Book Reviews
Walam Olum, or Red Score: The
Migration Legend of the Lenni Lenape or
Delaware Indians. A New Translation, Interpreted by Linguistic, His-
torical, Archaeological, and Physical
Anthropological Studies. (Indian-
apolis: Indiana Historical Society,
1954. xiv+379p.; illustrations, bibli-
ographies and additional references, and
index. $15.00.)
This stately volume is a shining example
of what lavish financial backing
can achieve toward extreme
attractiveness in the publishing of a work of
scholarly research.
Its contents represent the combined
efforts of an Indiana University
group of researchers, whose names follow
in alphabetical order: Glenn A.
Black, Eli Lilly, Georg K. Neumann, Joe
E. Pierce, C. F. Voegelin,
Erminie W. Voegelin, and Paul Weer. Over
a period of roughly twenty
years they have been applying, each in
his own field of specialization,
their industry and sagacity to the
worthwhile attempt to interpret the
Delaware Indian "Walam Olum"
(approximately meaning "red-paint
record") as that which it no doubt
is: "The Migration Legend of the
Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians."
This painted-glyph document and the
tribal songs which it served as "a
mnemonic support" were first made
public in 1836 by the French naturalist
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. Born in
Constantinople in 1783, he lived
and worked in the United States, at
first in Kentucky, and later at Phila-
delphia, from 1815 until his death in 1840. Rafinesque's Walam Olum
materials were rather inadequately
republished in 1849 by E. G. Squier, with
subsequent reprintings by W. W. Beach in
1877 and by S. G. Drake in
the fifteenth edition of his Aboriginal
Races of North America.
The first scholarly scrutiny was given
the Walam Olum in 1885 by D. G.
Brinton in his fundamental study, The
Lenape and Their Legends; with
the Complete Text and Symbols of the
Walam Olum. In the Preface to his
book, Brinton states that "the
original text of the Walam Olum will re-
quire a more adequate rendering than I
have been able to give it," and
338
BOOK REVIEWS 339
admits "the possibility that a more
searching criticism will demonstate it
to have been a fabrication."
In contrast with this statement of
Brinton, the concluding passage of the
Introduction to the work here reviewed
(p. xiv) reads as follows: "The
authors believe wholeheartedly that some
day discovery of additional facts
will further vindicate their faith in
the genuineness and value of the Walam
Olum. They are satisfied to report their
findings to date so that future
inquiry may proceed from this
point."
On the premise that the Walam Olum is a
genuine aboriginal document
of the Lenape, the authors, each in his
own professional domain, approach
the multiplicity of problems posed by
the migration story of the Eastern
Woodland Algonquians, as told in the
Delaware tradition.
I claim that in his chapter,
"History of the Walam Olum Manuscript
and Painted Records," Paul Weer,
despite the one or other minor link
missing in the chain of evidence
presented, has proved beyond reasonable
doubt that Rafinesque, far from
committing an act of forgery, has been
entirely truthful about his acquiring
both the "Red Score" and the text of
the ceremonial songs going with it. In
the days of Brinton's critical
examination of Rafinesque's materials,
the latter's scientific studies were
still overhung by the shadow of the
condemnation which had been hurled
against his botanical efforts by
Benjamin Silliman, in 1819, and later by
the botanical taxonomist, Asa Gray, who
had tried to expose him as an
impostor. His linguistic data were under
a like suspicion. Rafinesque's
fellow national, Peter Stephen
Duponceau, the long-time secretary of the
American Philosophical Society at
Philadelphia, an expert in the Delaware
language as recorded by the
Moravians-Zeisberger, Heckewelder, Roth,
and others-entirely ignored Rafinesque's
studies. Long before his name as
a scientist was not only cleared but
even entered in science's Hall of Fame,
his rehabilitation as a linguist had
been attempted by Brinton, when in the
early 1880's he requested his friend and
collaborator, the Rev. A. S.
Anthony, by birth a Lenape, to examine
Rafinesque's text of the Walam
Olum. Anthony's verdict (in Brinton's words)
was that "the text as given
was the genuine oral composition
of a Delaware Indian. In many lines the
etymology and syntax are correct; in
others there are grammatical defects,
which consist chiefly in the omission of
terminal inflections .... The person
who wrote down . . . these chants which
the signs were intended to keep
in memory, was imperfectly acquainted
with the native tongue, and did not
always catch terminal sounds. . . . This
was also the opinion of the
Moravian natives who examined the text.
They all agreed that it impressed
340
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
them as being of aboriginal origin,
though the difference [from their own
usage] of the forms of words often left
them in the dark as to the
meaning." I am quoting this
directly from Brinton (Lenape Legends, p.
156-157), since, strangely enough, the
Indiana volume does not even
mention Brinton's decent attempt to dear
Rafinesque's name. Brinton con-
cludes his defense of Rafinesque with
these words: "This very obscurity
is in fact a proof that Rafinesque did
not manufacture it [the Walam
Olum text]. Had he done so, he would
have used the 'Mission Delaware'
words which he found in
Zeisberger." And then follows this important
remark (to which later I will refer):
"But the text has quite a number
[of words] not in that dialect, nor in
any of the mission dictionaries."
Considering this latter positive
statement of fact, one is hard put to under-
stand that expression of doubt in
Rafinesque's integrity, yet lingering in
Brinton's mind, which we have quoted
above from his Preface. Paul Weer
certainly has done his utmost to
identify that mysterious "Dr. Ward" who
plays an important part in Rafinesque's
story about the acquisition of the
"painted record." After the
examining of Weer's evidence, the defense can
safely rest.
Eli Lilly's study of "the
Chronology of the Walam Olum and Migration
of the Lenape" has been termed by
its author himself as what it is:
"speculations." Mr. Lilly has
done his best with the material at hand. But
in view of the vagueness of the
geographical data offered by the text,
nothing more positive than
"speculations" could possibly have resulted. His
"Interpretation of the
Pictographs" shows thorough scholarship; and so
does his "Pictograph Concordance
with Bibliography." These two sections
of the book's Part I are excellent from
every possible angle.
Erminie W. Voegelin's "Ethnological
Observations" accompanying C. F.
Voegelin's translation throughout its
entirety (as also do Lilly's interpre-
tations of the pictographs), testify to
the thoroughness and precision which
likewise distinguish other writings of
hers. In her chapter (in Part II),
"Parallels to the Delaware Walam
Olum," she demonstrates how also other
North American Indians, in regions
widely remote from each other, per-
petuate their tribal traditions, in both
pictograph and song form, with even
some of the identical
"motifs," in very much the same manner as do the
Delaware and related Algonquians.
Especially among the latter tribes, the
genealogy of chiefs forms an essential
part of the "recited records." She
arrives at the conclusion that "the
Walam Olum is a significantly unique
Delaware document, but its uniqueness
consists in the manner in which
several culture traits have been fashioned
into a distinctive complex. The
traits themselves are not unique to the
Delaware" (p. 291).
