Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

The United States and NATO: The Formative Years. By Lawrence S. Kaplan.

(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984. xi + 276p.; notes, ap-

pendixes, bibliographic essays, index. $30.00 cloth; $12.00 paper.)

This volume by a distinguished historian of American diplomacy contains

elements of patchwork. Some of the chapters have been published before,

others have not; some are detailed analyses of events leading up to the crea-

tion of NATO and of the organization's early development, others are broad-

er efforts to assess the American relationship to Europe from the 18th century

to the present. Even among the monographic chapters, there is an obvious

disparity between the space devoted to the period 1947-1949 (115 pages) and

that devoted to the admittedly critical Korean War years (30 pages).

But no matter. If Lawrence Kaplan has failed to give us the magnum opus

we might have hoped for, he still has produced a well-researched, engaging-

ly written, and always thoughtful book that is simply must reading for any-

one who pretends to understand NATO in an historical context. Especially

important are three chapters, based on a wealth of published and archival

sources, which trace the domestic and international processes leading up to

the treaty of 1949 and the subsequent arms aid program.

Kaplan began his study of NATO in the early 1950s as a young historian in

the Office of the Secretary of Defense. With time out for research and writing

on early American diplomacy, he has pursued that study ever since. To

some, he may appear as a quasi-official historian, to others as "a traditional-

ist with footnotes" (the patronizing phrase used on the left to characterize

those who occasionally see an ounce of good deriving from U.S. involvement

abroad). Kaplan is both of these, but he is sufficiently keen as an analyst and

sufficiently conscientious as a scholar to address NATO's critics in a sophisti-

cated and constructive fashion. While defending NATO's basic purposes

and accomplishments and pointing to the brevity of the Pax Americana in

Europe, he concedes that the organization conflicted with the United Na-

tion's Charter, that it in some ways diminished prospects for European unity,

and that its militarization in the early 1950s "not only elevated the American

role but served to denigrate possibilities for detente which the death of

Stalin and subsequent changes in the Soviet Union after 1953 might have al-

lowed" (p. 11). Yet Kaplan's reconstruction of the issues between East and

West, between the United States and Europe, and especially within Europe

and the United States themselves, makes one wonder if American statesmen

could have done much better.

One of the most engaging chapters compares the Franco-American relation-

ship in the Treaty of Paris of 1778 with that in the Washington treaty of 1949.

In the 171 years between the agreements, France and the United States

switched roles in the international arena; whereas in the first case France was

a large power and the United States was a new nation experiencing "a diffi-

cult birth" (p. 17), in the second case the United States was a super-power

while France was a country of greatly diminished strength. In both cases,

52                                                   OHIO HISTORY

the smaller power feared exploitation by its larger partner. In each instance,

the smaller nation accepted terms it considered less than ideal and in which

that exploitation was bound to occur. Even so, Kaplan argues, the actual his-

tory of the two alliances suggests a more balanced outcome, with the lesser

power often manipulating "a relationship by virtue of its vulnerability" (p.

26). In the final chapter, this conclusion is further developed with regard to

NATO as a whole. Kaplan insists that, although "in the short run the United

States dominated every aspect of the relationship," various programs within

the alliance actually encouraged and enabled Europe to evolve a more inde-

pendent course (p. 186).

The book's value is enhanced by two bibliographical essays on the first

five years of NATO-one written in the mid-1950s and one thirty years later.

Although most of the sources cited are from the United States, Canada, and

the United Kingdom, some French and German publications also appear.

There are even occasional references to works from the smaller countries in

NATO.

The University of Georgia                            William Stueck

Dark Lanterns: Secret Political Societies, Conspiracies, and Treason Trials in

The Civil War. By Frank L. Klement. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Uni-

versity Press, 1984. xiii + 263p.; illustrations, notes, bibliographical essay,

index. $25.00.)

The author of this study contends that historians have hitherto given us a

distorted view of the "dark lantern" societies generated by the Civil War.

Professor Klement suggests it is wrong to consider such organizations as the

Knights of the Golden Circle, the Order of American Knights and the Sons

of Liberty "as Copperhead societies, umbrellas for antiwar Democrats and

bases for treasonable activities." We are left with a conclusion that serious

concern with Copperheadism was based on mythology supported by nation-

alism, and that such mythology has passed into consensus history. Consen-

sus history has indeed in recent years come in for deserved criticism, but in

this instance the charge against it is of doubtful accuracy. Dark Lanterns is a

work that is well researched and thoughtful, but it is also caught in contra-

diction and the evidence provided does not adequately sustain the thesis

set forth.

The book offers an account of the "dark lantern" societies and joins to this

chronicle a history of the Union League, on the premise that this organiza-

tion, as a secret entity, is comparable to the three listed above. The general

thrust of the study is that the three organizations were of minimal signifi-

cance and that contemporary reports finding them a threat to the Union were

based upon falsified evidence. It is likely that in the wartime setting public

fear conjured up an exaggerated notion of the Copperhead menace. There

appears to have been little substantiality to the danger posed by the Knights

of the Golden Circle as its founder George Bickley was little more than a glib

adventurer.

But Professor Klement would take us too far along the path of minimizing

the "dark lantern" menace and confuses issues with his discussion of the

Book Reviews                                                   53

Union League. The League was no more secretive than were the Freemasons

and other fraternal organizations, and there exists no evidence that its mem-

bers said or did anything contrary to law and public order. The discussion

of the League goes nowhere. The book is also confusing in the treatment giv-

en the public response to the Holt Report, a study produced by judge advo-

cate general Joseph Holt that charged the Order of American Knights with

seeking the dismemberment of the Union. One learns that the report paid

the Republicans "handsome dividends" in the outcome of the 1864 elec-

tion, but then quickly there comes the statement that "Lincoln would have

defeated McClellan handily even without Holt's report." If the latter state-

ment is true the document represented only needless effort. Regarding the

substance of the report, Klement too easily dismisses Holt's inquiry as an ex-

ercise in mythology, accepting without question criticisms from Democratic

politicians.

As concerns the dimensions of the "dark lantern" threat, some of the evi-

dence in the book points in a different direction than that suggested in the

text. Significant here is the most questionable role played by H. H. Dodd,

Hoosier leader of the Sons of Liberty. Klement identifies Dodd's rhetoric

with standard Democratic campaigning. The freeing of the slaves was sup-

posedly an affront to whites, and citizens should not be taxed "to carry for-

ward a war of emancipation, miscegenation, confiscation or extermination."

Whatever the legal status of such speech, it is understandable that a govern-

ment waging civil war saw it as evidence of disloyalty. It is also acknowledged

that acts Klement terms "rash" played into Radical hands. These acts in-

cluded some stoning of Union soldiers home on furlough, open resistance to

the draft, a "vague plot" to assassinate the Republican governor of Indiana

and instances of public cheering for Jefferson Davis. There may be argument

as to the frequency of such actions, but they surely constituted legitimate

grounds for governmental concern with disaffection. Then, too, we discover

that Dodd, who enticed "a few Democratic bigwigs" into the Sons of Liber-

ty, was subsidized by Confederate agents. Dodd was soon proposing open

resistance to the government, resistance that, as Klement acknowledges,

would lead to insurrection. It was not merely that some Democrats over-

stepped the bounds of propriety but that these persons were linked to indi-

viduals deliberately seeking to undermine the war effort.

That civil liberties were sometimes restricted during the war years is

scarcely to be doubted. But we cannot ignore the context that at this time

the very survival of the nation was at stake. The government did have a

problem it did not wholly invent, the existence of a political opposition, often

covert in nature, that sought to frustrate the conduct of the war. Without per-

haps intending the result, Professor Klement shows us something of the real-

ity of this opposition and furnishes a basis for further study of Northern op-

ponents of the Union cause.

University of Cincinnati                           Herbert Shapiro

Lyndon Johnson's Dual War: Vietnam and the Press. By Kathleen J. Turner.

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. 358p.; notes, bibliography,

index. $25.00.)

54                                                   OHIO HISTORY

The question of the relationship between the American government and

the national news media during the Vietnam war remains one of the most

controversial in recent history. Carrying the historic burden for the disas-

trous war effort, former military leaders like General William C. Westmore-

land and conservative politicians like Richard Nixon have consistently

blamed journalists for deliberately distorting the story of the war and thus

destroying vital home-front morale. Even less partisan critics like the journal-

ist Peter Braestrup have attacked the press for misreporting critical events in

the war, most notably the 1968 Tet offensive.

Their criticisms are nothing new. As early as 1963, the U.S. government

was complaining that reporters like David Halberstam were too devoted to

independent newsgathering, and unreliable as conduits for the official line.

Washington's complaints only became more strident as its policies became

less workable and defensible.

Strangely, this early tension between the government and different war re-

porters is only one of several salient matters that Kathleen Turner chooses to

ignore in her retelling of "the effect of presidential-press interactions" on

Lyndon Johnson's "communications on Vietnam" (p. vii). Based on impres-

sive research in the Johnson presidential library, Turner's study is a nicely-

wrought exercise in the use of historical materials for communications analy-

sis. It is not, however, a fully-developed historical study of a volatile topic

that possessed several layers and tremendous complexity.

Turner's interest is in how "Johnson's relationship with the media influ-

enced his Vietnam war rhetoric" (p. vii). Out of this concern, she surveys

Johnson's pre-presidential relationship with the press, and analyzes the

President's various attempts to use the media to rally public support for his

Vietnam policies through the rhetoric of limited war. Essentially, she be-

lieves, Johnson's problem was that he could not find "the right combination

of arguments" (p. 97) to sell his war policies. As this "communications fail-

ure" (p. 254) became more manifest, the President and his advisors became

increasingly frustrated and bitter, until Johnson virtually equated the media

with antiwar dissidents and blamed them all for his failed war policy.

Clear and direct, Turner's study of Johnson's war-related media policies is

fair-minded and persuasive. It is also, however, very narrow in scope and

uncritical in spirit. While alluding to the problems of the Washington press

corps, the book pays virtually no attention to the media in its reporting and

analyses of Johnson's war. Rather than a dynamic and complex actor, the

media merely stands as one "front" against which the administration devel-

oped certain communications strategies-which in other countries would be

called propaganda. In a similar way, Turner ignores the administration's need

to use the media as a means of international and diplomatic communication.

