Ohio History Journal

156                                           OHIO HISTORY

ever, that some societies are performing

a magnificent task and that the research

historian is deeply indebted to them.

They deserve the highest praise.

Even if one deleted the controversial

passages scattered throughout the volume,

the book would stand as a clearly written

and incisive history of independent his-

torical societies. The author visited many.

He himself has long been connected, in

one capacity or another, with research

institutions. His delightful sketches of

the Massachusetts Historical Society, the

New-York Historical Society, and the

American Antiquarian Society (the three

giants) are followed by chapters devoted

to other distinguished institutions, such

as the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

and the Virginia Historical Society.

Regional societies, state-supported socie-

ties, local societies, state archival agen-

cies, and historical associations are de-

scribed and characterized. Museums,

reconstruction projects, and monuments

are discussed with soundness and, at

times, vigorous humor. A particularly

fine chapter deals with Lyman Draper

and his labors in Wisconsin.

Ohioans will find the six-page discus-

sion of their society most interesting, not

only as a brief historical account but also

as an impressive summary of activities.

The state may well be proud of Mr.

Whitehill's statement: "The society's list

[of publications] offers a rich variety of

works of high quality on all phases of the

State's history" (p. 287). There is some

gratification to be found in his comments

on the Ohio Historical Quarterly: "Hap-

pily the quality of the articles remains

unchanged. It appears, as one reviewer

put it, that the new 'Ohio History is the

same old vehicle, but with "fins" added'

(p. 286). Unfortunately, however, foot-

notes in Ohio History are relegated to the

back of the journal, a device that, to say

the least, is offensive. Yet Ohio deserves

great credit for preserving as much as it

did of its scholarly reputation as mani-

fested in its journal.

Regardless of what one thinks of Mr.

Whitehill's personal views concerning the

nature and functions of independent his-

torical societies, his book cannot be dis-

missed lightly. It should cause consider-

able hard thinking in several quarters.

Whether or not one agrees with the

author, the volume is a contribution; is,

at points, convincing; and, most certainly,

says things that should have been brought

into the open much earlier.

PHILIP D. JORDAN

University of Minnesota

AMERICAN INDIAN POLICY IN THE FORMA-

TIVE YEARS: THE INDIAN TRADE AND

INTERCOURSE ACTS, 1790-1834. By

Francis Paul Prucha.   (Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962.

viii ?? 303p.; bibliographical note and

index. $6.75.)

Francis Paul Prucha, Society of Jesus,

has written a thorough, scholarly study of

American Indian policy, 1790-1834, and

he has, appropriately, dedicated his work

to Frederick Merk, his mentor at Har-

vard, rather than to any other being. The

volume reflects the grim pursuit of fact,

careful organization, passionless analysis,

and humorless prose of the Harvard mas-

ter. The discussion of the efforts of the

federal government to regulate the fur

trade, to prevent the debauching of the

Indians by the sale of whiskey, to remove

the white intruders from Indian lands, to

punish crimes committed in the Indian

country, and, finally, to "civilize" and

to remove the Indians, demonstrates a

thorough command of the sources, both

manuscript and printed, and of the perti-

nent secondary works.

The book is topically organized except

for the first three chapters--which give

a brief chronological picture of colonial

and imperial Indian policy, Indian policy

under the Continental Congress and the

articles of confederation, and Indian pol-

icy in the first years under the constitu-

tion--and for a final chapter which dis-

cusses the passage of the Indian acts of

BOOK REVIEWS                                          157

1834. The chapter concerning colonial

and imperial precedents, drawn almost

entirely from eighteenth-century evidence,

is perhaps an appropriate introduction to

the subject of Indian policy in the period

1790-1834. but it should not be read as a

proper guide to the whole course of

American Indian policy from 1607 to the

present.

Prucha's study contains no revealing

new insights into Indian policy, but he

does painstakingly document and analyze

the making and execution of that policy.

Whatever the place, whenever the time,

the story is basically the same: the fed-

eral government proved unable to regu-

late the trade in furs, prevent the sale of

whiskey, remove the intruders on Indian

land, or protect the Indians from crimes

committed against them by individuals

or local governments; it was unwilling to

use severe measures against the whites

but was willing to constrain the Indians

to accommodate themselves to the result-

ing situations. Individual leaders, such

as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,

and Henry Knox, to mention only three,

tried to see that the honor of the country

was supported by its power. They failed,

as did everyone else who tried to safe-

guard the rights of an "alien" minority

increasingly subject to the power of an

aggressive majority.