BOOK REVIEWS 341
This remarkable body of implemental
research is most appropriately
rounded out by two creditable chapters
investigating the potential impli-
cations of the Walam Olum
in the areas of archaeology and physical
anthropology, respectively. The one,
entitled, "An Archaeological Con-
sideration of the Walam Olum," is
by Glenn A. Black; the other, "The
Walam Olum in Light of Physical
Anthropological Data on the Lenape,"
is by Georg K. Neumann. Being primarily
concerned with language, I do
not regard myself as competent to review
either of these two highly
specialized contributions with due
justice to their authors. Yet I believe
that Black's cautious hypothesis of a
possible connection of the Lenape
with Hopewell culture can not even
distantly be considered as a factual
potentiality, as long as the various
issues remain confused by that em-
barrassing discrepancy between the
archaeologists' chronology and that of
the radio-carbon physicists; the same,
by the way, holding true for Lilly's
"speculations." I may be
mistaken, but it seems to me that Neumann and
his physical-anthropology friends might
likewise welcome a "booster shot"
of dependable chronology.
I have reserved to the last the piece
de resistance of this volume: C. F.
Voegelin's retranslation of Rafinesque's
text of the Walam Olum. On a
page of its own, each of Rafinesque's
facsimile text lines and interpretations
is followed by the corresponding line in
Voegelin's translation. Appended
to it are a set of explanations by the
translator (in brackets); an inter-
pretation of the respective
"Pictograph" by Eli Lilly; and an ethnological
"Comment" by Erminie W.
Voegelin (pp. 9-207).
On pages 216-225, C. F. Voegelin and his
collaborator, Joe E. Pierce,
present a special chapter,
"Validity of Translations of the Walam Olum."
Selecting sample verses from the first
three "Books" of Rafinesque's text
(there are five altogether), they
exemplify their roundabout process of
eventually arriving at the English
version of each verse, as given in double
quotation marks and large type
immediately below each Rafinesque fac-
simile. Voegelin's translating makes
many a detour, including what he
calls "the multi-stage
method." It works as follows: After a given line of
Rafinesque's text has been read to a
Delaware Indian informant, the latter
renders it, the way he has understood
it, in modern Delaware. The sum
total of all such renditions constitutes
"the modern version of the Walam
Olum." Next, each line thus
modernized is translated "from the Delaware
dictionary," that is, the
dictionary of modern Delaware, at which Voegelin
has been working for many years. This
primary translation into English
follows the Delaware sequence of denotations.
The transforming of this
into idiomatic English requires all or
several of the following operations:
342
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
(1) rearrangement of word order, (2)
subtraction of redundancies, (3) ad-
dition of English words, and (4)
substitution under the aspect of "cultural
equivalence." He then proceeds to
demonstrate, from sample lines, through-
out Books I-III of Rafinesque's text,
the results of this "multi-stage
translation."
Clearly, the positive outcome of all
this linguistic maneuvering is meager,
to say the least. One may safely claim
that in the majority of instances
Voegelin's far-flung excursions into
modern Delaware, in one direction,
and into comparative Algonquian
linguistics, in the other, prove no more
than that Rafinesque, on the whole, has
been amazingly correct, and that,
in a few cases, Brinton has been
amazingly wrong.
It is hard to understand what Voegelin
expected to gain from reading
to present-day Delaware informants
Rafinesque's version of the Walam
Olum, a text taken down, no doubt, from
the oral recitation of a Dela-
ware Indian living about 130 years ago.
The best he could hope to get, and
did get (as his modern-Delaware
notations show), were words from the
living language which approximately
fitted in the context. Some of them
happen to be present-day parallels of
the older forms in Rafinesque's text,
while a great many of these so-called
modern equivalents show no re-
lation whatsoever with the corresponding
stem-compounds of the original
version.
The strange irony in the matter is that
the translator might really have
achieved not only a new, but also a
better, translation than either Rafinesque's
or Brinton's, had he pursued his
investigation on the same plane of both
language and degree of acculturation on
which the literary fixation of
Rafinesque's text had taken place: that
is, broadly speaking, the late
eighteenth century language-and-culture
area within which the Moravian
Mission Lenapists--Zeisberger,
Heckewelder, Roth, Schmick, and others--
and indirectly Duponceau had collected
as well as studied their Delaware
language material. Mainly from a lack of
historical sense and, partly, of
cultural depth the younger American
structural linguists of Voegelin's
generation have been entertaining the
fateful notion that the "great masters,"
Boas, Bloomfield, Sapir, et al., had
prepared a sort of magic potion, which
enables him who uses it to solve any
given language problem. Hence, in
this younger set, it has become
fashionable to look down one's nose upon
the efforts of those Mission Lenapists
as material unfit to be handled by an
initiate of the linguistic
"medicine lodge." It really is a defense mechanism
set in motion by their awareness of an
insufficient knowledge of German
to rewrite the German-based phonology of
the Moravians with modern
phonological symbols. Some of them,
moreover, are on the defensive be-
BOOK REVIEWS 343
cause they are painfully ignorant of the
mere principles of etymology, due
to their lack of training in even the
elements of philological method, a
deficiency not found in most of the
Moravians, and decidedly not in
Rafinesque, who even wrote some of his
early essays in fluent Latin.
I have no quarrel with structural
linguistics or linguists, or, in particular,
with Voegelin, to whom I am indebted for
a great deal of valuable in-
formation, derived from his writings, toward
the solution of problems in
my own studies of the eighteenth-century
Delaware vocabulary. Yet, there
is no denying the fact that for reasons
of his own, inexplicable to me, he
has in his retranslating of the
Walam Olum given a wide berth to
Zeisberger's Dictionary in Four
Languages (one of which is Delaware),
which was published in 1887, with hardly
any editing, by E. N. Horsford
from the original manuscript kept in the
Harvard University Library. This
fundamental contribution to
Delaware-language studies is not even men-
tioned in any of the otherwise excellent
chapter bibliographies of the In-
diana volume. Nor has any mention, let
alone use, been made of Zeisberger's
equally fundamental work, A Grammar
of the Language of the Lenni
Lenape or Delaware Indians, edited and published in an English trans-
lation by P. S. Duponceau in Transactions
of the American Philosophical
Society (Vol. III, New Series, Philadelphia, 1830). Whatever
the period-
conditioned shortcomings of both these
works may be, none of them af-
fects in any way their inalterable value
for any student of the Delaware
language, provided, of course, that he
knows how to use them. Let me
exemplify.
The first verse of Rafinesque's Book I
of the Walam Olum reads as
follows (p. 9): Sayewitalli wemiguma
wokgetaki. Underneath, in his own
handwriting, Rafinesque gives this
interpretation: Sayewi, 'at first'; talli,
'there'; wemi, 'all'; guma, 'sea
water'; wokget, 'on the top'; aki, 'land.'
In a coherent English passage this would
be: "At first there, it was all
sea water on the top of the land."
The correctness of this translation is
borne out by both Zeisberger's Grammar
(abbreviation: G.) and Dictionary
(abbreviation: D.), as follows: G., p.
