Book Reviews
Early Maps of the Ohio Valley: A
Selection of Maps, Plans, and Views
Made by Indians and Colonials from
1673 to 1783. By Lloyd Arnold
Brown. (Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1959. xiv??
132p.; illustrations, maps,
plans, and bibliography. $12.00.)
This handsome volume, edited by Lloyd A.
Brown for the Eavenson
Cartography Fund, is an attractive
picture book which summarizes the
cartographic history of the Ohio River
region from 1673 to 1783. It
features a brief introductory chapter on
La Belle Riviere, fifty-four
beautifully reproduced maps, and
explanatory notes for each map. Mr.
Brown's work stands not only as a
handsome tribute to Howard N.
Eavenson, who devoted so much of his
life and fortune to the study of
the cartographic record of the
trans-Allegheny area, but also as a fas-
cinating introduction to the evolution
of geographical knowledge about
that vast region of vast importance.
Writing in 1744, Jacques Nicolas Bellin,
one of the best geographers
of his day, observed that "one day
Geography would prove to be so
advantageous to a knowledge of History
that the two would become
inseparable." In this book Mr.
Brown presents an erudite illustration
of this maxim, with geography tending to
lag behind history a few
paces, but finally catching up in 1783,
when the treaty of Paris created
a new nation and fixed its geographical
boundaries on a copy of John
Mitchell's map, the "title guarantee"
of the United States. Indeed, there
seems to be something significantly
symbolic about Mr. Brown's choice
of end papers, the front one being
Bellin's map of the Mississippi and
Ohio River areas "et pays
voisins" at the peak of French power and
the back one featuring the Fry-Jefferson
map, published only a year
before the junior collaborator's son
gained fame as the author of the
Declaration of Independence.
The earliest maps are those by Father
Marquette and Jolliet in
1673-74, perhaps the first maps to show
the beautiful Ohio. From the
early French period there are also
important maps by Franquelin, Hen-
nepin, and La Hontan,
"discoverer" of the mythical River Long. The
earliest English maps reproduced are an
undated anonymous sketch
BOOK REVIEWS 71
probably drawn during Queen Anne's War,
and Daniel Coxe's map
(1722) of "Carolana and the River
Meschacebe [Mississippi]," one of
the first to label the Ohio with its
English name. These maps are
characteristically English in origin;
Coxe's is a speculator's map of a
land grant and the other is essentially
a war map.
War or impending war, as Mr. Brown
points out, was the greatest
stimulant to the mapping of the Ohio
area in the eighteenth century.
Between Queen Anne's War and the Great
War for Empire, there are
about a half dozen maps which point up
the growing Anglo-French
rivalry in one way or another. Perhaps
the most interesting of these
early English maps is that by Henry
Popple, the brother of the
secretary to the board of trade and
plantations. Reflecting official knowl-
edge of the extent of "the British
Empire in America with the French
and Spanish settlements adjacent
thereto," the map was completed in
1733 and a copy sent to each of the British
colonies in America, follow-
ing up an earlier report suggesting
"considerations for securing and
enlarging the British colonies."
The commercial and political rivalry
between France and England
spawned a new series of maps in the
seventeen forties and fifties. By the
mid-fifties England and France had
scoured the area from the moun-
tains to the Mississippi, accumulating
enough geographical knowledge
to make an accurate map possible for the
first time. Thirty of the
fifty-four maps originate between 1752
and 1766, and there is a whole
cluster of maps relating to the
Pittsburgh and lower Ohio areas, begin-
ning with George Washington's sketch of
the country he traversed in
1753-54, and including several maps of
the routes followed by the
Braddock and Forbes expeditions. The
final seven maps include three
from the pre-Revolutionary period and
three from the Revolutionary
era.
Mapmaking in the eighteenth century was
largely utilitarian, and the
mapping of the North American interior
was done by a heterogeneous
group of explorers, missionaries, Indian
traders, military engineers,
and surveyors. The quality of the maps
therefore varies greatly, both in
craftsmanship and accuracy. Some, like
Louis de la Porte de Louvigny's,
are amateurish in technique; others,
like William Scull's map of Penn-
sylvania, are excellent examples of
draftsmanship. Some, like those
by Robert Stobo and Christopher Gist,
are by people drawing on the
spot or basing their sketches on
first-hand knowledge; others, like those
by Edward Wells and Vincenzo Maria
Coronelli, are by expert carto-
72
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
graphic research men who never left
home, but instead pored over the
journals and diaries of explorers.
One of the great maps of the period was
Lewis Evans' "general map
of the Middle British colonies in
America," which featured an inset
"Sketch of the remaining part of
Ohio." In it Evans caught something
of the majestic sweep of the North
American interior and concluded
that "were there nothing at Stake
between the Crowns of Great Britain
and France, but the Lands on that Part
of the Ohio included in this
Map, we may reckon it as great a Prize
as has ever been contended for,
between two Nations." Another
excellent general map of the western
parts of America, "comprehending
the river Ohio, and all the rivers,
which fall into it," is that by
Thomas Hutchins, in 1778 a captain in
George III's Royal American Regiment and
later first geographer of
the United States. His panoramic view of
the land of western waters
is not only accurate in geographical
details but is interesting for his
fascinating tidbits of information about
natural resources (coal, lead,
petroleum, and salt), the quality of the
land ("Great extent of level good
farming land"), and wildlife
("innumerable Herds of Buffaloe, Elk,
Deer, &c"). But each reader
will single out his own favorites, all hand-
somely reproduced in collotype by those
master craftsmen at the Meriden
Gravure Company.
Institute of Early American JAMES MORTON SMITH
History and Culture
The Years of Youth: Kent State
University, 1910-1960. By Phillip R.
Shriver. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State
University Press, 1960. viii??
266p.; illustrations,
epilogue, bibliographic note, and index. $2.50.)
This volume on the first fifty years of
Kent State University is the
work of a professor of history in that
institution. The university began
as a state normal school and like her
sister institution in Bowling Green,
Ohio, successively became a state normal
college and state university.
The Years of Youth begins, almost at once, with the campaign for and
the adoption by the legislature of Ohio
(May 19, 1910) of a normal-
school bill. A second campaign and
competition, unseemly as usual in
such cases, among twenty towns of
northeastern Ohio, ended in Novem-
ber, when the new school was located in
the village of Kent. On page
30 of the volume the first president,
James E. McGilvrey, is introduced.
This rapid pace is well maintained
throughout the book.