The failure of all attempts to protect

the Indian, Prucha cheerfully concedes.

When he makes a value judgment, it is

not to condemn the policy of the govern-

ment but to praise it, ineffective though

it was, for preventing the Indian from

being dispossessed more rapidly and

brutally than he was.

One wonders whether Prucha's alleged

commitment to "calm investigation" and

his eschewal of dogmatism are realized.

Prucha's choice of language may be a

minor flaw in this regard, though the

value judgments implicit in terms such

as "zealous" Indian agents, "martinet"

soldiers, the "wisdom" of the intercourse

laws of 1834, the "savagery" of the

Indians, and the "unfair" attitude of

those who charge the Jackson administra-

tion with "cynical expediency and com-

plete disregard for Indian rights and

feelings" are not to be overlooked. But

what are we to make of Prucha's willing-

ness to judge the Indian policy of the

individual colonies before the "imperiali-

zation" of the late eighteenth century?

Prucha does not hesitate to assert that

"there was no question that in fact the

colonial management had failed. The

trade was not adequately controlled; the

English colonists steadily encroached

upon the lands of the Indians; the Indians

were resentful and showed their ill humor

by incessant attacks upon the settle-

ments." Would not federal Indian policy

fit the same description and deserve the

same judgment? One has a gnawing fear

that the inevitability of what is is here

worshipped, and that the success or fail-

ure of policies is measured in terms of

how they facilitated the emergence of the

future, not by whether they accomplished

what they were designed to do.

In a final paragraph, Prucha notes:

Weaknesses and inadequacies are easy

to catalog. Harder to judge is the over-

all effect of the intercourse acts in these

early years. That they prevented much

open conflict between the races and al-

lowed the inevitable westward advance of

white settlement to proceed with a certain

orderliness is perhaps judgment enough.

By accepting the preordained inevitability

of the "westward advance of white settle-

ment" Prucha adopts a moral framework

for his history within which individual

acts have only apparent moral signifi-

cance since they are all subsumed under

the higher purpose of God's will. It is

not surprising, then, that Prucha's moral

judgments--judgments no historian can

avoid--tend to support his idea of what

had to happen and to ignore the fact of

what did happen.

WILCOMB E. WASHBURN

Smithsonian Institution

158                                           OHIO HISTORY

OUR AMISH NEIGHBORS. By William I.

Schreiber; drawings by Sybil Gould.

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1962. xii ?? 227p.; illustrations, bibli-

ography, and index. $5.95.)

In a sophisticated world the simple

life of such sectarians as the Amish and

Mennonites has a peculiar fascination for

Americans and has even been used as a

theme for the New York theater. Profes-

sor Schreiber is especially fitted for a

sympathetic but objective approach to an

accurate appraisal of the place of these

people in American life. As a native of

the Old World he has been personally

acquainted with the customs, religious

traditions, and folklore of European peas-

ants whose background bears a resem-

blance to that of these rural-oriented

Americans. He, moreover, has a scholarly

appreciation of their historic problems,

being the author of The Fate of the Prus-

sian Mennonites (Goettingen, 1955). In

addition, as Gingrich Professor of Ger-

man at the College of Wooster at Wooster,

Ohio, he lives on the edge of one of the

largest centers of Amish and Mennonite

settlement in the New World. His per-

sonal knowledge of the vernacular spoken

by these people, furthermore, has enabled

him to move among them and even wor-

ship with them in unobtrusive fashion.

He presents the historic background of

these simple folk and discusses their home

life, their farm-based economic life, their

community organization and activities,

their customs, and their interests as por-

trayed in the columns of the Sugarcreek

Budget. This weekly newspaper, pub-

lished at Sugarcreek, Tuscarawas County,

Ohio, has become a national clearing

house for news of the Amish people.

Schreiber analyzes at length the use of

"meidung," or shunning, in Amish com-

munities to secure conformity to tradi-

tional patterns and to arrest tendencies

to accept the practices of a machine age

with its countless gadgets. He discusses

the problems of adjustments to modern

life, as Amish people now ride on busses

and in taxicabs, even though ownership

of an automobile is forbidden to them.

Interesting indeed are the variations

among some of their church organizations

as to the extent to which old customs may

be modified.

