Book Reviews
The Adena People No. 2. By William S. Webb and Raymond S. Baby,
with chapters by Charles E. Snow and
Robert M. Goslin. (Columbus:
Ohio State University Press for the Ohio
Historical Society, 1957.
xi~123p.; illustrations,
map, chart, tables, bibliography, and index.
Paper, $3.00.)
This attractive, well organized, and
well executed volume summarizes
the current views of the authors
concerning the Adena people and their
culture in the Ohio Valley. Data from
forty-nine new Adena sites, for
the most part unpublished, have been
integrated with data previously pub-
lished by Webb and Snow in The Adena
People (University of Kentucky,
1945). In addition to twenty-five new
traits there is a reevaluation of a
number of the earlier recognized ones.
Important new information is given on
the perishable content of the
Adena culture, such as moccasins,
textiles, and the use of the cradleboard,
long suspected as the instrument
responsible for the major deformation
seen on Adena skulls. Recently it has
been concluded that the material
from the lower level of a number of dry
rock shelters in eastern Kentucky,
which included these organic remains,
was of Adena provenance, as in-
dicated by "direct association with
known Adena artifacts" (p. 34).
Mr. Goslin's instructive chapter on
Adena foods is based upon an
analysis of animal and vegetable
residues from twenty-three mound sites in
Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and West
Virginia, and from ten Kentucky rock
shelters. Evidence of agricultural foods
is very limited, both in quantity
and kind, consisting of rind fragments
of squash or pumpkin from the
Florence and Cowan Creek mounds in Ohio,
and of squash and sunflower
vestiges found in the Newt Kash Hollow
shelter in Kentucky. The two
mound sites, which produced datable
features directly associated with the
plant remains, are of the late horizon
of the culture. The dates are
1425 ± 250 and 1509 ± 250 years ago,
respectively. Mr. Goslin, however,
believes it probable "that the
Adena People engaged in agriculture in
BOOK REVIEWS 159
earlier times" (p. 42). On page
110, an older radiocarbon date, 2600± 300
years, is listed on grass and plant
materials from the Newt Kash Hollow
rock shelter.
Professor Snow's chapter, entitled
"Adena Portraiture," reiterates his
earlier description of the Adena
physical type, and continues to look to the
south for the source of this type,
termed "Walcolid" by Neumann. He
summarily dismisses an alternate
possibility which would derive the
physical type, and certain elements of
the Adena culture, from areas lying
north of the Ohio Valley, although some
evidence for both, on a pre-
Adena level, has been made available
since his 1945 publication, as is
in part indicated on page 103 of the
work under review.
Some novel aspects of the Adena culture
dealing with supernaturalism
are adroitly considered in Chapters VI,
VII, and IX. A good case seems
to have been made for the shamanistic
impersonation of such mammals as
the wolf, puma, and bear, while evidence
for the use of medicine bundles
is admittedly weaker.
There is an intriguing and skillful
analysis of the designs on the twelve
known Adena stone or clay tablets,
followed by a series of what seem to
be reasonable assumptions regarding the
significance of the "raptorial bird"
designs, the possible role in the
mortuary ritualism of the culture of the
"raptorial bird," and the use
to which the tablets may have been put.
Those portions of the monograph which
attempt the interpretation of
ideological concepts of the culture seem
to this reviewer the most stimu-
lating.
The volume closes with a concise
consideration of the age and broad
temporal and cultural subdivisions of
Adena. As currently determined by
radiocarbon analysis, the Adena
cultural span extended from about 1200
B. C. to about 900 A. D. Thus on present
evidence it partially antedated
Hopewell, which also survived it. This
temporal relationship is shown
graphically in the chart at the back of
the volume.
Webb, Baby, and their collaborators have
contributed significantly to
knowledge of the Adena complex in this
fine publication. This reviewer
hopes that a fuller consideration will,
in a subsequent study, be given
such problems as the relationship of
Adena to Archaic cultures, of Adena
to Hopewell, and of both the latter to
certain Early Woodland cultures
which seem to have affected their
formation.
New York State Museum and WILLLAM A. RITCHIE
Science Service
160
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The Fishes of Ohio, with Illustrated
Keys. By Milton B. Trautman. (Co-
lumbus: Ohio State University Press in
collaboration with the Ohio
Division of Wildlife and the Ohio State
University Development Fund,
1957. xviii~683p.; maps, figures,
outline drawings, color plates, biblio-
graphy, and index. $6.50.)
This ambitious study, condensed into one
volume after more than a
quarter century of diligent and
intensive field and laboratory work, is the
most comprehensive treatment of the
fresh-water fishes ever completed of
a state fauna in our country. One finds
evidence throughout the volume
of the great effort, persistence, and
energetic attitude of the author in his
quest for data, seeking it in early,
little-known historical accounts, museum
records, libraries, or from the
examination of more than several hundred
thousand specimens of fishes captured in
the waters draining the state of
Ohio.
The subject matter is clearly presented,
precisely organized, thoroughly
illustrated (more than 800
illustrations) and treated in a broad manner.
The study extends far beyond the
boundaries of the state of Ohio for it
serves as a valuable reference to the
fishes of the central United States.
It will ably serve individuals in many
fields of endeavor: the layman,
fisherman, and teacher curious about the
identity of a specimen; the con-
servationist and fishery biologist on
factors affecting the distribution or
depletion of this aquatic resource; and
the zoogeographer and ichthyologist
in the many accounts of the distribution
of various species correlated with
the physical or biological environment.
The volume is divided into six parts.
Part I (12p.) is a discussion of
the geography, historical geology,
glaciation, topography, and climate of the
state of Ohio. Part II (17p.) is a
treatment mainly of the environment
correlated with fish-life in Ohio and
the changes in life brought about by
natural causes and man-made devices and
activities. It describes conditions
from 1750 to 1950, divided into periods
of fifty years. Part III (15p.) is
primarily a list of species erroneously
recorded for Ohio, a list of introduced
species, and a long alphabetical list
(13p.) of synonyms with references
to the currently recognized species.
Part IV (3p.) includes a brief dis-
cussion of the scientific and common
names of fishes and gives the author's
concepts of the genus, species, and
subspecies and his reasons for adopting
the nomenclature used in the text. Part
V (66p.) concerns the artificial
keys to Ohio fishes. It treats the use
of keys, includes a good glossary of
technical terms, lists the necessary
materials for the identification of fishes,
and gives detailed methods of counting
and measuring the various anatom-
BOOK REVIEWS 161
ical parts of fishes that are necessary
in the use of the keys. The keys are
the dichotomous type. There is a key to
twenty-five families of Ohio fishes,
with good outline drawings of a
characteristic member of each family in-
serted in the appropriate portion of the
key. A separate key to the species
and subspecies of Ohio fishes,
segregated by families, identifies a total of
172 forms. It is a multi-character key,
often containing more discriminating
characters for the separation of a
species than in the various descriptive
accounts of the species in the main body
of the work. This section closes
with a short account of the natural
hybrid fishes found in Ohio's waters.
Part VI (printed as IV) comprises the
main body of the book (501p.).
The areas of the state that were
investigated, the collections examined,
the methods of presenting distributional
data, the method of construction
of maps and illustrations, and the
factors influencing distribution are briefly
discussed. The bulk of this part
concerns the identification, distribution,
and habitat of 160 species and 12
additional subspecies found in the
drainages of Ohio. A two or three page
account of each species gives
the common and scientific name,
characters for identification, and the
distribution and habitat. A black and
white illustration of the species is
included with the account; sometimes two
or more drawings are given
with each species to illustrate sexual
dimorphism or ontogenetic changes in
growth. Numerous outline drawings are
included of the whole body or a
part of it showing diagnostic characters
extremely useful in the identifica-
tion of the species. The accounts also
include an enlarged, detailed map
of the state of Ohio showing the precise
distribution of the species and a
small insert map of North America giving
the general distribution. The
latter is a highly desirable addition to
this study, for it quickly enlightens
one's perspective of the distributional
pattern, especially in the case of
rare species or those highly localized.
The paragraphs on distribution and
habitat in the accounts of the species
often contain interesting aspects of
their life history and biology. The
twenty pages of "literature cited" are
useful to all students of North American
ichthyology.
Also noteworthy is the overall high
quality of the printing, the easy
reading of the two-column format, and
the bookshelf size of 8 x 11
inches of this edition.