BOOK REVIEWS 73
The basic organization follows the
school's presidential administra-
tions, modified by the extraordinary
series of crises caused in some
cases by presidential mismanagement. The
position and power of the
American college presidency make this
type of organization seem almost
necessary; but in the present volume the
frequent monotony is avoided
by the skillful use of topics that
overlap the breaks between administra-
tions.
The topics are introduced in a generally
but not strictly chronological
order. Finances, including legislative
appropriations, receive attention.
The first table of enrollments (p. 56)
covers the years from 1914 to
1926, and additional statistics are
given from time to time, but it is not
clear that all of them are comparable.
There are several sections on new
buildings (pp. 57, 221) and further
references to housing elsewhere. No
statement on admission requirements has
been found, and the narrative
justifies the assumption that in the
early years they were leniently
administered. New subjects were added to
the program from time to
time, but not a single curriculum
outline is given. Physical education
and commercial studies were important
additions. To say that enroll-
ment in the department of commerce had
increased 1,500 percent (p.
107) is meaningless, because no base is
given.
In the early normal-school years, Kent
had few men on her rolls and
regularly lost all games even to her
smallest opponents, and this story
is frankly told as well as that of the
jollification which followed Kent's
first victory. The Kent State Council to
direct student activities was
formed under the first president. Greek
letter societies and dramatic,
musical, and literary societies came in
about the same time. The school
and its activities in the Second World
War, the problems brought by
the deluge of returning veterans, and
the effects of the Korean War are
treated. These are selected examples of
the kinds of topics which give
substance to this and every college
history.
What distinguishes this history from
others is the long series of
crises that afflicted the institution.
The author correctly describes Presi-
dent McGilvrey as an "aggressive
expansionist" (p. 58) and an
"aggressive promoter" (p. 82).
It is not shown that in his administra-
tion any academic standards were ever
allowed to interfere with any
means that would increase enrollment.
The first four presidents of
the institution were either dismissed or
"permitted to resign," although
the action against President James
Engelman was rescinded. The board
of trustees would seem to have been
negligent and incompetent by turns;
the town of Kent in its desire to sell
to the students a million dollars
74 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
worth of shoelaces and other goods (p.
60) had a bad influence upon the
school; and the academic bequest left by
President McGilvrey was a
clear cause of later difficulties. The
long series of crises came to an end
in 1944, when the present president,
George A. Bowman, was inducted
into office. Kent State University has
made steady progress in what
is already the longest administration in
her history.
This expertly written book reveals
prejudices and contains lessons,
but they are not labeled.
Ohio State University H. G. GOOD
The Copperheads in the Middle West. By Frank L. Klement. (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
xiii??341p.; illustrations,
bibliographical essay, and index.
$7.50.)
One of the torn and twisted threads of
the tangled skein of Civil
War politics has been the story of the
northern Democrats. They have
been commonly pictured as fifth-column
traitors or peace-at-any-price
men or "sesesh" men.
"Copperheads," the contemporary, contemp-
tuous term applied to them, has been too
often accepted in all its
opprobrium by historians.
"Good" Democrats of course existed, but,
in the accepted view, became War
Democrats, who joined with Repub-
licans in vigorously prosecuting the
war. But any such black and white
picture of the complex conglomeration of
people who comprised the
northern branch of the Jefferson-Jackson
party is a misleading de-
parture from reality.
In the volume at hand Professor Frank L.
Klement of Marquette
University seeks "to reexamine the
Copperhead movement of the
Middle West" and to reassess its
historical significance. Cutting through
the maze of deliberate political
propaganda, mischievous misrepresenta-
tion, and traditional historical
interpretation is a difficult task indeed.
The difficulty is further compounded by
the paucity of materials. The
papers of many men labeled Copperheads
have disappeared through
natural disaster, such as the Dayton
flood of 1913 (in the case of Val-
landigham), or have been withheld or
destroyed by sensitive descend-
ants or have been neglected and
dispersed (as in the case of "Sunset"
Cox). Klement has, however,
painstakingly tracked down a vast quan-
tity of primary evidence and has
diligently combed the extant collections
of Copperheads' papers (notably those of
Sidney Breese, William R.
Morrison, and Thomas O. Lowe) and the
Democratic press (especially
Samuel Medary's Crisis, Charles
Lanphier's Illinois State Register,
BOOK REVIEWS 75
"Brick" Pomeroy's La Crosse
Democrat, the Cincinnati Enquirer,
Chicago Times, Dayton Empire, and Hamilton True Telegraph). The
results are impressive.
In eight carefully organized, tightly
woven chapters, the story of
midwestern Copperheadism emerges. Its
economic, social, regional,
and religious roots are clearly
demonstrated. The rising opposition to
the Lincoln administration's highhanded
military arrests, emancipation
policy, suppression of newspapers, high
tariff measures, and "rampant
partyism" are fully treated, along
with the widespread Democratic
successes at the polls in 1862. The
focus, as the title indicates, is on the
Middle West rather than the nation.
Klement effectively explodes the
legend of the Knights of the Golden
Circle and the Order of American
Knights as powerful secret societies and
demonstrates that their strength
was largely imaginary and was magnified
by Republican governors Yates
and Morton and various army officers for
partisan political ends and for
personal advantage. Union military
victories, especially after August
1864, brought about the rapid demise of
Copperhead opposition. A
final chapter takes a quick glance at
what happened to northern Demo-
cratic leaders after 1865.
The emerging picture of Copperheads is
that of a group of conserva-
tives who, hoping to preserve the
agrarian social order of the Jefferson-
Jackson years, fought vigorously in
opposition to the rapid changes
toward an industrial society that the
war was bringing on. Many
Copperheads later became leaders in the
Granger and Populist move-
ments.
One wishes that the term
"Copperhead" might have been given a
sharper definition at the outset of the
book. Further, a close look at
the extensive Alexander Long manuscript
collection, housed in Cin-
cinnati's Historical and Philosophical
Society of Ohio library, might
have added another dimension to the
story.
For the historian and general reader of
political history, Frank
Klement has performed a distinctly
valuable service in providing a fresh,
clear, and scholarly picture of a
previously much-muddied chapter of
American politics during a critical era.
Los Angeles State College DAVID LINDSEY
American Labor. By Henry Pelling. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1960. vii+247p.; bibliography and
index. $4.00.)
This is another volume in the topical
group of the excellent Chicago
History of American Civilization series.
Like the other books in the
76
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
series, it is without footnotes but
contains a brief, selective bibliography
and a list of important dates pertaining
to the subject treated. The
author, a fellow of Queen's College,
Oxford, who has previously written
on the British Labor party and the
British left and has traveled and
resided in the United States, has a
rather good grasp of American
labor history and, despite occasional
lapses, of American history in
general.