The author analyzes their literalistic

Biblical faith, but concludes that much

of their life is based on the continuance

of Old World peasant traditions. He has

carefully examined pertinent sources

printed in German and in English and on

each side of the Atlantic. He might have

found additional material of interest in

a master's thesis written at Ohio State

University under the present reviewer's

direction: John L. Nethers, "An Histori-

cal Study of the Amish People in the

Holmes County Area of Ohio" (1959).

This was based in part on numerous inter-

views with Amish farmers and their

neighbors.

Schreiber discusses the custom of the

growth of a beard among them and be-

lieves that "a scriptural reference com-

manding the growth of a beard is indeed

hard to find" (p. 62). Some authorities

contend that such a reference is found in

Leviticus 19:27.

All in all, the volume is a successful

venture in an attempt to understand,

without idealizing, an interesting enclave

of Old World peasantry in present-day

America. Attractive indeed are the many

illustrative drawings by Sybil Gould of

the College of Wooster.

FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER

Ohio State University

CLARENCE DARROW AND THE AMERICAN

LITERARY TRADITION. By Abe C. Ravitz.

(Cleveland: Press of Western Reserve

University, 1962. xv ?? 163p.; biblio-

graphical note and index. $4.50.)

Professor Ravitz has devoted himself

to a neglected and rewarding subject; and

especially in his analysis of Darrow's fic-

tion, he informs us freshly of an exciting

episode in the history of modern Ameri-

BOOK REVIEWS                                        159

can literary sensibility. But it must also

be said that his book does not wholly

satisfy the very great interest which it

arouses, largely because it fails sufficiently

to relate Darrow's fiction to his own legal

thought, and especially to the naturalistic,

muckraking, and psychological fiction of

his immediate contemporaries and suc-

cessors.

In six chapters apart from a prologue

and epilogue, Professor Ravitz discusses

in order Darrow's general intellectual in-

debtedness to social Darwinism and nine-

teenth-century American perfectionism;

his aesthetic credo and its influence upon

his protege Brand Whitlock; his earliest

fictional sketches, Easy Lessons in Law,

which dramatize the inequities of the

law's working upon the lives of the poor

and downtrodden; his shift from a Rous-

seauistic belief in non-violence to a Dar-

winian belief in the impossibility of that

ideal, as indicated in his fictional narra-

tive An Eye for an Eye; his small-town

novel Farmington, which anticipates the

work of Sherwood Anderson and Zona

Gale; and his later nonfictional writing

and oratory on the popular subjects of the

twenties and thirties, eugenics, prohibi-

tion, and immortality.

The central chapters on Darrow's

longer fiction whet the reader's appetite

to read these nearly forgotten novels,

especially for the light they might throw

on more famous later works like Wines-

burg, Ohio. The analysis of Farmington

suggests, for example, that Darrow's

novel might be more complex and rich

in conception than Sherwood Anderson's,

though surely less powerful in execution,

and hence that it may have great signifi-

cance for the literary history of its own

time. But the American literary tradition

to which Professor Ravitz' title refers is

regrettably not the tradition in the mak-

ing during Darrow's lifetime. It is the

"classic" tradition of our literature, from

Jonathan Edwards through Cooper, Poe,

Emerson, Hawthorne, and Melville, to one

or another of whom Darrow is repeatedly

compared in some facet of his work.

These comparisons are distracting; they

do not throw light on the classic Ameri-

can tradition because Darrow is not part

of that; and they do not throw nearly as

much light on the tradition Darrow was

helping to make as would a specific and

detailed comparison of Farmington with

Winesburg, Ohio. Similarly, our sense of

Darrow's power as a novelist would have

been enhanced by a fuller examination

than we are given here of the relation

between his fiction and his famous legal

arguments. As it is, however, we are

much indebted to Professor Ravitz for

breaking new and fruitful ground, and

for the tribute his book justly pays to a

great and representative American.

JULIAN MARKELS

Ohio State University

THE EMERGENCE OF A NATIONAL ECONOMY,

1775-1815. By Curtis P. Nettels. THE

ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED

STATES, Volume II. (New York: Holt,

Rinehart, and Winston, 1962. xvi??

⁴²⁴p.; illustrations, tables, appendix,

bibliography, and index. $7.50.)