The American press is more than an instrument for managing the American

people. It is also a vital political and diplomatic means of information and in-

timidation. Certainly Johnson and his advisors were concerned with this di-

mension of media management. Subsequent scholars should be even more

attentive to their concerns.

The story of the relationship between the American news media and gov-

ernment during the Vietnam years is a rich and subtle one. This book pro-

vides a useful start in telling part of that story. It also shows, however, how

far we have to go in comprehending that relationship in its totality.

University of Toledo                             Charles DeBenedetti

Book Reviews                                                   55

First Lady of The Law: Florence Ellinwood Allen. By Jeanette E. Tuve. (Lan-

ham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1984. viii + ²²0p.; photo-

graph, notes, bibliography, index. $24.50 cloth; $12.50 paper.)

A biography of a lesser public figure is hard to justify save for the symbol-

ic importance of the person studied. Jeanette E. Tuve acknowledges as much

in her Preface to First Lady of the Law, stating that "the goal of this biogra-

phy is to trace the symbiotic relationship between . . . Florence Allen and

the woman's movement" (v). Thus Allen (1884-1966), the first American fe-

male to gain international as well as national recognition in the legal profes-

sion, is rescued from the obscurity that too often befalls those who acquire

fame in their lifetime but are lost from sight posthumously. Tuve's study is a

welcome addition to other recent volumes on women in history, and anyone

reading it will be richer for the experience.

Allen's list of achievements is truly impressive. The first woman appointed

to the federal judiciary, she had earlier received the distinctly political rec-

ognition of being the first woman elected to a state supreme court, that of

Ohio-her ancestral and adult home. Honors were showered upon her in lat-

er years, in part for proving that women could achieve professional success

but also for making specific contributions to case law and legal practice.

From her early life in Utah, where she was born into an old New England/

Connecticut Western Reserve family which combined teaching with political

activism, to her last days of failing health, Judge Allen sought to live up to

the ideals instilled in her at an early age. Among these beliefs were the con-

cepts embodied in the American Constitution, as interpreted by her reform-

ist forebearers, and the positions taken by the early suffragist movement, an

organization viewed by Allen as the vehicle through which women could

reach their full potential. Changing times made the judge's views appear old-

fashioned during her later years, but she held firmly to these ideals to the

end.

Tuve has written a volume which is primarily an old-fashioned life-and-

times biography but partially a political tract as well. This form of biography

opens the door to over-editing, as the individual under investigation may be

lost in the writer's attempt to confine that particular human being within a

given social and political framework. Tuve falls into this trap. She eschews

comprehensive psychological insights and never provides a complete ac-

count of Allen's personality and how it changed over the years. The reader,

told many times that Allen preferred the company of women but was close to

various men (especially her relatives), is shocked to learn that she was so

hostile to male doctors that she was unwilling to consult one unless absolute-

ly necessary-a fact made more surprising by the judge's extreme hypochon-

dria (p. 178).

On a broader scale, even the casual reader will note the dramatic change

in personality that took place over the decades, from the exuberant young

college graduate whose published music reviews overflowed with superla-

tives (pp. 18-19) to the reserved and distant public figure of later years,

whose autobiography is a straight-forward narrative of events told with al-

most no insight into incidents or personalities. Tuve correctly concludes that

"... the public image ... had absorbed the inner woman...." (p. 201),

but never makes clear how and why this came about.

56                                                 OHIO HISTORY

Such a biography, in turn, readily lends itself to tract-writing. Tuve fails to

avoid this tendency. She reveals her feminist bias when she refers to the re-

lationship between Allen and the woman's movement (v, cited above). Judge

Allen was a product, and leader, of the suffragist movement rather than a

"woman's movement" as the latter term is now used. Similarly the author

shows a disturbing tendency to use terms such as "sisterhood," phrases

which may have historical roots in the judge's era but which convey differ-

ent meanings when employed today.

In short, it appears that Tuve writes about Allen in part to inspire by exam-

ple but also to attack an earlier generation; the author attempts to show the

shortcomings of the early suffragists as opposed to the virtues of the modern

women's movement. Less biased observers might conclude that certain suf-

fragist ideals remain more acceptable, both politically and morally, than

some of the demands of the recent feminist crusade.

These problems should not deter potential readers from a careful review of

this volume. It will be of great interest to both scholars and the educated

public. One final concern, however, is a point raised separately because re-

sponsibility may lie with the publisher. No biography of a modern figure

should appear without a collection of photographs, such as those used by

Allen in her memoirs. This book offers only one very unflattering photo as a

frontispiece. Hopefully this shortcoming will be corrected when a second

printing is made.

University of North Florida                       Stanley L. Swart

A Righteous Cause: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. By Robert W. Cher-

ny. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985. xi + 225p.; illustrations,

note on sources, index. $15.95.)

William Jennings Bryan is so easy to ridicule: the crusader for free silver

who knew virtually nothing about economics; the Chautauqua lecturer

whose voice ranged farther than his knowledge; the bumbling secretary of

state who served grape juice to smirking European diplomats; and the tired

old fool who was destroyed by a ruthless Clarence Darrow at Dayton, Ten-

nessee. But to this caricature, one must add that three times Bryan carried

the Democratic party's hopes for the presidency; that cheering crowds met

him at every whistlestop, no matter what the issue of the day; that no politi-

cal figure between Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was as

beloved as he; and that three sets of triplets carried the names of "William,"

"Jennings," and "Bryan." How can one reconcile these conflicting images?

How does one make sense of the life of the Great Commoner?

Robert W. Cherny, a native of Nebraska and currently professor at San

Francisco State, has tried to do just that, and all within a Library of Ameri-

can Biography format of 200 pages. This series is designed primarily for the

classroom and for the general reader, and Cherny's account is a welcome ad-

dition to it. It is the best short biography of Bryan now available.

Cherny concentrates on the political aspect of Bryan's life. He gives exten-

sive treatment to the "paramount" issues of Bryan's three great campaigns:

free silver (1896), anti-imperialism (1900) and "let the people rule" (1908).

Book Reviews                                                    57

While Cherny admits that Bryan created no major piece of legislation, he

credits him with supporting several important issues of the day. These in-

cluded the direct election of senators, prohibition, women's suffrage, mone-

tary reform, lower tariffs, and his famous "cooling off" treaties. In fact, the

pages of Bryan's monthly journal, The Commoner, show that he advocated

many issues later adopted by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. At the base of

all these causes, of course, lay Bryan's absolute, unqualified faith in the

American people.

It was this faith in the wisdom of ordinary citizens that led Bryan into his

last battle: the post World War I fight against the theory of evolution. Re-

gardless of the issue, scientific, artistic, or political, Bryan wanted the Ameri-

can people to eventually decide it. Cherny's treatment of Bryan and Darrow

at the Scopes trial is fair, and his concluding chapter, "Evaluating a Crusad-

er," is very well balanced.

While not blind to the Commoner's faults, Cherny clearly admires his cen-

tral character as an uniquely American phenomenon. After all, how many

men can inspire a midwestern farmer to engrave on his tombstone: "Kind

friends I've left behind/Cast your vote for Jennings Bryan."

University of New Mexico                            Ferenc M. Szasz

Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters. By Barbara Sicherman. (Cambridge: Har-

vard University Press, 1984. xvi + 460p.; illustrations, notes, sources, in-

dex. $25.00.)

As a woman who came of age in the late nineteenth century, Alice Hamilton

made a choice to follow a career in medicine that placed her within a unique

cadre of women: all pioneers in their chosen professions. The power of Bar-

bara Sicherman's Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters is that the reader meets

the woman as well as the physician, field investigator, author, and activist.

Just one aspect of Alice Hamilton's rich and varied experiences would seem

enough for a single lifetime.

Hamilton pioneered the study of industrial toxicology in the United States,

beginning with her investigations of lead poisoning for the Illinois Commis-

sion on Occupational Diseases in 1910. Her career as a "shoe leather epidemi-

ologist" continued under the auspices of the US Department of Labor, in-

cluding investigations of numerous lead-based manufacturing processes, the

explosives industries during World War I, and the effects of benzene and ra-

dium poisonings. She wrote two classic texts, Industrial Poisons in the United

States (1925) and Industrial Toxicology (1934, revised 1949), numerous arti-

cles, and her autobiography, Exploring the Dangerous Trades (1943).

A 1897 graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, Hamilton

held an appointment as professor of pathology at the Northwestern Hospital

for Women and Children from 1897 until the school's closing in 1902. Her ap-

pointment as assistant professor of industrial medicine at Harvard Medical

School in 1919 served as a capstone to her medical and academic career.

That she was the first woman appointed to the Harvard faculty in any field

only confirmed her status as one of the country's premier industrial toxicolo-

gists.

58                                                  OHIO HISTORY

Hamilton negotiated a half-time appointment at Harvard to permit her to

both continue her extensive research and return for part of each year to Hull

House in Chicago where she had begun her work on problems of public

health and occupational safety in 1902. As a settlement worker, Hamilton of-

fered health classes, delivered babies, and led investigations on infectious

diseases with the people who lived in her neighborhood. Hamilton learned

much about the problems of the lives of impoverished and working class

people through her work at Hull House and remained committed throughout

her life to causes which embraced a wide range of social issues.

To make the acquaintance of this remarkable woman is enough of a reason

to read Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters, but Sicherman's judicious editing

and insightful biography interspersed among Hamilton's letters make this

volume readable and a model of its type. Sicherman exercises enormous re-

straint inserting her voice into Hamilton's story, giving the reader enough in-

formation as well as careful comment to place Hamilton within her own mi-

lieu. The woman who emerges from this collection of letters is a member of a

family, a loyal and compassionate friend, and a sometimes reluctant pioneer

unlike the public person in her autobiography. It is to Sicherman's credit

that the reader meets the woman who delighted in the purchase of her first

bicycle and doubted that she had "conscience enough to keep [her] steadi-

ly at work" without a paid job holding her down. The adept politician who

could persuade the most obstinate industrialist of the value of protecting his

workers' health and the lifelong pacifist are included within the collection as

well. The woman of compassion and conscience that the reader meets in

Sicherman's volume is a compelling role model for all those caught between

their own public and private lives.

University of Cincinnati                             Carol J. Blum

Clausewitz: Philosopher of War. By Raymond Aron. (Englewood Cliffs:

Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1985. xi + 418p.; illustration, index. $17.95.)