The reviewer finds a few negative
criticisms, some of which may be
personal interpretations: The lengthy
list of synonyms (pp. 32-44) would
have been more useful and more
appropriately placed in the accounts of
the respective species. Although
references to these synonyms are given,
the original reference pertaining to the
recognized name in the accounts
in Part VI is not given.
162
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Although the author gave exceptional
time and study to the execution
of the detailed drawings of the species,
the reviewer failed to identify
some on spot identification involving
species he presumes to know very well.
This raises the question of their
ultimate value to the fisherman or biologist
entirely unfamiliar with the species.
A more generalized interpretation of the
definition of a subspecies
may be preferred rather than the
seventy-five percent rule of thumb (p. 45).
Readers may misconstrue the meaning of
"common name" on page 46,
paragraph two. The common name is often
composed of two English
words, as Green Sunfish, but may have
one or three or more. A definite
effort is underway among the
ichthyologists and fishery biologists of North
America to standardize the common names
of fishes and have but one
name (as Green Sunfish) to represent a
species.
United States National Museum ERNEST A. LACHNER
From the Depths: The Discovery of
Poverty in the United States. By
Robert
H. Bremner. (New York: New York
University Press, 1956. xiii~364p.;
illustrations, bibliography, and index.
$5.50.)
Let it be said at once that this is a
valuable work which historians con-
cerned with reform, social service, and
related themes in American history,
from about 1850 through the 1920's, will
wish to own and use. Readers
will appreciate not only its broad chronicle
of major organizations and
leaders who advanced philanthropy during
this relatively long period; they
will attend to lesser figures and events
and appreciate that they help fill
out understanding of the subject.
Professor Bremner has found more than
enough to do with available
printed works by and about what he has
concluded to term "humanitarian
reformers," and with annual reports
and other materials dealing with such or-
ganizations as the National Child Labor
Committee, the Consumers' League,
and the New York Association for
Improving the Condition of the Poor.
He has profited from such a special
collection as that which J. G. Phelps
Stokes enabled him to use. Nevertheless,
it may be evident that poverty
is not a topic which any monograph, however
excellent, can aspire to
settle. Poverty accompanies society and
requires not only multiple investiga-
tion, for a progressively more
integrated society, but progressively more
integrated approaches as well. The
findings of investigators will thus,
hopefully, be built into a system of
examinations which increase their use-
fulness and the light they throw. The
several questions which have occurred
BOOK REVIEWS 163
to me to ask may not be the best or most
strategic questions, but may
suggest the kind of question which might
attract related investigators,
from different viewpoints.
Did the "humanitarian reform movements" of the roughly pre-World
War I period derive "in large
measure from the new view of poverty"
which philanthropic spirits of the late
ninetenth century had formulated?
Professor Bremner believes that their
generation had come to realize the
need for social rather than individual
reform, and that factualism in the
social sciences and realism in the arts
had taught society's leaders the
road to take in order more adequately to
ameliorate social conditions.
The question is, whether social change
is merely a matter of knowledge.
I tell thee thou foolish philanthropist
[said Emerson] that I grudge the
dollar, the dime, the cent I give such
men as do not belong to me and to
whom I do not belong. There is a class
of persons to whom by all spiritual
affinity I am bought and sold; for them
I will go to prison if need be; but
your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at
college of fools; the
building of meeting-houses to the vain
end to which many now stand; alms
to sots, and the thousand-fold Relief
Societies; though I confess with shame
I sometimes succumb and give the dollar,
it is a wicked dollar, which by
and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.
Emerson was, of course, not
hard-hearted. He was, if anything, a reformer.
But what he was reforming is less
quickly stated. Professor Bremner is
aware that the individualism Emerson was
essentially preaching was radical
in its inception, though it helped
shield greed and selfishness under post-
Civil War industrial conditions. Emerson
had a fairly clear view of poverty
and deprivation, including that
afflicting the Negro--a key subject, by the
way, which requires a more direct
treatment than it often receives in non-
Negro-oriented monographs. Emerson's
social status and relationships re-
quired him to subordinate his knowledge
of poverty to other perceptions
which enabled him to make his social and
cultural contribution. The same
is substantially true of other
socio-cultural figures who followed him.
Professor Bremner's list of notable
philanthropists is meager at the be-
ginning of his book; it grows to
formidable proportions as one approaches
the end. What accounts for this? Are we
a more benevolent people than we
have been? Are we wiser or better informed
than Americans of a hundred
years past? I suggest that one is wise
to approach these questions with
caution, and be grateful for all aid and
hypotheses.
It appears to me that there might be
some value in distinguishing more
precisely between philanthropy and
reform. They present little confusion
164 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
in the 1850's. Reformers raised banners
demanding unequivocal change.
By and large their targets were not
poverty. They attacked intemperance,
land policy, slavery, ignorance,
imprisonment for debt, capital punishment--
all worthy causes, and calculated to
change social rules and keep society
fluid. The philanthropists were the
meliorists. They offered charity, not
change.
The remarkable fact is that charity
itself was, to a considerable degree,
a new social fact. Like
"poverty" in the catastrophic sense, it was a
product of democracy. Slaves did not
need charity, neither did indentured
servants. They were often miserable
enough, certainly, but they were not
nameless and forgotten people; if
anything, they were all too known and con-
trolled. Reforms aimed to improve their
status and character, sometimes even
at the expense of their immediate needs.
Charity, at its best, was kind, con-
siderate, even loving, but whether it
was or was not, it was firm in its
defense of the status quo. In its
first phase it was weak on "fact finding,"
but it needs to be recalled that it
needed fewer "facts." The community,
in the 1850's, still maintained a
homogeneity which the post-Civil War
period--with its polylingual immigrants
and massive cities--lacked. Sym-
bolic figures expressing the difference
between the miserable beings of
1837 and 1893 would be, for example, the
town ne'er-do-well as con-
trasted with the tramp. The latter was a
truly anonymous creature, who
could only be reached, if at all, with
statistics. But the reformer aimed to
do away with the tramp. Charity was
content to feed him.
Let me hasten to express my regard for
numerous do-gooders: Henry
Bergh, who seems to me most picturesque
and useful in his high-hat and
tails, arresting cruel draymen who might
be lashing horses or whipping
children; Richard Welling, who fought
for civics in the public schools; E. L.
Godkin, unappetizing in his public
personality, but opposed to skullduggery
at the polls, probably for the wrong
reasons; and of course, Jane Addams,
Mary Richmond, and many others who were
more directly concerned for
poverty at its most painful and demoralizing
points. It seems to me, never-
theless, helpful to continue to attempt
to distinguish them from certain
categories of reformers proper, not
because they are in any way lesser
people, but because they are serving a
different purpose. One is holding
the society together; the other is
attempting to make its necessary transitions
less painful and more certain. It can
never be overemphasized that these
individuals and their causes had to
fight, sometimes desperately, to achieve
fulfillment; I see nothing whatever
"inevitable" about their accomplishments,
and, indeed, too many of their
co-workers have been, sadly, forgotten even
BOOK REVIEWS 165
by the scholars of a pushing and
egotistical civilization. They deserve to
be recaptured, not merely in the name of
"justice," but for the strength
they can impart to us.
A word about Professor Bremner's
chapters on humanitarian and realistic
art and literature. Man simply does not
live by bread alone; and the author
was well-advised to consider the
writings of Stephen Crane and Dreiser,
among many others, and of the realistic
artists, including Eugene Higgins,
who died only the other day. They merit
such attention for the understanding
they offer of social attitudes, and
their value in having helped teach Ameri-
cans the human facts of poverty and
trouble. One may differ on many
points with Professor Bremner's choice
of authors, and interpretations of
works, and, nevertheless, applaud
heartily the effort and interest which
went into his analyses. Moreover, in a
time which has seen so much aimless
"explication" of literary
artifacts--literally, the most about the least--there
is something essentially healthy,
useful, and tangible about Professor
Bremner's work. In an unhappy time which
has academically applauded
a work which sees Dreiser--of all people--as
a "Man of Ice," Professor
Bremner's warm and appreciative studies
in method, purpose, and social
relevance help us recapture something of
a sense of reality, and offer hope
that we may abandon escapist fantasies,
and permit the arts to rejoin the
human race.