Professor Nettels has produced a

worthy companion to the eight volumes

which have already appeared in this im-

portant series on the economic history of

the United States. He would have per-

formed a valuable service even if he had

confined his efforts to listing and sorting

the large body of writings which has

been produced on the early national

period of American history. Here is a

convenient storehouse of information in

which the reader may acquaint himself

with such matters as the wages of Ameri-

can sailors in 1790 and the land policies

of the states immediately after the Revo-

lution. But the book is much more than

a catalog of the facts of economic life in

the new nation. Nettels has attempted to

bring clarity to the inevitable confusion

attending an emerging economy, and he

has done so with literary grace, particu-

larly in his examination of the folkways

160                                           OHIO HISTORY

of the pioneer farmer in the Old North-

west.

In interpreting the transition of

America from a colonial to a national

economy his personal views shape his

chapters. The reader can have no doubt

that the success of the Union demanded

the ministrations of a strong federal

constitution in 1787, and that the farmer

as well as the merchant was in firm sup-

port of the new government. Federalist

programs receive the major share of

credit for the ultimate form of the Ameri-

can economy. While Hamilton is under-

standably a central figure, the author

takes pains to make Washington the pre-

eminent leader of federalism, claiming

that its essence was the fruit of the first

president's years of experience. In light

of this emphasis one can understand why

there is no chapter specifically devoted to

a full exposition of Jeffersonian policies.

Jefferson's opposition in the 1790's is

treated in a few paragraphs, with Hamil-

ton emerging as a more legitimate friend

of the farmer than his rival. Jefferson in

power appears to good advantage only

when he adapted his administration to

federalist ideas.

In dismissing the Jeffersonian Arcadia

as an impossible dream Nettels empha-

sizes the importance of the government's

role in the economy. Yet, on some critical

issues he fails to show the interaction of

politics and the economy. For example,

the relationship between the embargo and

the War of 1812 to the industrial growth

of the nation is asserted but not suffi-

ciently demonstrated. Such a caveat,

however, does not reduce the debt of

gratitude scholars owe to Professor Net-

tels for filling a major gap in American

economic history.

LAWRENCE S. KAPLAN

Kent State University

A SHORT HISTORY OF WISCONSIN. By Larry

Gara. (Madison: State Historical So-

ciety of Wisconsin, 1962. viii??187p.;

illustrations, suggested readings, and

index. $4.00.)

Intended for use in a correspondence

course offered by the extension division

of the state university, A Short History

of Wisconsin is a brief survey of the

subject from the arrival of Jean Nicolet

in 1734 to the victory of Richard M.

Nixon (in Wisconsin) in 1960. Although

a great deal of space is given to politi-

cians--James Duane Doty and Henry

Dodge during the territorial days and the

La Follettes in the twentieth century--

leaders in other fields--Lyman C. Draper,

Charles R. Van Hise, Frederick Jackson

Turner, Frank Lloyd Wright, and others

--are given due consideration. In the

final chapter, present-day agriculture and

industry are dealt with in some detail.

There are numerous illustrations but

no map of Wisconsin. At the end of each

chapter, suggestions for further reading

are listed. Tables showing the terms of

governors, presidential votes, and popula-

tion growth are printed with the text. An

unusual feature is the inclusion of boxed

quotations from original sources, some-

times a page in length, near the pertinent

narrative.

The book will be interesting to the

general reader who wants a short account

of Wisconsin.

Professor Gara is a member of the fac-

ulty of Wilmington College, Ohio.

F. CLEVER BALD

University of Michigan

A SOLDIER'S LIFE: THE CIVIL WAR EXPERI-

ENCES OF BEN C. JOHNSON. (Originally

titled SKETCHES OF THE SIXTH REGI-

MENT, MICHIGAN INFANTRY.) By Ben-

jamin C. Johnson. Edited, with an

introduction, by Alan S. Brown. West-

ern Michigan University, School of

Graduate Studies, Faculty Contribu-

tions, Series VI, No. 2. (Kalamazoo:

Western Michigan University Press,

1962. 122p.; frontispiece. Paper,

$1.00.)

BOOK REVIEWS                                        161

Benjamin C. Johnson signed up as a

private in the Sixth Michigan Volunteer

Infantry shortly after Fort Sumter and

served through the entire Civil War.

Along the way he occupied New Orleans

under Ben Butler, chased Confederate

raiders across Louisiana swamps, de-

fended Baton Rouge, assaulted Port Hud-

son. and fought rebels, mosquitoes, and

boredom. "The vicissitudes of war are

truly various, and its changes terrible,"

he reflected. "'Tis not all of the sweet

to be a volunteer soldier I assure you."

