Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

Saving the Waifs: Reformers and Dependent Children, 1890-1917. By LeRoy

Ashby. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984. xiii + 336p.; notes,

bibliographical notes, index. $37.95.)

This fine book reflects the current interest in dependent children, private

philanthropy, and public policy and shares the hypothesis of other recent

works that since child welfare is somehow at the heart of Progressive reform-

ism, understanding the "child savers" is key to understanding Progressiv-

ism.

In these respects, Saving the Waifs resembles Susan Tiffin, In Whose Best

Interest: Child Welfare Reform in the Progressive Era; Steven Schlossman,

Love and the American Delinquent: The Theory and Practice of "Progressive"

Juvenile Justice; Ellen Ryerson, The Best Laid Plans: America's Juvenile

Court Experiment; and David J. Rothman, Conscience and Convenience: The

Asylum and Its Alternatives in Progressive America. Although all of these

other historians concede the genuine humanitarianism of the "child savers,

in general they agree with Rothman that conscience often took a back seat to

convenience, as that was determined by the middle-class and socially con-

servative perspectives of the reformers.

Ashby offers us a more intimate, more sympathetic, and more complex

portrait of the men and women who sought to save the waifs, based on five

case studies of the agencies and institutions which they founded and admin-

istered. According to Ashby, the complexity of their motives and the uncer-

tainties of their goals and strategies stemmed from their being caught be-

tween the village values of voluntarism, family, and religion of the nineteenth

century and the modernization of the twentieth, with its attendant profes-

sionalization, impersonality, and commercialization. Child-saving became a

way, although an uncertain one, of managing the present.

Each case study illustrates this conflict and ambiguity. For example, the

directors of the Children's Home Society of Minnesota, a child-placing agen-

cy, found themselves torn between the desire to punish or control the illicit

sexuality of unwed mothers and the humanitarian impulse to shelter their il-

legitimate children. The women who established the orphanages of the Na-

tional Benevolent Association of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

were in conflict not only with the personalist theology of the Church itself

(and its male hierarchy) but with the anti-institutional trends in child care of

the early-twentieth century. The success of the Ford Republic, an institution

for homeless and delinquent boys, owed much of its success to the period's

confusion of dependency and delinquency.

John Gunckel and his Toledo Newsboys' Association were praised for en-

couraging industry and self-reliance among the "newsies," on the one hand,

and criticized for perpetuating child labor, on the other. G. W. Hinckley,

founder of Good Will Farm, a home for dependent children, best personi-

fied the difficulties of teaching his charges "the values of an older, idealized

America that emphasized the work ethic, moral restraint, love, religious

faith, and service to others" in an organizational, commercial world.

Book Reviews                                                  193

In sum, Ashby portrays men who were driven by "volatile combinations

of fear and hope, of powerlessness and the desire to make a turbulent world

orderly; of self-sacrifice and the quest for fame and attention; of humanitari-

an instincts and the urge to impose personal values on other individuals."

Ashby concedes that the record of the "child savers" was mixed, and he

does not conceal or apologize for the human failings of his subjects: alleged

misuse of funds, adultery, nervous breakdowns. He concludes, however,

that "in many respects they represented some of [the Progressive] era's finest

achievements."

This rich and sensitive portrait of Progressive child savers, which inter-

weaves both historical and historiographical issues, leaves relatively unde-

veloped only the significant role of women. They are given credit here as

founders and matrons of the orphanages of the National Benevolent Associa-

tion but surely deserve mention elsewhere as fund raisers, administrators,

and proselytizers for the cause of child welfare.

Ashby concedes that his is a study of the child "savers" rather than the

"saved." When it becomes possible to write that history, I hope that Ash-

by will turn his skills and compassion to it.

John Carroll University                           Marian J. Morton

The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indi-

an Tribes with English Colonies from its Beginnings to the Lancaster Treaty

of 1744. By Francis Jennings. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company,

1984. xxv + 438p.; maps, illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, in-

dex. $24.95.)

This book, the author notes, is part of the history of how the Eurameri-

cans and Amerindians shared in the creation of the United States of Ameri-

ca. His earlier and much acclaimed book, The Invasion of America: Indians,

Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest, examined the methods Euramericans

of New England used to conquer the Amerindians. In that excellent volume

he concluded that the strategy the Puritans used was armed conquest. How-

ever, in his present work, Jennings describes the colonial strategy of the Eng-

lish and Dutch invaders of the "middle colonies" of New Netherland-New

York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

The result of two decades of research, this book explores the role played

by the Convenant Chain in relations between native Amerindians and Euro-

pean colonists. Noting that the Convenant Chain played no role in frontier

histories devoted to demonstrating hostility between Europeans and native

Americans, Jennings attempts to explain that these earlier works neglected a

significant portion of the history. The complex Covenant Chain system, diffi-

cult to define throughout its more than a century of existence, fills this void.

Jennings contends it has often been discounted, overlooked, or has been

given erroneous simplistic answers to the sophisticated questions concerning

the role of the Covenant Chain.

Although Iroquois relationships with the Europeans are the most impor-

tant within the theme of this book, his scholarship also penetrates the rela-

tions between non-Iroquois tribes and Iroquois within the Convenant Chain

194                                                 OHIO HISTORY

system. We soon become aware as we read this thoughtful complex work

that Jennings is carefully developing his theme with the skill of an experi-

enced scholar. We learn that he will explore every aspect of each emerging

question to his satisfaction before making his conclusion. But anyone who

reads this book will learn that Jennings is willing to challenge unproven state-

ments of other scholars, provided that he has evidence to support his case.

Jennings believes that the Covenant Chain was an expedient to be main-

tained until the English grew strong enough to realize the crown's pretentions

to sovereignty. Until then the Covenant Chain was an institution created by a

contract between Indians and Europeans which eliminated much violence

and reduced conflict within specified bounds. It worked well enough so that

neither Europeans or Amerindians were completely satisfied with the accom-

modations of the Covenant Chain for over a century, but it was retained.

Jennings points out that even Frederic Jackson Turner missed the complexity

of the system when he stated that the Albany Congress of 1754 was the be-

ginning of a new system of cooperation, when in fact it marked the end of the

old system of accommodation. It was replaced by direct crown intervention

in the relationships between the English colonists and the Indians.

It is refreshing to learn of the complexities of Covenant Chain accommoda-

tion in this book. Many earlier histories of European-American Indian rela-

tionships have taken the easier, but perhaps erroneous, polarized position of

presenting each side, and inevitably there are winners and losers. Although

the story of Covenant Chain accommodation presented here is admittedly

not an ideal model, and has obvious defects, Jennings has made a splendid

effort to expand our knowledge of this complex system. He is to be congratu-

lated for a superb book. Fortunately, we learn that in a future book he will

continue the fascinating history of the role of the Covenant Chain during the

Seven Years War.

Missouri Southern State College                    Robert E. Smith

History of the Militia and National Guard. By John K. Mahon. (New York:

Macmillan, 1983. viii + 374p.; illustrations, photographs, notes, bibliogra-

phy, index. $20.95.)

The history of the militia and National Guard must rank as one of the most

controversial and complex topics in American military history. Institutions of

manifold responsibilities and multiple forms, the militia and National Guard

have been the subject of both fervent praise and harsh criticism by politi-

cians, military men, and historians for over 200 years. Several good special-

ized studies of the Guard have appeared in the last few decades (those by

Derthick, Riker, and Higham), but apart from an unpublished study by

Elbridge Colby, no satisfactory general history of the militia and National

Guard has yet been produced. There was thus cause for welcome with the

publication of John K. Mahon's History of the Militia and National Guard.

Written under the aegis of the respected Macmillan Wars of the United States

series, this book aimed to present a scholarly, analytical account of the mili-

tia and National Guard and thus fill a large gap in the historiography of these

institutions.

Book Reviews                                                    195

History of the Militia and National Guard recounts the experience of the

citizen-soldier-based fighting force in American history, from colonial times

to the 1980s. It includes a chapter on the English origins of the American mi-

litia and traces its development in all this nation's major wars. In general, His-

tory of the Militia and National Guard is well researched. The book is amply

documented (there are over 50 pages of endnotes) and possesses a lengthy

and balanced bibliography. Professor Mahon has consulted many obscure

primary sources and almost every important secondary work on this subject.