Mr. Pelling's approach to his subject is
basically chronological. He
treats the labor movement from colonial
times to the present, but his
major emphasis is on the period since
1861: only 47 of the 227 pages
of text are devoted to the years before
the Civil War. The focus of the
individual chapters, each of which
begins with a brief analysis of the
economic environment of the period under
consideration, is primarily
on the labor movement, but attention is
also given to such matters as
labor legislation, labor and politics,
and the nature of the labor force.
Although the work suffers a bit from
compression, the author does hit
most of the high spots of American labor
history and frequently illu-
minates his narrative by comparisons
between the British and the
American labor movements.
The major characteristics affecting the
development of the American
labor movement have been, according to
Mr. Pelling, the heterogeneity
of the labor force, the relatively high
wages and incomes of American
workers, the importance of agriculture
in the United States to the end
of the nineteenth century, and the lack
of class consciousness on the
part of the American workingman. Of
these factors, Pelling tends to
overstress the significance of
agriculture in the history of the American
labor movement. This is particularly
evident in his somewhat incautious
use of the much disputed safety-valve
theory. One also finds it very
difficult to agree with the author's
conclusion that the failure of Ameri-
can workers to establish a national
labor party stems primarily from the
fact that blue-collar employees have
never constituted a numerical ma-
jority of the American people.
Readers familiar with the basic
secondary literature dealing with the
history of the labor movement in the
United States will discover little
that is new to them in this volume. The
uninitiated, however, will find
this a satisfactory, brief introduction
to an important subject.
University of Michigan SIDNEY FINE
BOOK REVIEWS 77
Origin of the Amzerican Revolution:
1759-1766. By Bernhard Knollen-
berg. (New York: Macmillan Company,
1960. viii??486p.; appen-
dices, bibliographies, and index.
$8.50.)
Knollenberg's thesis, flatly stated and
ponderously documented, is
that the colonies were on the point of
rebellion in 1765-66 not just
because of the stamp act but because of
a number of irritants which
preceded that infamous law and which
continued after its repeal. None
of these irritants is new to the student
of colonial history. What is new
is the attention that the author gives
them. Yet no attempt is made to
assess the relative importance of these
several sources of friction; if
one were to judge by space allotment
alone, the revenue acts still come
out as most significant.
Knollenberg has deliberately chosen to
rely almost entirely on original
documents, from which he quotes
generously, but his methodology
leaves him subject to criticism in one
respect. His interpretation of
the sources causes him to contradict the
thesis of Edmund S. Morgan
that the colonists made no distinction
between internal and external
taxation by parliament. And this
question of types of taxes is no minor
matter in the Knollenberg account. He
dwells upon the inconsistency
of the colonists in at first accepting
and then rejecting external taxation,
and he even alleges that Britain's
tougher attitude toward the colonies
after the Townshend acts ran into
trouble is traceable in part to the
"seeming duplicity or crass
opportunism" of colonial leaders who had
earlier conceded that external taxation
was acceptable. Morgan's view,
except for the listing of The Stamp
Act Crisis in the bibliography, is
simply ignored. Commitment to original
sources can scarcely justify
refusal to take into account the
interpretations of other historians. Such
methodology denies the usefulness of
writing history. Knollenberg
certainly owes his readers an
explanation of just where Morgan errs,
if he does.
Only about half of Knollenberg's book is
given over to text; the rest
is comprised of scholarly apparatus,
some of which is unique and useful
--his careful handling of the meanings
of eighteenth century words, for
example. The notes and bibliography are almost overwhelming in
extent. Yet burdened though it is, the
book is not a timid one. On
more than one occasion the speculation
of the author is perceptive,
even shrewd. One of the most satisfying
sections of the book is the
treatment of the whole problem of
colonial defense, particularly the
analysis of Britain's reasons for
increasing the number of troops in
North America after the peace of 1763.
Here and there Knollenberg
78
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
possibly goes out on a limb, for example
his conjectures on what might
have been had Pitt or Newcastle held
onto power, but this is not objec-
tionable. The summaries of the Parsons'
Cause, of colonial reaction
to the white pine laws, and of the
agitation centering around a bishop
for the colonies are useful. The weakest
chapter is surely that which
examines colonial taxation as a
constitutional issue. The author's effort
to trace to Magna Carta parliament's
obligation, moral at least, to recog-
nize the principle of no taxation
without representation seems naive at
best.
Yet in many respects this is a
meticulous, almost fussy book. One
wonders for what audience it was
intended. The sheer weight of notes
would probably scare off the general
reader, and still the author feels
impelled to define terms like quit
rent, surely well enough known to
historians. The author's foremost
concern is documentation, and he
lets the style, such as it is, take care
of itself. The result is a somewhat
plodding, but scholarly work, very
useful in its several parts, but one
that does not greatly change our notions
of the origin of the Revolution.
Marietta College ROBERT J. TAYLOR
Hamlin Garland: A Biography. By Jean Holloway. (Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1960. xv??346p.;
illustrations, bibliography, and
index. $6.00.)
In a sense, the Middle Border never did
exist, Hamlin Garland once
told George Bernard Shaw. "It was
but a vaguely defined region even
in my boyhood. It was the line drawn by
the plow, and broadly speak-
ing, ran parallel to the upper
Mississippi when I was a lad. It lay
between the land of the hunter and the
harvester." As a literary region
it stretched chiefly through the highly
creative recollections of Garland
himself. There, through six decades of
his voluminous writing, the
border, with its numerous contributory
roads and trails, provided
materials for some of our finest local
color stories, several fairly sub-
stantial novels, a really distinctive
American autobiography, and much
valuable reminiscence.
Jean Holloway now presents the first
full-length study of the Middle
Border's creator. It is a solid, useful
biography, built discerningly from
abundant personal data, available
largely in the Garland Papers of
Doheny Library, University of Southern
California, together with a
careful survey of Garland's many
writings. The result is a simple, direct
BOOK REVIEWS 79
chronicle, with no wandering from the
main road for psychological pros-
pecting or for mirages of idealization.
Garland was always both a creative
artist and a publicist. In fact, to
later readers he sometimes seems to have
been the former chiefly as a
by-product of the latter, and Mrs.