Just as Karl Von Clausewitz's On War was published posthumously, so too

has the American edition of Raymond Aron's Clausewitz: Philosopher of War.

Aron, perhaps France's preeminent postwar political thinker, published this

book in France several years before his death in 1983. The American edition

of Clausewitz is a meritorious addition to the copious corpora of literature

about the bard of war, the man to whom all must eventually turn would they

seek to plumb the very essence of national armed conflict.

Aron provides a detailed account of Clausewitz's career in the Prussian

army. Born in 1780, Clausewitz entered the army shortly before his twelfth

birthday in 1792, served in the Rhine campaign of 1793-94, and in 1801 was

admitted to the Berlin Academy where he caught the attention of Scharn-

horst, who would become his inspiration. The shock of Napoleon's rout of

Prussian forces at the 1806-07 battles of Jena and Auerstadt galvanized Prus-

sian military reformers-including Scharnhorst, Stein, Gneisenau, and Boyen

-into revamping the Prussian military machine. Clausewitz assisted this

group, notably in the writing of Bekenntnisdenkschrift (Professions of Faith) in

Book Reviews                                                   59

early 1812. He steadfastly opposed Napoleon, for a while serving as a colonel

in the Russian army when Prussia briefly allied itself with Bonaparte. From

1818 until 1830 he was director of the Kriegsschule in Berlin. He died in 1831,

perhaps of cholera but more likely of a heart attack.

Aron was a self-proclaimed member of the realist school of international

relations-that school of thought that accepts the fact that war, however

much an unpleasant enterprise, is an institutionalized means of settling differ-

ences among nations-and as such was an unabashed admirer of Clausewitz.

Clausewitz, in turn heavily influenced by the writings of another realist,

Machiavelli, felt that war could be understood only by subjecting it to cold,

detached analysis-viewing it neither as a social and political aberration to

be avoided no matter the cost nor an insouciant campaign in military chau-

vinism to be pursued without regard to possible consequences. In pleading

Clausewitz's case, Aron, in effect, places him among those writers con-

demned to be frequently quoted but seldom read (one is reminded of Dos-

toevski in the hands of would-be thespians and Marx in the grasp of Third

World despots). Moreover, even when read, On War-a lexicon of ambigui-

ties, as Aron admits-has been subjected to a magnitude of interpretations

and misinterpretations surpassed only by those of the Bible. Aron set for

himself the task of clarifying these ambiguities, of rescuing Clausewitz from

the clutches of later strategists guilty of countless military sins committed in

his name.

That Clausewitz's theoretical prescriptions have been reduced by Neo-

Clausewitzians, as Aron calls them, to eternally fixed rules of the game, to cli-

ches wrapped in banalities (Blucher termed such strategic pap "useless ped-

antries"), lends first evidence to the pseudo-intellectual violence to which

Clausewitz has been subjected. Clausewitz himself adamantly rejected all

forms of dogmatism, all theories of war which laid claim to "eternal truths"

or mathematically exact formulae equally applicable to all wars at all times. It

was on these very grounds that Clausewitz disputed Bulow and Jomini. A

man of uncommon common sense, Clausewitz fought, in Aron's words, a two-

front war: "on the one hand against the pseudo-rationalists who claim to re-

duce strategy, in theory and in practice, to a strictly rational exercise; on the

other, against the sabre-rattling hussars who, scorning science, distrust any

officer immersed in books." Clausewitz stressed above all that war was a hu-

man phenomenon, its outcome dependent less on precise calculation than on

such imponderables as chance, the passions of the peoples involved, and

the spirit and intelligence of military and political leaders.

Neo-Clausewitzians are readily identifiable by their proclivity for mis-

interpreting or plucking from context memorable Clausewitzian axioms. Aron

spends much time in calling attention to these distortions; he devotes equal

time to refuting those who improperly attribute to Clausewitz the transgres-

sions of his errant acolytes. Particularly culpable of abusing his theories were

his German disciples, men of truncated vision such as the elder Moltke (a

sense of charity prohibits including the younger Moltke), Schlieffen, Luden-

dorff, and Hitler. All placed inordinate weight on such ideas as absolute war

and the annihilation of enemy forces to attain national goals. (Aron notes,

ironically, that Bismarck, who left no record of ever having read Clausewitz,

correctly understood that the principle of annihilation was always subject to

various restraints.) Aron posits: "Of course, destruction and annihilation do

not have to mean wholesale massacring. The two words really mean that the

60                                                   OHIO HISTORY

enemy should be made incapable of carrying on the fight." Aron also takes

to task, although he denies doing so, Sir Basil Liddel Hart, "the greatest

military writer of our age." Hart, attempting to explain the homicidal extrava-

ganza that was World War I's western front, cast blame on Clausewitz, la-

beling him the "Mahdi of mass and mutual slaughter" because he had

"caricatured" Napoleon's emphasis on troop concentrations, and had "ex-

alted the clash of armies," "mass strength and superiority of numbers rather

than . . . operations or decisive sectors of the front." Aron concedes that

Hart's argument bears some validity if one reads only certain parts of On War,

but suffers when other parts "which abound in qualification, nuance, and

repetition" are read. To repeat, "You can find what you want in the Treatise

[On War]: all you need is a selection of quotations, supported by personal

prejudice."

It is impossible to do justice to either Aron or Clausewitz in a brief review.

Let it simply be said that this is a significant book about a man whose name

has become synonymous with the phenomenon of war. Many of Clausewitz's

precepts will remain elusive and slippery to the touch, but Aron, especially if

read in conjunction with the recent works of Peter Paret, has gone far in clari-

fying his philosophical approach to the understanding of war. The book is

not without faults-Aron at times tends to wax prolix and wander afield. But

this is to cavil, for Clausewitz should grace the shelves of all serious students

of war. (One hopes that an increased number of American officers might be

induced to browse through it.) Conversely, amateurs and warriors of the

Sergeant Rock school of strategy will find it unrewarding. Prentice-Hall is to

be congratulated for making the book available to an American audience.

Ohio Historical Society                         Robert L. Daugherty

The Years of MacArthur. Volume III: Triumph and Disaster 1945-1964. By D.

Clayton James. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985. xvi + 848p.; il-

lustrations, notes, bibliographical note, index. $29.95.)

In this third and final volume of The Years of MacArthur, D. Clayton James

concludes a truly masterful military biography, one which will be consid-

ered the definitive account of General MacArthur's tempestuous career. Writ-

ing as dispassionately as one can about the complex and controversial Mac-

Arthur, and in a graceful style mercifully devoid of the word-murder and

term-mangle that characterize the outpourings of too many social scientists,

James has produced a comprehensive, insightful tome that will henceforth

be the benchmark against which future military (and civilian, for that mat-

ter) biographies will be measured.

James touches all bases in recounting MacArthur's post-World War II gen-

eralship, a command performance theatrically as well as militarily: from Mac-

Arthur's 1945 assumption of command as "enlightened proconsul" in Japan,

to his unceremonious dismissal by Truman during the Cold War, then to his

retirement years in the Waldorf Towers, where he resided as his country's

living-legend-in-residence, MacArthur occupies stage center, obsessively

concerned with establishing his place in history. His talent for self-

advertisement and self-dramatization suggests, in a way, a career meticulous-

Book Reviews                                                    61

ly choreographed in front of a mirror (the photograph chosen for the book's

dust jacket was sheer inspiration).

Postwar Japan, physically and spiritually in ruins, needed a strong leader, a

surrogate shogun to oversee the country's reconstruction. MacArthur was

just the man, says James, although those accounts which have cast Mac-

Arthur as a military and political paradox-a monarchical general cut from

Napoleonic cloth, or an American Caesar, as William Manchester would have

him, who confounds friends and foes alike by transforming himself into a

progressive liberal reformer-are somewhat off the mark. The misconception

that MacArthur conceived Japan's extensive reform program, including a lib-

eral constitution on the American model, originated with MacArthur himself

and various hagiographers such as the ever-loyal Major General Courtney

Whitney. MacArthur did lend his authority and prestige to the implementa-

tion of the reforms, but they in fact owed their birth to several American gov-

ernmental agencies, and had been two years in the making. In taking credit

for the reform program MacArthur continued a standard operational public

relations ploy he had used to his personal advantage in the recent Pacific

campaign-taking sole credit for accomplishments not entirely his own. Inter-

estingly, he always denied authorship of the one reform for which he was

primarily responsible-that section of Japan's constitution, Article IX, which

renounced war and armed forces. One reform about which there is no confu-

sion, and one for which MacArthur deservedly received high marks from

conservative and liberal historians alike, was his land reform program which

emancipated Japan's peasantry from years of feudal serfdom: within two

years, most former tenant farmers became farm owners. Whatever Mac-

Arthur's role as a genuine reformer, it was short-lived, ending with the onset

of the Cold War. American policy would move away from reform liberalism,

installing in its place a "reverse course," as the Japanese termed it, with the

more conservative goal of revivifying Japan's industrial base as a bulwark

against communism in Asia.

In dealing with MacArthur the would-be politician, James puts to rest the

general's claim that he was a soldier and a soldier only who sought no politi-

cal office-the presidency, to be precise. Not so, says James: "No question

about it; MacArthur was a political animal." MacArthur in fact sought the

presidency to some degree or the other in 1944 (while still commanding in

the Pacific), 1948, and 1952. Courted by Republican conservatives-and

some Democrats-who saw him as a possible antidote to New Deal heresies

and Harry Truman, MacArthur was not averse to accepting a large piece of

the reaction; his political aspirations foundered, however, because of insuffi-

cient support from regular Republicans, inadequate funding, and ineffective

organization. Unlike Eisenhower, MacArthur discovered that his military

prestige did not translate into political success.