In particular, the book's early chapters, covering the colonial and early na-

tional period, are well footnoted.

Unfortunately, the positive features of this work are outweighed by three

problems. The first of these concerns the book's organizational structure.

Professor Mahon has chosen to present his material along strictly chronolog-

ical lines, dividing his account into a total of seventeen time periods. In each

chapter, the author describes both the militia's (or the National Guard's)

actions in a federal role and its purely state connected duties. Mahon jumps

back and forth between state and federal duties in an uneven and inconsis-

tent manner. As a result, the reader is left confused as to the significance of

and relative amount of time devoted to state vs. federal actions. The book's

organizational scheme makes it difficult to obtain any coherent picture of

how the militia or National Guard developed or what exactly they accom-

plished in a given period of American history. An alternate approach would

be to segregate accounts of the militia as a state force and as federal reserve

and analyze each role separately. This method of organization would, in the

opinion of this reviewer, have produced a clearer and more readable ac-

count.

History of the Militia and National Guard also contains a good deal of in-

consistent and superficial analysis. For example, the chapter on the colonial

period gives a good account of the basic structure and main activities of the

early militia, but it fails to analyze the process by which the English politico-

military heritage and New World military conditions combined to produce a

distinctively American version of the Old English train bands. Also, the

book makes frequent references to the militia or National Guard's activities as

a state military force but does not consider the special constitutional, legal,

political, or economic problems associated with the use of part-time civilian

soldiers in aid of civilian authority. Finally, the concluding chapter offers

nothing more than a straightforward summary of the book's first seventeen

chapters. It fails to place the history of the militia and National Guard in the

larger perspective of American military history, something one would expect

in a work of this type.

The weakness of the book's concluding chapter hints at the most serious

defect in History of the Militia and National Guard: the work as a whole is es-

sentially of distinct "snapshot" accounts of the various stages of develop-

ment of the militia and Guard. It gives the reader a good picture of what

these organizations were like in 1776, 1812, 1846 and so on, but relays little or

no information on the dynamics of the development of the American citizen-

soldier and related institutional forms. Unfortunately, this book fails to tell us

how and why the militia and Guard changed over the course of 300 years.

Plagued also by an idiosyncratic, almost folksy writing style and numerous

proofreading errors, History of the Militia and National Guard may serve as a

196                                                  OHIO HISTORY

useful reference work, but it fails to fill the need for a comprehensive, analyt-

ical history of our oldest military institutions.

The Ohio State University                           George W. Sinks

The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam. By General Bruce

Palmer, Jr. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984. ix + 236p.;

illustrations, notes, selected bibliography, index. $24.00.)

This excellent study of the Vietnam War goes well beyond the scope of a

campaign survey to address why that traumatic conflict turned out as it did.

Written by a senior Army officer who served in important leadership posi-

tions in Vietnam and as Army Vice Chief of Staff, The 25-Year War is part

memoir and part analytical history; it really comes to grips with what went

right, what went wrong, and why.

Palmer provides a good, brief overview of the fighting taking place in

Southeast Asia, from the end of World War II through the defeat of the

French by the Viet Minh in 1954. During that period the American people

and government came to view Communism as an evil monolythic force that

had to be checked; this influenced U.S. policy and helped lead to direct

American involvement in Vietnam in an attempt to prevent the Communist

North Vietnamese from conquering South Vietnam. The author points out

that our national leaders followed this course without realistically evaluating

the situation during those critical early years.

By late 1964 North Vietnamese regular forces were taking an active part in

the struggle, escalating the conflict in their quest for a decisive military victo-

ry. It was clear by early 1965 that if U.S. troops did not intervene in ground

operations, South Vietnam would not survive. Palmer traces American com-

bat involvement from 1965 to 1973, and explains how U.S. forces were em-

ployed to preserve the independence of South Vietnam.

He has harsh words for the U.S. military strategy used during the war,

and his criticism makes good sense. Because political constraints prevented

American ground forces from attacking enemy sanctuaries in Cambodia and

Laos, the initiative in military operations was left to the North Vietnamese

and their Viet Cong subordinates. They could attack whenever they chose

and then retreat back to the sanctuaries. U.S. units were forced "to react

and dance to the enemy's tune." The American strategy was thus one of

defense and attrition. U.S. "search and destroy" operations within South

Vietnam were designed to destroy enemy main force units, thereby hurting

the Communists so severely that they would cease hostilities. But as Palmer

points out: "Hanoi's available manpower resources were clearly adequate to

sustain the war indefinitely." With President Johnson keeping tight limits on

the bombing operations directed against North Vietnam-and halting them

completely in 1968-and with the continued cross-border restrictions im-

posed on U.S. ground forces, the American military goal was virtually impos-

sible to attain. The author proposes an alternative strategy that may have

promised better results than the defensive, attritional approach the U.S. em-

ployed. At the very least, it is thought-provoking.

The 25-Year War provides a good overview of the limited role the Joint

Book Reviews                                                    197

Chiefs of Staff played in directing the American war effort. Likewise, it in-

cludes excellent personality sketches of the Chiefs, other senior military

leaders, and the nation's civilian leadership. This enables the reader to bet-

ter understand the decision-making environment.

The 25-Year War also recounts some of the military errors made by Ameri-

can forces in Vietnam. These include the lack of centralized control over

combat operations, an over-reliance on fire power, the misuse of helicopters

as observation platforms for commanders, and the failure to adequately train

U.S. troops for unconventional warfare. Palmer shows no reluctance to dis-

cuss the more controversial issues that emerged during the war, such as the

My Lai affair, the secret bombing of Cambodia, and the inequities of the

draft. He provides evidence that American servicemen maintained good

morale, discipline, and combat effectiveness until a growing number of the

people back home turned against the war. New troops coming into the com-

bat zone, from 1968 onward, increasingly reflected the anti-war attitude.

The 25-Year War is a well-written, balanced study that will be of value to

anyone seeking to understand the war, its lessons, and their implications for

the future.

Office of Air Force History                           John F. Shiner

Nineteen Sixty-Eight. By Clark Dougan and Stephen Weiss. Vol. 6 of The

Vietnam Experience. Edited by Robert Manning. (Boston: Boston Pub-

lishing Company, 1983. 192p.; illustrations, glossary of terms, maps, picture

essays. $16.95.)

This powerfully written and well-illustrated book blends the best of both

worlds. It is written for a popular audience, yet it does not pander or dimin-

ish itself in quality. It blends solid scholarship from a plethora of sources to

re-create and analyze the events of U.S. involvement in Vietnam in 1968. This

is a well-crafted, high-quality history.

At first glance the book appears to be disjointed and written in an almost

fragmented form of organization. Yet this in fact is not the case for this excel-

lent book, but rather for the year 1968, a chaotic year of internal and military

chaos. Divided topically into eight chapters, the book holds the reader's

attention in its beginning with a tense description of a battle describing indi-

vidual American participants, their actions and thoughts, and then broad-

ens into North Vietnamese decision-making strategy behind the Tet offen-

sive. Both guerrilla and conventional modes of warfare are analyzed from

both sides in an attempt to better understand U.S. military decisions and

North Vietnamese actions.

Domestically, Lyndon Johnson is treated as a politician whose show of

strength (and huge personal ego) refused to allow a reenactment of the

French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Neither the Johnson administration nor

American military strategists could successfully cope with what appeared to

be an enigmatic communist strategy which benefitted from time and pa-

tience. Thus while the Johnson administration could claim a dubious "vic-

tory" in 1968, the fact remained that the Tet offensive caused "a down-

ward spiral of doubt, disenchantment, and disapproval that had begun in

1966." Tet changed the "terms of the public debate over the war." By

198                                                 OHIO HISTORY

mid-February of 1968 "the validity of the President's entire Vietnam policy

was questioned by large segments of the public."