Muckrakers were not social workers, and
here the question of the differ-
ence between reformers and meliorists
becomes acute, and demands the
most careful exchanges of
preconceptions, if we are to build up communicat-
ing vocabularies. Muckrakers met with
social workers. They cooperated in
varied types of projects. But they
ministered to different needs. Distinguish-
ing between those needs can help us, in
part, to trace both the victories
and cataclysms in which they became
involved. Measuring rods for human
victories and defeats are not easily
forged. It is possible to develop a
chronicle of "humanitarian
reform" which runs increasingly upward,
through the social triumphs of
progressivism, through World War I (which
can, in this way, be viewed as a
continuation of the democratic crusade),
and on through the twenties, a period
notable for prosperity, developing
social work techniques, mass production
innovations, world relief measures,
and other achievements. Professor
Bremner, I think properly, qualifies these
achievements. He points to lags in
housing, child-labor legislation, factory
and mine regulation, and economic
security aids. It does appear--and
certainly as compared with the
1850's--that philanthropic agencies had
never been more active. But it needs to
be recalled that American society
had never been more atomized. In short,
the problem has been, not how
166
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
many social and philanthropic agents and
agencies we have had, but how
adequate they have been to our social needs.
"In our own country the discovery
of poverty brought with it a redis-
covery of the brotherhood of man."
And here I must beg leave to be less
categorical than Professor Bremner. Have
our increased social services neces-
sarily meant an increase in our sense of
interdependence? It would be good
if this were so. But a person can be a
social worker and hate his clients. He
can be a perfunctory dispenser of old
age assistance, social security funds,
unemployment insurance. I was recently
depressed by a person who claimed
that many individuals he knew who work
with retarded children do not
do so to satisfy their human and humane
instincts, but because they enjoy
a feeling of superiority and
omnipotence. It seems realistic to face the fact
that our services, though quantitatively
larger than in previous decades,
employing many more "workers,"
may be no more than the minimum
necessary to keep our social wheels
rolling, and that the "brotherhood of
man" may still be a goal to
achieve. It would be wise, I think, not to
underrate the meliorists of an earlier
time, not to be over-impressed by
mere numbers in the present, and to
continue our labors in helping to
clarify the functions and forms of our
society, the roles of our reform and
philanthropic elements.
Antioch College Louis FILLER
Ohio State Ballads. By Anne Grimes. (Folkways Records and Service Corp-
oration. FH 5217, accompanied with
dulcimer. 12" LP, 33 1/3 rpm.
$5.95.)
Anne Grimes is a native Ohioan who has
made folksinging a profitable
hobby. She is known nationally for her
extensive collection of Ohio songs,
for her rare dulcimers, and for her
knowledge of Ohioana. Since last April
she has been president of the Ohio
Folklore Society, and stands with Harry
Ridenour and Mary Eddy as a leading
authority on Buckeye song tradition.
Folkways has just recorded her on an LP
disc called Ohio State Ballads
(the name is Ballads of Ohio on
the record itself). The songs included
are ones that have been popular here for
generations, that are still carried
in oral tradition, and that reflect
events and attitudes that Ohioans have
cherished over the last one hundred and
fifty years. Historians and sociolo-
gists should know of this disc, and many
of them will want to purchase
it for classroom and library use.
Exactly why they "will want to
purchase it" may not be self-evident.
BOOK REVIEWS 167
Most historians and sociologists don't
really know how to use folklore in
their classes and studies--providing of
course they consider using it at all.
Folklore is an incomplete and inaccurate
reservoir of historical fact, and
it is scarcely reliable in presenting
the contemporary attitude toward the
events it treats. As a result, many
people think of it only as a means of
lending color. However, its significance
is more subtle and far deeper
than that.
Folklore records the accepted cultural
attitude toward an event and
toward the memory of that event--not at
the time the event occurred, but
at the time the lore is in circulation.
For example, one can learn more about
the debacle of Governor Arthur St. Clair
through diaries, news accounts, and
early histories than he can ever learn
through a song like "Sinclair's Defeat."
Nevertheless, if he wants to know what
an event like St. Clair's defeat
meant to the Ohioan at the time of the
Spanish-American War, the Second
World War, or at any particular period,
then he will do well to examine
the nature of the ballad and the
elements that have been preserved by its
popularity. The Davy Crockett revival
told us little about Davy, but in it
lay the basic reasons that Eisenhower
was able to defeat Stevenson with
such ease.
There are twenty songs that contain the
emotions, prejudices, and ideals
of the Ohioan today on Anne Grimes's
record. They range from old
British ballads such as "The
Farmer's Curst Wife," through school ditties
like "The Alphabet Song," to
occupational and topical songs like "The
Boatman's Dance," "Pleasant
Ohio," "The Underground Railroad," and
"Logan's Lament." Along the
way, spirituals ("My Station's Gonna Be
Changed"), minstrel songs (Dan
Emmett's "Old Dan Tucker"), senti-
mental ballads ("The Dying
Volunteer"), and even the well-known Christ-
mas jingle "Up on the
House-Top" are included. The recording is of
highest quality, Mrs. Grimes's diction
is extremely clear, and the material
is as varied in temper as it is in
subject matter. With the disc comes an
informative, nicely illustrated booklet,
which gives the historical informa-
tion pertinent to each song, includes
the lyrics, and closes with a brief,
but sound, bibliography of Ohioana and
folksong in general.
It probably should be mentioned here
that all the "ballads of Ohio" are
not really ballads at all. Nearly fifty
percent of the songs are lyric in
nature. Also, the so-called "Lass
of Roch Royal" on Band 4 of Side 1 is
not really the traditional British
ballad, but a typical American setting
of the "shoe-my-foot" cliche
that, even though frequently found as a part
of the "Lass of Roch Royal"
can scarcely be called the "Lass of Roch Royal"
168
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
itself. However, these are small
matters. The important thing for Ohioans
is that there is now available a
recording of native folksongs suitable for
home or class use.
This is Mrs. Grimes's first commercial
recording. Riverside will release
another very soon, and more will follow.
It will be no small accomplish-
ment to maintain the standard of
excellence set by Ohio State Ballads.
Denison University TRISTRAM P. COFFIN
The Frontier Mind: A Cultural
Analysis of the Kentucky Frontiersman. By
Arthur K. Moore. (Lexington: University
of Kentucky Press, 1957.
xi~264p.; notes and index. $5.00.)
Kentucky, according to Arthur K. Moore,
was transformed, not by its
pioneers but by writers, into something
rich and strange, a Garden of
Eden, an earthly paradise, a vision
which wrought harmful results in the
character of its people and of its
society.
The group to suffer most was the
frontiersmen, who are described as
"licentious, exuberant, [and]
violent" (p. 40). "Transappalachia attracted
not only the congenitally restless
backwoodsmen of the Valley of Virginia
but also assorted incorrigibles, for whom
the older settlements held out
the prospect of a life behind bars"
(p. 39). They were "men who carried
independence to the verge of anarchism,
who were so . . . fearless and
mischievous as to constitute a permanent
menace to society" (p. 69). "Ken-
tuckians seem to have been unusually
refractory heathen well into the
nineteenth century despite the frenzied
exhortations of the evangelists"
(p. 40). "Backwoods families . . .
, standing one to three generations
from a unified cultural frame, had
regressed perceptibly under the impact
of the frontier" (p. 239). The
"unrestrained existence" (p. 67) and "law-
less profligacy" (p. 66) of the
frontier as well as the distance from civiliza-
tion produced these unfortunate
conditions. The author does not say
directly that Kentucky is the place
where the westward movement went
wrong (p. 7), but such does not seem to
be an unfair interpretation of his
meaning. The pioneer's "progress
westward from Kentucky was accompanied
by a further loss of traditional
references and by an increased distortion of
vision" (p. 239). The author cannot
hope to describe this further west-
ward distortion because he has already
exhausted the English language on
Kentuckians and lacks further derogatory
terms for their children who
advanced the frontier to the Rocky
Mountains and beyond. He does, how-
ever, offer a generalization: "The
American frontier, while creating nothing,
BOOK REVIEWS 169
functioned as a catalyst to precipitate
such barbaric modes of behavior
as highly developed societies
suppress" (p. 93). Perhaps the large role
played by the frontier in the nation's
history was partly responsible for
the author's suggestion that "the
growth of America may today be described
in cynical terms as a rape of nature, a
contest among rogues for wealth
and fame, or a struggle between classes
for domination" (p. 143).