James is in peak form in assessing MacArthur's performance during the Ko-

rean War, a performance which, aside from the brilliant assault at Inchon,

was flawed. Make no mistake, Inchon was one of history's most spectacular

military feats-James labels it "MacArthur's Plains of Abraham," as it was

inspired by Wolf's victory over Montcalm at Quebec in 1759-and it was con-

ceived by MacArthur alone. Inchon possessed every obstacle to successful

amphibious invasion-high tides, a narrow channel, and a seawall, among

others-and only MacArthur's famous eloquence and powers of persuasion

62                                                  OHIO HISTORY

made the assault digestible to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Navy, Marines,

and other skeptics. In the end, the invasion was perhaps too successful for

one of its consequences was the "Inchon syndrome": MacArthur's self-con-

fidence increased, if possible, and his prestige soared to unrivaled heights;

conversely, those who had been skeptical about Inchon, primarily the JCS,

were now reluctant to question any of his decisions. After Inchon, as James

notes, MacArthur's military fortunes resembled those of a Greek tragedy fig-

ure, with the general's arsenal of hubris finally proving his undoing. Mac-

Arthur tried to repeat Inchon at Wonson, on Korea's opposite coast. Actually,

both Inchon and Wonson were repeat performances: in World War II, am-

phibious envelopment had proved so successful that MacArthur, in time,

simply began to repeat it mechanically (suggesting that North Korea might

have been well served by a historian steeped in MacArthur strategy). At

Inchon it worked gloriously; at Wonson it was a redundant waste of time,

men, and material. Seasick members of the 1st Marine Division, who labeled

their experience in Wonson harbor "Operation Yo-yo," discovered that

South Korean troops had already taken Wonson. Worse yet, the manpower

and supplies wasted on Wonson led to logistical shortages for MacArthur's

push into North Korea-a classic case of military fiasco producing an upward

multiplier effect. General Omar Bradley, in his A General's Life, perhaps ar-

ticulated the essence of the Wonson operation: "Had a major at the Com-

mand and General Staff School turned in this solution to the problem, he

would have been laughed out of the classroom." (In fairness to MacArthur,

much the same might have been true of his Inchon plan.)

Following Inchon and the subsequent expulsion of communist forces from

South Korea, MacArthur was authorized by the JCS and our United Na-

tions Allies to pursue the remnants of the North Korean Army north across

the 38th Parallel, with the objective being to destroy the communist forces

and unify Korea by force. Just short of the Yalu River and Manchuria,

MacArthur's invading forces met disaster: they were ambushed and narrow-

ly averted destruction by massive Communist China "volunteer" forces.

MacArthur responded angrily to the alarm and criticism that came quickly

on the heels of the debacle. The exposed nerve that was his ego got the bet-

ter of him, as he asserted, in a sublime example of the Higher Chutzpah,

that the defeat was not a defeat: the drive to the Yalu was instead a "wise

move," a "reconnaissance in force" (a military ploy which the elder Moltke

once termed the "usual refuge of the commander who can think of nothing

else") which had forced the Red Chinese into attacking prematurely. Mac-

Arthur's defense of his push into enemy territory-which Custer might have

offered had he survived-must be compared to what happened. MacArthur

sent north two large forces, the Eighth Army and X Corps. Separated by

over fifty miles of inhospitable terrain which made mutual support all but im-

possible, the two forces were sent through hostile territory, North Korea, to-

ward another hostile, and more formidable, territory, China, which several

times had threatened to intervene-threats ignored by both MacArthur and

his superiors-should American forces cross the 38th Parallel. The calamity

that befell the Eighth Army and X Corps has been graphically recounted by

S. L. A. Marshall and others, and the 1st Marine Division's desperate fight

back from the Chosin Reservoir has become a chapter in Marine Corps leg-

end. In no sense was the strategy that produced these events a "wise move."

Book Reviews                                                   63

MacArthur's version of what transpired on the trip to the Yalu was to accu-

rate depiction what Bonnie and Clyde were to honesty in banking.

Of more importance than MacArthur's apologia was his subsequent be-

havior. Casting caution to the wind, he vented his frustration and resentment

by publicly challenging the Truman administration's major foreign and mili-

tary policies. The administration's emphasis was placed on Europe and

NATO to counter what it considered the major communist threat, the Soviet

Union; China was seen as playing a subsiderary role in the communist quest

for power, and thus MacArthur's Asian command was relegated to playing

second fiddle. MacArthur, a long-time Asia Firster, lashed out at this

scheme of priorities, directing most of his wrath at Truman. In doing so, he

precipitated perhaps America's most serious challenge to the Constitutional

principle of civilian supremacy over the military. Actually, MacArthur's resis-

tance to civilian authority antedated Truman, as his understanding of a gen-

eral's powers vis-a-vis his president had always been somewhat muddled,

at times dwelling on the penumbra of Constitutional legality. During World

War II, after a particularly exasperating altercation with FDR, MacArthur

complained that the president "acted as if he were the directing head of the

Army and Navy." Later, following his dismissal by Truman, he offered more

of the same: "I find in existence a new and heretofore unknown and danger-

ous concept that the members of our armed forces owe primary allegiance

and loyalty to those who temporarily exercise the authority of the executive

branch of Government, rather than to the country and its Constitution

which they are sworn to defend. No proposition could be more dangerous.

None could cast greater doubt upon the integrity of the armed services."

MacArthur's insubordination, which he would not have countenanced for a

moment from one of his own subordinates, proliferated along with his frus-

tration. Consider but a few examples: (1) he publicly proposed a more aggres-

sive support of Formosa than sanctioned by the administration; (2) he repeat-

edly challenged or ignored directives from his president and the JCS; (3) he

publicly charged that his own government's restrictions imposed on his com-

mand "an enormous handicap without precedent in history," thus prevent-

ing a quick, victorious conclusion to the war; (4) he publicly challenged his

government's peace initiatives to China (at which point Truman decided that

he must be relieved); (5) he sent a famous letter to Republican Joseph Mar-

tin, who released it to the press, criticizing the administration's stressing of

NATO and a limited-war strategy. Everything considered, it is a tribute to

Truman's forbearance (a quality for which he is not notorious) that he waited

so long to relieve the general.

Truman's patience notwithstanding, James offers yet another explanation

for MacArthur's ability to flout the authority of his government: the lack of

resolution by his immediate superiors, primarily the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In

numerous instances MacArthur's defiance, his brazenness, elicited only tim-

id responses by the JCS, and in some cases no response at all. The JCS, in

awe of MacArthur, lacked the courage to challenge his judgment. On one oc-

casion, Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway, then the Army's deputy chief

of staff, asked Air Force General Hoyt Vandenberg of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff why the JCS did not flatly "send orders to MacArthur and tell him

what to do." To Ridgway's amazement, Vandenberg replied: "What good

would that do? He wouldn't obey the orders. What can we do?" The JCS

thus for too long followed MacArthur's lead. As James deftly phrases it,

64                                                  OHIO HISTORY

"The world steps aside for a man who knows-or acts as if he knows-

where he is going."

Astonishingly, MacArthur steadfastly denied, before and after his dis-

missal, that he was guilty of any noncompliance with administration policy,

thereby establishing himself as one of history's greatest practitioners of the

Who, me? game. Accusations that he circumvented governmental authority

by taking his case to news sources, veterans' organizations, and Republican

congressmen were invariably met with such protestations of innocence as he

was merely a soldier responding to queries of concerned American citizens.

One need not speculate what MacArthur's reaction would have been had

one of his own subalterns acted similarly.

MacArthur was truly sui generis, a commander whose behavior was with-

out antecedent in American military history. Other generals had defied pres-

idential authority, others had taken their cause to the public, others had

sought high political office, and yet others had filtered all criticisms through

their personal paranoia, but none had done them all, as did MacArthur.

James has captured the officer and the man as well as can be done. His lucid

writing is matched by his exhaustive research-the book is copiously noted

and has a comprehensive, up-to-date biographical note that includes almost

every publication about MacArthur worth reading. It is no exaggeration to

state that James' MacArthur will rank with Douglas Southall Freeman's Rob-

ert E. Lee as the very finest in military biography.

Ohio Historical Society                        Robert L. Daugherty

Remembering America: A Sampler of the WPA Guide Series. Edited by

Archie Hobson with introductions by Bill Stott. (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1985. xviii + 391p.; illustrations, notes, index. $24.95.)

The American Guide Series resulted from a unique federal government pro-

gram and involved spending federal tax dollars in a unique way. As a small

part of the Works Progress Administration's vast reemployment efforts in the

midst of the Great Depression, the Federal Writers' Project, one of four WPA

programs for jobless people in the arts, undertook to produce a series of de-

tailed travel guides to the United States. Most of the work under the Federal

Writers' Project had to do with collecting and preserving elements of the

American past, such as reminiscences of ex-slaves, regional folklore, and local

institutional records. The American Guide Series, by contrast, was intended

for contemporary Americans to read and use, especially as they traveled by

automobile across the country's expanses.

By the time of Pearl Harbor (after which the WPA quickly passed out of

existence), FWP researchers and writers had mostly completed the task of

providing guidebooks to all forty-eight states and Alaska, as well as to the

major cities and a number of smaller localities. As Bill Stott observes, "There

had never been anything like the Guides' portrait of America before, and

there has been nothing since" (p. 2). Written by people who considered

themselves intellectuals and who had found little to do in Depression Ameri-

ca until the WPA came along, the guidebooks frequently were skeptical and

even cynical about the American myth of success. Much of the local history

Book Reviews                                                     65

they dealt with described foolhardiness, frustration, and failure. Yet for all

their critical detachment, the guides were in effect one long hymn to the

character, courage, and resilience of the American people. And somehow,

notes Stott, the guides writers managed to celebrate America without senti-

mentalizing it.

Archie Hobson had the excellent idea of culling the guidebooks-or at

least fifty-three of them-for the best passages he could find. He then ar-

ranged nearly all of those selections in five broad sections: "The Land and

Its Improvements," "Work," "Everyday Life," "The People," and "Higher

Callings." Within those sections, representative passages illustrate such top-

ics as "The Urban Scene," "Factory and Workshop," "Food and Drink,"

"Along the Road," and "Law and Order." Besides providing a helpful gen-

eral introduction, Stott has written lively reflections for each section. Colum-

bia University Press, moreover, has produced an extraordinarily handsome

book that features reproductions of the primitivist woodcuts from the origi-

nal guidebooks. The selections-of which fifteen come from The Ohio Guide

(1940)-range from the poignant to the dryly factual to the hilarious and out-

rageous. All in all, Remembering America is a delight to have, particularly in-

asmuch as today many of the guides are hard to find even in the biggest

libraries.

Ohio University                                 Charles C. Alexander

Profiles in American Judaism: The Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Re-

constructionist Traditions in Historical Perspective. By Marc Lee Raphael.

(San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1984. x + 238p.; tables,

notes, index. $19.95.)