It is at this point that the book makes an excellent transition to the suspi-

cion and distrust of the Johnson administration by some portions of the pub-

lic. The book then goes on to analyze the internal war-the debate within

America-in a rich chapter entitled "America Divided." Because of the

draft and the nature of enlistments and deferments, the authors significantly

point to social and class cleavages in the debate over the war and in military

personnel. Portraits of racial antagonism, dissenters, the counter-culture,

George Wallace, and Robert Kennedy make this chapter one of the most in-

cisive for an analysis of the war within the U.S. What this section implies is a

subtle "class war" in filling the ranks of the military. The year 1968 was a

troubled one both domestically and in foreign policy. This book-which

despite its size is not a "coffee table" book-ought to be read by any person

with a sense of civic obligation and respect for a lawful, peaceful international

and national order.

The book is clear, precise, poignant, and painfully powerful. Its conclusion

is sobering and jolting. In the last section of the book the authors, in a sec-

tion entitled "Only the Dead," offer the following assessment: "On a day

just before Christmas, the 30,000th name was added to the mounting toll of a

war that seemed to go on forever. In South Vietnam, at the end of 1968, only

the dead were at peace." This sobering book is didactic in telling the tragic

and powerful story. The book is highly recommended to prevent the dan-

gers of social and historical amnesia.

Kenyon College                                       Roy Wortman

A Time of Passion: America 1960-1980. By Charles R. Morris. (New York:

Harper & Row, 1984. xii + 271p.; chapter bibliographies, index. $17.50.)

I spent the day before writing this review with a college friend I had not

seen for nearly twenty years. Both of us, we discovered, had matured a good

deal since our fraternity days at UCLA. We now drank less and jogged more.

While our families had grown, our hairlines had receded. We had both

come through military service during the Vietnam War with our bodies and

minds intact. We recalled the Tet Offensive (in which he had nearly been

killed) and the Washington ghetto riots of 1968 and the University of Wis-

consin bombing of 1970 (both of which I had witnessed "up close and per-

sonal"). For us it was a fascinating afternoon, and our wives may even have

enjoyed some of our reminiscing. I doubt that many historians would have

found it particularly enlightening. Their reaction to Charles R. Morris's A

Time of Passion is likely to be similar, for it too is basically the reflections of a

man in his forties on what has happened during the last two decades.

Indeed, Morris himself characterizes his book as "primarily a personal ex-

ploration" and admits "the events I have chosen to emphasize are the ones I

most wanted to learn about" (p. ix). His reason for concentrating on civil

rights, Keynesian economics, and the background of the Vietnam War is

that "I felt I needed to know more about them in order to understand the

period" (p. ix). That is fine, for all of those were matters of importance during

Book Reviews                                                  199

the years 1960-1980. Pragmatism may have had some significance then too,

but clearly not as much as the Ford and Carter presidencies. Yet, Morris de-

votes more space to the former (which interests him) than to the latter

(which apparently do not).

Besides being unbalanced, his book is inadequately researched. Morris

has held a number of interesting jobs that have provided him with first-

hand knowledge of the War on Poverty, ghetto rioting, and the American

welfare and corrections systems, so some of the personal anecdotes he in-

cludes are interesting, and a few even provide valuable insights. These are,

however, not adequate substitutes for manuscript and oral history research.

Morris has done none of either. A Time of Passion is based entirely on sec-

ondary and published primary sources, supplemented by its author's recol-

lections.

Morris's failure to footnote a book obviously intended for popular con-

sumption is forgivable, but the factual errors which mar A Time of Passion

are not. For example, he confuses Virginia Congressman Howard Smith with

Nevada Senator Howard Cannon (p. 57) and in what appears to be a refer-

ence to former California Senator William Knowland, calls him "Knowles"

(p. 18). When I read Morris's account of violent attacks on the civil rights

movement in the South, I happened to be going through Justice Department,

SNCC, and CORE documents on the incidents he was discussing. The num-

ber of instances in which his version of events differed from what the pri-

mary sources revealed was striking.

Although plagued by inaccuracies, A Time of Passion is not without merit.

Those with only a layman's knowledge of economic theory will find Morris's

explanations of it and of recent economic trends quite enlightening. What he

has to say about the significance of twentieth century demographic trends is

also thoughtful and persuasive. His contention that America did not undergo

major change between 1960 and 1980 is provocative. It may even be correct,

but proving this will require far more research than Morris has done. A Time

of Passion is, unfortunately, not the product of serious historical scholarship,

and serious historians should not rely on it.

University of Georgia                            Michal R. Belknap

The Rise of the Right. By William A. Rusher. (New York: William Morrow

and Company, Inc., 1984. 336p.; notes, index. $15.95.)

I was suspicious when invited to review this book, and my concern in-

creased after it arrived in the office mail. The dust jacket bills it as "An eye-

opening, behind-the-scenes history of the conservative movement by one of

its leading and most outspoken founders." With this billing on the front of

the jacket and the back filled with praises for the author and his work from

a host of elected and nonelected conservative luminaries, I could not but

wonder as to what I had let myself in for.

I was soon to find out. Mr. Rusher has provided us with a well-written

even articulate story about the American conservative movement after World

War II. We have chatty gossip and catty comments about big name politi-

cians and their various campaigns and conservative thinkers and their vari-

200                                                 OHIO HISTORY

ous thoughts to keep one turning the pages, but as they turn a feeling that

something is missing begins to arise.

It arises because this is not a work of history. It brings us to no new level of

understanding of a period, problem, or phenomenon. It lacks learning; it

lacks understanding; it lacks an empathy with all those not white, male,

middle-class, and middle-aged. It deals in stereotypes honestly taken to be

real and gives us a good idea about how some very powerful people in this

country can write off college kids as radicals, blacks as welfare cheats, and

Russians as evil empire builders.

The steadfast refusal to admit to any kind of social or cultural relativity out-

side the borders of a mythical Dixon, Illinois, or Landonian Kansas is exact-

ly what makes Mr. Rusher's conservative view so easy for the electorate to

swallow, while at the same time insuring that those elected by the glottal

public take into the management of our domestic and foreign affairs danger-

ous blinders.

Stereotypes and a fervent embracing of rightish programs and platforms

with a smooth pitch to mom and apple pie are not enough for fair govern-

ment. What is needed is the ability to relate to all kinds of people and their

various political and social values. That is what Mr. Rusher and his conser-

vative cohorts cannot provide and why their current governmental revolution

in Washington will collapse and be judged a failure.

Cleveland State University                         Michael V. Wells

The Winged Gospel: America's Romance With Aviation, 1900-1950. By Joseph

J. Corn. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. x + ¹⁷⁷p.; illustrations,

notes, index. $17.95.)

Readers who turn to this thin volume, whose text occupies less than 140

pages, expecting of its author a serious discussion of the important effects the

airplane had on American life in the first half of the twentieth century will

be, for the most part, disappointed. Despite his impressive scholarly back-

ground and his research into an equally impressive and varied body of mate-

rials, Corn, like the popular writers on airplanes and such other means of

transportation as automobiles and railroads, devotes far too much space to

the trivial developments, rather than emphasizing what would seem to be

the truly important aspects of this subject. "The Winged Gospel" is a happy

choice for a title if it is intended simply to portray the kind of enthusiasm

that the ardent advocates of aviation projected. The author, however, goes

beyond such symbolism and attempts to show that the term symbolizes

some actual religious undertones present in the enthusiasm for airplanes. The

imagery of Henry Ward Beecher, who, of course, died long before any air-

planes flew, urging his parishioners to "rise" into the heavens and cast off

their petty earthbound worries is cited as evidence that Americans had

been preconditioned to thinking that airplanes would bring them closer to

God's heavenly realms. When the T.V. evangelist Jimmy Swaggert in 1979

asked his viewers, "Will your landing lights be on when you touch down in

heaven?" Corn is there, noting how "the airplane still could serve the cause

of faith." He finds the aviation enthusiasts' observance of the anniversary of

Book Reviews                                                  201

Kitty Hawk similar to Christianity's observance of Christmas, a relationship

that most, if not all, such enthusiasts would probably regard as blasphe-

mous.