239, sayewi, 'at first'; D., p. 194, G.,
p. 240, talli, 'there'; D., p. 9,
weemi, G., p. 240, wemi, 'all.' -guma (-gum-,
-kum-, -gam-, -kam-, in compounds only) is traceable with certainty in
D., p. 166, gamenowinenk, 'over the sea'; and
its basic meaning of 'water'
is assured from Shawnee, -kami, a
non-initial stem denoting 'water, ocean'
(C. F. Voegelin, Shawnee Stems [Indianapolis,
1938-40], 330), and from
modern Delaware -kkam, 'body of
water,' adduced in Voegelin's note. The
next word in the verse is wokget/aki (slanting
bar ours). D., p. 202,
344
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
carries wochgit/schi, 'top,'
which contains wokget- in a slightly differen
phonological writing. The second
component, -aki (mostly occurring a
-baki), means, 'land, ground, earth' (D., pp. 63, 87,
110).
It should be noted that Brinton (Lenape
Legends, p. 219), rejecting
Rafinesque's wemiguma, 'all sea
water,' decrees on the authority of the
Rev. Mr. Anthony that "the proper
form is weminguna, 'at all times,''
which makes no sense, quite apart from
its being an arbitrary and entirely
unnecessary change.
Voegelin accepts wemiguma, translating
it, 'all the water,' which would
make perfect sense, had he not spoiled
it all by substituting his Delaware
informant's showii, meaning
'edge,' for Rafinesque's sayewi, 'at first.' Had
he consulted Zeisberger, it would have
saved him this error. As it is, he
winds up with, "There at the edge
of all the water where the land ends ...,"
which makes complete, though
unnecessary, nonsense. Again Zeisberger
would have safely guided him to the same
interpretation at which Rafinesque
had arrived before him: 'on top of the
land.' What instead had happened
was this: again he accepted what his
Delaware informant had understood
it to mean: wiikweek hakki, in
modern Delaware meaning, 'where the
land ends.' True, D., p. 66,
lists several compounds formed with wiikwe-,
but there exists no trace of a
connection between this term, denoting 'end
(of),' and wochkit- (Raf., wokget-),
'top (of).' Had Voegelin adopted his
informant's alternative interpretation,
chweci hakking, meaning, 'on top of
the land,' he would not only have kept
within the etymological boundaries
of the original phrase, but would also
have arrived at a sensible translation,
that of Rafinesque, who really had
translated the same words, in an older
form, and in a slightly different
dialect.
May it be mentioned that the term wemiguma, in conjunction with
Rafinesque's interpretation, 'all sea
water,' constitutes one of the instances
which, according to Brinton's statement
(above, page 340), testify to
Rafinesque's integrity in presenting the
Walam Olum as a genuine aboriginal
document, since he clearly cannot have
found wemiguma, or its correct
translation, "in any of the mission
dictionaries," these being the only ones
in existence in his days.
I trust that the one exemplification
presented above will be considered
sufficient to justify my disagreement
with the method applied to this re-
translation of the Walam Olum. Should
additional ones be demanded, they
can be supplied any time.
Ohio State University AUGUST C. MAHR
BOOK REVIEWS 345
American Heritage, Vol. VI, No. 1 (December 1954), 120p.; No. 2 (Feb-
ruary 1955), 120p.
For a number of years historians have
given consideration to the publi-
cation of a magazine in American history
which would appeal to the general
reading public. In 1949 the American
Association for State and Local
History launched the American
Heritage as a popular magazine devoted to
American history. This was an experiment
supported by subventions from
private foundations. The magazine
presented an interesting format, in which
pictures, many of them colored, were a
prominent feature.
The experiment of the association
indicated the magazine might prove
financially successful if published,
promoted, and sold by a good com-
mercial house. In 1954 the experienced
firm of Thorndike, Jensen & Parton,
Inc., of New York, decided to take over
the magazine, with the continued
sponsorship of the association and the
added sponsorship of the Society of
American Historians, Inc. Bruce Catton,
author of A Stillness at Appomattox,
Pulitzer Prize winner in literature in
1953, and a widely recognized his-
torian and journalist, was named editor.
The new American Heritage is
published six times a year, and appears
in hard bindings. Each issue features
numerous pictures, frequently in-
cluding maps, many of which are
reproduced by a fine four-color process,
and is certain to become a collectors'
item.
The first issue under the new management
includes an article on "The
Old Fall River Line," the famous
steamboat line that ran from New York
through Long Island Sound to Fall River,
Massachusetts, from 1815 to
1937. The article is supplemented by nine
beautiful color reproductions of
lithographs and prints of some of the
well-known boats on the line.
T. Harry Williams, the author of the
best-seller Lincoln and His Generals,
presents an article on
"Investigation: 1862," a report on the inquisition of
General Charles P. Stone, division
commander on the Potomac line above
Washington in 1861, by Senator Ben Wade.
Stone was charged with
treason in secret session of Wade's
committee of the senate, and was held
in prison for 189 days without trial.
Although he was finally acquitted in
1863, high officials, including Lincoln,
who sympathized with him, failed
to assist in clearing his name.
Other articles include Gerald Carson's
"Holiday Time at the Old Country
Store"; "The Great Club
Revolution," a story of the decline of New York's
famous old social clubs, by Cleveland
Amory; "Painters of the Great
Plains," an analysis of the work of
such artists as Karl Bodmer, Alfred
Jacob Miller, John Mix Stanley, George
Catlin, and Frederic Remington,
346 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
in which ten full-color reproductions of
paintings are included; and "A
King's [Edward VII's] Funeral," as
reported by Theodore Roosevelt.
There are other articles by such
well-known authors as Allan Nevins,
Lucius Beebe, and D. W. Brogan, as well
as personal reminiscences of
Albert Lasker, the father of modern
advertising. To all of this are added
twenty-three pages of well-chosen
excerpts from Great River: The Rio
Grande in North American History, the recent notable book by Paul Horgan.
In the second issue of American
Heritage are articles on "The Hanging of
John Brown," by Boyd B. Sutler; on
Salem and the East Indies trade, by
Charles H. P. Copeland, a story
accompanied by exquisite color prints of
an early Salem wharf, ships and captains
of the trade, and the Canton
waterfront; on Richard Morris Hunt,
"Chateau Builder to Fifth Avenue,"
by Russell Lynes; on "People of the
Long House," the Iroquois Indians,
by Paul A. W. Wallace; on "James
Gordon Bennett-Beneficent Rascal,"
by Louis M. Starr; on "The Cult of
the Primitive," by James Thomas
Flexner, an article decrying the
primitive in American art, accompanied by
six fine color reproductions and other
pictures; on "Riding the Circuit with
Lincoln," by Willard King; on
"Yankee Gunners at Louisbourg," the
attack on the French post by militiamen
from Massachusetts in 1745, by
Fairfax Downey.