With an economy leavened by erudition, Marc Lee Raphael chronicles the

origins and development of the major denominational components of Ameri-

can Judaism. Each of the book's four units, utilizing a framework that is

both chronological and conceptual, focuses on a single tradition. From first

to last, the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist move-

ments receive attention, the sequence of presentation determined by the

emergence of a group's infrastructure. Leadership, ideology, rituals, and in-

stitutions serve as the primary interests of Raphael's history.

Reform Judaism first appeared in early nineteenth-century Germany. It

sought to bring traditional Judaism into conformity with modern sensibili-

ties. By the 1870s American adherents had organized a rabbinical seminary.

Although diversity has always characterized the movement, for many years

the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform reflected its main contours. Emphasizing an ev-

olutionary religion, this Reform rabbinical conference rejected a myriad of

traditional obligations and eschewed a sense of peoplehood. Over time,

nonetheless, the Reform movement retreated from its non-particularistic am-

bience. A 1937 rabbinical conference stressed the unique aspects of Judaism.

East European immigration, the Holocaust, and the state of Israel all contrib-

uted to the growth of an ethnic dimension in the Reform movement during

the twentieth century.

Unlike their Reform counterparts, Conservative Jews, who first formed a

66                                                   OHIO HISTORY

rabbinical seminary in 1886, have never adopted an official declaration of

principles. Nevertheless, certain beliefs and practices emerged as normative

in Conservative congregations, including an emphasis on peoplehood, sup-

port for Zionism, the conception of Judaism as a developing religion, respect

for efforts to integrate Judaism and modernity, recognition of the historic im-

portance of traditional laws, and modifying the obligations of classical Juda-

ism deliberately in a communal manner. Since 1947, questions germane to ob-

servance have come under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Jewish Law

and Standards. Unless this committee makes a unanimous ruling, each con-

gregational rabbi may decide whether to follow the majority or minority po-

sition. In contemporary America Conservatism, a middle way between the

liberalism of Reform and the traditionalism of Orthodoxy attracts more ad-

herents than Judaism's other denominations.

All non-Reform Jews were not Orthodox prior to the birth of Conservative

Judaism. For decades the American frontier and demographics limited or-

ganizational unity beyond congregational boundaries. Not until the mass im-

migration of East European Jews did a self-conscious Orthodoxy appear. The

formation of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America in 1898

gave the movement its first institutional base. Raphael ably summarizes Or-

thodoxy's major tenets:

God revealed . . . commandments (mitzvot) to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai; that

the oral tradition as well as the written Torah has its origin there; that Jewish law (ha-

lacha), which applies these mitzvot to very situation a Jew faces, has its origin in the

divine and must be the guide to a Jewish way of life ... (p. 164).

Mordecai M. Kaplan provided the impetus for both the ideological and

institutional origins of Reconstructionism. Indeed, many scholars date the

movement's birth from the 1934 publication of Kaplan's Judaism as a Civili-

zation. This seminal book identifies most of the concepts that became key to

Reconstructionism: Jewish civilization constitutes an organic community; al-

though traditional customs may not derive from divine revelation, rituals and

organizations constitute the essence of Jewish civilization; and individual

Jews ought to link themselves to the destiny of their co-religionists. Prior to

the 1960s, Reconstructionism operated within existing movements. With the

recent establishment of a seminary to train Reconstructionist rabbis and a

congregational organization, however, the movement now appears a promis-

ing fourth denomination.

Although the volume's four units possess a parallel structure, they vary

considerably in length, ranging from seventy-eight pages for Reform Judaism

to sixteen for Reconstructionism. Impressive in his use of secondary sources,

archival materials, and institutional records, Raphael might have more pre-

cisely measured belief against observance by conducting statistical surveys

and oral interviews with contemporaries. The addition of a final chapter,

systematically analyzing differences and similarities between Judaism's de-

nominations, would provide more effective synthesis than the eclectic com-

parisons now scattered throughout the text. And some consideration of how

the structure of American Judaism compares to that of other communities in

the diaspora would add perspective. This volume is more notable for its bal-

anced narrative, strong empirical base, comprehensiveness, and lucidity

than for its originality. Nevertheless, Raphael provides us with the most de-

Book Reviews                                                    67

tailed, judicious, and intelligent survey thus far of the denominational histo-

ry of American Judaism. Profiles in American Judaism has much to offer un-

dergraduate and lay readers.

State University of New York at Oneonta           William M. Simons

Harvest of Grief; Grasshopper Plagues and Public Assistance in Minnesota,

1873-78. By Annette Atkins. (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1984. x

+ 147p.; illustrations, bibliographical essay, notes, index. $12.95.)

Between 1873 and 1878, grasshoppers brought havoc to many Minnesota

farms. In response to this five-year disaster, the grasshopper-stricken farmers

appealed for aid. Instead of beneficence, however, they received platitudes

and scorn. Then, as now, money was the badge of success, and those who

did not have it were judged inferior to those who lived in comfort. Most resi-

dents viewed the have-nots in the farm community as failures who lacked

the Puritan work ethic and frugality. As a result, those farmers did not merit

public assistance. This view challenged the long-held belief that those who

worked hard would prosper and that farmers deserved an honored place in

American life.

Minnesota's state and local governments and private agencies were unpre-

pared to meet the agricultural crisis which the grasshoppers created. More-

over, state government did not have a clearly defined responsibility to help

needy farmers. Governor Cushman K. Davis (1874-76), while sympathetic to

the grasshopper victims, advocated restraint, because these farmers might

gouge the public treasury. John S. Pillsbury, who followed Davis in office,

saw the farmers not as victims of a natural disaster but as paupers who nig-

gled the state government for aid which they did not deserve. Pillsbury be-

lieved that governmental relief would corrupt the morals of the donor and

the recipient, thereby degrading society. Rather than seek state support,

Pillsbury urged farmers to seek relief through self-help. Following the lead of

Governor Pillsbury, the state legislators called upon others to help the farm-

ers who were destitute, although they did provide minimal tax relief and

parsimonious seed loans, provided farmers proclaimed themselves paupers

in order to receive that aid. State officials were far more concerned about

preventing fraud than with helping the needy. The federal government also

failed to provide relief beyond extending the terms of the Timber Culture

Act, allocating minimal funds for the purchase of seed, and permitting the

distribution of food and clothing by the army to the most destitute victims.

Annette Atkins, Assistant Professor of History at St. John's University in

Collegeville, Minnesota, argues that the inadequacy of public aid indicates

the declining position of farmers in American society. While farming hereto-

fore had been a noble occupation, the value of money and the status which

it created now relegated those who did not have it to a far less idealized so-

cial status. Consequently, many people judged farmers to be little different

from paupers. Money was the measure of success, and poverty was the

badge of failure. As a result, Minnesota farmers became more politically

aware during this time of pleading. Thereafter, agricultural demands for aid

68                                                   OHIO HISTORY

would come through organized groups such as the Patrons of Husbandry,

Farmers' Alliance and People's Party.

Atkins has written an excellent survey about Minnesota's response to the

grasshopper plagues of the 1870s. It is a clear, succinct narrative concerning

the relationships between government and farmers during a time of dire need

in the agricultural community. This study will be of value to social and agri-

cultural historians as well as to anyone interested in Minnesota's history.

Ohio Historical Society                             R. Douglas Hurt

Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures

Since 1880. By Pete Daniel. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985. xvi

+ 352p.; illustrations, notes, index. $22.50.)

Until the recent past, southern agriculture was different from farming else-

where in the United States. Not only were the primary crops of cotton, to-

bacco and rice generally restricted to the South, but the institutions which

governed rural life and agriculture were substantially different from those

found in other regions. Much of the uniqueness of southern agriculture was

based on racial tradition, inadequate capital, insufficient markets and poor

transportation. Cotton and tobacco, in the absence of improved forms of sci-

ence and technology, required an extensive amount of hand labor, bound

farmers to creditors and prevented upward mobility. Moreover, southern

farmers were either illiterate or unwilling to accept the advice of extension

agents; tradition ruled the land. Rice farming, however, was distinct. When

midwesterners opened the Louisiana prairies to rice cultivation during the

1880s, they brought with them the binders and threshing machines of

home. Many of these new rice farmers also had sufficient capital to purchase

land and to meet their basic economic needs.

Although rice farmers were substantially more advanced than cotton and

tobacco farmers, southern agriculture did not undergo substantive change

until the New Deal. During the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

a host of agencies revolutionized southern agriculture. The Agricultural Ad-

justment Administration, for example, paid farmers to reduce production.

Landowners frequently used these payments to diversify and to purchase

tractors and other forms of technology and to release their tenants and

sharecroppers. During that time the federal government essentially replaced

the furnishing merchant system and became the chief creditor in the South.

Moreover, the Second World War took additional farmers from the farms,

thereby stimulating more land consolidation and the increased use of science

and technology. Government programs and the cost-price squeeze also en-

couraged farmers to diversity. As a result, by the mid-1980s, the old crops of

cotton, tobacco and rice no longer dominated the region. Southern farmers

now plant more soybeans and raise more hogs and poultry than ever before.

Within a century, then, southern agriculture underwent revolutionary

change.

Pete Daniel, Curator of Agriculture at the National Museum of American

History, has written an important book about the transformation of southern

agriculture during the last century. Daniel discusses the changes which oc-

Book Reviews                                                   69

curred in the cotton, tobacco and rice cultures by looking at landholding

patterns, cropping procedures, marketing methods and technological and

scientific changes. Daniel, however, neither accepts the benefits of the un-

limited application of science and technology, nor believes that federal credit

programs have made southern farmers more financially secure than those

who worked the land a century ago. He yearns for an agricultural South

where specialization has not dehumanized the farming process or damaged

the environment. Daniel argues that southern agriculture could have been re-

formed without driving people from the land or destroying the cultural life of

the rural South. He does not, however, offer clues about how this might

have been accomplished other than to say that Amish farmers manage to

prosper without succumbing to high-technology and government aid. The

rebuttal to this argument, of course, is that few farmers want to live like the

Amish.

Daniel, however, has made a substantial contribution to southern agricul-

tural history, particularly that of the twentieth century. His descriptions of

cotton, tobacco and rice farming methods will enable any non-southerner to

gain a better understanding of the drudgery and heart-breaking experiences

which most farmers experienced before the age of mechanization and land

reform. Particularly, he is good at explaining the effects of the New Deal upon

southern agriculture. Although this study has some repetitiveness and does

not contain a bibliographical essay to guide further research, Daniel has

made a solid contribution to American agricultural and southern history.