The space given to a discussion of Lawsonomy, the weird semi-religious

doctrines propounded by Alfred W. Lawson, an early aviation enthusiast,

and to such trivia as Lt. Belvin M. Maynard, the "flying pastor," delivering

an Easter sermon from his airplane cockpit, or Harold McMahan, whoever

he was, taking off on December 25, 1929, with "a fully-decorated Christmas

tree" in his plane's cabin would seem better left to Believe-it-or-Not Ripley

and the Guinness Book of Records. A chapter devoted to the model airplane

fad of the 1930s and the push for "Air Age Education" in the forties is an in-

teresting commentary on the tendency of educators to overreact to develop-

ments they do not understand, while the chapter "Women Pilots and the

Selling of Aviation" would be the best part of the book if the author had not

earlier related many of the exploits of the women pilots, including three ac-

counts in the first 73 pages of the death in 1912 of the pioneer pilot, Harriet

Quimby.

The period covered by the book ends with 1950 because by that date the

idea that airplanes would become as common as the family car was generally

seen as unattainable. But how many Americans seriously thought it would

become a reality? Corn seems to think it was almost a universal article of faith

in those days, but in the working-class neighborhood in which I grew up in

the 1930s and 1940s I do not think any of us seriously thought we would see

the day when the rosy forecasts of Popular Mechanics, which we read,

would come true. Yet airplanes were an exciting thing to all of us. In good

weather, when we heard a plane we still ran out to try to spot it as it passed

over. Until the war, few if any of us had ever ridden in a plane, but by mid-

century not only those who came through service in the air corps had flown

but one immigrant family down the street had been able to fly back to the

old country for a visit, something that had been virtually unheard of in previ-

ous decades with the means of transportation then available. One would

hope, therefore, that Joseph Corn would now go beyond the courtship stage

of America's romance with aviation and get down to the tangible ways in

which American life has been altered in the mature phase of that romance in

the years since 1950.

Eastern Michigan University                         George S. May

Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture 1865-1900. By Gilbert C. Fite.

(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. xiv + 273p.; illustrations,

appendix, notes, bibliographical essay, index. $28.00 cloth; $10.00 paper.)

When the Civil War ended, southern agriculture was in shambles. During

the war, northern troops had burned farm buildings, destroyed livestock,

and removed fences. With southern farmers in the military instead of in the

fields, weeds soon overtook productive lands. Although small-scale white

farmers quickly reestablished themselves when the fighting ceased, the

large-scale farmers particularly needed to develop an economic structure that

would bring land, labor, and capital together and thereby make their fields

202                                                  OHIO HISTORY

productive once again. In time, they did so by fostering the sharecropping,

tenant, and furnishing merchant systems. By renting land for crop shares or

for cash, or by supplying needed credit, however, landowners and mer-

chants kept poor farmers in perpetual debt. In addition, land rental and

credit policies tied the sharecroppers and tenants to a soil-depleting, price-

depressing, one-crop economy. Moreover, inadequate transportation, lim-

ited urban markets, and small-scale farms prevented mechanization and

diversification-both of which helped northern farmers expand production

and increase efficiency. A surplus farm population also plagued the rural

South. Indeed, from the end of the Civil War until about 1940, most south-

erners remained on the land, because they did not have viable alternatives

for employment elsewhere. As a result, the farms remained small, the rural

population large, and the cotton crop dominant.

During the New Deal years, however, the federal government paid farmers

to curtail production. As a result, many large-scale landowners released their

sharecroppers and tenants, and used their government subsidies to consoli-

date lands, buy equipment, and diversify production. During the 1940s, the

first commercially successful cotton picker also reached the market. By the

1950s, cotton pickers eliminated thousands of farm jobs and freed the large-

scale producers from their dependence upon wage laborers. In addition, the

Second World War provided industrial opportunities for many rural south-

erners, and the military took others from the fields. After the war, southern

farmers continued to make adjustments by producing more soybeans, live-

stock, fruits, dairy products, and hay than ever before. They also gave in-

creased attention to the application of new forms of science and technology

and to better farm management practices, largely with the aid of the state ag-

ricultural colleges, extension and experiment station services and the United

States Department of Agriculture. By 1960, southern farmers were little differ-

ent from agriculturists in other parts of the nation.

Gilbert C. Fite, Richard B. Russell Professor of History at the University of

Georgia, has written an important book about southern agriculture. Fite

traces the major agricultural developments in the eleven Confederate states

from the decline of farming following the Civil War until its revolutionary

emergence as a strong sector in the nation's economy after World War II. Be-

sides analyzing the economic, scientific, technological, and educational

changes in southern agriculture, Fite shows the relationship of the agricultur-

al economy to southern rural life. Although he evaluates the development of

the Grange and Farmer's Alliance, he does not, however, discuss the activi-

ties of the People's party, which maneuvered for Democratic votes in an effort

to change the nature of southern agriculture. A chapter on that aspect of the

agrarian revolt would have contributed nicely to this fine synthesis. Even so,

Fite's study provides a welcome addition to the growing literature on south-

ern agriculture. This book will be indispensable for anyone interested in agri-

cultural or southern history.

Ohio Historical Society                             R. Douglas Hurt

The New Eden: James Kilbourne and the Development of Ohio. By Goodwin

Berquist and Paul C. Bowers, Jr. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of Amer-

Book Reviews                                                  203

ica, 1983. xvi + ²⁹⁸p.; map, illustrations, notes, bibliographic note, index.

$27.75 cloth; $13.75 paper.)

Many men were attracted to frontier Ohio by the chance to pursue enter-

prises they hoped would simultaneously increase their personal fortunes and

build their communities and adopted state. James Kilbourne of Connecticut,

one of these ambitious early-nineteenth century entrepreneurs, was the

founder of Worthington and Sandusky, a manufacturer, ordained Episcopal

minister, newspaper publisher, canal and railroad booster, state representa-

tive, and U.S. Congressman. This readable biography by Goodwin Berquist

and Paul C. Bowers, Jr., bolsters the enduring myth of frontier opportunity,

liberalism, and success, as it celebrates the vision and energy of one of the

early leaders of Ohio. More interestingly, it suggests the tensions and contra-

dictions inherent in the attempt to balance personal ambition and civic re-

sponsibilities. Berquist and Bowers argue that Kilbourne's entrepreneurial

achievements, despite setbacks sustained during the panic of 1819, both

support the American frontier success story and Kilbourne's claim as a com-

munity builder. The details of Kilbourne's life suggest that the relationship

was perhaps more complicated.

Kilbourne was born and raised on a Connecticut farm during the Revolu-

tionary Era. Illiterate and penniless, the sixteen-year-old Kilbourne set out

from his father's home determined to make something of his life. Through

sheer determination and hard work, Kilbourne had become well estab-

lished in Granby, Connecticut, by the time he was twenty-one. He owned a

general store and several farms, had married into a prominent family, joined

the Masons, and became a lay minister in the Episcopal church. In spite of

his accomplishments, Federalist and Congregational Connecticut offered a

limited field for Kilbourne and his liberal Episcopal neighbors. In 1802, he

organized the Scioto Company to plan and finance the settlement of Wor-

thington, Ohio, which Kilbourne promised would be a "virtuous society" in

which all hard-working folk could make a better life. The stock company

provided a ready-made framework for the forty Granby families that moved

to the 16,000-acre tract on the Olentangy River. The Episcopal Church, offi-

cially supported by terms of the company's charter, various charities, an

academy, and a Masonic lodge, contributed to regulating community behav-

ior. An equitable distribution of lots and access to town-owned mills and

stills further added to a sense of community.

At the same time Kilbourne was busy guiding the town in his dual role as

company president and Episcopal minister, he founded the Worthington

Manufacturing Company as a private enterprise to produce woolen goods, op-

erate general stores, and issue circulating notes. Kilbourne's interests quickly

expanded beyond his base in Worthington. He laid out Sandusky, promoted

connecting roads and canals, and became involved in a railroad from San-

dusky to Dayton. The panic of 1819 ruined Kilbourne's businesses and con-

siderably slowed down his promotion of the port of Sandusky, but Berquist

and Bowers see no connection between the expansive activities of men like

Kilbourne and the speculative collapse. Kilbourne, according to the authors,

was simply a victim of fate.