Of course, Ben Johnson's war was not

all hell. Released from the fetters and

boredom of home, a teen-age boy could

find in the army all the freedom and ex-

citement he craved, particularly since

discipline in his regiment was extremely

lax. "We thanked our lucky stars that

we did not have West Point men for our

officers." His volunteer officers, elected

by their men, usually looked the other

way while Johnson and his comrades

foraged, looted, and stole everything they

could carry, and often wantonly destroyed

what they could not. Pranks were fre-

quent, the most memorable being the time

they robbed "the Jew sutler" of all his

goods and bounced him out of camp on

a blanket. What fun!

The feeble discipline which tolerated

this sort of thing may well have accounted

for the regiment's exceptionally high rate

of sickness. Out of 542 deaths suffered

by the Sixth Michigan, 476 were from

disease.

Johnson's memoirs were written twenty

years after the war, and first appeared in

The Veteran during 1883 and 1884.

Resurrected now in pamphlet form with

an introduction and unobtrusive foot-

notes, they provide an interesting, though

certainly not a vital, contribution to Civil

War literature--one more drop in the

rushing torrent of centennial outpourings.

ALLAN PESKIN

Fenn College

SHERIDAN IN THE SHENANDOAH: JUBAL

EARLY'S NEMESIS. By Edward J. Stack-

pole. (Harrisburg, Pa.: The Stackpole

Company, 1961. xvii??⁴¹³p.; illustra-

tions, maps, bibliography, and index.

$5.95.)

In the summer of 1864 General Robert

E. Lee, hard-pressed before Richmond,

sent Jubal Early into the Shenandoah

Valley to harass Union forces, threaten

Washington, and, hopefully, to compel

General Grant to weaken his own forces

opposite Lee in order to stop Early. Lee's

hopes were partially fulfilled when, after

a series of northern reverses, the Union

commander sent General Philip H. Sheri-

dan into the valley against the Confed-

erates. Edward Stackpole, author of sev-

eral other Civil War battle histories, has

detailed the story of the valley struggle

from the command level. He begins with

a long summary of the campaign's back-

ground and early days (Sheridan doesn't

appear as an important figure until p.

103), and carries the story through to

the campaign's conclusion several weeks

before Appomattox with the Confederates

in full retreat and Sheridan's forces in

control of the valley.

This is a book for neither the scholar

nor the casual reader. The scholar will

find that Mr. Stackpole has contributed

little to our understanding of the war.

He is retelling a familiar story. He also

includes all sorts of material of doubtful

relevancy. (Is it really important that

two future presidents of the United States

fought at Winchester?) There is a very

scanty bibliography (listed as Appendix

A), and few footnotes. Furthermore, Mr.

Stackpole is given to distracting his

reader by his frequently over-vivid writ-

ing: "While the authorities at Washing-

ton fiddled, and Grant dulled his frus-

trated sensibilities with his favorite whis-

key, Chambersburg burned!" (p. 89).

The popular reader seeking some knowl-

edge of the campaign will be better served

by the works of Catton and Freeman. Mr.

Stackpole cannot resist including every

162                                            OHIO HISTORY

commander present at every incident,

often with asides detailing the past careers

and military futures of the men named.

Nor can he forbear from including ac-

counts of entirely unrelated matters. It

becomes difficult to follow his narrative

in the confusion of names and asides.

Sheridan in the Shenandoah is obvi-

ously written by one Civil War "buff"

for others of the same breed. Stackpole

has an enthusiasm for the war shared by

many other Americans during these cen-

tennial years. And despite embarrassing

incidents, the obvious glorification of

war, and the suggestions of serious schol-

ars that many of these works contribute

little to our understanding of the war's

issues and complexities, we seem fated to

endure a continuous flood of personal,

unit, and battle histories for a long time

to come. Mr. Stackpole and others might

read Paul Angle's recent article on the

centennial in the South Atlantic Quar-

terly, as a needed corrective to their

enthusiasm.

JOEL H. SILBEY

San Francisco State College

LOW BRIDGE! FOLKLORE AND THE ERIE

CANAL. By Lionel D. Wyld. (Syracuse,

N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1962.

xi??212p.; illustrations, bibliographi-

cal notes, and index. $5.50.)