Ohio Historical Society                            R. Douglas Hurt

From Working Girl to Working Mother: The Female Labor Force in the United

States, 1820-1980. By Lynn Y. Weiner. (Chapel Hill: The University of

North Carolina Press, 1985. xii + 187p.; tables, notes, bibliography, in-

dex. $17.95.)

While many recent studies of wage-earning women in America focus on a

single decade or one ethnic or occupational group, Lynn Weiner has chosen

to view the topic from a broad historical perspective. As a result, From Work-

ing Girl to Working Mother illuminates patterns of change and continuity that

are sometimes invisible in narrower studies. By tracing the relationship be-

tween the increasing labor force participation of white, native-born women

and ideological debates about women's social and economic roles over a

160-year period, Weiner shows that the history of wage-earning women in

the United States has been divided into two distinct phases. In the first,

from 1820 to 1920, young, single women increased their proportion in the paid

labor force, implicitly challenging their culturally prescribed domestic and

family roles. But because most white, native-born women eventually married

and left wage work, they ceased to be identified in the public mind as wom-

en "adrift," and the "working girl" was absorbed into traditional domestic

ideology. During the second stage, from roughly 1920 to the present, married

women and mothers began to increase their proportion of the paid labor

force, posing another threat to traditional beliefs about women's roles as

wives and mothers. As Weiner points out, poor women had always worked

for wages, but when women who were not destitute became wage-earners,

70                                                  OHIO HISTORY

public attention and debate resulted. Weiner's thesis is original and well con-

ceived and will receive serious attention from historians of women as well as

social historians in general.

Weiner divides her analysis into two parts corresponding to the periods

she has identified. The first chapter of each section outlines the broad de-

mographic shifts. These chapters will contain few surprises for scholars al-

ready acquainted with the history of American women, but others will find

them a useful introduction to the subject. The following chapters in each sec-

tion are devoted to the public response to changes in female behavior and

the ways that attitudes toward women wage earners shaped reform efforts

and public policy. In the nineteenth century, reformers first "discovered"

single working women as a social problem; then by redefining the issue in

terms of "future motherhood," they were able to promote reform measures

such as boarding houses and protective legislation. By the early twentieth

century, only married women and mothers were perceived as a social prob-

lem. In the twenties, feminists and conservative social reformers disagreed

about the compatibility of marriage and paid employment. As wage-work for

married women became more prevalent during and after World War II, mar-

ried women's right to work was questioned less frequently, and the debate

began to center on the working mother's effect on her children. Since 1970,

mothers of young children have been the fastest growing segment of the fe-

male paid labor force, and public discourse has narrowed even further so

that only day care for very young children remains a problematic issue. Be-

cause government policy continues to be based on the belief that a mother

and her very young children belong at home, it hinders women's opportuni-

ties in the paid labor market, and Weiner argues that the next response to

women's changing economic behavior must be "a more fluid approach to

the boundaries of work and home" (p. 143).

According to Weiner, shifts in the debate about women wage earners were

a direct reflection of "the material basis of [women's] changing social and

economic behavior" (p. 3). This hypothesis, however, oversimplifies the is-

sues and rests on some serious omissions. For example, Weiner did not con-

sult the records of the Women's Bureau and Children's Bureau at the Na-

tional Archives. These sources reveal that the issue of women's role in the

family was frequently complicated by concern in the business community

about profits and among government officials about economic stability. And,

although the author does discuss various possible explanations for women's

participation in paid employment and uses primary sources to good advan-

tage to illustrate individual women's responses to paternalistic reformers, she

fails to consider the ways that women's experiences at home and in the

workplace shaped their consciousness. This leaves the reader with the im-

pression that while feminists and reformers had ideological commitments,

most women had simply a "propensity" to work and that employers had no

interest whatsoever in the matter of women's paid employment. It seems odd

that an historian who relies so heavily on a materialist interpretation should

have paid so little attention to the concrete interests of wage-earning women

and their employers. Weiner has shown keen insight into the patterns of long-

range social change, but she should have deepened and sharpened her

analysis to include the complexity of the relationship between experience

and ideology.

Xavier University                             M. Christine Anderson

Book Reviews                                                   71

Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822-1872. By

Nancy A. Hewitt. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984. 281p.; tables, in-

dex. $29.95.)

Historians of 19th century American women have been pressed to recon-

cile the ideology of privitized domesticity with the plethora of women's pub-

lic community building efforts. The explanation that has emerged rests on a

linear developmental process by which native-born, middle-class Protestant

women have moved from their home-bound hearths, to benevolent charity,

to social reform, and finally to feminist protest. That thesis is now under at-

tack, and no one to date has presented a more complex and enlightening

alternative analysis of women's activism than Nancy Hewitt in Female Activ-

ism and Social Change.

Hewitt examines Rochester, New York, over a half century, from the

founding of the Female Charity Society in 1822 to the arrest of Susan B. An-

thony for attempting to vote in 1872. Instead of the conventional evolutionary

development of women's public roles, Hewitt argues that women moved

along sometimes parallel, often diverging paths. She finds three distinct

groups that can be defined by decade of origin, social and economic profile,

social concerns, remedial tactics, even tone and tenor of rhetoric.

In local newspapers, associational and institutional records, and personal

papers, Hewitt discovers the first group to emerge in the frontier, boom-town

of upper New York State were the wives and daughters of the prospering (lat-

er elite) founders. They began dispensing charity in the 1820s and later

founded benevolent, sheltering institutions on a personal, unobtrusive, vol-

unteer basis. In the 1830s under the influence of waves of revivalism, a sec-

ond group of women, upwardly mobile, but less socially and politically se-

cure, translated evangelical fervor into personal and social perfectionist

pursuits. Finally, in the 1840s a third and most radical group (Ultraists ac-

cording to Hewitt) emerged. Socially marginal, rural as well as urban, signifi-

cantly Quaker in religious orientation, they were more often single or wid-

owed when compared to the more conventionally married women of the first

two "networks." These were the proponents or racial, gender, and even class

equality. Social critique and massive change rather than amelioration or re-

generation mark this group's tactics and goals.

Hewitt presents more than a tripartite scheme. The groups interact-often

in conflict-as well as ebb and flow over the half century covered. Differing

abilities to tap financial resources, ideological disparities that affected issues

addressed and strategies adapted, and the omnipresent concept of ideal

womanhood all affected these women as they acted upon their growing, in-

creasingly complex community. Hewitt is especially instructive in delineating

between the anti-slavery perfectionist women who renounced their active

stance in the wake of the conflicts over Garrisonianism and disputes over

women's participation in the movement and the radical Ultraists who worked

within the integrated Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. The former

reemerged in the 1850s in sex-segregated societies after concentrating on tem-

perance and moral reform in the interim.

A rich, detailed book, Women's Activism and Social Change is, in the end,

a case study. Other sites must be explored to determine if the patterns

Hewitt has discovered truly overturn the earlier straight-line conception

72                                                  OHIO HISTORY

(Anne Boylan's recent article on benevolent and reform societies in early 19th

century New York and Boston indicates that Rochester was not an excep-

tion). Hewitt has presented a model against which all future studies must be

measured. Whatever patterns may emerge, one fact is clear: without the fi-

nancially pressed, voluntary reform and welfare services of varied groups of

socially conscious 19th century women, urban growth and economic change

would have exacted immeasurably greater social costs.

Case Western Reserve University                        Lois Scharf

Fire in the Hole: Miners and Managers in the American Coal Industry. By

Curtis Seltzer. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1985. xii +

276p.; tables, illustrations, notes, index. $28.00.)

Using the coal industry as a case study, Curtis Seltzer measures the suc-

cess of the American private enterprise system in allocating resources

throughout the economy and in improving the conditions of workers. He la-

bels the system a failure upon discovering that the constant mismatch be-

tween the supply of and the demand for coal adversely affected labor/

management relations. He marvels that the coal industry has not been

nationalized, as is prevalent in other countries.

In the early years of the coal industry, when machines were rarely used

and competition was minimal, individual miners achieved the status of entre-

preneurs, giving them considerable freedom of choice in the workplace. As

competition between firms within the industry and from producers of alter-

native fuels increased, machine technology became more prominent in min-

ing operations to cut labor costs, increase productivity, and circumvent the

need for safety measures. Managers began to usurp control of the workplace

to protect increasing capital investments. The policies that they implemented

to survive in the competitive environment helped shift the labor/management

balance of power their way.

Competition among coal firms continued to increase throughout the nine-

teenth and early-twentieth centuries and reached its zenith after 1920 as a re-

sult of wildly fluctuating demand. In response to sagging profits and labor

strife, leaders in labor and industry decided to work together to limit compe-

tition. Both groups agreed that labor turmoil must cease, and that lower la-

bor costs, higher productivity, and price controls were necessary to restore

stability. The cooperation between labor representatives and coal executives

helped save the industry, but held dire consequences for coal workers.

According to Seltzer, the dominance of leaders in the United Mine Work-

ers Union who espoused the tenets of business unionism (the regulation of

management behavior using contracts and legislation while ceding to man-

agement the ". . . right to set policy and produce for profit" (p. 31)) is the ma-

jor reason the coal industry has not been nationalized. Leaders like John

Mitchell and John L. Lewis, working within the confines of a socio-political

system that rejected radical thought and activity, chose to pursue reform

rather than broad social change. Hoping to achieve respectable current

gains, they negotiated with coal executives to promote industrial peace, and

consequently stifled significant labor progress.

Book Reviews                                                    73

Seltzer predicts that sometime in the future, coal will be supplanted by re-

newable energy sources. He is concerned that the tremendous dislocations

experienced by the general public and coal laborers during the transition pe-

riod will not be minimized in a strictly private enterprise system. He suggests

that public planning would provide the most efficient and most equitable

means of operating the coal industry. Government planning agencies may be

able to control environmental and social costs better than the market system

by aggressively shifting supply and demand, when needed, and regulating

coal's price structure. Seltzer perceives that public planning would be respon-

sive to the electorate and most likely to result in the wisest long-term energy

choices.