The story of New York's reception in
1851 of Lola Montez, Bavarian
King Ludwig's particular girl friend, by
M. M. Marberry; several pages of
color prints of old valentines; and
thirty pages of excerpts from Vice
Admiral Wilson Brown's new book, Four
Presidents As I Saw Them, are
additional features.
American Heritage represents a sincere effort to produce a good,
readable,
interesting, and handsome publication in
American history for everyone.
This reviewer believes that it has
achieved its purpose, and recommends
it to all persons for enjoyable reading,
and recommends it especially to
families with children in high school
and college.
Subscriptions may be sent to American
Heritage, 551 Fifth Avenue, New
York 17, New York. The annual
subscription price is $12.00, and the
magazine is worth it.
Ohio Historical Society JAMES H. RODABAUGH
Rutherford B. Hayes and His America. By Harry Barnard. (Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1954. 606p.;
illustrations, selected bibliography, and in-
dex. $6.00.)
Harry Barnard has a predilection for the
restoration of men whose once-
BOOK REVIEWS 347
prominent roles on the American
political stage are dim in the recollection
of forgetful later generations. His life
of Altgeld resurrected the "Eagle"
who was pilloried and forgotten after
courageous intervention in the trials
of the Haymarket rioters. This able
biography of Hayes restores the president
to a country which was never quite sure
that it had actually elected him in
the weird centennial campaign of 1876.
Rutherford B. Hayes and His America falls into three sections. The
copious development of the formative
years is heavily psychological in its
interpretation. The analysis of Hayes as
governor and president is political
and economic in approach. The biography
concludes with an all too brief
but fascinating narrative on the later
years when a man appeared who was
at once old and new--a
"nihilistic" Hayes scornful of the rise of plutocracy
and impressed with the writings of Henry
George and William Dean
Howells.
The burgeoning of psychology in recent
times has produced a considerable
amount of subliminal exploration into
the personalities of prominent men.
Hayes never saw his father, who had one
of the best distilleries in Ohio
near the Sulphur Spring of what later
became the campus of Ohio Wesleyan
University. It is Barnard's thesis that
Rutherford can be explained largely
by the pressures, blunt or subtle, on a
posthumous son beset with father
images and sibling frustrations. There
was a "tension-charged" home domi-
nated by women--his strong-willed mother
Sophia, but particularly sister
Fanny, who was "his girl, his
mother, his comrade . . . all in one." There
is speculation about the change from
mother's boy to sister's man; there is
the ultimate triumph when Hayes became,
through military service, his own
father symbol--+"a hero figure, a
godlike man, in a good cause." Barnard
writes interestingly and well, and the
material in this section is based on
careful research in letters and diaries,
but there are some who will not be
entirely convinced. They may recall that
Freud, who once wrote a life
of da Vinci, admitted that the deduction
of the psychological writer is
not capable of proof though the evidence
may be strong.
Barnard shifts his emphasis from
psychological to politico-economic in
the chapters on the disputed election of
1876, the compromise of 1877,
and the presidency. The election has
been carefully analyzed by previous
scholars, from Paul Haworth to C. Vann
Woodward; their conclusion has
been that Democrat Tilden carried at
least one of the disputed states
(probably Florida) and was therefore
entitled to the presidency. Barnard
proves that the Republicans intended to
win by the device, frequently
illegal in its execution, of
post-election review and rejection of some
Democratic ballots in doubtful states;
that the Democrats were determined
348
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
to achieve victory by wholesale flouting
of the Constitution itself, that is,
by the pre-election denial of any ballot
to many more Negro Republican
voters in pivotal southern states. In
the recriminations between Democratic
pot and Republican kettle Hayes was just
as much entitled to the presidency,
perhaps more entitled to it, than
Tilden.
On the unwritten compromise of 1877
Barnard throws much illumination
on what Woodward calls "secret
diplomacy privately arrived at." Among
other results of this agreement the
North won the presidency and the
South achieved control of its state
governments. Basically this represented
an attempt to form a lasting coalition
between northern Republicans and
southern Redeemers (alias the old
Whigs). In a penetrating observation
Barnard states that this Whig alliance
"constantly attempted again and
again in various forms in later years,
under Theodore Roosevelt, William
Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, and Dwight
D. Eisenhower, did not come
to pass." But for the Negro the
secret compromise of 1877, validated in
the civil rights decisions of 1883, was
to be a more discouraging and lasting
settlement than the well-publicized compromises
of 1820 and 1850.
In the presidency Hayes was moderate on
Reconstruction, forward-looking
on civil service reform, enlightened on
Indian policy, and courageous in
handling the problem of Chinese
immigration. He alienated the leaders
of his party and was ready to leave
office after one term, happier in having
been than in being president. The author concludes
that he was halfway
between those rated as great and those
scored as only fair.
Rutherford B. Hayes and His America is discerning work marked by
painstaking research, felicitous style,
and provocative interpretation. In his
second biography Harry Barnard has
brought to life a President Forgotten.
WFestern Reserve University C. H. CRAMER
Captured by Indians: True Tales of
Pioneer Survivors. By Howard H.
Peckham. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1954. xvii+
238p.; end papers, illustrations, and
index. $5.00.)
American literature has been enriched
considerably by the captivity nar-
ratives. In the thrilling style of the
frontier days hundreds of men and
women who survived experiences as
prisoners of the American Indian
wrote gripping accounts of their
capture, adventures, and escape. The em-
bellished truth of these accounts rivals
the famed dime novel of yesteryear
for sheer drama and thrill. Many have
been reprinted in numerous editions,
even to the present time, and have
enjoyed wide circulation.
Mr. Peckham has selected some fourteen
narratives that are representative
in time, location, and circumstances,
for presentation in this volume. As is
BOOK REVIEWS 349
characteristic of much eighteenth and
nineteenth century literature, the
captivity narrative is usually quite
verbose and voluminous. But the author,
in a now accepted fashion, has abridged
and edited and virtually rewritten
his selection of narratives into
readable versions, somewhat comparable to
an anthology of short stories.
This requires considerable skill. It is
not, however, merely an exercise
in composition. The captivity narratives
are accounts of true adventure.
Constant telling and retelling enlarged
and twisted the details to a degree
calculated to give the listener a
vicarious experience. This highly subjective
version of the truth found itself in
print, sometimes even with second- or
third-hand authorship. To winnow the
truth from the chaff and to correct
the errors concerned with the narration
of these isolated incidents on the
American frontier demands no small
amount of diligent research.
Beyond this, however, abridgment or
condensation of the writings of
another is always accomplished at some
expense. In this instance ethno-
graphic information is necessarily often
omitted, as are most of the long,
labored descriptions of such things as
torture. In some respects, to avoid
this is impossible if the present volume
is to retain its purposed construction.
The author has uncluttered the original
narratives without sacrificing
the stories in their essentials. Where
imagination or misinformation appear,
he has supplied the correct information.