This little volume by Professor Wyld

of the University of Buffalo finds the an-

swer to the question of what the Erie

Canal was "really like" in the folk tales

and the literature relating to life on that

famous New York waterway.

Professor Wyld identifies canal nomen-

clature, shares with us the experiences of

canal travelers, and introduces us to the

robust canallers who people the folklore

of the Erie Canal. Drawing most heavily

from fictional literature for his folklore,

the author taps the works of Walter D.

Edmonds and Samuel Hopkins Adams

throughout the book, and the writings of

each are evaluated in separate chapters.

Edmonds is judged the "pioneer" in Erie

Canal fiction, but Adams "proved more

sustaining."

Although Professor Wyld repeatedly

describes his work as "a literary history

of the Erie Canal," it is in his informality

of expression that this volume is most

disappointing. We meet "poetizing" trav-

elers, find canallers "legendized in tall

tales," and learn that "canalism fills the

pages" of an Edmonds novel. Parenthet-

ical additions abound in the text which

belong more properly in the footnotes,

and the author does not successfully re-

sist the temptation of hyperbole. "Noth-

ing in modern history," he writes, equals

the influence of the Erie Canal "on the

memory of a state, and in capturing the

imaginations of the writers who look for

inspiration in the state's past" (p. 179).

For the serious reader, there remains

the problem of folklore presented as au-

thentic history. For example, Professor

Wyld concedes the "myth" of the fighting

canaller and finds him a convention in the

Erie novel, but he accepts the myth as

adding "to the authenticity of the novel's

setting." Actually, reference to fighting

on the canal is rare in the newspapers of

the day. Foreign travelers seldom re-

ported witnessing altercations on the

canal and the boatmen themselves hotly

denied such charges. Too often, matters

of historical fact in this volume rest only

on the citation of an "Informant," whose

name and address are given.

In the author's distinction between the

"Old Erie" and "the Erie," the enlarge-

ment of the Erie Canal which was under

way from 1835 to 1862 receives only

briefest mention. No reference is made

to the near doubling of the dimensions of

the canal or to the importance of the

enlargement to the generation which

labored to achieve it. Still-existing locks

at Waterford and Lockport are described

as belonging to the "original Erie," which

really belong to the enlargement.

Low Bridge! is an informal survey of

Erie Canal folklore, but it has not earned

BOOK REVIEWS                                        163

its dust-jacket praise as a "scholarly

study" unless folklore scholarship rests

on different canons than those of more

verifiable history.

RONALD SHAW

Miami University

THE STATE UNIVERSITIES AND DEMOCRACY.

By Allan Nevins. (Urbana: University

of Illinois Press, 1962. vii??171p.;

appendix and index. $2.95.)

The State Universities and Democracy

is a precisely accurate title for this

middle-sized (170 pages) but tightly or-

ganized volume by Allan Nevins. The

book is a compilation of the lectures de-

livered by Nevins at the University of

Illinois in celebration of the centennial

of the Morrill act. The timeliness of the

Morrill act centennial is recognized by

using the land-grant schools as the point

of departure in each major subdivision;

yet Nevins embraces the entire state uni-

versity constellation as he expands each

point.

The four chapters treat the topic in

four stages of development: inception,

early growth, coming to flower, and the

present position as a challenging but

promising future is faced.

The theme of democratic purpose by

the state universities as treated by Nevins

is pervasive but not to the point of cloyed-

ness. Nevins names the major element in

the seedbed of the new units as "a

demand for greater democracy in educa-

tion" (p. 2); Americans never forgot

their faith that "higher education safe-

guarded the social mobility of the nation,

and that was the heart of democracy"

(p. 71); and, finally, today's big chal-

lenge to the state universities is what can

they "do for democracy" (p. 139). In

Nevins' work we see these new units

placed under way against great odds, the

legislative squandering of so much of the

original land-grants, the enlisting of stu-

dents (and trying to upgrade their

quality), the encouraging of secondary

schools and nurturing relations with

them, the development of faculties, and

the resulting almost fantastic growth.

Nevins gives unusually sensitive and read-

able presentations of several features

sometimes regarded as esoteric, for ex-

ample, the crucial struggle to make agri-

culture into a science. We note en passant

that in its early days the Ohio State Uni-

versity Board of Trustees stated that, if

the legislature but gave them $50,000,

they probably would never again have to

ask for state appropriations!