The same cannot be argued so easily for Kilbourne's censure by Philander

Chase, the Episcopal Bishop of Ohio. Kilbourne was aware of the potential

204                                                   OHIO HISTORY

conflict of interest between his duty to his community, especially the

church, and his business interests, but he did little to resolve the apparent

dilemma. In 1817, Chase accused Kilbourne of behavior unbecoming a min-

ister and stripped him of his church office. Berquist and Bowers excuse

Kilbourne on the ground that his "heterodoxical religion, his rather free

and easy attitude toward ethics and morality, geared to the get-ahead,

booster atmosphere of frontier Ohio" enabled him to be a successful entre-

preneur, but Kilbourne's free and easy attitude also called into question his

commitment to community well-being.

Although Berquist and Bowers provide a sympathetic and thorough por-

trait of a significant early Ohio figure, the tensions that existed between the

ideals of community, with its implied quest for unity, common moral stan-

dards, and cooperative social and material goals, and the role of the individ-

ual persuing personal gain, deserve further investigation.

University of Georgia                                   Emil Pocock

Oberlin Architecture, College and Town: A Guide to its Social History. By

Geoffrey Blodgett. (Oberlin: Oberlin College and Kent State University

Press, 1985. xxiii + 239p.; illustrations, map, index. $9.95 paper.)

Oberlin Architecture is an interesting attempt at combining the traditionally

separate disciplines of social and architectural history in a field guide for a

general audience. Unlike a standard architectural guidebook, which ap-

proaches buildings as objects worthy of study from an artistic or technical

point of view, this work focuses on the structures of Oberlin as settings for

collegiate and village social life. This is done in a style readily understood by

readers without training in either history or architecture.

The guide begins with a brief historical overview of the town and its

college. As befitting a citizenry concerned with educational and social re-

forms at the expense of material gain, the town presented an austere architec-

tural visage during most of the nineteenth century. This attitude continued

into the twentieth century, leading the author to hold that ". . . it was the

destiny of Oberlin itself to remain as it began, a plain and thrifty village. .. ."

The same utilitarian attitude characterized the first decades of the college as

well, and buildings of the mid-nineteenth century were short-lived modest

affairs. A concern for monumentality developed by the late 1800s, but the

school's casual attitude toward planning prevented it from shaping itself into

a unified ensemble. The most radical departure in design came after World

War II, when the administration commissioned a number of buildings from

architects of national repute.

Part One examines the college. Beginning with Tappan Square, the site of

the original school buildings and now the principal green space, Professor

Blodgett presents photos and word sketches of major structures in chrono-

logical order. Of particular interest is the effort of New York architect Cass

Gilbert to provide the campus with a degree of architectural unity with his

similar designs for four buildings in the early decades of the twentieth centu-

ry. Notable among postwar structures is the controversial 1976 addition to

Gilbert's Allen Art Museum by Venturi and Rauch of Philadelphia. With

Book Reviews                                                  205

this commission the college fulfilled in an architectural sense its reputation

for radical innovation.

Part Two looks at the buildings in town not related to the college. This sec-

tion documents the austerity of much of the village's architecture. Only in

rare instances did the flamboyance of late nineteenth-century design else-

where in the Midwest show itself in Oberlin homes or institutions. In the ear-

ly twentieth century, though, more elaborate buildings became common, re-

flecting styles popular in nearby urban settings, and by the 1930s the town

saw another kind of urban impulse in the form of Modern architecture. This

occurred first in housing-including a work by Frank Lloyd Wright-and by

the 1950s in commercial and institutional architecture as well. Yet even these

Modernist works retained a modesty in scale and detailing that placed them

within the Oberlin context.

Oberlin Architecture succeeds quite well as a popular guide and as a collec-

tion of social vignettes. It is clearly organized, convenient in size for field use,

and written in a breezy colloquial style. The guide is not intended as a defini-

tive work in a scholarly sense, and specialists in social and architectural his-

tory should see it as an introduction to topics for further investigation.

Ohio Historical Society                            Daniel J. Prosser

Petroglyphs of Ohio. By James L. Swauger. (Athens: Ohio University Press,

1984. xxi + 340p.; illustrations, photographs, diagrams, maps, figures, ap-

pendices, notes, index. $44.95.)

A petroglyph, as defined by James L. Swauger, author of Petroglyphs of

Ohio, is a rock decorated with figures of various kinds. Decorations are exe-

cuted by sculpturing, carving, pecking, rubbing, or a combination of these

techniques (p. 1). These artifacts are not only of native American origin, but

also include rock carvings of Euro-American or unknown origin. While petro-

glyphs have sporadically been reported in literature, a comprehensive work

dealing specifically with Ohio has never been published. For this reason

Petroglyphs of Ohio is destined to become a standard reference work for stu-

dents and researchers of Ohio archaeology.

As a reference book it is particularly user friendly. Petroglyphs are grouped

according to probable origins and are subsequently listed alphabetically by

county. Under each individual petroglyph heading the reader is provided

information regarding general location, physiographic setting and a descrip-

tion of the stone material type, content, size and character. This is followed

by a detailed examination of each individual design motif and possible clas-

sification such as bird, footprint, and human form. Particularly helpful is the

bibliographic inventory at the end of each listing providing the reader with

additional references.

Each entry is also accompanied by a map showing the general location of

the site and, if available, a black and white photograph. Drawings of total

and individual designs are frequently included indicating orientation and

layout of design association.

The first sections of the book are basically descriptive in nature. Inferences

are limited to interpretation of difficult to identify design motifs. However,

206                                                 OHIO HISTORY

the final summary and conclusions are, as the author admits, somewhat

more subjective.

The temporal origin of the petroglyphs is difficult to assign, given the un-

usual nature of the artifacts themselves. Petroglyphs are not found strati-

graphically sandwiched between identifiable cultural horizons, and are nev-

er found in direct association with temporally diagnostic artifacts. Therefore,

the author is forced to depend upon other factors such as rate of deteriora-

tion and elements of design for clues. Swauger's conclusion that the petro-

glyphs were made during the Late Prehistoric period (A.D. 900-A.D. 1750) is

well developed and supported.

Further discussion is directed to the assignment of cultural affiliation.

Swauger examines elements of design and concludes that they have a

"northeastern" character (p. 269). This statement forms the foundation of

what then becomes an elaborate argument which terminates with the idea

that the petroglyphs were made by proto-Shawnee groups speaking an Al-

gonquian tongue. This is an extension of similar conclusions reached in Swau-

ger's more expansive book Rock Art of the Upper Ohio Valley which suggests

that the petroglyphs were affiliated with Monongahela Man, a prehistoric

group occupying the eastern boundaries of Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and

West Virginia. However, during this Late Prehistoric period central and

southern Ohio were occupied by Fort Ancient groups whose cultural remains

exhibited influences from the south and immediate west rather than the

northeast.

In essence, the archaeological record does not as yet indicate that proto-

Shawnee groups occupied the territory defined by the distribution of the

petroglyphs. After a discussion of the religious concepts of the petroglyph

"carvers," Swauger concludes that ".. .as an archaeologist I would be im-

mensely more comfortable if I could present physical evidence to support my

theory . . ." (p. 272). Until this physical (archaeological) evidence is availa-

ble, these conclusions, while possibly worthy of consideration, should be

viewed with caution.

Despite the subjective nature of the conclusions, Petroglyphs of Ohio is a

valuable addition to archaeological literature because it provides a summary

of a great deal of data in a comprehensive and concise form. James L. Swau-

ger should be highly commended for his effort.

Ohio Historical Society                          Shaune M. Skinner

The Corn Belt Route: A History of the Chicago Great Western Railroad Com-

pany. By H. Roger Grant. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press,

1984. xi + 231p.; illustrations, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index.

$29.00.)