He has furnished the historical
background for each, relating it to the
larger frontier setting. From the
hundreds of possibilities, Mr. Peckham
has made representative selections
that, taken together, form a composite
picture of a typical captivity ex-
perience. The first of his selected
captivities occurred in 1676, and the
others range over nearly the two
subsequent centuries. The circumstances,
the Indian tribes, the locale, and the
conditions under which the captivities
occur vary, but the general pattern is
nevertheless the same.
Captured by Indians will introduce the reader to captivity literature and
whet his appetite for indulgence in some
of the originals.
Miami University DWIGHT L. SMITH
Trucks, Trouble, and Triumph: The
Norwalk Truck Line Company. By
Wayne G. Broehl, Jr. Indiana University
School of Business Research
Report. (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954.
xiii+226p.; illustrations, charts,
maps, bibliography, and index. $5.50.)
This book, which describes the rise of
the Norwalk Truck Line Company
from a small local produce house and
cartage carrier in northern Ohio to
its present place as one of the most
important common carriers of general
freight in the country, is a study in
business history, management, and
350
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
practice. Prepared as a research report
under the supervision of staff members
of the school of business of Indiana
University, it not only presents a
full-length history of a top-ranking
motor carrier but at the same time
attempts to throw light on the
development of the trucking industry as a
whole. Such an undertaking is probably
both more important and more
difficult than it might seem to be at
first glance. The difficulties are, how-
ever, quickly apparent. Although
historians and economists have long given
careful attention to earlier forms of
transportation and have written at
length on river boats, canal boats,
covered wagons, and the "iron horse,"
there has been little systematic study
of the trucking industry. Actually
there has been no previous full-scale
study of the individual companies
making up the trucking industry,
although the interstate commerce com-
mission (since the passage of the motor
carrier act of 1935) has presented
an increasing amount of statistical
information concerning the industry as
a whole. Such neglect is understandable
when it is recalled that the trucking
industry was virtually non-existent a
bare quarter of a century ago. Since
then, however, its development has been
remarkable. Today it not only
employs more men than all other forms of
transportation combined but
moves more than one-fourth as many
ton-miles as all the railroads and
receives more than one-third of the
revenue. In Ohio, for example, more
persons are employed in the trucking
industry than in agriculture, and fifty-
eight percent of all Ohio communities
and thirty-two percent of the Ohio
population depend primarily on trucks
for freight service.
A pioneer study in an industry that has
developed almost overnight
from simple beginnings, must give much
attention to the individuals who
have had a central role in such growth
and development. Since the prob-
lems of the company have been so closely
related to the problems of its
founder and president, John Ernsthausen,
and its vice president, Charles
Hoke, the first four or five chapters of
the book, which are devoted to
the formative period of the company, are
closely interwoven with the ac-
tivities of these men. In subsequent
chapters the scope of the study widens
to include almost every conceivable
phase of motor-carrier operation. The
legal aspects of the problem, including
federal and state regulations, are
examined with care, as are the physical
and operating problems of the
company, with special consideration
given to such matters as equipment,
sales, traffic, rate-making, traffic
handling, dispatching, personnel, labor re-
lations, and over-all problems of
management and policy formation.
Much information was received from
interviews with company personnel,
and the records of the company were
freely available for the purposes of
BOOK REVIEWS 351
this study. Both the author and the dean
of the school of business of
Indiana University assure us that all of
the necessary freedoms of the
scholar were present in the use of all
such materials. This is a happy cir-
cumstance, since it is no easy task to
write with complete detachment con-
cerning men and measures when viewed at
the close range required in a
business history of this kind.
The author seems to have been aware of
this and other limiting factors
of this study, however, and makes a
continuing effort to relate the problems
of the Norwalk company to those of the
industry at large. He has succeeded
well in his effort and the net result is
a good, if somewhat personalized,
survey of the growth and operations of
one important truck line system and
a useful background study of the
trucking industry as a whole. This may
explain why the editors of the Business
History Review of Harvard Uni-
versity's graduate school of business
administration have selected this book
as the 1954 business history book
dividend. A number of useful tables and
charts are found in the book and a
satisfactory index is appended.
Ohio State University FRANCIS R. AUMANN
William McKinley, Stalwart
Republican: A Biographical Study. By
William
Carl Spielman. (New York: Exposition
Press, 1954. 215p.; frontispiece,
bibliography, and index. $4.00.)
It is ironical, though perhaps not
surprising, that William McKinley
should have attracted the attention of
so few biographers in the half-century
since his death. Certainly the
importance of the decisions taken during his
administration in the realm of foreign
affairs, viewed from the perspective
of the mid-twentieth century, would seem
to warrant a more thorough
examination of the nineteenth century's
last president. And yet the decisions
that launched America into the main
stream of world affairs seem to have
been taken almost in spite of, rather
than because of, President McKinley.
William C. Spielman, former professor of
history at Carthage College,
has attempted a re-examination of
McKinley's career. His "three-fold pur-
pose" has been to assign McKinley
"his place in history amid the social
and political conditions of his
time," "to recapture" McKinley's personality
and character, and "to present him
in the role of protectionist, builder of
an empire, political-party leader, and
patriot."
The volume traces in plodding fashion
the course of McKinley's life
from his childhood in Mahoning County,
through his education at Alle-
gheny College, his Civil War years, his
legal training and practice, his
352
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
many years as congressman and later
governor of Ohio, his elevation to
the presidency, and his work as chief
executive. The story is related straight-
forwardly and simply. There is little
effort at embellishment either in style
or in analysis.
The author seems to have gathered his
material almost entirely from
secondary works, chiefly biographical.
He leans most heavily on C. S.
Olcott's two-volume study of McKinley,
Herbert Croly's Hanna, Everett
Walters' J. B. Foraker, and Tyler
Dennett's John Hay. The memoirs of
H. H. Kohlsaat, J. B. Foraker, Charles
G. Dawes, and others have been
tapped, while the works of a more
general nature by Rhodes, Oberholtzer,
Latane, and Walter Millis are also cited
frequently. Although the bibliog-
raphy lists the Congressional Record,
most of the footnotes dealing with
McKinley's congressional career refer to
J. P. Smith's Speeches and Addresses
of William McKinley. Again, although the McKinley papers in the Library
of Congress and newspapers of a half
dozen cities appear in the bibliography,
little evidence appears of their having
been used in the text.
When the reader looks for fresh analysis
of such questions as McKinley's
success as a politician, his stand on
the tariff, his position on the money
question, his relations with Hanna and
Foraker, his management of the
patronage, his operations as an administrator,
and his decisions to go to
war in 1898 and to acquire the
Philippines, the reader's disappointment
grows. Perhaps the most interesting
chapter is the one dealing with the
domestic life of the McKinleys.
It is hard to see that the purpose of
this volume has been achieved.
McKinley's "place in history"
has not been made any clearer, nor has the
effort "to recapture" his
personality and character been effective. McKinley
would seem to remain yet "one of
the most obscure major political figures
in American history."
Baldwin-Wallace College DAVID LINDSEY
Main Street on the Middle Border. By Lewis Atherton. (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1954.
xix+423p.; illustrations, appendices,
and index. $6.00.)