The reviewer would like to assert that
his own understanding of Ken-
tucky history, frontier history, and
United States history is very different
from that expressed in this volume.
One may ask whether the westward
movement (p. 7) or the author
went wrong. He uses extensively literary
sources such as travel accounts,
romantic novels and biographies, and
tall tales, in most of which exaggera-
tion plays a more or less prominent
part. Some of the better accounts, for
instance the writings of Judge James
Hall and Timothy Flint, appeared
too late to have a formative effect upon
Kentucky's frontier. Professor
Moore has concerned himself particularly
with the lowest groups of people
without realizing that there were
thousands of substantial persons between
the lowest of the pioneers whom he values
so lowly and the gentry whom
he mentions with approval. His
prejudices are so deep that one might raise
the question whether he seeks to destroy
the pride which Kentuckians have
in their pioneer history.
A few questions may be raised about the
depth and breadth of his
knowledge of the frontier. After citing
the census of population for
Kentucky from 1790 to 1820, he writes,
"Never had there been a compar-
able assault on nature" (p. 42).
During these very years a larger movement
of population was taking place in Ohio,
while Indiana, 1810-40, and
Nebraska, 1860-90, surpassed the
population growth of Kentucky. No doubt
the face of nature was changed in
comparable ways, but other words could
be used to describe the change. He also
writes, "The emigrants [poorer
settlers] seldom listened to wise and
educated counsel in vital matters"
(p. 6). The author does refer to the
constitutional convention of 1792
but not to the influence of George
Nicholas, nor does he mention the
convention of 1799 and the somewhat
comparable part played by Robert
Breckinridge. Again he omits the
patience displayed by Kentucky frontiers-
men in the ten conventions from 1784 to
1792. Perhaps, to him, these
were not instances of listening to wise
and educated counsel in vital matters.
The French empire in America was erected
without vast clearing of forests
and without driving the Indians into the
West; in these respects it con-
trasted with the English colonies and
the American states where trees and
Indians were replaced by farms and
homes. One might ask if the founding
170
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
of states, counties, towns, farms,
homes, churches, and schools are evidence
of deterioration on the frontier?
Admittedly the frontiersmen were not
cultured and formally educated, but is
it desirable that they be insulted,
their faults exaggerated, and their
characters misrepresented.
Indiana University JOHN D. BARNHART
A Short History of New York State. By David M. Ellis, James A. Frost,
Harold C. Syrett, and Harry J. Carman.
(Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell Uni-
versity Press in cooperation with the
New York State Historical Associa-
tion, 1957. xiii~705p.; illustrations,
maps and charts, bibliographical
essay, and index. $7.75.)
The writing of state history poses
special and difficult problems. On the
one hand, the historian is faced with a
complex story and vast quantities
of source material; on the other, he
faces the realization that viewed on
the spectrum of world or even national
history, the story of a state is
almost microcosmic. To do justice to the
story and the materials and yet
maintain the proper perspective requires
craftsmanship of a high order.
The authors of this history, all
professional historians, have succeeded
admirably in solving the problems posed
by their assignment. They have
packed into 705 pages (including a
bibliographical essay and an index) a
wealth of detail about the Empire State.
At the same time, they have
kept in mind that New York is but one of
forty-eight states--albeit a
very important one--and that its
history, no matter how interesting and
important in and of itself, can be
understood only in relation to the
history of the rest of the United
States.
Another problem which the authors of A
Short History of New York
State have solved most successfully is that of chronological
balance. The
colonial period in the history of states
which were once one of the original
colonies is of such obvious interest and
importance that there is a very
real temptation to concentrate on that
period to the exclusion of almost
all else. Only about one-seventh of this
book is devoted to the colonial
period. In contrast, half of it deals
with the years from 1856 to 1956,
and there is a satisfying account of the
political, economic, and cultural
developments which have made New York
the colossus it is today.
The authors could have been forgiven if
their effort to pack so much
information into so few pages had
resulted at times in a mere catalog of
people, places, and events. The book,
however, is remarkably free of this
shortcoming, and in almost every chapter
there is a wealth of meaningful
BOOK REVIEWS 171
and interesting interpretation.
Moreover, the authors have humanized their
history with interesting sketches of
leading New Yorkers--those of Alfred
E. Smith and Herbert Lehman being
particularly good. Indeed, for the
reader who is not a New Yorker, and
perhaps for the New Yorkers too,
one of the book's major contributions is
the effective way in which it
relates the local activities of
nationally notable New Yorkers to their
wider careers. Particularly noteworthy
in this respect is the chapter which
traces the New York antecedents of the
New Deal.
The writing is remarkably even--no
little achievement in a cooperative
venture--and almost uniformly of good
quality. Although the volume
apparently was intended primarily for
New Yorkers, it can be read with
profit and pleasure by anyone who seeks
to understand America. It rep-
resents state history at its best.
University of Nebraska JAMES C. OLSON
Albert Gallatin: Jeffersonian
Financier and Diplomat. By Raymond
Walters,
Jr. (New York: Macmillan Company, 1957.
ix~461p.; bibliography and
index. $7.00.)
Raymond Walters has resurrected
America's least known major statesman
in this thoroughly documented and
eminently readable biography. Its style
is temperate and judicious. Gallatin's
great services to his adopted country
over sixty years are enumerated with
brilliance and accuracy. His failures,
minor to be sure, are noted and
explained in the light of difficulties faced.
Gallatin's evolution as a statesman from
the time he acted as secretary
for the whisky rebels in western
Pennsylvania until when, in the retire-
ment of his seventies and eighties, he
had become the Bernard Baruch of
his day, is the measure of his
greatness. Intelligent, well educated, and
patriotic, Gallatin loved history,
literature, philosophy, the law, and nature
study but was shunted off into a life of
politics, finance, and diplomacy
because his friends--notably Jefferson,
Madison, Monroe, and J. Q. Adams
--recognized his superior abilities and
because he was willing to serve
where he was needed. He was a champion
of frontier democracy in the
Pennsylvania assembly, fought the
Hamiltonian fiscal schemes and the
alien and sedition acts in congress,
sought to extinguish the national
debt in spite of a war which of
necessity enlarged it, ably represented
the nation at St. Petersburg, Ghent,
Paris, and London, and after his retire-
ment devoted himself so assiduously to
the history of the American Indian
that he has been called "The Father
of American Ethnology." Starting as a
172
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Jeffersonian Republican, he evolved into
a Nationalist, with a better realiza-
tion of the desirability of certain
Hamilton-Clay institutions, notably the
United States Bank, the national debt, a
moderate protective tariff, federal
aid to internal improvements, and some
measure of military and naval
strength. But he fought slavery, opposed
the Florida cession except by
purchase, and bitterly criticized the annexation
of Texas and the Mexican
War. His major achievements abroad saw
him help secure the peace of
1814, settle the Canadian boundary and
fisheries disputes, extend joint
occupation of Oregon, and establish
better commercial relations with our
European neighbors.
Walters' biography is the first to fully
exploit the Gallatin correspondence
in the New York Historical Society,
cataloged and opened to the public in
1946. He has used every other collection
of Gallatin papers and made
intelligent use of newspapers, writings
of Gallatin's contemporaries, con-
temporary accounts of every sort, and of
course, Gallatin's own addresses,
essays, memoranda, and writings. This
reviewer knows of no Gallatiniana he
has not utilized except some twenty
letters in the Thomas Worthington
Papers at the Ohio Historical Society
and these would not have changed
his story. It definitely supersedes the
political biography of Henry Adams
(1879) and that by John A. Stevens for
the American Statesmen Series
(1884).
This is the definitive one-volume life
of Gallatin as a public figure, but
this reader is curious to know if
Walters does not have sufficient material
for another on him as teacher, land
speculator, farmer, glass and arms
manufacturer, lawyer, banker, commercial
agent, political economist, and
intimate of the world's leaders for over
half a century. These are briefly
considered in the present volume, but it
would take another to give us the
intimate picture of Gallatin's inner
self and his more domestic activities.
I hope Walters writes it.
University of Oklahoma ALFRED B. SEARS
Orville H. Browning, Lincoln's Friend
and Critic. By Maurice G. Baxter.
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1957. vii~351p.; bibliography
and index. $4.50.)