Holloway's careful analyses show
why. Whatever degree of realism
Garland's "veritistic" story telling
may have had, there was always present a
vigorously active idealism,
usually stirred by some current devotion
to a cause--and there was
always a cause, or half a dozen, ranging
from the single tax and Popu-
lism in the earlier years to
spiritualism in the later. The fine stories
in Main-Travelled Roads (1891)
were motivated as much by zeal for
Henry George and the agrarian revolt as
by his artist's desire to record
the local color of the upper Mississippi
country. Crumbling Idols (his
best extended critical statement) and Rose
of Dutcher's Coolly (prob-
ably his best novel) came with his
whole-hearted discipleship to Howells
and the new realism.
Howells, though he liked his young
lieutenant, was often forced, Mrs.
Holloway shows, to criticize the young
enthusiast's too-hasty efforts.
Remembering the "great, simple,
individual work" he had genuinely
admired in some of the Main-Travelled
Roads stories, Howells could
rarely find anything as good again until
A Son of the Middle Border
(1917), and time has tended to respect
Howells' evaluations.
Not just the fickleness of a writer's
market, then, but native bents
made lecturing Garland's central source
of livelihood through much of
his long life. He was a natural public
relations man. He knew, and was
often the close friend of, most of the
important American writers,
artists, and leaders of causes for half
a century, and his detailed records
of these contacts are now indispensable
research sources. Mrs. Hol-
loway is especially adept in surveying
these long, personal associations.
One minor error Ohio readers will wish
set right--young Garland
did not begin his teaching "in a
country school in Grundy County,
Ohio." The author intended
"Iowa."
Otterbein College ROBERT PRICE
The Quiet Rebel: William Dean Howells
as Social Commentator. By
Robert L. Hough. (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1959.
137p.; index. $4.00.)
William Dean Howells has enjoyed so much
scholarly attention in
the last twenty years that, many-sided
as he was, it is hardly possible
80
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
at this date to discover anything very
new or surprising about so con-
sistent and predictable a man.
Consequently, Mr. Hough, a professor
of English at the University of
Nebraska, has written a book which is
useful not so much for original
conclusions as it is for its patient glean-
ing and thoughtful synthesis of
practically everything Howells had to
say-whether in novels, autobiography,
letters, or articles-upon Ameri-
can social problems, on which subject the
Ohioan was as sensitive and
humane an observer as we have ever had.
The fiction of any realist is, if only
by implication, "critical" of the
social scene. But by the late 1880's,
after his passionate conversion to
the Christian-socialist ethics of Tolstoy,
Howells' criticism of our society
became ardent and explicit. In his
so-called "social novels" between
1885 and 1895, in fact, he was not so
very quiet a rebel, and the
vehemence of his views earned him a lot
of distrust and censure by the
"best people." Besides his
novels, his book reviews promoted the ideas
of such liberals and radicals as
Bellamy, George, Gronlund, Lloyd, and
Veblen; and his hundreds of magazine
articles persuasively advocated
progressive causes, such as income tax,
women's suffrage, world gov-
ernment, prison reform, and abolition of
capital punishment.
By the 1890's Howells, once optimistic
and economically conserva-
tive, had become pessimistic about many
American institutions, and
about laissez faire capitalism generally.
Especially in letters-and this
book might well have quoted more of the
unpublished ones-Howells
wrote bitterly of injustices and
discolorations in the American Way.
Against practically the entire
population he publicly defended the
Chicago anarchists after the Haymarket
riot, and with equal courage
he wrote scathingly of United States
imperialism in the war with Spain.
His socialism was thoroughgoing enough
to share the Populists'
hope to nationalize "natural
monopolies"-railroads, telegraph, tele-
phone, gas, water, and electricity-but
it was characteristic of him to
insist that all this be done by orderly
democratic means, by the patient
evolution of the ballot. It was also
typical, however, that his airy
allusions to such sweeping programs (for
example, in his Utopian stories
laid in "Altruria") were vague
about technical details like taxation,
supply, and methods of production. His
rather amateur variety of
socialism, strongly indebted to the New
Testament, was based not on
economic principles, but rather on moral
and humanistic ones (as sug-
gested perhaps by his naming of
Altruria). He simply believed that
economic equality would help to erase
the unfair artificial distinctions
among men.
BOOK REVIEWS 81
But if Howells' social criticism was
sometimes sketchy or unsyste-
matic, it was sincere. And expressed as
it was with the immense
prestige of the "dean of American
letters," it was usually effective.
Appearing in "The Editor's
Study," his monthly department in Har-
per's, and in such other respectable journals as Scribner's,
the Century,
and the North American Review, his
ideas undoubtedly had a good
deal of influence upon a large
audience--more, probably, than historians
have realized.
The Quiet Rebel increases what we know about the later Howells'
effect outside of literature. A sober,
sympathetic study, retaining cer-
tain earmarks of the doctoral
dissertation, and duplicating here and
there some earlier findings by
Howellsians George Arms and Louis J.
Budd, it is most original when it
surveys Howells' magazine articles
after 1900--topical pieces which no one
much cares to read today, but
which must be weighed in any whole view
of the novelist.
University of Illinois (Chicago) JAMES B. STRONKS
The Mind and Spirit of John Peter
Altgeld: Selected Writings and
Addresses. Edited by Henry M. Christman. (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1960. 183p.
$4.00.)
John Peter Altgeld is no longer
"The Eagle That Is Forgotten," as
he seemed to Vachel Lindsay writing in
the early twenties. Since then
there have been two biographies of the
man, a number of articles, and
now this compendium of his writings and
addresses. The editor is on
the staff of the Fund for the Republic
and he has previously edited the
public papers of Chief Justice Earl
Warren. In making available these
selections which have long been out of
print, Mr. Christman and the
University of Illinois Press have
performed a most useful service.
Altgeld wrote with passion and urgency,
with clarity and flow, if not
always with polish and grace. He saw the
larger issue in the particular
event. He was a libertarian and a
humanitarian, but he balanced his
idealism with a strong sense of the
practical. He never lost sight of the
realistic demands of government nor of
the great boon to human prog-
ress of law and order.
It is appropriate that the longest
sections are devoted to Altgeld's
defense of himself in the two most
famous incidents in his term as
governor of Illinois: his pardon of
Fielden, Neebe, and Schwab, the
so-called anarchists, and his protest
against the use of federal troops in
the Pullman strike in 1894. The
statement supporting his pardon of
82 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
these three men--the only ones then
remaining of the eight convicted
of murdering the policemen in the
Chicago Haymarket riot of 1886--
is a persuasive document that gives a
closely reasoned "proof" of a
mistrial. It is characteristic of
Altgeld's integrity that he pardoned
the three after exposing the
improprieties of the trial and not as an
"act of mercy" as his friends
had urged. Although he was reviled at
the time for being the foe of order and
the friend of violence, any
ambiguity on this score for present-day
readers may be dispelled by
his "Address to Laboring Men in
Chicago," delivered on Labor Day,
1893, which precedes the pardon
statement in this collection. In this
speech he urged his audience of
workingmen to be patient in the face
of the depression of that year and to
avoid all disrespect for the law,
since anarchy had always had a
retrogressive effect on labor's cause.
