseh's style of
courageous and committed leadership.
Justly, in Sugden's view, it was
Tecumseh whom both Canadians and Americans
celebrated in poetry, fiction, and drama
as a patriot chief. Though he acknowl-
edges Tecumseh's hauteur, his
deficiencies as a husband and father, his serious
miscalculations in dealing with the
Creeks, and the destructiveness of war,
Sugden's lovingly detailed descriptions
of the warrior's battles, his talents, and
his character, clearly delineate a hero.
University of Rochester Mary
Young