Orville H. Browning is known to students
of the Civil War era chiefly
as the author of a detailed, sometimes
tedious, but highly informative diary.
Since its publication in the early
1930's, the Browning diary, which covers
the years 1850 to 1881, has been
frequently consulted and cited by writers
BOOK REVIEWS 173
on the sectional controversy, early
Republican politics, and the Civil War
and reconstruction. Until the
publication of the volume under review,
however, there has been no full-length
biography of the man who was
Lincoln's friend and critic.
Browning's career in many ways
paralleled that of Lincoln. Both were
born in Kentucky and migrated to
Illinois; both practiced law in the same
courts and served in the Illinois
legislature as Whigs; both emerged from
political obscurity after the passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska act to become
prominent Republicans. Soon after
Lincoln became president, Browning was
appointed United States Senator from
Illinois and there was a close collab-
oration between the two men,
particularly during the early months of the
war. Browning, however, was a man of
extremely independent and con-
servative views, and as the war
progressed, the two differed on many
policies. So much did they differ that
by 1864, though they remained
friends, Browning gave Lincoln at best
only lukewarm support for reelec-
tion. But on the question of
reconstruction Lincoln and Browning were in
substantial agreement, and after
Lincoln's assassination Johnson made Brown-
ing secretary of the interior. Had
Johnson relied more heavily on the advice
of his secretary, who had imbibed much
of Lincoln's political sublety and
moderation, it is possible that some of
the difficulties with the Radicals
might have been avoided.
If the political careers of Browning and
Lincoln presented many points
of similarity, their personalities stand
in stark contrast. Where Lincoln
deliberately played up his humble
origins and displayed a demeanor utterly
lacking in pretension, Browning lived in
a fine house, wore fine clothes,
and assumed aristocratic airs. Where
Lincoln often pursued a devious and
subtle course, Browning was forthright
and outspoken. Where Lincoln
followed public opinion, Browning tried
to mold it. Where Lincoln achieved
greatness, Browning accomplished only a
modest degree of prominence.
The author of this biography has not
only examined a vast amount of
literature in print but has delved
deeply into the manuscript sources. So
far as this reviewer is aware, he has
produced no startingly new information
or interpretations but he has added a
balanced and readable monograph to
a field of American history that is
still, after a hundred years, often charged
with prejudice and emotion. In short,
this biography is an excellent piece
of research and writing.
Ohio State University HARRY L. COLES
174
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
La Verendrye: Fur Trader and
Explorer. By Nellis M. Crouse.
(Ithaca,
N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1956.
ix~247p.; illustrations, maps,
appendices, bibliography, and index.
$4.00.)
Mr. Crouse has long evinced interest in
the age of exploration. His
doctoral dissertation entitled Contributions
of the Canadian Jesuits to the
Geographical Knowledge of New France,
1632-1675 (Cornell, 1924) was
the focal point from which his numerous
later works emanated. The
volume under consideration endeavors to
narrate and interpret the journeys
of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la
Verendrye, one of the greatest of the
French Canadian explorers of the lands
west of the Great Lakes.
In 1731 La Verendrye set out from
Montreal to find the Great River of
the West which flowed into the Western
Sea. The refusal of the French
court to appropriate funds for his
explorations led La Verendrye to engage
in the fur trade to pay for supplies
advanced to him by private individuals.
His enterprises therefore became
primarily commercial ones, with discovery
relegated to the background until he
could meet the obligations incurred
in fitting out his ventures. He and his
sons erected a series of posts from
Fort St. Pierre on Rainy Lake to Fort
Paskoiac on the Saskatchewan River.
It was to these forts that the Indians
brought the furs which they had
previously taken to the Hudson Bay
Company, thereby sparing themselves
the miseries of a long and gruelling
journey of two months.
La Verendrye's farthest expedition, in
1738, was southwest from Fort
La Reine on the Assiniboine River into
North Dakota in search of the
Mantanne Indians, who supposedly knew
the route to the Western Sea. His
sons, Louis-Joseph and Francois,
probably in 1743, sighted the Big Horn
Range in Wyoming. As the years went by
and La Verendrye failed to
cross the supposedly short gap between
his westernmost post and the sea,
the French government concluded, not
unnaturally under the circumstances,
that he was using the proposed discovery
as a blind to cover his commercial
activities. What the government failed
to realize and what La V~rendrye
himself did not completely understand
was that the Western Sea did not
exist and the Pacific was far away.
In this straightforward and factual
biography the author has relied mainly
on printed source materials. The
Champlain Society has brought together
in one volume a translation of the
journals of La V~rendrye as well as the
letters concerning his explorations. The
former consists mostly of progress
reports to Maurepas, minister of marine
in Paris. The latter includes letters
from the minister showing his impatience
at the explorer's failure to
BOOK REVIEWS 175
reach his goal and letters from
Beauharnois, the governor at Quebec,
attempting to put the situation in as
favorable a light as possible. Because
of the author's reliance on these
sources, much of the glamour of La Veren-
drye's expeditions is omitted, and
frequently the book is given over to an
explanation of routes and an
identification of names. All in all, Mr.
Crouse has done a workmanlike job in
illuminating the problems involved
in La Verendrye's explorations and has made
a contribution to the history
of discovery.
Columbus, Ohio GENEVIEVE BROWN GIST
The South in the Revolution,
1763-1789. By John Richard Alden. A
History
of the South, Vol. III. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1957. xv~442p.; illustrations, maps,
critical essay on authorities, and
index. $7.50.)
This latest work in the History of the
South series is a useful and
balanced summary of existing research.
Its contribution is to bring together
into one volume information scattered
through many volumes, although
Professor Alden has not relied wholly on
secondary materials. He has used
a number of manuscript collections and
other original sources, but mainly
to illuminate a point here and there. There
is nothing startlingly new, nor
should one expect it. However, the focus
on the southern states and their
hinterland gives a clearer picture of
their role in the Revolution than one
can get from separate monographs and
state histories.
To use Professor Alden's own adjective,
this is a conventional account.
There is no riding of hobby-horses here.
In matters of controversy the
author tries to be fair to all points of
view, good-humored common sense
being his guide. The Mecklenburg
Declaration of Independence is handled
in a brief footnote; Edmund Fanning,
detested by the North Carolina
Regulators as an arrant scoundrel, a
judgment accepted by some historians,
is summed up as a young man "on the
make," and "honest grafter." The
social changes wrought by the Revolution
are analyzed as reasonably as
one could wish.
If the treatment of subject-matter is
generally conventional, the manner
is not. The writing is smooth, even
deft, lightened with occasional touches
of quiet humor. In his accounts of the
war, Alden manages to capture some
of the excitement which participants
must have felt as the strategy of battle
unfolded. The descriptions of the
Carolina campaigns are especially good.
176
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Since military history takes up about
one-fourth of the space, one wishes
that more adequate maps had been
furnished.
One temptation faced by the authors of
this series is to overemphasize
the South as a conscious section,
especially for the early years. Professor Al-
den has recognized the problem in his
introduction, where he notes that not
until the close of the Revolutionary era
did the southern states begin to
emerge as a section. He describes
sectional controversy over the proposed
large-scale use of Negroes in the
Revolutionary army, over the counting of
Negroes in figuring representation both
under the articles of confederation
and under the constitution, over the
right to navigate the Mississippi and
to fish off the Newfoundland Banks, and
over one or two other matters.
But for the most part the book merely
details the part played by the
southern states and the Old Southwest in
the Revolutionary period; section-
alism is not a main theme. Alden makes
no excessive claims for the South,
but whenever southern leadership
asserted itself, he gives it its due. The
three chapters devoted to the West are
enlightening particularly for the
account of Indian relations, a complicated
matter at best and one Professor
Alden by reason of his earlier work on
John Stuart is well fitted to cover.
Here again, more detailed maps would
have been an aid.
One final note on the merits of this
book. It is remarkable that so
general an account as this must be,
manages sharply to etch some of the
prominent men in southern politics and
in the warring armies--Christopher
Gadsen, C. C. Pinckney, Patrick Henry,
Lord Cornwallis, and Nathanael
Greene, just to pick a few at random.
The author has appended a compre-
hensive bibliographic essay that will be
helpful to others.