The editor has selected Altgeld's speech
delivered at Cooper Union,
New York, in the presidential campaign
of 1896 to present the gov-
ernor's defense of his protest to
President Cleveland for sending federal
troops to Chicago in the Pullman
strike--a remonstrance for which the
conservative press had bitterly
upbraided Altgeld. Although Alt-
geld weakens his discussion of the case
itself by an excess of detail and
repetition, he does elucidate in an
interesting fashion the correlative
issues of federal interference in local
affairs, government by injunction,
and the usurpations of the United States
Supreme Court. In consider-
ing these questions he reveals his gift
for clearly explaining complex
legal ideas in language comprehensible
to the layman and also his skill
in countering his opponents' arguments
by quoting their own authorities
back at them.
Other selections disclose the range of
his interests as well as the
advanced nature of his ideas. In 1889,
for example, he was urging
reforms in the administration of justice
that were not generally adopted
for another generation. He was also in
the vanguard of penal reformers.
Other manifestations of his
humanitarianism appear in his plea for un-
restricted immigration, a liberal
naturalization policy, and his concept
of the state university as an institution
where all might attend and
receive an education in citizenship.
These writings reveal Altgeld's courage,
moral toughness, intellect,
and humanity, but they also show his
limitations. His address against
the gold standard given at the
Democratic national convention in 1896
is marred by a strident Anglophobia and
some specious economic
arguments. A note of parochialism is
apparent in his comment in a
BOOK REVIEWS 83
speech on the state university, that
Illinois wants an institution "free
from the dilettantism that is weakening
the East."
The editor has supplied a competent
biographical preface and has
written brief notes at the beginning of
each selection. But he has
ignored other responsibilities that
would make the volume much more
useful to the reader, such as footnotes (e.g.,
biographical references),
an index, and a suggestive bibliography
for further reading, notably
about the pardoning affair and the
Pullman strike.
Kenyon
College LANDON WARNER
Thirtieth Report, Society for the
History of the Germans in Maryland.
(Baltimore: Society for the History of
the Germans in Maryland,
1959. 122p.)
For nearly a century now literary
scholars and comparativists have
been assisting the professional
historians in investigating the history of
the foreign, and notably the
German-American, element in the United
States. The Thirtieth Report published
by the Society for the History
of the Germans in Maryland is the latest
in the society's series that
spans nearly the entire hundred years.
It has a record of continuous
support of the cultural endeavors of the
German-Americans, and of the
Middle Atlantic region in particular,
from 1886 to the present. Not
narrowly sectional in character, its
reports are of interest to all students
of German-American relations.
In the current number Professor Dieter
Cunz reviews publications in
the field of German-Americana of recent
decades. A judicious selection
and highlighting of the principal
book-length studies that have appeared
since 1940, his article surveys the
entire field, which by its very nature
is difficult to define, vast in its range,
and methodologically demanding.
As a guide to students and librarians
Dr. Cunz's survey will be useful
and helpful.
His picture of recent scholarship is one
of over-all progress and
consolidation. Certain areas, such as
the history of immigration and
cultural assimilation, the survey of
German-American literary and
philosophical relations, or the history
of the German-language press,
have been treated in something like
adequate or serviceable books. But
there exist large gaps in the
literature, which urgently call for new
undertakings, and these Dr. Cunz has
pointed out. Dr. Cunz's history
of the Maryland Germans is the only
recent study to appear to date of
84
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Germans and German-American culture in
any region as large as an
entire state. Again, he points out, the
story of the German-Americans in
politics has yet to be written, though
this has been touched on of course
in partial studies dealing with the
Forty-Eighters and the period of
World War I. Meanwhile, publications
like the Report continue to
print and thereby enter into the record
basic compilations and semi-
documentary descriptive materials so
essential for the later historian.
The present number includes an
exhaustive bibliographical article on
"German Travel Books on the South,
1900-1950," by Lawrence S.
Thompson; a detailed study of
"German Immigrants and Their News-
papers in the District of
Columbia," by Klaus G. Wust; and A. J.
Prahl's "German Scholars at the
Johns Hopkins University," together
with biographical studies on A. G.
Steinmann, by A. E. Zucker; on Karl
Follen, by Heinrich Schneider; and on
Ludwig Baron Von Closen, by
Siegfried A. Schulz.
Wesleyan University ARTHUR R. SCHULTZ
The Trumpet Soundeth: William
Jennings Bryan and His Democracy,
1896-1912. By Paul W. Glad. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1960. xii??242p.; illustrations,
bibliographical essay, chronol-
ogy, and index. $4.75.)
In The Trumpet Soundeth, Paul
Glad, associate professor of history
at Coe College, has put together a short
but thoroughgoing study of
the political and economic thought of
William Jennings Bryan. This is
not a biography, and the reader is
perhaps disappointed that the dash
and drama attending Bryan's years as
"opposition leader," are missing;
but it is a solid, well-written book,
and may well reestablish the some-
what tarnished reputation of "The
Great Commoner."
Bryan's faith was a simple one, but it
was typically American, and
particularly middlewestern. It emanated
from the central "intellectual"
currents washing the shores of the
Middle Border in the late nine-
teenth century--evangelical
Protestantism, the McGuffey Reader, and
the Chautauqua circuit. Bryan believed
in church, school, home, the
power of love, the equality of man, the
need for service and self-sacri-
fice, and the ultimate triumph of what
is right over what is evil.
Professor Glad is a bit concerned over
the frequent charges that
Bryan was an inconsistent, insincere
demagogue, and quotes Mencken's
observation that "if the fellow was
sincere, then so was P. T. Barnum,"
to illustrate the point. Actually, we
are told, Bryan occupied a highly
BOOK REVIEWS 85
consistent position on all fundamental
propositions, and Professor Glad
demonstrates this consistency so clearly
one is surprised that Bryan's
contemporary detractors failed to
recognize it. But then, detractors have
a habit of ignoring evidence that
weakens their position.