Mr. Atherton knows the midwestern small
town inside and out. He has
collected an enormous variety of facts
from the annals of certain repre-
sentative places--Tiffin, Ohio;
Greencastle, Indiana; Lacon, Illinois; Centre-
ville, Michigan; Monroe, Wisconsin; Chatfield,
Minnesota; Algona, Iowa;
and Gallatin, Missouri. His detailed
notes show that he has drawn from
several kinds of sources. He has
interpreted census data and has diligently
BOOK REVIEWS 353
inspected thousands of pages of country
newspapers of the last ninety years.
He has culled pertinent testimony from
midwestern social studies, local
histories, and fiction. Some of his most
vivid material comes from the auto-
biographical pages of William Dean
Howells, Sherwood Anderson, Edward
Eggleston, Edgar Lee Masters, Hamlin
Garland, Mark Twain, Ed Howe,
and other midland realists; and he has
used his own recollections.
Professor Atherton, who teaches history
at the University of Missouri,
has by no means written an academic
book. The earlier chapters will appeal
especially to older midwesterners who
like to recall nostalgically the home
towns of their youth. Like a local color
artist, Mr. Atherton makes genre
sketches of Courthouse Square, of the
livery stable and the barber shop,
of the fragrant general store, the
county fair, the medicine show, and the
volunteer fire company. He recovers the
atmosphere of a Chautauqua tent,
of a high school commencement, or of a
Saturday night band-concert.
Not all the book is fond reminiscence,
however. The more serious second
half deals with such topics as land
speculation in early boomtowns, strug-
gles to attract "capital," and
Main Street's reaction to the challenge of
mail order houses, chain stores, the
Model T, and mechanized farming.
Mr. Atherton is concerned as well with
less objective matters. He analyses
the morality inseminated by the
influential McGuffey readers, but ranks
'against it some less idealistic values
found outside the schoolhouse, for
example those of the predominant cult of
"the immediately useful and
practical." He denies that Main
Street necessarily inhibits the creative
imagination, and rather provocatively
cites as evidence certain second-rate
authors. More convincing, he shows the
disservice to the present-day small
town of the booster's obsolete
definition of civic "progress"--growth in
population and rise in real estate
prices--and he reflects wistfully upon the
loss of the older "sense of
stability through 'belonging' to a community
in its entirety." Finally, Mr.
Atherton traces the decline of the small town
in our period of urban-industrial
dominance, and points hopefully to
realistic programs of village self-analysis
and redevelopment.
Sometimes the book is dull and its
writing humdrum (though not in
its grim accounts of run-down hamlets). The old photographs are fas-
cinating and evocative; one wishes there
were ten times as many--and
that there could also have been maps,
facsimiles of newspaper editorials,
land boomers' handbills, and other early
documents hard to come by.
Several appendices give census data and
list studies of recent village im-
provement programs.
University of Illinois (Chicago) JAMES B. STRONKS
354
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
West to Ohio. By Alta Harvey Heiser. (Yellow Springs, Ohio: The
Antioch
Press, 1954. ix+219p.; illustrations,
end paper map, and index. $3.00.)
In a note of foreword, William E. Smith,
dean of the graduate school
of Miami University, writes of West
to Ohio: "In it she [Mrs. Heiser]
helps to lay the foundation for the
definitive history of the Great Miami
Valley that is yet to be written."
This also could be used as an epilogue
for this slight volume, which is filled
to overflowing with little-known,
long-forgotten, but intensely
interesting notes on the lives and times of
the first three generations of pioneers
in the valley of the Great Miami.
The Findlays, the Smiths, and,
particularly, the Harrisons are the families
around which Mrs. Heiser centers her
book. Through them, with no small
degree of success, she attempts to
picture frontier life as it was lived in
the area.
West to Ohio is not an historical milestone in local history
writing. Its
long digressions into geneaology, its
lack of cohesive organization, and
its failure in "follow
through" are confusing. However, factual errors are
few and typographical ones easily
spotted.
In rereading portions of Mrs. Heiser's
new book, her third, one cannot
help but feel that there is still a
great story to be told. Unobtrusively
she challenges the reader to find out
more about the topics she discusses
in a cursory, buck-shot manner. That she
has laid the "foundation for the
definitive history of the Great Miami
Valley" might not be true, but that
she has contributed a new light and
feeling toward these builders of western
empire can scarcely be denied. What West
to Ohio lacks in organization and
readability, it fully recoups in human
interest. The challenges are thrown
out for further, more minute study of
many areas heretofore unexplored;
they are yet to be taken up.
Anthony Wayne Parkway Board RICHARD C. KNOPF
Pennsylvania Politics and the Growth
of Democracy, 1740-1776. By
Theodore Thayer. (Harrisburg:
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum
Commission, 1954. x+234p.;
illustrations, bibliography, appendices, and
index. $2.75.)
Mr. Thayer has presented an interesting
detailed account of Pennsylvania
politics leading to the adoption of the
constitution of 1776. The central
theme of the book is the preservation of
the democratic framework of the
charter of 1701 and the course of
democracy from that point forward. The
BOOK REVIEWS 355
struggle unfolds in two distinct phases.
The first phase, extending to 1763,
witnessed the struggle of the popular
party against the proprietary party,
which was intent upon curbing the power
of the popular assembly in order
to establish control by the governor and
council. The second phase in-
volved the attempt to overthrow both the
control of the entrenched Quakers
within the assembly and the British rule
of the colonies. The struggle
culminated in the adoption of the constitution
of 1776, which the author
presents as the triumph of democratic
thought in Pennsylvania.
It is sometimes difficult to understand
the use of the term "growth of
democracy." There is no adequate
explanation of just what the author
means by this phrase. Pennsylvania is
pictured as enjoying an extraordinary
amount of political democracy as a
result of the charter of 1701. This
charter established a liberal frame of
government based upon a powerful
legislative assembly, liberal suffrage
requirements, and reasonable repre-
sentation for all districts. Mr. Thayer
states that it was not difficult for
the frontiersman to meet the property
requirements for voting and implies
that until 1763 the frontier area had
adequate representation. This point
would be established much more firmly if
some statistics dealing with the
population and the number of qualified
voters within the area were included
in the study. The author also states on
page 8 that "the framers of the
constitution of 1776 simply added
several innovations to the old charter
system with the thought that these would
further strengthen the democratic
character of the constitution."
Does the term growth of democracy imply
merely a change in control of
Pennsylvania?
The Quaker party is described as a
popular party which defended the
privileges and powers of the assembly
against the attacks of the proprietary
groups. The political issues of paper
money and taxation of proprietary
lands, complicated by the problems of
frontier defense and war, were stages
of this internal struggle. While the
author does an admirable job in de-
scribing political leaders, he does not
present a clear picture of the com-
position of the parties. Benjamin
Franklin emerged as the leader of the
Quaker party in 1755, but the reader is
not too clear as to how this
occurred.