Fire in the Hole is an excellent survey of the American coal industry from its

beginnings to the 1980s. Although the book relies on a rich array of second-

ary sources rather than the results of archival research, it will be attractive to

labor, social, and business historians who seek a summary of the problems

encountered by managers within the coal industry, their solutions, and the

effects those solutions had on labor and the public sector. It will also be of

interest to the advocates of public planning, for Seltzer skillfully reveals the

weaknesses of the market system and concludes that planning is the most via-

ble alternative, given our business heritage.

The Ohio State University                                Glen Avery

Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Industrial Proletariat, 1915-45. By Joe

William Trotter, Jr. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985. viii + 320p.;

maps, tables, photographs, appendixes, bibliographical essay, index,

$24.95.)

Since the early 1960s, students of recent black urban history have relied

on the "ghetto formation" approach. Focusing on residential patterns, the

ghetto model identified black migration and white racism as critical agents in

this process. Afro-Americans, especially working-class migrants, played pas-

sive roles in these formulations; they are often reduced to statistics on social

pathology. In his study of Black Milwaukee, Joe Trotter draws on new labor

history to offer a supplemental framework, the "process of proletarianiza-

tion." He redirects the focus "not merely upon the 'making of a ghetto' but

also upon the 'making of an Afro-American industrial working class'" (xii).

While the latter includes the impact of structural change on the black com-

munity, Trotter correctly notes that the proletarianization process owes "as

much to the dynamic responses of workers as to the impact of industrialists

and machines" (p. 276).

Unlike other major Great Lakes "foundry cities," ghetto formation took

place more slowly; Trotter concludes that it did not fully emerge until the

post-WW II period. Milwaukee's limited black migration and its tiny black

community (10,200 in 1945; only 1.6 percent of the city's population), largely

account for this. Nevertheless, Milwaukee's industries recruited black

southerners during World War I, and compared to other Afro-American

communities, black Milwaukee had one of the highest rates of industrial

employment in the nation. Despite access to industrial jobs, most Afro-

74                                                   OHIO HISTORY

Americans remained outside the industrial sector. The "black depression"

(1928-42), demonstrated "the tenuous nature of black urban-industrial work-

ing class formation"; virtually all industrial and many other private sector

jobs disappeared (p. 147).

Trotter finds the proletarianization process brought about a complex set of

changes. Working-class blacks developed an identity and solidarity based

on class. In contrast, the black bourgeoisie, made up largely of profession-

als and entrepreneurs, differed over ideology and strategy. Thus, the "old

elite" who served a racially mixed clientele sought integration while the

"new middle class," stressed racial solidarity, pride, and sought benefits

that racism and segregation could bring. However, the small size of this class

and reliance on a black proletarian base moderated these divisions; white

racism mitigated schisms between classes.

This is a very challenging and ambitious study; not all aspects of the study

are fully developed, however. While the author calls for a new approach, the

theoretical framework is thin. Some conclusions, like those on working-class

consciousness and solidarity, are deduced, not demonstrated; critical con-

cepts like social class remain undefined. Because the "process of proletariani-

zation" is reduced to a static formula that automatically makes all non-white

collar migrants proletarians, there is little focus on the complex processes of

adaptation to industrial employment or on working-class culture formation.

Ironically, workers appear dimly through several "working-class" organiza-

tions and leaders, while the bourgeoisie is more fully developed. Illustra-

tions reflect this imbalance; eight of nine photographs depict the middle

class. Finally, limited industrial employment and slow ghetto formation, sug-

gest the need for a longer time frame.

Nevertheless, this is a very fine and well-written study. While it stresses

universal structural changes, it effectively traces within a comparative frame-

work a black experience different from other major midwest cities. It effec-

tively critiques the "ghetto formation" model and suggests a new, better

framework. While the model is not fully worked out and workers rarely

emerge as actors, the book puts us a long way in the right direction. Finally, it

demonstrates impressive insight into intraracial and interclass divisions with-

in the black community. For these reasons alone, Black Milwaukee is a signifi-

cant contribution to the literature on black urban history.

Cleveland State University                           James Borchert

Race and Kinship in a Midwestern Town: The Black Experience in Monroe,

Michigan, 1900-1915. By James E. DeVries. (Urbana: University of Illinois

Press, 1984. xiii + 189p.; illustrations, figures, notes, appendix, index.

$17.50.)

Race and Kinship in a Midwestern Town: The Black Experience in Monroe,

Michigan, 1900-1915 was written by James E. DeVries, professor of history at

Monroe County Community College. Dr. DeVries' aim in this short study is to

provide greater historical understanding and knowledge about "the lives of

blacks in small towns and agrarian areas outside of the south," areas he feels

have been "unnoticed and uninvestigated by the professional historian."

Book Reviews                                                   75

He selected the period of 1900-1915 because of the availability of oral inform-

ants within the community of Monroe.

Race and Kinship in a Midwestern Town is divided into four chapters, with

an introduction, conclusion and appendix. In the introduction, the author

places Monroe and its black citizenry in historical perspective. Chapter one

examines more closely kinship networks within the context of historical Mon-

roe. In chapters two and three, the author examines racial stereotypes. In the

final chapter an attempt is made to portray the "quality of life experienced by

selected Monroe Negroes."

One concludes reading the book wondering why it was written since there

must be substantial unpublished manuscripts which would add significantly

to our understanding of the black experience. The sources dictated the story

to be told, and that story adds little to our understanding of the black expe-

rience. The author shows that blacks, during the late-19th and early-20th

centuries, did not accept the stereotype of themselves; but here once again

the author offers little new information. Very seldom does the reader get a

full understanding of the lives of the people about which he is writing. For

example, he does not fully discuss the mental distress of being colored in

white America, and nor does he adequately explain why the interracial un-

ion within the Duncanson family was ignored by the white community.

Robert S. Duncanson, the black muralist, spent his adolescent and early

adult years in Monroe, which is probably the most significant event in a town

that never had more than 45 Negroes recorded in the census records be-

tween 1840 and 1920. DeVries acknowledges early in his study that Monroe

did not develop a black subculture. The lack of a black subculture further

complicates the author's effort to tell the story of the black experience. The

author is forced to reconstruct the experience of a small number of blacks

who lived in Monroe and who left few written records. At best, the author

found it difficult to say who these people were, how blacks acted, reacted to

their environment, and what they thought of themselves and their place in

the community.

The author does show how pervasive racism was at the turn of the century

and how through national cohesiveness, racism spread to the little midwest-

ern town of Monroe. DeVries is more successful in providing insight into the

white community and its attitudes toward blacks. For example, on page 108

he observes that "blacks were required to be failures and then held respon-

sible for their lack of success."

While there are some significant areas within the book, overall, Race and

Kinship in a Midwestern Town adds little new information to our knowledge of

the period.

Ohio Historical Society                              John Fleming

The Care of Antiques and Historical Collections. By Per E. Guldbeck. Sec-

ond edition, revised and expanded by A. Bruce MacLeish. (Nashville:

AASLH Press, 1985. xiii + 248p.; illustrations, suggested readings, appen-

dices, index. $14.95.)

For all owners and collectors of antiques, A. Bruce MacLeish's revised and

76                                                  OHIO HISTORY

expanded edition of Per E. Guldbeck's 1972 The Care of Historical Collec-

tions makes absorbing reading. In addition to its supply of useful information

on conservation, the book produces a perhaps unexpected visceral thrill:

each reader will be constantly wondering, "What have I done wrong in the

past?" It is precisely this question that the book sets out to eliminate. With

its publication there is no longer any excuse for the owners of historical ob-

jects to resort to home remedies or hearsay procedures as they attempt to

solve the conservation problems confronting them.

The Care of Antiques and Historical Collections is directed primarily to-

ward individual collectors or small- to medium-sized historical agencies,

owners with restrictions on money, staff, and time. These are the collectors

most inclined-through force of necessity-to take conservation matters into

their own hands and are, therefore, the ones most in need of the information

in this book. But even larger institutions will find the book useful, providing

advice on when to call the "doctor" and how to stabilize conditions in the

meantime. While some of the material may seem elementary or even danger-

ously simplified to those with conservation training, there remains the neces-

sity in this area to emphasize the obvious in order to counteract the destruc-

tive and persistent knee-jerk responses to conservation problems. Too many

historical objects in need of minor attention have been irreparably damaged

by almost-unconscious reactions in the vein of, "Oh, I'll stick it in the wash-

er," or "I bet some Windex would clean that up," or "I think I have a bottle

of glue around here somewhere." Repeatedly, MacLeish asserts that a cool,

collected evaluation of the situation is essential before any action is even con-

sidered.

But before MacLeish begins to suggest any conservation treatments, he

makes one of the book's most important points, championing the cause of

proper preservation of artifacts before conservation ever becomes necessary.

MacLeish observes that objects are much more useful as historical docu-

ments if they are maintained in as close as possible to their original state. The

intervening stages of conservation hold the potential for eliminating signifi-

cant evidence, a loss which proper maintenance might have prevented. Al-

though certain artifacts present inherent conservation difficulties, the storage

and display of most historical objects under appropriate environmental con-

ditions with corresponding attention to the allied issues of fire protection and

security could obviate or at least delay their requiring restoration or repair.

MacLeish sets forth the basic principles of collections maintenance in the

book's opening chapters and discusses the specific conditions most suitable

to individual materials in the following pages.

However, despite the best care and intentions, conservation problems do

occur and objects enter collections in conditions which demand attention.

For such cases, MacLeish establishes responsible techniques for responding

to the conditions involved. The information is organized into chapters deal-

ing with individual materials or related groups of materials so that the reader

seeking a solution to a problem with, for example, paper or silver can turn im-

mediately to the pertinent pages without the necessity of referring to an in-

dex. In chapter after chapter, MacLeish repeats the caution to plan carefully

a course of action, consider the drawbacks, and test any potential solution in

a small, inconspicuous area. At numerous points, he rejects any attempt at

self-help on the part of the collector, announcing that the problem is too com-

plex or dangerous for treatment by an untrained individual and should be

Book Reviews                                                   77

turned over to a professional conservator. Where treatment is feasible, Mac-

Leish gives step-by-step instructions along with brand names and chemical

names for the substances required. The book also provides clear illustrations

and a listing of suppliers. Significantly, each chapter concludes with a list of

related material for further reading, making clear that what is presented is

merely a starting place for treatment rather than a comprehensive manual for

dealing with every possible situation. And there are points at which Mac-

Leish observes that the present state of conservation knowledge does not in-

clude solutions for certain problems-a valuable insight for the consumer of

conservation services.