Now the entire complex is poised for a

new century. According to Nevins these

schools should profit from the three ad-

vantages of moving from strength, a

vastly improved high school system, and

the "plasticity" of higher education in the

United States. True, they face great chal-

lenges, of which Nevins thinks the two

most severe are the two-sided one of num-

bers of students and standards of admis-

sion, and the development of research and

graduate study.

Nevins gives some unique interpreta-

tions and, in other places, brilliantly clari-

fies obscurities. His sense of the person-

ality of a state university is powerful

indeed.

To him the democratic purpose throbs

through every corridor of our state uni-

versities. So often one is bemused by the

large numbers of individual faculty in our

state universities who profess a so-called

liberal stance in politics or on socio-

economic matters but who, on matters of

educational policy and purpose, are in a

wing which, if in politics, would be akin

to that of the John Birch Society. Nevins

would never let such forget Longfellow's

scholar in "the dark, gray town" or

that the state university campus grasps

through its students, even though only for

their relatively short stays, a living func-

tion that invigorates our society.

From among current problems facing

the state universities, Nevins does not

sufficiently sound the alarm for mainte-

nance of the low-tuition principle. While

164                                         OHIO HISTORY

he presents the "absence of robust tui-

tion" as an earmark of the state university

system, its crucial relationship to democ-

racy in higher education and the threats

to it today are not highlighted.

This book reveals a historian who sees

zest and drive in American society. It is

a pillar for those seeking sources of

strength and guidance, and who want to

work with vigor in democracy's higher

schools.

ROBERT WHITE

Kent State University

FAREWELL TO THE BLOODY SHIRT: NORTH-

ERN REPUBLICANS AND THE SOUTHERN

NEGRO. 1877-1893. By Stanley P.

Hirshson. Introduction by David Don-

ald. (Bloomington: Indiana Univer-

sity Press, 1962. ³³⁴p.; bibliography

and index. $6.95.)

This book traces the changing attitudes

of northern Republicans toward the Negro

during the years between Reconstruction

and Progressivism. David Donald charac-

terized it as (1) "a detailed account of

the rivalry between . . . two conflicting

schools of Republican thought," (2) "an

exemplary case history of the actual

workings of American politics," (3) "a

contribution to the sociology of American

political parties," and (4) "a revelation

of the role that irrational forces play in

American political life." Dr. Hirshson

reciprocated with a customary academic

genuflection for "the sage counsel of this

truly outstanding scholar," who offered

"so many suggestions that it would re-

quire another volume of this size merely

to list them." Since Dr. Hirshson proves

himself to be both a competent writer and

thorough researcher, one hopes that his

mentor's suggestions will provide the

basis for additional research. Today's

racial problems become more intelligible

in light of the times and conditions de-

scribed in this book. Although it is not

germane to his topic, the author cannot

resist the understandable impulse to con-

clude his book with a brief, optimistic

speculation about the future.

The author had the advantage of fol-

lowing a partially blazed trail. He refers

his readers to Vincent P. De Santis'

Republicans Face the Southern Question:

The New Departure Years, 1877-1897,

which was published after his own manu-

script was completed. Dr. Hirshson had

access to De Santis' articles and doctoral

dissertation on this theme, however, and

so there is considerable parallelism in

their books. De Santis was interested

primarily in southern Republicanism, but,

since he traced the numerous shifts in

presidential policies toward the South,

much of his material was pertinent to

Hirshson's theme of northern Republi-

canism. For example, he wrote an ex-

tensive account of Henry Cabot Lodge's

force bill. Northern Republican apathy

toward the Negro was shown to be a

major factor in its defeat. Such paral-

lelism does not detract from the value of

Hirshson's book. His extensive use of

newspapers and relatively obscure and

widely distributed manuscript collections

enabled him to capture the slight varia-

tions in local public opinion and to bring

into sharper focus the contributions of

innumerable Republican leaders in shap-

ing their party's policies toward the

Negro.

Dr. Donald came close to the essence of

this book when he described it as a

"detailed account." The reader will not

be surprised to learn that the Republicans,

who realized that most Americans voted

Democratic, hoped to transform their

minority party into a national organiza-

tion by winning support in such Demo-

cratic strongholds as the South. It will

not come as a startling revelation that

many practical northern Republicans kept

alive the old denunciations of southern

whites by "waving the bloody shirt" in

an effort to build a party composed of

Negro voters. On the other hand, it has

long been an accepted thesis that power-

ful economic interests in the North and

BOOK REVIEWS                                     165

certain northern Republican reformers

agreed that there were more profitable

and political advantages to be derived

from an entente with southern whites.