By 1764 the initiative in the opposition
to British measures had been
seized by the proprietary group allied
with the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian
faction. The entrenched Quakers were
under attack because of their moderate
approach to the British issue as well as
their stand on representation for
the western area and frontier defense.
It is well to note that the author
feels that the economic factor dividing
the East and West has been exag-
356
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
gerated. It is his contention that the
common economic interests should be
stressed, and he demonstrates that the
assembly did not discriminate against
the West in all instances. The dominant
economic interest represented
within the assembly was the agrarian
interest rather than the mercantile
group.
The outbreak of the war with Great
Britain found the colony divided
into Conservative and Radical parties.
It was the Radical party, based
upon the Presbyterian faction and led by
such men as Bryan, Rittenhouse,
and Franklin, that led the way to
independence and the adoption of the
constitution of 1776.
Butler University ALLAN J. McCURRY
A Treasury of American Ballads: Gay,
Naughty and Classic. Edited by
Charles O'Brien Kennedy. (New York:
McBride Company, 1954. xvii+
398p.; illustrations and index of first
lines. $4.75.)
In late 1952 a Fawcett Red Seal pocket
book entitled American Ballads:
Naughty, Ribald, and Classic was published. Evidently the success of this
paperbound volume was sufficient to
encourage the editor, Charles O'Brien
Kennedy, to compile a larger and more
formal anthology, and last year the
clothbound A Treasury of American
Ballads: Gay, Naughty and Classic
came forth from the McBride Company.
The purpose of the Treasury, as
stated in the Foreword, is "to compile a
large book, one which [will] emphasize
American history from before
the Revolution down to the present
time." In this respect the Treasury
is quite successful. Starting with poems
by Hezekiah Butterworth and
Michael Wigglesworth, running through
lesser-known contributions by
Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, Thomas
Paine, et al., and concluding with
works by Damon Runyon and Grantland
Rice, the Treasury does give a
nostalgic, if incomplete, music-hall
view of our national heritage. In ad-
dition to the expected
standards--"Clementine," "Old Dan Tucker," "Oh
Susanna," surprising finds like
Herman Melville's "The Cumberland," a
fragment by Robert Burns, and a ballad
by Abraham Lincoln, frequent the
book. Most of the highlights and many of
the "lowlights" of our country's
growth are narrated from one source or
other. There is a wealth of material
in this anthology that a teacher or
student of American culture will find
entertaining or useful.
"Ballad," as used in the title
of the Treasury, is interpreted in its loosest
sense. Kennedy employs the word more or
less in the manner of a disc-
jockey who labels "ballad" any
set of lyrics that could conceivably have
BOOK REVIEWS 357
reference to a story of any sort. The
traditional "Barbara Allen," two
lyrics on tobacco, "John Brown's
Body," "Captain Jinks of the Horse
Marines," "Old Soldiers Never
Die," and even Poe's "Annabel Lee" are
all standardized under the word
"ballad." Nevertheless, even though this
all-descriptive term implies a musical
setting for the lyrics, there are no
musical scores included in the volume.
This omission is disturbing, as
most of the poems in the Treasury were
set to music at one time or other.
The headnotes to the poems are so brief
as to be pointless in many cases.
Most of the poems are tied closely not
only to a political or sociological
event but also to a point of view
associated with the event. It would be
useful to have notes that would give the
reader insight into the real purpose
of the particular poet. The headnotes
also fail to include reference to
variants for texts such as "Barbara
Allen" and "John Henry." Perhaps
in a frankly commercial volume this
point can be overstressed by the scholar.
Kennedy does state in his Foreword:
No doubt you will occasionally look up
from the page and say "That's
not the way I heard it." Please
bear in mind that there are several versions
of most ballads, particularly those
which have been set to music; but my
purpose has been to trace them all down to their
original sources to insure
historical integrity.
But he has not followed through on this
point. For example, it is clearly
misleading not to know that
"There's a Tavern in the Town" and "Bury
Me Not on the Lone Prairie" have
significant pre-American traditions in
Britain.
It is not fair to criticize an
anthologist too severely for what he includes
or omits. In fact, the author reminds
the reader that arbitrary decisions
had to be made when he says in the
Foreword: "You may wonder why
some old favorites have been excluded. I
felt that since you already know
these you will find it exciting to read
some which have not seen the light
of day for many generations."
However, I must wonder how "Dixie" can
be left out of a book that includes
"The Battle-Hymn of the Republic"
and "John Brown's Body"? Why
Poe's "Annabel Lee" is appropriate to
this treasury? And why World War II
songs such as Frank Loesser's "The
Ballad of Rodger Young" are
missing?
But, all in all, the Treasury is
a pleasant book and should take its place
beside Sigmund Spaeth's Read 'em and
Weep and Weep Some More My
Lady as a standard memory-book of the sub-literary efforts
of our music-
hall performers, our newspapermen, our
politicians, and our poets.
Denison University TRISTRAM P. COFFIN
358
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Pioneer Painters of Indiana. By Wilbur D. Peat. (Indianapolis: Art Asso-
ciation of Indianapolis, 1954.
xix+254p.; illustrations, maps, biblio-
graphical guide, roster of painters, and
index. $7.50.)
This important contribution to the
history of painting in the Middle
West is the result of some fifteen years
study of the subject by Wilbur D.
Peat, museum director of the John Herron
Art Institute at Indianapolis.
In its comprehensive quality it is a valuable
piece of research and a much-
needed aid to further study in the
field.
Starting with the earliest known
sketches, two extant water colors made
by Henry Hamilton in 1778 during his
campaign against the American
revolutionists at Vincennes, the record
of paintings and painters in Indiana
is presented. Brief biographical
sketches of 221 painters and their works
are presented in chronicle form,
according to geographical areas.
In an effort to throw more light on the
situation and to present under
one cover as much information as is
available, the author includes all
artists who have been known to paint
within the boundaries of the state.
While this may seem to belie the title,
the local information furnished
on the itineraries and works of many artists
passing through, or pausing
but briefly within the state, is of
inestimable value to persons interested
in American art history.
As the author points out in his
introduction, mobility of craftsmen and
professional people was one of the
characteristic features of frontier life.
In addition to the itinerant limner,
there were trained artists, preachers,
judges, and cabinetmakers who found
journeying on established circuits
necessary to reach enough clients to
stay in business. Also not to be over-
looked were the "tourist"
painters, who, prompted by curiosity or gathering
material for illustrating the American
scene, traveled through the country.
Of the 221 artists mentioned, perhaps
two-thirds of them resided more or
less permanently in Indiana, which might
entitle them to be identified as
artists of that state.
Mr. Peat evaluates early Indiana
painting with a broad, scholarly per-
spective. He does not try to compare the
work to great masterpieces but
represents them for the most part as
serious professional art products and
important cultural heirlooms. No stress
is put on primitive paintings,
although the author says they were
"as prevalent in Indiana as in any
other section of the country during the time
covered by this book." He
suggests that the present interest in
American primitive painting has re-
sulted in the word "primitive"
becoming synonymous with "anonymous."