Two examples will suffice, silver and
imperialism. The charge is
that Bryan latched on to silver because
it was a good issue in the nine-
ties, but abandoned it hastily when it
did not put him at 1600 Pennsyl-
vania Avenue. In truth, he did not
abandon silver hastily; on the
contrary, he fought for it, and was
successful in having it incorporated
into the 1900 party platform over strong
opposition. It was not until
1907 that Bryan bade silver goodbye.
Turning to imperialism, Bryan has been
accused of remaining silent
when we went to war with Spain, and of
supporting the peace treaty,
but then lashing out fiercely at the
results of this thing he had not
previously opposed. If he liked neither
the war nor the empire, why
did he wait until they were accomplished
facts before speaking out?
Well, to begin with, Bryan supported the
war because it was a "good"
war, a war against tyranny. But
acquiring the Philippines and keeping
them in subjection was not part of the
original purpose of the war and
was, in fact, opposed to the principles
upon which the war was fought.
He did not oppose confirmation of the
treaty, because that would have
violated his belief that the majority
will should always prevail. He made
no effort to make imperialism the issue
in 1900, but rather held out
stubbornly for silver.
On these and other issues--tariff
reduction, trust regulation, and
money and banking reform--Bryan remained
loyal to his principles. In
only three areas did he waver and
wander--government ownership,
prohibition, and oriental immigration.
But, asks Professor Glad, should
these lesser aberrations nullify the
total performance? Obviously not,
and it looks as if Bryan is on his way
back up.
Marietta College EUGENE C. MURDOCK
Republican Ascendancy, 1921-1933. By John D. Hicks. The New
American Nation Series, edited by Henry
Steele Commager and
Richard B. Morris. (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1960. xvi??
318p., illustrations, bibliographical essay,
and index. $5.00.)
Thus far the New American Nation series
has fully met the pub-
lisher's claims. In quality the volumes
have maintained a very high level,
and each author has demonstrated his
familiarity with the principal
86
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
printed sources as well as manuscript
collections. Indeed, a most valuable
feature of the volumes is the careful
bibliographical essay that follows
the text. If some authors have given the
impression that they have
worked the manuscripts with relative
thoroughness, Professor Hicks is
at pains to assure the reader that no
one can do more than to dip into
the vast amounts of material available
for recent American history.
One lays the present volume aside, or
places it in the ranks of its
fellows, with nothing but admiration for
the author and his editors.
Here is a masterful synthesis of a most
complicated period, one in which
a fine balance is maintained in
recounting, analyzing, and interpreting
the multitude of matters that make up
history. Professor Hicks has not
left himself out of the book--his
interpretations are not mere repetition
of accepted patterns, his judgments are
sure and confident.
The discerning reader may, indeed, find
more to quarrel with in the
editors' introduction than in the text.
I am impatient with historians,
amateur and professional, who insist
upon regarding the nineteen-
twenties as a "negative era in our
history." Of course "the mark of
failure is heavy on these years,"
and there is much to condemn--if
one accepts the values of those who do
the condemning. The mark of
failure is heavy on all years, and the
forces of negation are never com-
pletely routed. But let the reader do
his own philosophizing. Professor
Hicks approaches the period with
anything but a negative attitude. These
were years when tremendous forces were
gathering for the showdown,
and the author places the period of
Republican ascendancy in its proper
perspective--proper, at least, from my
vantage point.
Lest I be accused of letting enthusiasm
for a splendid performance
blind me completely, note that Coolidge
did not issue his famous "I do
not choose" statement from the
Black Hills of North Dakota, nor was
Herbert Hoover born on January 28, 1871
(the date is so wrong that
one wonders where Professor Hicks got
it!). So, having shown that
I did read the book carefully, I repeat:
here is a book to buy, to read,
and to enjoy.
Miami University HARRIS GAYLORD WARREN
The Jefferson Image in the American
Mind. By Merrill D. Peterson.
(New York: Oxford University Press,
1960. x??548p.; guide to
sources and index. $8.50.)
This is a book that must make Thomas
Jefferson rest just a bit easier
in his grave these evenings. Through
five-hundred-odd pages of im-
BOOK REVIEWS 87
peccable scholarship and precise
historical exposition and argumentation,
Professor Peterson has traced with
incredible detail the almost out-
rageous way in which Jefferson's life,
thought, and actions have been
distorted by those sometime friends of
the Sage of Monticello who would
use him to advance or more often sustain
the positions they wish to
maintain because of their sectional or
economic predilections. This work
is truly what the author in his
introduction promises it to be: a book
not on the history of Thomas Jefferson,
but a book on what history has
made of Thomas Jefferson. And the fact
that all too much of this
"history" is still being
expounded and imbibed gives this work a much
more urgent importance than assuring the
eternal rest of Thomas
Jefferson or the integrity of the
historical scholarship which so volumin-
ously surrounds him.
For the fact of the matter is that in
exposing the distortions of Jeffer-
son over the years, Professor Peterson
has perforce given us a true pic-
ture of Jeffersonian ideology, which
leaves no well-informed individual
any legitimate excuse for ever again
invoking the Jeffersonian name to
bolster special and narrow causes.
As the author sees it, there have been
two basic distortions of Jeffer-
son's ideology. The first of these is
his stand on states' rights, or strict
construction theory, a posture used most
notably by the rising South
after his death in 1826 to protect their
"peculiar" labor system and
justify nullification. After examining
with thoroughness the documents
upon which this turns, especially the
Kentucky and Virginia resolutions
(the backbone of the later
justifications of nullification and interposi-
tion), Professor Peterson undercuts the
whole argument by showing
that--aside from much evidence that
Jefferson contemplated with horror
the dissolution of the Union--his
arguments for such a dissolution, if
necessary, are based upon a natural
right to do it and are not in any way
to be construed as meaning the constitution
in any way provided for its
legitimacy. The rest of the book
regarding this point is a devastating
expose of how this truth was ignored by
the South.
The second distortion of Jefferson
ideology exposed by Professor
Peterson turns on the Jeffersonian
concept of the role of government.
Here the author not only shows that
Jefferson was not tied to a Lockean
concept of natural rights leading
logically to a Spencerian laissez-faire
society, but he effectively refutes that
other and perennial conservative
charge, namely, that Jefferson was a
wild-eyed social democrat, a true
Jacobin under whom no property rights
would be safe.
88
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Of course, much of this exposure is not
the work of the author, but
of those scholars--such as Chinard and
Wiltse--who have preceded
him. But it is to his credit that he has
so ably sifted the wheat from the
chaff in this task and put all of this
exposition, together with sound
judgment, in one volume.
The annotated bibliography is truly
exhaustive and conveniently
arranged. The index leaves little to be
desired.