Marietta College ROBERT J. TAYLOR
American Indian and White Relations
to 1830: Needs & Opportunities for
Study. By William N. Fenton, L. H. Butterfield, and Wilcomb E.
Wash-
burn. Needs and Opportunities for Study
Series. (Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press for the
Institute of Early American
History and Culture, 1957. x~138p.;
foreword, bibliography, and index.
$3.00.)
In 1952-53 the Institute of Early
American History and Culture held a
series of conferences at Williamsburg.
The purpose of these conferences
was to encourage an extension of
historical studies into fields where com-
paratively little original research has
been done or where new approaches
BOOK REVIEWS 177
to old problems seem to challenge the
efforts of investigators. This book
consists of a paper read at the
conference on Early American Indian and
White Relations, held on February 19,
1953, plus a very comprehensive
bibliography on that subject.
The paper was revised before publication
and occupies less than one-
fourth of the book. It is devoted
primarily to a discussion of the relation-
ships between history and ethnology and
the overlapping of these fields of
study. The author makes a plea for the
development of ethnohistory as a field
for study and suggests meetings of
historians and ethnologists to explore
their common problems. He further
suggests that summer seminars or
work conferences of mature scholars in
the fields of history, ethnology,
and anthropology might be most helpful,
especially if held at a spot
affording both adequate library
facilities and opportunities for field work.
Such meetings of minds of researchers in
these closely related disciplines
should prove of great value to all those
participating in such conferences.
The essay is scholarly and well written,
while the ideas expressed are
stimulating and will prove of interest
to all scholars doing research on
the American Indian. The major part of
it, however, is bibliographical in
nature, pointing out and evaluating some
of the important materials avail-
able for the study of Indian history and
ethnology. In consequence it
serves as an introduction to the formal
bibliography that follows and
which forms some three-fourths of the
entire book.
This bibliography was compiled by Lyman
H. Butterfield, Wilcomb E.
Washburn, and William N. Fenton. It
consists of ninety-one pages, with
some description and evaluation of each
important item listed, and is
divided into seven parts. These are:
reference and bibliographical aids,
ethnological literature, historical
literature, serials, manuscript sources, docu-
mentary publications, and special
topics. The bibliography shows every
evidence of long and careful work by
these three master craftsmen. The
thirteen-page section on manuscript
sources is probably the most important
part of it, although every section will
prove of enormous value. The final
one, listed as special topics, is subdivided
into seven parts: portraiture,
literature, songs and art, biography and
autobiography, captivities, missions
and education, government policy, and
the Indian in literature and thought.
This section will also be very useful to
many persons. This bibliography
as a whole makes the book invaluable to
any serious student of the
American Indian and the part he has
played in our nation's history.
University of Oklahoma EDWARD
EVERETT DALE
178
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The Culture of Contemporary Canada. Edited by Julian Park. (Ithaca, N.
Y.: Cornell University Press, 1957.
xiii+404p.; selective bibliographies,
illustrations, and index. $5.75.)
I am inclined to think that one could
not go far wrong in saying that
most educated men and women in the
United States are better acquainted
with the history and culture of the
major European countries than with our
neighboring countries of the Western Hemisphere.
This seems to be
most regrettably true in the case of
Canada, to which we are linked by so
many ties and with which we have so much
in common. This gap in our
knowledge is doubtless due to our
education and in some measure also to
the fact that since we speak the same
language, have the same monetary
system, the same weights and measures,
an undefended frontier, et cetera,
we have just not bothered--nor have we
had the means--to become well
acquainted with the culture of our
northern neighbor. Mr. Park's excellent
work should certainly go a long way in
providing us with a means for
doing so, both in the textual portions
of the book and in the excellent
selective bibliographies that accompany each
chapter, as well in the general
bibliography at the end of the book.
This large and impressive volume was
prepared under the general editor-
ship of Julian Park of the University of
Buffalo, who, some time ago,
published his The Culture of France, which
was well received. He was
responsible for the preface and the
general editorial apparatus, such as
general bibliographies, index, and so
forth. The book was made possible by a
grant from the Ford Foundation. There
can be no doubt that Mr. Park
has done his job thoroughly and well.
The book proper consists of eleven
chapters, all written by men well
prepared by training, interests, and
background to speak with authority on
the fields about which they write. All
but two occupy positions of standing
and influence in Canadian institutions;
one is connected with an outstanding
Canadian newspaper; and Mason Wade has
an important position in a
university in the United States. It
seems to me that there can be no doubt
that this book is at present and may well
be for a long time to come the
best source of information about
Canadian culture available in a single
volume anywhere.
A listing of the titles of the eleven
chapters that make up the body of
this book will give the best idea
possible of its range and scope. They
are: "Literature" (divided
into "Poetry and the Novel" and "The Press"),
"Growth in Canadian Art,"
"Music," "The Theatre," "The Social Sciences,"
"Literary Scholarship,"
"Philosophy," "French-Canadian Philosophers,"
BOOK REVIEWS 179
"Education,"
"Science," and "The Culture of French Canada." To be sure,
no one of these chapters can possibly do
more than present the field in
very broad outline, but the reader can,
if he wishes, fill in the gaps in
his own knowledge by readings from the
references listed in the excellent
specific bibliographies that follow each
chapter. In some of the chapters
and especially in ones dealing with
literature, there are many listings
of names and titles with little accompanying
material about the works and
authors mentioned, but that must be
expected in a work of this type. The
materials and sources for a much broader
and deeper knowledge of each
field are at hand for the person who
wants or needs it. In addition, the
fine "Selective Bibliography"
at the end of the book contains many addi-
tional titles not mentioned in the
individual chapter bibliographies and
is a good source for broad background
studies.
I regret that more space could not be
given to a detailed study of the
culture of French Canada, a region
vastly different from the remainder
of the country in many vital ways.
However, Mr. Park realizes this and
gives most excellent reasons for what
some might assume to be neglect
on his part. The whole matter of
bilingualism, social and religious differ-
ences, racial background, and so forth,
all deeply rooted in the past,
simply cannot be adequately treated in a
book of this type. Even a casual
examination of the book will reveal that
the French-Canadian side of life
in Canada has not been neglected nor
brushed aside. I am impressed by
the good sense of proportion and
excellent judgment used in bringing the
book together in a way that gives so
excellent a view of Canada's whole
cultural life in so little space.
I have no hesitancy whatsoever in
recommending this book to anyone
desiring to increase his knowledge of
Canadian culture. Without being
exhaustive on any given aspect, it
gives, so far as I can judge, a good and
impartial picture of the most important
aspects of the subjects treated and
at the same time provides the means of
securing a much larger one if the
reader so desires. It is a book that
should be in every library.
Mr. Park and his associates deserve our
thanks for making available in
convenient and very readable form an
excellent view of the cultural life of
present-day Canada. The book fills a
definite lacuna in the materials avail-
able for such a study and will probably
be a standard volume for many
years to come.
Miami University WM. MARION MILLER
180
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Mr. Lincoln's Navy. By Richard S. West, Jr. (New York: Longmans, Green
and Company, 1957. xiii~328p.; maps,
illustrations, bibliographical
references, and index. $6.50.)
When bearded Gideon Welles, a Hartford,
Connecticut, newspaper editor
and postmaster, went to Washington in
the spring of 1861 to become
President Lincoln's secretary of the
navy, he was faced with the responsi-
bility of waging a war, including the
blockading of the entire southern
coast, with a naval force of
twenty-three ships. "Old Neptune," a nick-
name that he grew to wear with dignity,
took to the job like a fish to
water, although his only previous
experience with things naval was a
couple of years as chief of the navy's
bureau of provisions and clothing,
back in 1846 and 47.
He was extremely fortunate to have as
his right-hand man dynamic and
resourceful Gustavus Vasa Fox, a former
navy officer, brother-in-law of
Lincoln's fiery postmaster general,
Montgomery Blair.
But it was more fortunate for Welles
that the president of the United
States, whose only nautical experience
was as a deck hand on a Mississippi
flatboat, was as enthusiastic over the
navy as a child with a toy, and
quickly adopted the idea of dealing a
blow at secession on the water as
well as on land.
Told here in prose that wastes few words
but is often stilted, are the
deeds of Farragut, Porter, Du Pont,
Foote, Dahlgren, and others. There is
a clear accounting of the sometimes
confused Mason-Slidell affair, when
Captain Wilkes seized the British
steamer Trent, carrying the southern
emissaries to England and France. We
especially enjoyed the description
of the momentous battle between the Monitor,
the Union's cheese box on
a raft, and the Merrimack (Virginia),
the converted ironclad ram devised
by the rebels.