In this handsomely produced volume, Professor Grant attempts to show

how a relatively small Class I railroad (1500 miles at its peak) survived the

competitive late-nineteenth century and the regulated but still competitive

twentieth century. Although he used a variety of sources (local newspapers,

company reports, ICC docket cases, and oral history), Grant does not always

overcome his admitted passion for trains when he analyzes the importance of

Book Reviews                                                    207

this road's history to the evolution of railroading. The professional historian

will find some problems in the analyses; the railroad buff will revel in the de-

tail; and both will enjoy the numerous photographs that present a splendid

visual history of the Chicago Great Western.

Grant always tries to relate the story of the CGW to the larger story of rail-

roading in the United States in order to prove his thesis that small-scale

firms often pioneer innovations that are eventually taken up by the entire in-

dustry. To support his thesis, Grant cites the independent nature of the

road's founder, A. B. Stickney, challenges prevailing scholarship on the na-

ture of competition in the 1880s, and notes several innovations the CGW alleg-

edly passed on to the industry. In most of these cases, Grant strains the evi-

dence to fit the thesis. For example, he finds it difficult to criticize the "lone

wolf" Stickney, despite Stickney's questionable use of a dummy corporation

to build the railway (a common form of chicanery in the Gilded Age), de-

spite Stickney's reputation as a speculator (as opposed to an owner and man-

ager dedicated to providing service for profit), and despite Stickney's pen-

chant for using outside immigrant labor to lay the tracks (rather than local

Midwest inhabitants). Curiously, Grant presents more balanced judgements

of the railroad's succeeding eight presidents. And he cogently describes

Stickney's progressive (albeit self-serving) view toward federal regulation of

rail rates (he supported the idea) and the founder's bold reorganization plan

in the 1890s, which followed an English practice that made the road a

mortgage-free property with the lien on the income.

Grant challenges the prevailing interpretation that says the decade of the

1880s witnessed an immense amount of irrational railway building. In fact,

more railroad mileage was laid in the 1880s in the U.S. (75,000 miles) than in

any decade before or since anywhere in the world. In the 1890s the railroad

industry suffered under the weight of the most receiverships ever in the his-

tory of the U.S. Grant's challenge therefore is interesting but not persuasive.

He supports his contention by noting that townspeople called for more rail-

ways (shippers desired competition to force down prices) and that the CGW

was successful. These points are not enough to sustain his broader thesis

about available demand. Grant would have been on firmer ground had he

simply stated that Stickney and his managers, and their successors, had

been more effective businessmen than others in a period swelled with ill-

considered schemes and bankruptcies. Indeed, the CGW management em-

phasized trunk line operations over the less profitable branch lines, which

was a strategy the more successful railroads followed. Grant's evidence,

moreover, undercuts his broader thesis. In the only sections that bog down

in detail, the author describes the numerous weak roads that succumbed to

under-capitalization, poor management, and lack of demand, only to eventu-

ally become part of the Corn Belt Route. That townspeople built some of

these roads that limped along underscores the lack of sustained demand

available in the 1880s and 1890s.

Once in the twentieth century, Grant moves the story along, noting the fi-

nancial setbacks (two receiverships), the road's labor relations (a "family"

atmosphere several times shattered by strikes), and the strengths and weak-

nesses of the CGW's presidents. Yet, as he did in analyzing the road's

Gilded Age infancy, Grant strains his evidence to fit his thesis. He maintains

that the CGW's use of multiple locomotives to pull long freight trains (150 or

208                                                  OHIO HISTORY

more cars) and its use of "piggy-back" service (loaded truck trailers hauled

on rail flat cars) were two innovations that others in railroading copied. The

utilization of long freight trains seems a simple attempt to fully utilize scale

economies in railroading. As for the piggy-back service, Grant dates this "in-

novation" in 1935-36. Yet he acknowledges that electric interurbans used the

concept before the mid-1930s. And there is evidence, presented in the trans-

portation journal The Traffic World on December 19 and 26, 1931, that the St.

Louis-Southwestern (the Cotton Belt) had developed an extensive use of

trucks, including piggy-back service, between 1928 and 1931. In reality, the

CGW appears to have followed an industry trend rather than have led one,

for most railroads in the 1920s and 1930s did not do the obvious and inte-

grate the new motor trucks into their operations (in part because the motor

truck appeared so quickly and in part because of fears of antitrust action).

This book, then, should be read carefully, for while it presents a rather ex-

citing story of a long-overlooked and important railroad, it tends to overstate

the road's impact on the industry at large.

The Ohio State University                          William R. Childs

Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel of Prosperity: Aid Under the Radi-

cal Republicans, 1865-1877. By Mark W. Summers. (Princeton, New Jersey:

Princeton University Press, 1984. xiii + 361p.; notes, bibliography, index.

$37.50.)

No area of U.S. History has come under closer scrutiny within the last few

years than the Reconstruction era after the Civil War. And the trend contin-

ues. This study is the first analysis of the complex state-by-state history of

aid to railroads and the collapse of these efforts under the Republican re-

gimes.

Drawing upon revisionist, and often quantitative, state studies, as well as

original and secondary sources, Professor Summers (University of Georgia)

presents a rather cogent and well stated case for his topic. As with all general

analyses of Reconstruction, each state was sui generis. The variables includ-

ed party, black and white participation in government, the types of aid, paro-

chialism, intra-party dissention, and reactions to the Conservatives who op-

posed much of what the Republicans tried to accomplish.

It was obvious that there was a great need for the rebuilding of the South-

ern railroads after the war; however, the Republicans became caught up in

what was a national phenomenon, a veritable "mania" by local, county, and

state governments to get a railroad constructed into their regions. In these ef-

forts, Summers indicates, again and again, how the governments and the

companies "reinterpreted" the law for their own needs. When their new

panacea did not materialize, the Conservative whites blamed the excesses

on the black and white Republicans, when, in fact, it was, according to Sum-

mers, mediocre folk, in general, in the legislatures, and the rapid turnover of

Republican officeholders and their dependence on corporate advisers.

Republicans in each state, of course, developed their own railroad aid pro-

grams, and the party factor varied with different kinds of aid; however, it

Book Reviews                                                   209

was the Republicans who "hitched their star" to subsidies which were

usually more expensive than the Conservatives would accept.

There was no general policy of railroad aid. Parochialism, state pride and

localism undermined any efforts in that direction. Often, despite the best of

intentions, economic chaos resulted. There was bribery, as other scholars

have noted, but it was "not a corruption of ethics, but a [more serious] cor-

ruption of judgment" (p. 117). Prominent Republicans became involved as in-

vestors in the companies and there was fraud. Then, when the "Gospel of

Prosperity" did not evolve in the rural, non-industrial South, the Conserva-

tives were able to make the most of it.

When the Republicans sought aid from Congress, it was not forthcoming.

Hence, they turned to "outside financing"; however, bond depreciation,

bad credit, and the contingent debts made even this, the last resort, a fail-

ure. The unbelievable greed and political machinations of Northern capital-

ists is outlined in gory detail. As an example of the collapse of the railroad

"mania," Summers retells the complex and sordid story of the "Alabama

and Chattanooga [Railroad] Catastrophe." He also restates how party disu-

nity led to the collapse of these aid programs by 1872 and how retrenchment

became the watchword. With the Panic of 1873 and the ensuing depression,

the tax revolt led to the reemergence of the race issue. When combined, the

days of Republican governments were numbered.

Summers then concludes, in which the historiography of Reconstruction

has seemed to come full circle, that: (1) "Republicans deserved to bear the

responsibility for [the] hard times" (p. 294), and (2) "Judged by the gap be-

tween their promises in 1867 and their performance over the seven years that

followed, the Republican leaders deserved to lose power" (p. 295).

Then, in a unique "Appendix," he conjectures as to whether the Demo-

crats could have done better. He concludes that: (1) they could have done

little to "clean up the governing process" in railroad matters; (2) aid would

not have come to an end; (3) and the railroads would not have prospered giv-

en the Southern economic problems. The Democrats might then have been

blamed for mismanagement and the Republicans might have been given

their chance (if they gave up any interest in the blacks).