Xavier University JOHN J. WHEALEN
Government Promotion of American
Canals and Railroads, 1800-1890.
By Carter Goodrich. (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1960.
x??382p.; map, bibliography, and index.
$7.50.)
The economic development of the interior
of the United States and
the growth of specialized production in
every section of the country
depended upon the introduction of roads,
canals, and railroads. Inland
transportation, by its nature, entailed
high capital costs and raised prob-
lems of financing and of control that did
not arise on the cheap and
open highway of the ocean.
Throughout the nineteenth century the
American people debated the
question of the proper role of
government in promoting and supporting
improvements in transportation. Out of
the debate came an immense
diversity of plans. How well did
democratic government function in
formulating and executing policy?
Historians have long recognized the
significance of transportation in
shaping American society and the
importance of government policies.
Over the last sixty years they have
built a long shelf of books and
articles on special aspects of a subject
too extensive for mastery by a
single scholar. Professor Goodrich of
Columbia University, who him-
self has previously investigated and
illuminated several areas of trans-
portation policy, has now given us a
conscientious summary of special-
ized scholarship as it stood in 1959.
Generously acknowledging his
obligations to the many authors of
published and manuscript mono-
graphs, he has assembled a reliable
compendium that scholars will
value for its great utility.
After a careful reading one puts down
this book with the impression
that in meeting the issue of public
support of transportation in the
canal and railroad era, democratic
government was more often a failure
than a success. Federal, state, and
local governments can all claim some
creative contributions that were planned
intelligently and executed both
BOOK REVIEWS 89
honestly and economically, but at every
level and in every period one
meets a dreary procession of politicians
who were incompetent, corrupt,
or both. The magnitude of the wealth,
public and private, that they
wasted still defies measurement.
In the east-coast states, where density
of population and intensity of
prior economic development assured local
traffic for many canals and
railroads, state policy was oriented to
metropolitan rivalry and the
capture of long-haul traffic. In the
northeast, the federal government
lent little aid, and the states made
investments which, in the early
phase, were fairly sound. In design,
construction, and operation as a
state enterprise the Erie Canal was
outstanding. Its unique success
unfortunately generated uncritical
enthusiasm for unsound projects in
other parts of the country.
In the western and southern states an
irrational element was intro-
duced into the promotion of public aid
by the endemic land speculation
which federal policies for the disposal
of the public lands induced. By
absorbing much of the limited supply of
capital, speculation, both grand
and petty, operated directly to retard
genuine economic development.
It worked indirectly in the same
direction by creating pressures to
adopt unsound policies for the
liquidation of the land grants and to
choose uneconomic routes for their
intended benefit in raising the price
of specific lands. The ideal of
competition among carriers was invoked
to justify projects that saddled many
areas with excessive facilities, the
capital costs of which long burdened
taxpayers and shippers.
So heavily did the states and
territories rely on land grants from the
federal government that it is difficult
to evaluate the administration
of government aid without extensive
analysis of state policies for the
disposal of the grant lands. The subject
has been neglected by special-
ists and is therefore inadequately
treated in this book.
It used to be fashionable among scholars
to assert that business in-
terests were responsible for the
corruption of politics. For this point of
view there is certainly much evidence,
but this book suggests that in
many cases the initiative lay with the
politicians. In classic periods of
corruption, like Reconstruction or the
Age of Jackson, it was popular
demagogues who used the sovereign power
to corrupt business.
Oberlin College THOMAS LEDUC
90
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Century of Struggle: The Woman's
Rights Movement in the United
States. By Eleanor Flexner. (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap
Press
of Harvard University Press, 1959.
xiv??384p.; illustrations, biblio-
graphical summary, and index. $6.00.)
Historians, as Miss Flexner notes, have
very largely ignored the
ladies in the field of American history.
The role of women in the de-
velopment of American society almost
always receives, in text books and
other general studies, perfunctory and
unconsidered attention. Miss
Flexner has now attempted to repair this
situation with a study of the
women's rights movement in America
extending from the earliest
settlements to the passage of the
nineteenth amendment. Viewing the
subject from a thoroughly partisan
standpoint, she accepts the word of
the suffragettes themselves as to the
true scope, character, and signifi-
cance of the movement. The result is a
history of women's rights similar
to that earlier produced by the women's
suffrage advocates themselves,
but one based upon more thoroughgoing
research and a greater ad-
herence to scholarly standards of
fairness than was possible for con-
temporary writers.
The study concerns itself with a broad
range of subjects touching on
the status of women, including the
abolitionist movement, the fight for
legal reform, developments in higher
education, expanding job oppor-
tunities, and the rise of organized
labor. The fight to win the vote
dominates the story, however, and no
systematic effort is made to
relate other reforms to this major
issue. Nor is the effort made, except
here and there parenthetically, to
analyze the character, motives,
strengths, and weaknesses of the women's
rights movement. For in-
stance, the dominant role in the
movement assumed by Quakers is noted
in passing, but no systematic attempt is
made to account for this
and to measure its importance. The
relationship between the abolition
and women's rights movements is well
established, but the later, much
more important, connection between
prohibition and women's rights
is not so clearly made. In attempting to
account for the delay in the
coming of the nineteenth amendment, Miss
Flexner dwells on the
strong, organized opposition of the
liquor industry; yet she largely
ignores the strong support for woman
suffrage which developed among
the evangelical churches in the late
nineteenth century, largely on the
expectation that women, if they had the
chance, would vote out the
liquor traffic.
This book, the author writes, "does
not presume to be a history of
American women or a rounded sociological
study of the changes that
BOOK REVIEWS 91
gradually took place in their
status." A well-written, well-researched
study, Century of Struggle is
limited chiefly by the modesty of its aims.
Michigan State University GILMAN M. OSTRANDER
George Catlin and the Old Frontier. By Harold McCracken. (New
York: Dial Press, 1959. 216p.;
illustrations, bibliographical check
list, and index. $18.50.)
Lewis Henry Morgan: The Indian
Journals, 1859-62. Edited, with an
introduction, by Leslie A. White. Illustrations
selected and edited by
Clyde Walton. (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1959.
[xii]??229p.; maps,
illustrations, and index. $17.50.)
In 1820, at the age of twenty-four,
George Catlin returned to Penn-
sylvania from famed Litchfield Law
School and set up a law office. It
quickly became a painter's studio, the
law was forgotten, and Catlin
soon became a successful portrait
painter with a fashionable clientele
which included Dolly Madison, Sam
Houston, and DeWitt Clinton.