The New Orleans campaign, operations on
the "inland sea," and Vicks-
burg and Port Hudson phases are covered,
as are the Red River campaign
and Mobile Bay.
The story of the Civil War as fought on
the water draws to its own
natural climax--the capture of the
Confederate commerce raiders or, as
Welles called them, "the
Rebel-pirates." These sail-and-steam commerce
raiders, two of them built for the
Confederacy in English yards, sank
scores of ships and destroyed a
fantastic amount of rich cargo.
As the author points out, the South had
no navy to dispute the Union's
command of the sea. Consequently the
Confederacy employed what he calls
BOOK REVIEWS 181
"shock" in the form of
ruthless blows to the pride and pocketbook of the
Union, performed by these skillfully
sailed and bravely fought raiders.
The most famous raider of them all was
the Alabama, skippered by
Captain Raphael Semmes of Baltimore. At
sea twenty-three months, she
burned fifty-three merchantmen, released
nine on ransom, sold one, and
sank a man-of-war, the Hatteras. Captain
John A. Winslow and the Kear-
sarge found the Alabama at Cherbourg for repairs and
waited outside the
three-mile limit. Semmes challenged the Kearsage
to a duel and one of the
most famous sea fights of all time
ensued, the raider going to the bottom
but her brave captain escaping on the
friendly English yacht Deerhound.
An interesting sidelight is the fact
that Lincoln asked for the unexploded
shell that buried itself in the Kearsage's
sternpost, and it was cut out,
together with a sizeable chunk of the
sternpost itself, and shipped to the
White House.
One is apt to be carried away by this
book to the point where it will
be well to remind one's self that some
fair-sized battles were fought on
land as well. This is just a reminder,
lest the tail wag the dog. One more
note: Welles ended up with 640 ships!
Ohio Historical Society ROBERT S. HARPER
The Log-Cabin Campaign. By Robert Gray Gunderson. (Lexington: Uni-
versity of Kentucky Press, 1957.
xii~292p.; illustrations, bibliographical
note, and index. $7.50.)
This book is a lively and scholarly
account of a campaign that is familiar
to every American with a limited
exposure to American history, but which
has not until now received the careful,
intensive treatment accorded most
elections.
The author begins with a colorful
account of the great Whig celebration
at Baltimore in May 1840 to provide the
atmosphere of the campaign, then
backtracks to deal with resurgent
Whiggery in the hard times of the late
1830's, with Thurlow Weed in New York and
Thaddeus Stevens in
Pennsylvania the key figures. At the
Whig national convention they man-
euvered Henry Clay out of the nomination
and threw it to William Henry
Harrison, although Weed seems to have
been in earnest in backing Win-
field Scott as his first choice but was
outgeneraled by Stevens working
for Old Tip.
The Democratic convention favored Van
Buren's renomination unani-
mously but was troubled by the problem
of shelving colorful, unconventional
but popular Vice President Richard M.
Johnson, whose amorous inclinations
182
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
offended southerners by an open
disregard of the color line. The solution
of the convention--to leave the matter
to the state organizations--resulted
in the later acceptance of Johnson. He
was needed on the stump.
A half-dozen chapters are given to
campaign methods, followed by
analyses of types of campaign oratory as
exemplified by leading spellbinders.
Here, because of the problem of
recapturing past eloquence, the book loses
some of its momentum. The historian, dependent
on the written reactions
of sympathetic or hostile listeners,
themselves often hampered by a limited
fund of descriptive adjectives, has
difficulty in setting off for the reader
the distinctive appeal of so many
outstanding stump speakers. Extracts
from speeches help very little, for
political arguments, particularly in a
campaign of ballyhoo and little else,
are endlessly repetitive. Daniel
Webster's log cabin cant was only a
notch above the forensic levels of
Abraham Lincoln and John W. Bear, the
Buckeye Blacksmith.
Two final chapters deal with the outcome
of the election and the inaugu-
ration and death of Harrison. A
bibliographical note discusses briefly signifi-
cant printed sources and lists
manuscript collections and newspapers con-
sulted. Ten contemporary illustrations
from the collection of the Historical
and Philosophical Society of Ohio bring
out well the character of the
campaign.
The book is disappointing in one
respect. It pays too little attention to
state politics except where the national
nominations are affected. The fac-
tional and personal rivalries, past
political predilections, and special local
situations and issues in the separate
states need consideration to explain
the degree of effectiveness of the
national propaganda barrage. If the
Whigs lacked a national platform in
1840, they had state platforms which
gave local versions of national issues,
and both parties were aided or
hampered by the character of their
nominations for state offices and their
records on state problems.
In the case of the plantation South,
even the national campaign is
slighted, although southern orators who
spoke from northern rostrums
receive some attention. A few scattered
references, usually confined to a
sentence or two, dispose of the battle
in the states south of Tennessee and
Virginia. One newspaper from this area
is listed in the bibliography, al-
though a few extracts from others are
quoted at second hand. Other
materials available in print have not been
exploited. The author's interest
in public address and platform
personalities may explain his concentration
on campaign methods as used so
effectively in the more populous centers,
but it has produced a somewhat
unbalanced treatment.
This reviewer would qualify to a degree
the book's emphasis on the
BOOK REVIEWS 183
revolutionary character of the canvass
of 1840. It did popularize democratic
practices but they were already coming
into general use, and it was not
quite "the model for succeeding
canvasses." Songs, parades, and stump
speeches of course were used in later
campaigns but never with the unre-
strained absurdity of 1840. Indeed, the
log cabin frenzy provided the Demo-
crats with gibes for many years, and
more than one Whig participant later
reminisced shamefacedly about its
excesses. No candidate has been elected
since by such unadulterated hokum. Nor
did "an intimate relationship to
log cabins" become "a
requisite for the Presidency" any more than a
military career, though both were
politically useful. Availability is a
matter of providing a candidate to fit a
particular set of circumstances.
Harrison's brief stumping tour hardly
set a precedent for later candidates,
as seclusion remained the rule and
public appearances the exception for
many years. The log cabin campaign was
more unique than revolutionary,
which is why it is so well remembered.
Nevertheless, this is a useful and most
readable book, containing much
that is familiar, many things that had
been so long forgotten that they
needed fresh treatment, and a great deal
that is new.
Ohio State University EUGENE H. ROSEBOOM
Trolley Car Treasury. By Frank Rowsome, Jr.; technical editor, Stephen D.
Maguire. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book
Company, 1956. 200p.; illus-
trations. $5.95.)
Pictorial History of the American
Circus. By John and Alice Durant. (New
York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1957.
viii~328p.; illustrations, list of
circuses, and index. $10.00.)
Nostalgia runs rampant through the
profusely illustrated pages of these
two volumes. A devotee of either trolley
cars or circuses will find much
to warm the cockles of his heart in the
book dealing with his special interest,
and together they offer sheer ecstasy to
anyone for whom the supreme
thrill would be once again to escape
from the monotony of small-town
life by riding an interurban car to a
neighboring community to marvel at
the wonders of the greatest show on
earth.
Certain interesting parallels stand out
in the stories of trolleys and
circuses. Both trace their American
beginnings to the early years of the
Republic; they reached their zeniths in
the decades immediately before and
after 1900; and their steady decline
since 1920 has resulted in their virtual
extinction. Just as they differ
radically in nature, however, so do the
details of their development follow
different patterns. Throughout most of
184 THE OHIO
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the nineteenth century, the faithful
horse provided the motive power for
streetcars and other local public
transportation, while numerous attempts
to replace him with steam, naphtha,
electricity, and various mechanical
devices failed ignominiously. To Frank
Sprague, a brilliant but largely
unheralded onetime associate of Thomas
Edison, belongs the credit for
the first successful and practical
electric trolley. His inventions fathered not
only the electric street railway, which
won quick acceptance in the 1890's,
but also that phenomenon of
transportation history, the interurban line.
Almost overnight the interurban became a
vital facet of American life, only
to be sidetracked to oblivion within
twenty years by the equally phenomenal
automobile. Today the interurban is, for
all practical purposes, non-existent,
and the local electric trolley has been
superseded by a scarcely recognizable
and usually rubber-tired descendant.