As with most revised dissertations, there are some minor problems with

this study. First, it is too long. Repetitiousness abounds. He uses, unfortu-

nately for a study of this nature, "Negro" and "black" interchangeably as

descriptive terms for Afro-Americans. Railroad studies need maps; he has

none. Also, the quantitative data could have been combined, visually, with

the use of charts or tables. The titles of his divisions (he combines chapters

in "Part One, Two, etc.) take the biblical "Gospel of Prosperity" allusion to

an ahistorical extreme. Part Two is "A Covenant of Public Works . .," Part

Three, "The Glory is Departed From Israel ..." Part Four, "Balm in Gil-

ead?. . .," Part Five, "There is No Salvation . .," and, prior to the Index, a

two and one-half page "Coda, 'And Was Jerusalem Builded Here?' " Unfor-

tunately, the notes are at the end of the narrative.

This study is for the specialist, although the style is not as turgid as most

economic analyses. The bibliography is excellent with a few minor excep-

tions. Each student of the period will have to add this monograph to his/her

bookshelf.

California University of Pennsylvania             John Kent Folmar

210                                                  OHIO HISTORY

"The Rest of Us": The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews. By Stephen

Birmingham. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984. xvii + 392p.; il-

lustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $19.95.)

With "The Rest of Us" Stephen Birmingham completes his series on suc-

cessful Jewish immigrants that he began in "Our Crowd" and The Grandees.

Having already covered elite German and Sephardic Jews, Birmingham tack-

les this time the stories of a number of prominent East European Jews. Not

surprisingly, the success of Birmingham's earlier books has already inspired

another author, Jean Baer, to write The Self-Chosen: "Our Crowd" is Dead;

Long Live Our Crowd (New York, 1982) on the rise of the East European Jews

in America. Undaunted by the possibility that there is no need for two such

similar books, let alone even one, Birmingham has completed his trilogy by

cataloging the lives and careers of a number of rich and famous East Europe-

an Jewish immigrants.

Although he consistently tries to impress his readers with the net worth of

his subjects, Birmingham claims to have selected his figures for reasons oth-

er than their wealth. Instead he chose to write "about the rise of men and

women [who] have intimately affected the way we live and think and view

and enjoy ourselves-who have, in the process of their American successes,

left their imprint on our culture in terms of the news and entertainment media,

the fashion and beauty industries, the arts and music, who have shaped our

tastes in our lives and even in our drinking habits" (p. xvii). In chronicling

immigrants who shaped American popular culture, Birmingham weaves a

patchwork that simultaneously follows the events in the lives of such diverse

figures as the socialist Rose Pastor Stokes, gangsters Meyer Lansky and Ben-

ny Siegel, movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, RCA president David Sarnoff,

bootlegger and Seagram's chief Samuel Bronfman, and even Helena Rubin-

stein and Ralph (Lifschitz) Lauren.

This is not interpretative or analytical history. Birmingham attributes East

European Jewish entrepreneurial success to instincts and greater honesty,

claiming that these immigrants brought little from their Old World culture

that was usable in the new. Lacking a thorough understanding of the forces

propelling the Jews out of Eastern Europe or of the work of historians of

American Jewish immigration, Birmingham is unable to explain why these

Jews pioneered new areas of the American economy such as the movies and

the cosmetics industry. Birmingham makes no attempt to discern trends and

patterns to set these success stories in a broader social context.

The book is cliche ridden: "And America, as we know, is the land of mira-

cles" (p. 161). "Thus the rich get richer" (pp. 354-55). Moreover, there are a

number of egregious errors. World War I ends in 1919 (p. 131). And, accord-

ing to Birmingham, it only became clear in 1947 that the British had no inten-

tion of honoring the Balfour Declaration. Given that the author relies upon

sources the caliber of People magazine, this book is clearly not intended for

the historian or serious student of Jewish history.

Who then is Birmingham's audience? His earlier books have sold well,

and "The Rest of Us" has already been featured by a number of book clubs.

Obviously, Birmingham has many fans, and he should, for he writes marvel-

ously entertaining gossip. Birmingham delights in recounting the erratic, ex-

otic, and despotic behavior of his subjects. We learn their favorite curse

Book Reviews                                                  211

words, details about their courtships and honeymoons, how they laun-

dered their family histories, how they mistreated their wives, how they

dealt with business partners and disloyalty, how they changed their names,

and even the number of television sets (three dozen) in David Sarnoff's

home during the depression.

Fans of the antics of the rich and famous will delight in this book. Howev-

er, scholars and students of American Jewish history searching for an under-

standing as to why a remarkable number of these East European Jews so rap-

idly found the American dream to be all that it promised, may very well wish

to, and in fact should, skip The Rest of Us.

American University                               Pamela S. Nadell

When the Wicked Rise: American Opinion-Makers and the Manchurian Crisis

of 1931-1933. By Justus D. Doenecke. (Lewisburg: Bucknell University

Press, 1984. 188p.; notes, essay on sources, index. $24.50.)

This is a detailed examination of the Manchurian Crisis from one signifi-

cant perspective. It is not another analysis of governmental response but, as

the subtitle suggests, it explores the reaction of prominent newspapers, relig-

ious and peace leaders, internationalists, and citizens concerned with world

problems. Doenecke also emphasizes that it says little about China, which

was incidental in the thinking of most citizens.

In four chapters, Doenecke treats, respectively, responses to the initial at-

tack, reactions to the nonrecognition policy, debates over economic coercion,

and the continuing search for a satisfactory solution. In looking at the various

groups, he finds initial anxiety and outrage which by late 1932 and early 1933

had faded to a complacent optimism that the problem would solve itself.

Among Doenecke's findings are (1) a surprising militancy among peace work-

ers and religious leaders, (2) a less than expected isolationist attitude except

in Congress, (3) sufficient division of viewpoint on almost every subject to nul-

lify the effectiveness of the opinion-makers, and (4) no evidence that admin-

istration leaders paid much attention to them anyway. In a perceptive obser-

vation, Doenecke notes that perhaps most of the people and groups were

more interested in exploiting the crisis to advance their own objectives. This

is most obvious among the pro-League advocates. Doenecke also observes

that the discussions within the United States may have served one useful

purpose. They kept the Japanese guessing just what public attitudes were

and how Hoover and Stimson might respond.

The 119 pages of text and 53 of notes provide evidence of highly detailed

research. The examination of opinion is placed in perspective with brief but

adequate commentary on events, governmental policies, and international

responses. Thus in many ways this is a model of scholarship. Yet a reader

can still wonder whether another approach might have been more satisfy-

ing. The chronological approach continually breaks up the examination of

groups, and it is also difficult to follow ideological subjects, including atti-

tudes toward the League of Nations, sanctions, and even the nonrecognition

principle. The disorganized perspective was, however, the one Hoover ad-

212                                                  OHIO HISTORY

ministration figures were receiving, and maybe scholars should see the pic-

ture as they did and be as puzzled about it as they were.

There is a wealth of information about peace and religious leaders, interna-

tionalists, business and labor figures, journalists, international lawyers, and

administration leaders, all of whom, Doenecke notes, seemed to have their

illusion of peace sustained by the Manchurian Crisis rather than have it

shattered.

The University of Akron                             Warren F. Kuehl

The War Against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Church-

es, 1830-1865. By John R. McKivigan. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,

1984. 327p.; notes, appendix, bibliography, index. $29.95.)

Can society be morally reformed by persuasion and eventually legislation?

This is a question that Americans have struggled with throughout history. Is

our society's abhorence of men owning other men (slavery) greater than the

economic benefits to be gained by doing so? Is society's desire to drown its

frustrations in alcohol greater than its stake in stable family relationships and

its safety in an industrial age? Is murder as social policy more greatly to be

desired than the control of sexual lust? And what role are the churches as

keepers of our moral consciences to play in answering these questions?

Certainly it is not part of the duty of one who reviews a book to answer

these questions. But a philosopher or an historian may address them. Mr.