BOOK REVIEWS 359
Since the main purpose of the book is to
dispel anonymity, emphasis on
primitive work was not a particular
objective.
Space does not permit detailed comment
on the material presented. The
many illustrations are well chosen and
deserve mention for their unusually
fine quality. The text, which is
thoroughly indexed, is supplemented by a
roster of painters active in Indiana
from 1800 to 1885, complete with in-
dividual bibliographies. If the excellent
format can be criticized at all, it
is for the slight inconvenience of the
mass listing of notes at the end of
the book, which necessitates turning
many pages. This, of course, is a
matter of personal preference.
The author modestly refers to Pioneer
Painters of Indiana as the product
of a "groundbreaking" method
of research, reporting of the ground turned
up rather than evaluating the material.
While this is true, certainly the
introduction of a score of painters
heretofore unknown and a wealth of
new data relating to known painters is a
noteworthy contribution. Mr.
Peat is to be congratulated on the
successful completion of a difficult project.
Scholars in American art and cultural
history will find this a most useful
reference on the people and period
covered.
College of Wooster DONALD R. MACKENZIE
Knickerbocker Birthday: A Sesqui-Centennial History of the New-York
Historical Society, 1804-1954. By R. W. G. Vail. (New York: The
New-York Historical Society, 1954.
xix+547p.; illustrations, notes, ap-
pendices, and index. $6.00.)
A subject which American historians for
one reason or another have
generally neglected is the history of
our historical societies, their con-
tribution to historical scholarship, and
their impact upon the historical
consciousness of our people. The
bibliographies of countless scholarly works
attest to the debt historians owe the
societies' manuscript collections; those
of us who work in the field have a
strong, if undocumented, impression
that the museums, the meetings, and the
educational activities of the nation's
historical societies have made a
significant contribution to whatever his-
torical consciousness we Americans
possess--and if we have less than we
should it may be because too many of our
historical societies for too long
a period have devoted themselves
primarily to antiquarian pursuits and to
perpetuating or refurbishing the good
names of their founders. The subject
merits comprehensive study; so far,
about all we have are histories of in-
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THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
dividual societies written by their
directors to commemorate significant
anniversaries.
But these histories, when well done, are
valuable; and this account, by
its director, of the nation's second
oldest historical society, though written
in a familial style and apparently
designed primarily for the edification
and inspiration of its members, makes a
significant contribution to an
understanding of the historical society
movement. It emphasizes, as other
society histories have done, that
historical societies frequently come into
being because men of affairs appreciate
the importance of preserving the
record of the past, and that when
properly managed, historical societies can
continue to enjoy the support of such
men and of the press. This history,
like others of similar institutions,
also emphasizes the fact that the his-
torical society frequently has
difficulty in transforming good will into
adequate financial support, and that it
usually is but the lengthening shadow
of a man or succession of men who will
devote sacrificial, often unrewarding
service in its behalf.
Dr. Vail begins his history with a
fanciful, although true-in-spirit, account
of a walk which John Pintard, founder of
the society, might have taken
November 20, 1804, as he made his way
from his home to the city hall
to meet a group of men brought together
to lay the foundations of a
historical society. He discusses the
founders and the organizational meeting,
and then traces the society's long and
distinguished history, organizing his
account on the basis of the
administration of each of the society's twenty-
three presidents--a group which includes
such notables as Gouverneur
Morris, DeWitt Clinton, Albert Gallatin,
and Hamilton Fish. A chapter
entitled "A Distinguished
Company" and another on "Elegant Dinners and
Eloquent Diners" conclude the
narrative, to which is appended "The Fun-
damental Documents of the New-York
Historical Society," a list of
the founders, officers, and trustees,
and a selected list of the society's
publications.
The history of the society is interwoven
with a fascinating account of
New York's social and cultural life,
and, as Allan Nevins suggests in an
evaluation of the book printed on the
jacket, "the record of the growth
of the collections is to a great extent
a record of the intellectual develop-
ment of the city, and of its rising
civic spirit." Handsome illustrations add
greatly to the value of the work and
give the reader an indication of the
scope of the society's collections.
BOOK REVIEWS 361
Knickerbocker History is a fascinating, well-written story. When we
have more like it, we will be in a
position to begin a comprehensive study
of the historical society in America.
Nebraska State Historical
Society JAMES C. OLSON
Annie Oakley of the Wild West. By Walter Havighurst. (New York:
Macmillan Company, 1954. x+246p.;
illustrations and index. $4.50.)
If the little girls of America ever
decide they want a female counterpart
to Davy Crockett, they could do worse
than take Annie Oakley. A heroine
whose name has become as much a byword
as Crockett's for hitting the
bullseye and whose public life was as
glamorous and feminine as his
was heroic and manly has much to
recommend her.
Annie Oakley was born Annie Moses in
Darke County, Ohio, in 1860--
born with a heaven-sent skill at
handling a gun. A Cincinnati hotel pre-
ferred the wild fowl she shot to any
other hunter's, for the guests didn't
have to spit out the bird--shot from her
birds-they were all shot through
the head. At the age of seventeen she
married Frank Butler, a professional
crack-shot ten years her senior. From
then until their deaths in 1926, a
few weeks apart, they lived happily, for
the most part on Annie's hand-
some earnings as a marksman. Her husband
was her business manager.
As is frequently true of people in the
entertainment world, Annie
seems to have had little that could be
called a "personal life." Her life
was her career and her career was always
carried on under spotlights.
Havighurst properly devotes most of his
attention to the circus, Wild West,
and theatrical environments in which she
and her husband lived, moved,
and had their being. Here he struck pay
dirt and made the most of it.
The show known as the Wild West evolved,
he relates, out of the
country's first rodeo, an "Old
Glory Blowout" staged by William F. Cody
on the Fourth of July, 1882, at North
Platte, Nebraska. In no time it
mushroomed into Buffalo Bill's Wild
West, which Annie Oakley joined
in 1885, and in which she was to be a
star performer for the next sixteen
years, with but rare intermissions.
The Wild West was an almost immediate
success. In Madison Square
Garden, in every state where it played,
in Canada, Great Britain, and
France, in fact, all over Europe, it was
a sensation. Royalty and commoners
thrilled alike to its cowboys and
Indians, its pageantry and feats of daring,
and Annie Oakley. The "Little Sureshot"
of the States became "the mar-
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THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
vellous shootist" of the English
reporters, but she was still the same slim
girl of ninety-eight pounds, five feet
in height, who practically never missed.
Despite her miraculous shooting, her
trick riding, and other feats, Annie
Oakley lacked personality. She was neat,
tidy, domestic, loving, thrifty;
she was never temperamental; she
practiced her shooting faithfully and
was kind to her fellow performers. But
all of Havighurst's beautifully
turned prose, his eye for the colorful,
and his poetic imagination cannot
make our hearts beat faster for the
little star of the Wild West who never
outgrew the Camp Fire Girls.
Ohioana Library WALTER RUMSEY MARVIN