The circus, on the other hand, began to
assume some of its traditional
characteristics at the end of the
eighteenth century, when John Bill Ricketts
presented a show featuring his own
equestrian feats, a clown, and a rope-
walker, and when the first elephant
since the days of the mastodon arrived
in the United States. The idea of
merging hitherto separate menageries and
equestrian circuses into single
attractions in the 1830's gave birth to the
typical American circus. By mid-century
Barnum had appeared on the
scene, and in the early 1870's his
partner, W. C. Coup, revolutionized the
circus business by putting the show on
rails. From that time on, farflung
hamlets could also enjoy the spectacular
sights that before had been limited
largely to the east coast. The heyday of
the circus--1880 to 1920--saw the
emergence of many new outfits, frequent
consolidations, and a struggle for
power culminating in the formation of
that behemoth, Ringling Brothers
and Barnum and Bailey, with the
Ringlings in control. The subsequent
eclipse of the circus was hastened by
the Great Depression, by incompetent
management, and by the introduction of
innovations more in character with
a Broadway or Hollywood night club than
with the sawdust arena. "The
Big One's" announcement in 1956
that it would never again play under
canvas eliminated another traditional
aspect of the oldtime circus, except
for a number of much smaller shows. To
this reviewer the most penetrating
commentary on the circus of today,
divested as it is of its menagerie,
parade, "spectacular," and
other once-familiar features, came from a four-
year-old, whose disillusionment was
apparent in her verdict, "I've seen
all this on television!"
Trolley Car Treasury is far too modest a title for Frank Rowsome's
splendid book. Whereas one might expect
it to be merely a collection of
photographs, it is in reality a
comprehensive, well-rounded history of the
BOOK REVIEWS 185
Mr. Rowsome's engaging style vividly
recaptures the flavor of any given era,
and his entertaining account is well
fortified with pertinent facts. Even
the technical descriptions, on which
Stephen D. Maguire served as consult-
ant, are as interesting as they are
enlightening. The three hundred photo-
graphs, in which Ohio is well
represented, reflect long and careful considera-
tion. The absence of an index is a small
handicap, and the Ohio Railway
Museum at Worthington deserves more than
the passing reference it
receives for its praiseworthy
achievements in preserving, restoring, and
operating a growing number of obsolete
examples of rail transportation.
These minor deficiencies, however, do
not detract materially from a
thoroughly commendable volume.
Pictorial History of the American
Circus is the fourth book of this type
produced by John and Alice Durant. Its
predecessors were devoted to
American presidents, ships, and sports.
In these cooperative efforts Mr.
Durant prepares the text, while his wife
designs and lays out the entire
volume and uses her camera to supplement
the illustrative material turned
up in their research. Including
reproductions of broadsides, prints, and
the like, the illustrations exceed five
hundred in number. The author's
writing is careful and straightforward,
and the book as a whole is attractive
and interesting. Following fifty pages
devoted to the early American
development of the American streetcar
and its social and economic impact.
circus and its Old World roots, the meat
of the story is to be found in
the two chapters on Barnum and the
heyday of the circus, 135 pages in all.
In what would seem to the historian a
regrettable lack of balance, approxi-
mately the same space is accorded in
three chapters to the circuses of our own
time, to Sarasota, "the circus
city," and to the modern show "on the road."
A major shortcoming of the book stems
from the fact that it is primarily
pictorial. Since the text is tailored to
fit the available illustrations, certain
aspects of the story are virtually
ignored, depriving it of the status of a
full-fledged history. For example,
except for the Ringlings there is no
indication of Wisconsin's importance as
a birthplace of circuses; and Ohio,
also a leader in this respect, suffers
comparable neglect. More serious is
the absence of more than a token
interpretive analysis of the significance
of the circus in American life. The
enchantment of the circus, especially
when viewed in its contemporary setting,
is exemplified to this reviewer by
a prominent small-town Ohioan who,
although he labeled Barnum's show at
Lima in 1878 "a perfect humbug--no
show at all," nevertheless was an
eager patron whenever another
circus--any circus--came along; and who,
in addition, often paid admission for
thirty or forty children. One of the
best features of the book is a brief
(eleven-page) but informative list of
186
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
about 100 circuses compiled by Tom
Parkinson, circus editor of The Bill-
board. The history and highlights of each are given, providing
an excellent
thumbnail coverage and a useful
reference.
Ohio Historical Society JOHN S. STILL
Early American Decorated Tinware. By Beatrice Farnsworth Powers and
Olive Floyd. (New York: Hastings House,
1957. 267p.; illustrations,
appendix, bibliography, and index.
$16.50.)
Antique Tin & Tole Ware: Its
History and Romance. By Mary Earle
Gould.
(Rutland, Vt.: Charles Tuttle Company,
1958. xvi~136p.; illustrations
and index. $8.75.)
The amazing number of new specialized
publications in the field of arts
and crafts is truly gratifying both to
the amateur and to the professional
collector. In recent years more and more
aficionados have been turning to
what might be called the less glamorous
areas of collecting, such as tin-
ware, wooden ware, lighting devices,
tools, and the like, and the lack of
authoritative reference works has been
sorely felt. These two volumes on
tinware will help, in part, to fill that
need.
In Early American Decorated Tinware Mrs.
Powers has drawn on her
knowledge of designs and the decorative
process, as well as the pieces in
her own collection, to present
seventy-nine full-page plates which illustrate
over one hundred magnificant pieces. The
accompanying sixty-three-page
text, written by Miss Floyd, is divided
into twenty-three short chapters,
each of which examines a single feature
of the history of tinware. A short
section on the restoration and
decoration of tin is also included for the
benefit of those more courageous
do-it-yourself fans.
Miss Gould's Antique Tin & Tole
Ware, although it includes material
on decorated tin, concentrates on
somewhat more utilitarian items and
extends its coverage well into the
nineteenth century. However, it is less
a history of the tin craft than a
narrative of the author's experiences in
collecting various pieces and is drawn
largely from Miss Gould's own
private museum. Illustrations are
plentiful and are nominally integrated
with the text.
Despite the obvious care evidenced in
the selection of illustrations and
preparation of the texts, this reviewer
was unable to view these two volumes
with complete equanimity. Like several
other current publications in the
general field of antiques, they seem to
have a limited objective; not, of
course, a necessarily bad feature in
itself, but certainly one that restricts
their value as reference works. Both
studies are confined largely to the
BOOK REVIEWS 187
collections of the authors and hardly
merit the inclusive titles which have
been chosen. Neither begins to compare
in scope with the wide and meticul-
ous range of McKearin's examination of
American glass or the efforts of
Downs, Miller, Nutting, and others in
the area of furniture. The inclusion
and discussion of a few examples from
the several fine collections of tin-
ware in the South and Midwest would have
immensely broadened the
importance and the appeal of both
volumes.
Perhaps the most serious limitation of
these studies is the rather apparent
lack of thorough research. Granted that
the amount of time and effort
required to produce meaningful
information on a subject such as this is
almost prohibitive, and really puts it
in the catagory of a lifelong labor of
love, nonetheless, this is precisely the
type of information that collectors
are most desirous of obtaining. If,
indeed, a book in the field of the decora-
tive arts is to have any lasting value,
it must be based on a meticulous
search of newspapers, manuscripts, and
other pertinent primary source
materials; and the scope of the research
must be broad enough to enable
the author to present a thorough
consideration of the material suggested by
the title of his work. In short, what is
required is an organized concept
of the particular area of study, which
is, in turn, buttressed by an inclusive
body of research information. It might
be described as a responsibility, not
unlike that of an historian dealing with
a problem in his field, to prepare
the most complete study that the subject
allows.
Both of the volumes under consideration
fall rather short of these stand-
ards. Miss Gould indicates that she has
a fairly broad knowledge of tinware,
but it is largely obscured by anecdotes
and a quaint style, while Mrs. Powers
and Miss Floyd offer little information
that is not already available in
other sources. It would appear that
neither volume was prepared with any
real concept of the scholarship that is
so essential, nor an understanding of
the collector's needs. Even for the
casual reader these two books provide
only a sketchy (and expensive)
introduction; for the serious collector they
will have to be supplemented by other
yet unpublished studies.
Ohio Historical Society WILLIAM G. KEENER