After 1890 the northern Republicans

abandoned the Negro; they had new in-

terests to champion, and the flow of west-

ern expansion was creating a Republican

majority without any help from the South.

Through his extensive research, Dr.

Hirshson has been able to muster much

material to provide greater detail in sup-

port of these ideas. The northern Repub-

licans did not have a continuous or con-

sistent policy toward the Negro, and so

the author has performed a valuable serv-

ice by giving the historian a clearer pic-

ture of what that policy was at any

moment and the forces that were at work

to change it.

There is no doubt that by 1877 the

Republican party was purged of most of

its idealism and humanitarianism. For

the Negro there was nothing but the fad-

ing image of the Great Emancipator. It

would be good to know how the northern

Republicans expected to build a southern

wing with neither patronage nor other

recompense for poor Negro and white

constituents.

WILLIAM FRANK ZORNOW

Kent State University

STRATEGY AND STRUCTURE: CHAPTERS IN

THE HISTORY OF THE INDUSTRIAL

ENTERPRISE. By Alfred D. Chandler,

Jr. (Cambridge, Mass.: M. I. T. Press,

1962. xiv??463p.; tables, charts, and

index. $10.00.)

This book has many virtues, but its

chief one is that it provides clothing for

several skeletal theories that have long

hung in the business historian's closet.

Theories of adaptive and innovative re-

sponses, of entrepreneurial versus "merely

managerial" functions and behavior, and

of financial versus industrial capitalist, all

are subjected, either implicitly or explic-

itly, to the test of holding the weight of

empirical data. Professor Chandler's

subject is the introduction of multi-

divisional, multi-level, decentralized man-

agement structure in the American corpo-

ration. He has done four intensive case

studies, based largely on corporation

archives, of Du Pont, General Motors,

Standard Oil, and Sears, Roebuck. These

firms were selected when preliminary re-

search indicated that they were the first

to adopt the modern organizational struc-

ture. To assess the impact of their inno-

vations on American industry as a whole,

Mr. Chandler has also studied the fifty

largest corporations of 1909 and the

seventy largest of 1948.

The thesis that emerges from the ex-

tremely detailed case studies is that

"structure followed strategy." Overcapac-

ity (either actual or anticipated), diversi-

fication or integration, all produced new

administrative problems, and these gave

rise in turn to major changes in organiza-

tional structure. The role of individual

business leaders in shaping these changes,

or at times resisting them, is given ample

attention, and generalizations are ven-

tured about the innovating types.

Like the best of recent work in business

history, Strategy and Structure clearly re-

lates its subject both to national economic

development and to what Arthur Cole

terms the "social setting of business enter-

prise." For the student of business or

administrative history, its importance is

obvious. For the American historian, it

not only offers a closely written study of

one aspect of corporation development

but also suggests the impact on industry

of war, depression, and changing con-

sumer habits. For the state and local his-

torian, the book suggests indirectly a

number of important issues. For example,

how did changing management of giant

national firms affect the growth of local

communities that produced and/or con-

sumed the products of these firms? One

hopes that an equally important study

will be inspired by this one, a study con-

cerned rather with lower-level manage-

166                                             OHIO HISTORY

ment in its local setting, adjusting to such

changes in corporate structure and strat-

egy as Chandler describes.

As in any such work, there are points

that will be debated. At times Mr. Chan-

dler appears to assume too readily that

corporate growth and success flowed in-

evitably from the structural reforms that

preceded such development (see p. 158).

Given the striking transfer of entrepre-

neurial personnel and skills from the pub-

lic field of enterprise to the private, espe-

cially in early nineteenth-century United

States, it is difficult to accept his flat con-

tention that problems of administration

in the private enterprise are not meaning-

fully comparable to those in public under-

takings (p. 322). Given the volume of

detail, moreover, it is paradoxical that

ostensibly important issues should be in-

troduced but not explained; for example,

analysis of G. M. executives' debate of the

copper-cooled engine (pp. 154-155) does

not include any assessment on an engi-

neering basis of the engine. But such

minor criticisms ought not deter any his-

torian from a close reading of this im-

portant book.

HARRY N. SCHEIBER

Dartmouth College