The Care of Antiques and Historical Collections is an excellent book for

introducing the collector to the issues of preservation and conservation in-

volved with historical objects and antiques. And, for the concerned owner

of objects requiring attention, it provides not only basic remedies but points

to a wide array of human and printed resources for most appropriately deal-

ing with the problems. It is an essential for every collector's bookcase.

Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute               Christopher Bensch

The Shaker Chair. By Charles R. Muller and Timothy D. Rieman. (Canal Win-

chester, Ohio: The Canal Press, 1984. 268p.; illustrations, appendices, bib-

liography, index. $35.00.)

The eighteenth century witnessed a plethora of religious cum political cum

social cum economic sects in the British Isles and Northern Europe, many

transplanting themselves in the United States during the latter part of the

century and early in the nineteenth century. The United States contributed

additional philosophies and sub-sects. A new nation, without a state religion

(and, indeed, guaranteeing "freedom of religion"), would certainly attract

these small religious groups, even as it had the Puritans and the Quakers.

The ever-widening western frontier offered ample land in which to establish

religious communities; for example, Ohio had congregations of Owenites,

German Separatists, Mormons, Millerites, as well as Shakers. Some of the

smaller religious communities, such as the German Separatists at Zoar, be-

came highly successful in an economic sense; others, such as the Millerites,

were duped by the extraordinary personal appeal of their otherwise iniqui-

tous leaders. (When the world failed to end in 1843 or 1844-several dates

were announced-a number of Millerites joined the Shakers in Warren Coun-

ty.)

The Shakers, or "The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Ap-

pearing," were an outgrowth of a Quaker revival in England in 1747. The

name supposedly derived from the members shaking as an emotional re-

sponse during their meetings; this emotionalism was perhaps sublimated in

later years by formalized group dancing, which has been pictured in contem-

porary prints. Mother Ann Lee led a small group to the American Colonies in

1774, settling near Watervliet, New York. For many reasons-common prop-

erty, celibacy, unorthodox religious philosophy-the Shakers never num-

bered more than about 5000 in the United States. Intelligent, dedicated con-

verts did not come easily, and membership declined rapidly during the

78                                                  OHIO HISTORY

latter nineteenth century. Members were admired for their industry, hones-

ty, benevolent acts, and the high quality of their farm produce and manufac-

tured goods. They were derided for their religious views and mode of life,

and were often subjected to harsh attacks, for example the continual acts of

arson in the Union Village settlement in Warren County, Ohio. It is impossi-

ble, and not necessary, to give more than a brief description of the Shakers;

dozens of volumes are available concerning every aspect of the sect's history.

There is much material extant concerning the Ohio communities.

Despite all their problems, by the mid-nineteenth century the quality of

Shaker products had achieved national status. Chairs had been sold at least

as early as 1789, and the manufacture and sale of them continued until

1942-an astonishing feat considering the small size of the sect and its contin-

ual decline. Most of the communities produced chairs with a continuity of

style indicating they were "Shaker," yet with enough local variations to al-

low specific identification. Listing from the Table of Contents of The Shaker

Chair, the communities studied are: Watervliet (N.Y.); Enfield and Canter-

bury (N.H.); Harvard (Mass.); Enfield (Conn.); Alfred and Sabbathday

Lake (Maine); Union Village, Watervliet, Whitewater, and North Union

(Ohio); Pleasant Hill and South Union (Ky.); and New Lebanon (N.Y.). Sty-

listically, the chairs are compared detail by detail: the profile of the front

and back legs; the curve and decorative termination of the arms and rockers;

the shape of the back slats and finials; the seat material (cloth tape, wood

splint, etc.) and its color; the type of finish applied to the chair frame; and

markings. These comparisons are best handled visually, thus the 400-plus il-

lustrations in the book.

No doubt there are debatable points concerning stylistic idiosyncracies

between the chairs of various Shaker communities, and within each commu-

nity over a long period of time, which some collectors will note. There are

certainly similarities between the plain "Ohio" ladderback utility chair of

the second quarter of the nineteenth century and the Union Village chairs of

the same period. What influences were at work? Is the same parallelism not-

ed between the New York State chairmakers and the resident Shakers?

There is no doubt that Shaker doctrine imposed and reinforced, from time

to time, the concept of simplicity and function in design on both traditional

and current patterns. With the decline of the Shakers, when does design

and handcraftsmanship compromise with the necessity of increased produc-

tion through industrial technology? The Shakers utilized many technologi-

cally advanced machines in all their shops. That such a seemingly conserva-

tive group would even consider "modern" innovations is surprising;

however, they were dependent on sales income for their existence, and

needed all possible assistance as their membership declined.

There are two references in the book indicating the Shakers were admon-

ished by their leaders for enjoying the comfort of their own rocking chairs.

The standard Shaker chair, with its rigid vertical back and right-angle seat,

simply was not the ultimate achievement in comfort. No wonder the rocking

chairs were popular, and that the Shakers made cushions for them. The in-

vention of the tilting foot for the rear legs of the straight chair relates to the

comfort problem. It is natural to tilt back in a straight chair if it does not fit

the configuration of the body. This wears down the legs, and often breaks

the chair frame. Consequently, the popularity of the rocking chair, the cush-

Book Reviews                                                  79

ions, and tilting feet demonstrate that the chairs were uncomfortable even to

their nineteenth century owners. The aesthetic quality of the design, the

sound construction, and the romance of the Shaker movement must have

overshadowed personal comfort in the minds of many.

Shaker furniture has been privately collected for at least one hundred

years. It was admired by proponents of Art Nouveau, then by the Arts and

Crafts Movement early in this century. All Shaker artifacts became desirable

"collectibles" in the 1930s. Since World War II, Shaker furniture has been

dichotomously appreciated for its aesthetic qualities as well as its investment

value in the antique market. These two factors ultimately generate competent

reference literature. The book in review, The Shaker Chair, is an excellent pro-

duction, illustrating dozens of extant chairs and utilizing contemporary refer-

ences, photographs, and graphics. Romance and myth, common to many

Shaker reference works, have been excluded.

The text is brief and to the point; the illustrations and layout are excellent:

the book is more than reasonable at the asking price, considering other

books of similar quality or cost. The authors of The Shaker Chair-Muller,

Rieman, and Metzger-are to be commended. Muller is editor of Antique Re-

view, a trade paper published in Worthington, Ohio. He graduated from the

United Theological Seminary in Dayton, and his interest in theology led to a

previous book, The Shaker Way, in 1979. Rieman lives in an early home in the

Shaker community of New Lebanon, N.Y., and is a craftsman at Hancock

Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass. Metzger is a graphic artist with an archi-

tectural firm in Hamden, Conn., and has an interest in the Shakers and their

graphics.

Ohio Historical Society                             Donald Hutslar

The Lincoln Image: Abraham Lincoln and the Popular Print. By Harold Holz-

er, Gabor S. Boritt, and Mark E. Neely, Jr. (New York: Charles Scribner's

Sons, 1984. xxi + 234p.; illustrations, notes, index. $35.00.)

With the nomination of Abraham Lincoln at the Wigwam in Chicago in

1860, the American people suddenly had a candidate that few people knew.

Some had read his 1858 speeches printed in newspaper accounts, and those

since, but most had not seen the soon-to-be-elected president. The Repub-

lican Party, as well as commercial printers, soon realized that what was need-

ed was a public-image campaign that could get Lincoln elected in a four can-

didate election and after the election a public image of a president for all the

electorate.

Today, a public relations consultant would develop a slick television, radio,

newspaper campaign to attract the attention of the voters. No such tools ex-

isted in the middle nineteenth century. Politics was a different beast in the

previous century with personal emotionalism, identification and "testifying"

as to your selection. It was no secret who you supported when you cast your

vote orally for all to hear prior to 1848, and by party colored ballot during the

Civil War era. You took your stand for a particular individual and were proud

to demonstrate it. Demonstrating it meant hanging on the parlor wall or fence

a fifty-cent lithograph or a ten-dollar steel engraving of the individual. Pub-

80                                                  OHIO HISTORY

lishing houses printed to promote commercialism and not necessarily to pro-

mote a candidate.

The Lincoln Image by Harold Holzer, Gabor Boritt, and Mark Neely, Jr., is

a two hundred plus page book about two institutions of the nineteenth centu-

ry. First, it is the creating of a Lincoln image and secondly, a story of print

production and those individuals who made their living from the profession.

The background for the book came from the exhibit at Gettysburg College

in 1984 of engravings and lithographs to commemorate the 175th anniversary

of the sixteenth president's birth. The exhibit was also shown at the John

Hay Library at Brown University and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

The book illuminates the story of Lincoln's rise to national recognition

through the art of prints. Probably no individual went through a more thor-

ough transformation in the image of the American people than did Abraham

Lincoln. In 1860, artists rushed to capture his likeness with Lincoln's cooper-

ation. Few in haste to sell their product accomplished the task. By growing a

beard, the president-elect voided their adventure, thus forcing the printers

to redo their product to satisfy the market place. Few artists ever, during the

Lincoln years, captured the true physical features of the President. As one

soldier said upon seeing the commander-in-chief in person, "He looks much

better than the likeness we see of him."

In an age of sentimentalism, the photographer could not always satisfy the

consumer. But the printmaker, sometimes using outright fakery with imagina-

tion and taking artistic license, could create the fanciful and the symbolic im-

age that the people wanted to see in their president. Needless to say, the

printer could even do more to enhance the finished product. All this hap-

pened at one time or another to Lincoln. First came the election, then the he-

roic image of the Emancipation Proclamation era, and finally the "prophet,

savior, and martyr" image after his assassination by John Wilkes Booth.

In an age when prints and lithographs were the "sole mirror" for the gen-

eral public to witness their leader, the Civil War and finally the tragedy of

April 14, 1865, it was a lucrative business of profit. Accuracy be damned and

profit to be made was the driving force. Three well-known Lincoln scholars

have in text, photographs, illustrations and prints documented Lincoln's

emergence from an unknown Illinois politician to a revered national hero.

Those interested in this phenomenon will enjoy this book with over one hun-

dred illustrations and footnotes.

Youngstown State University                       Hugh G. Earnhart