In 1840, at age twenty-two, Lewis Henry
Morgan returned to
Aurora, New York, from Union College,
"read law," and did go ahead
with the profession. Indeed, he did
quite well and acquired a modest
fortune from investments in mines,
railroads, and iron furnaces. Catlin
remained poor all his life; Morgan had a
substantial income. Both men
made ineradicable reputations as
interpreters of the American Indian.
Catlin began his career as portrait
painter in Philadelphia, but almost
at once determined to become the painter
and historian of primitive
Indians beyond the Mississippi. Hard
necessity kept him away from
the Mississippi for another half-dozen
years. In the meantime, he
studied and painted the more
sophisticated Indians of western New
York. Then in 1830 he finally began his
campaign. It took him in the
next six years among all of the
important tribes in a vast area from the
upper Missouri and headwaters of the
Mississippi to the Mexican terri-
tory in the far Southwest. The resulting
pictorial record was the most
comprehensive and detailed ever made of
these Indians in their natural
state. Catlin compiled an extensive
written record to supplement his
pictures and also collected a
considerable body of ethnological material
for what he hoped would be a great
national museum. He had nothing to
do with the fact, but this museum became
reality in 1846 in the Smith-
sonian Institution.
Lewis Henry Morgan stayed with the law,
but at the outset joined
a literary and social club which he soon
helped to reorganize as the
92
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
"League of the Iroquois" in
emulation of the great Indian confederacy.
For the next decade Morgan became
Iroquois-minded, visited and
studied these tribes, wrote papers about
them, and in 1851 published
The League of the Iroquois. A century later it remains "the best general
treatise on the Iroquois."
It was 1857 before Morgan gave all-out
attention to the Indian.
Thereafter he took up anew his long
studies of kinship and consanguin-
ity among the Iroquois and extended it
to other Indians in America.
Morgan theorized that in the
distribution of kinship systems he might
find proof of the Asiatic origin of the
American Indians. After sending
out questionnaires all over America and
Asia and after travels among
the trans-Mississippi Indians between
1859 and 1862, he undertook his
major work, Systems of Consanguinity
and Affinity of the Human
Family. It was published under the auspices of the Smithsonian
in 1871.
The McCracken book is at once a
biography and a collection of Cat-
lin's best art. As biography it has the
very great virtue of highlighting
Catlin's dedication to the primitive
Indian and of underplaying or ignor-
ing largely what might have been much
sensational and irrelevant
romanticism. The book features 36
illustrations in full color and 131
in black and white. Using Catlin's notes
as a constant base, McCracken
has given the illustrations a solidity
of historical setting which does
superb service to Catlin and his art.
After a century in manuscript, the
Morgan journals have come to
splendid life in White's book.
Preliminary "chapters" trace the life and
researches of Morgan, include pertinent
background on Kansas and
Nebraska in 1859, and provide a brief
but very useful approach to
understanding the journals. The
remainder of the book, some two hun-
dred pages, features the splendidly
edited journals, together with well-
chosen Indian art. Sixteen color plates
are taken from such artists as
George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, and James
Otto Lewis. There are also
more than a hundred other photographs
and other illustrations.
Both books are rare and valuable
additions to scholarship on the
American Indian. They stand in
delightful contrast to the nostalgic
nonsense so long ground out on the
subject. As pictorial and ethnological
studies they are both necessary to any
real understanding of the Indian.
University of Southern
California RUSSELL L. CALDWELL
BOOK REVIEWS 93
Forts on the Pennsylvania Frontier,
1753-1758. By William A. Hunter.
(Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and
Museum Commission, 1960.
xi??596p.; plates, figures,
appendix, bibliography, and index. $5.00.)
Pennsylvania was totally unprepared both
militarily and psychologi-
cally for the French invasion of the
upper Ohio valley in 1754. A long
tradition of friendship with the
Delaware and other neighboring Indians
dating from the first establishment of
the colony had produced some-
thing very different from Turner's
classic prototype of the American
frontiersman. Many Pennsylvania settlers
were unarmed and unskilled
in the techniques of frontier warfare,
and a series of bloody Indian
attacks beginning in the summer of 1755
presented a grave and formi-
dable challenge. Pennsylvania's reaction
to that challenge is the subject
of this excellent study by William A.
Hunter, assistant historian of the
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum
Commission.
The author focuses upon the forts
constructed in Pennsylvania be-
tween 1753 and 1758, when the British
assumed responsibility for
military operations in the colony. He
devotes considerable attention
to those built by the French and
Virginians in the initial contest for
control of the Ohio country, but his
primary emphasis is upon the
forts erected by Pennsylvania beginning
in 1755, the chief element in that
colony's military strategy. In
individual sketches of each of the forts,
he deals authoritatively and
interestingly with the problem of selecting
sites for them and of constructing,
garrisoning, and supplying them.
Putting the forts in their broadest
historical setting, he describes both
the politics and diplomacy of their
establishment.
The author's tale revolves around two
central conflicts: Pennsyl-
vania's struggle with the French and
Indians, shared in varying degrees
by the neighboring colonies of Virginia,
Maryland, and New York, and
a more fundamental internal conflict
between the frontier settlers and
the Quaker leaders in the assembly.
During the first year of the war
Virginia assumed the bulk of the burden
of defense, but Braddock's
defeat left the frontiers of
Pennsylvania wide open to Indian attack
and impelled the assembly to action.
What followed, in essence, was the
familiar process of adjusting ideals to
reality. Quaker principles had
to be sacrificed to the needs of the
frontier, and the pacifists lost control
of Pennsylvania politics. But ideals die
slowly. As in most such cases,
the break with the past was not
complete. Pacifist traditions were
firmly rooted in the temper of the
colony, rendering it incapable both
psychologically and politically "of
waging aggressive or active war-
94
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
fare." The policy adopted by the
assembly was essentially defensive,
depending upon the construction of a
chain of forts along the perimeter
of western and northern settlement. Only
once, in the raid against
Kittanning in 1756, did Pennsylvania
take the offensive; the most
striking characteristic of the forts and
their garrisons was their inac-
tivity. Still, the war produced a more
realistic attitude toward defense
and a greater awareness of the problems
of the back country. Tragically,
it also initiated a pattern of
Indian-white hostility that persisted long
after it was over.
The product of exhaustive research, the
book includes some useful
maps and diagrams and valuable extracts
from manuscript sources. It
will be an indispensable reference for
those who wish to study frontier
warfare in the colonial period, and
promises to become one of the
standard works on the early phases of
the Great War for Empire in
Pennsylvania.
Western Reserve University JACK P. GREENE