John R. McKivigan addresses the slavery question posed above in his book

on The War Against Proslavery Religion. In the process he discovers that

what is today seen as morally right has not always been clearly and unequiv-

ocally advocated by the nation's churches. As a matter of fact, he shows

that abolitionists, who were not infrequently clergymen themselves, found an

enormous and nearly insurmountable challenge in their efforts to persuade

formal church denominations to accept the idea that slavery was sin and fel-

lowship with slaveholders was not to be countenanced. McKivigan quotes

Presbyterian minister Albert Barnes as saying in 1846, "There is no power out

of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in

it." It was natural, therefore, for abolitionists to approach denominational

leadership for aid in their cause and to expect to obtain it. Yet not one major

denomination endorsed their program before 1860 and the outbreak of the

Civil War.

Mr. McKivigan, therefore, finds that there had to be a war against proslav-

ery religion in the Northern churches. He admirably and in detail recounts

that war, lasting from 1830 through 1865, which, with the aid of aroused po-

litical forces and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitu-

tion in the midst of a great war, culminated in the conquest of major church

bodies.

Major battles of the war against proslavery religions were fought within the

churches themselves. These revolved around control of missionary and

publishing groups (the benevolent empire), interdenominational conventions,

abolitionist societies and "comeouter" splinters of major denominations

(Wesleyan Methodists, Freewill Baptists, Free Presbyterians). And all the

Book Reviews                                                  213

while some churches like the Roman Catholics and the Episcopalians sat on

the sidelines and maintained that there was no problem at all! But political

events came to the aid of the abolitionists in the decade of the fifties. The

Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 brought

the conflict into the backyard of the ordinary citizen and threatened the

ability to "go west" and remain in free territory. Secession in 1860 and 1861

brought the Civil War. The major churches during that conflict eventually

called for emancipation, an end to slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment.

Mr. McKivigan addresses with logic and documentation the reasons why

church leaderships held back from the abolitionist movement and why

during the early sixties it was won over to the abolitionist program. His book

is eminently readable and his research admirable. The reader is left in

doubt about little except perhaps the numerical strength of the abolitionists

during the thirties and forties. By implication one could assume they were far

more numerous than they actually were. The book, however, is flawed in lit-

tle else: the notes are extensive, the bibliography quite adequate and the in-

dex useful.

Society in this case was morally reformed by moral suasion and eventually

by constitutional legislation-but not without a great Civil War!

Ohio Northern University                           Boyd M. Sobers

Missionaries and Muckrakers: The First Hundred Years of Knox College. By

Herman R. Muelder (Champaign: The University of Illinois Press, 1984.

382p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $19.95.)

Findlay College: The First Hundred Years. By Richard Kern. (Nappanee, In-

diana: Evangel Press, 1984, xv + 480p.; illustrations, notes, sources.

$19.95.)

The Congregationalists and Presbyterians from New York and New Eng-

land who founded Knox College were influenced by the same evangelical an-

tislavery impulses that were associated with the early years of Oberlin Col-

lege. Hermann R. Muelder, the College Historian, ends the narrative with

the one-hundredth anniversary in 1937 in order to avoid writing about the

period of his long career as a faculty member.

The establishment of the college community of Galesburg, Illinois, was

successful. Knox College prospered from the beginning, compared with oth-

er small denominational colleges. Knox and Galesburg were conservative

during much of the nineteenth century, but there was always a liberal tradi-

tion, especially as related to blacks and women. Knox had the first black

man to receive a college degree in Illinois and was the site of a Lincoln-

Douglas debate. A boycott of classes forced the resignation of a president

and the admission of women to regular college classes. Knox men were offi-

cers of Negro troops during the Civil War, and they also freed slaves, contra-

ry to Lincoln's wartime policy. After the war, Knox men and women went

south to teach the freed men.

In academic matters the lead was taken by literary societies which estab-

lished a system of interstate collegiate oratorical contests in which Knox won

most of the prizes. The first football games were played incidentally to ora-

214                                                  OHIO HISTORY

torical contests. The role of athletics and the maintenance of amateur stan-

dards were strongly debated well into the 1930s.

More important, however, than student activities, or even its honorable

history, is the national visibility that Knox achieved, especially its influence

on American literary history and the lead taken by its graduates in the social

reforms of the Progressive movement.

Eugene Field, Edgar Lee Master, Carl Sandburg, John H. Finley, S. S.

McClure and many others were influenced by Knox. Samuel S. McClure and

other alumni from the staff of the Knox Student founded and edited Mc-

Clure's Magazine, which was the leading vehicle for articles by the Muck-

rakers. Knox graduates held editorial positions on several other important

publications early in the century. George Fitch wrote a series of stories about

the escapades and other aspects of college life at "Old Siwash," which was

really Knox College. Carl Sandburg, a student at Lombard College, which

was taken over by Knox in 1930, freely admitted the influence that Knox had

on his career.

The significant contribution made by Knox College to the literary history

of the United States is what distinguishes Muelder's account from other

college histories. There is some repetition (Cf., pp. 58-59 and 119-20), but it in

no way detracts from what is a first-rate account of the place of Knox College

in collegiate annals.

Findlay College was established late in the period that saw the founding

of most of the private denominational colleges in the United States. Thus,

faculty member Richard Kern deals with the first hundred years of Findlay

College from 1882 to 1982. The chief issues treated by the author are the fi-

nancial problems of the College, the struggles to gain accreditation, and rela-

tionships with the Church of God.

From the time that Findlay College was established by the Church of

God, with assistance from the town of Findlay, Ohio, much of its existence

was precarious. There were frequent periods when survival was at stake and

questions were raised as to whether the College should be abandoned or

whether it should continue as a two-year school. As Kern notes, the financial

condition for seventy-five years ranged from desperate to marginal. With in-

creased success in fund drives, government grants and loans, the situation

was greatly improved by the 1960s.

The struggle for accreditation was also a continuous problem. Accredita-

tion by the North Central Association was not gained until 1933, and was lost

fifteen years later. Accreditation was restored in 1962, but it was 1969 before

it was finally granted without probation or reservation.

During most of its history the Church of God exercised close control over

Findlay College. The examination of the evolution of this relationship is one

of the most interesting parts of the story. Conflicts over theology, the teach-

ing of evolution, the increased liberalism of the faculty and questions of cam-

pus "morality" surfaced, especially after the middle of the twentieth centu-

ry. Kern notes that diminishing the denominational character of the College

saved it as a liberal arts school and by 1982 the Church of God connection

was at an all-time low.

Kern's history is a comprehensive detailed chronicle of various adminis-

trations, student organizations and activities. Fifty pages of appendices list

nearly everyone, including all faculty members, who had any official position

with Findlay College.

Book Reviews                                                  215

These two histories show the diversity, which is the uniqueness of Ameri-

can higher education. These colleges which moved in different directions

served their respective missions and met the needs of their constituents.

Kent State University                              Harris L. Dante

Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith. By Linda King Newell and Valeen

Tippetts Avery. (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1984. xiii +

394p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $19.95.)

This biography of Emma Hale Smith, wife of Joseph Smith the Mormon

prophet, will be appreciated by individuals interested in early Mormonism,

women in nineteenth century America, and many others. It is an often heroic,

often tragic story of a devoted couple whose lives were punctuated by peri-

ods of sorrow, distrust, and despair. Emma Hale Smith was both a bene-

ficiary and a victim of her husband's position as founder of the Mormon

church.

In 1830 Joseph Smith recorded a divine revelation directed toward Emma.

Known ever after as the "Elect Lady revelation," it assured her that God

was pleased with her. She was counseled to be a comfort to her husband, to

lay aside the things of the world, and to keep the commandments continual-

ly. For fourteen more years Emma Smith moved within the highest circles of

the Mormon community. She was instrumental in the establishment of the

Relief Society-a denominational organization for women-and served as its

first president. But, as the authors have skillfully chronicled, hers was sel-

dom a happy lot in life.

Emma Smith suffered the loss of several children in infancy, was repeated-

ly called upon to uproot her family as the Mormons were driven from Ohio to

Missouri to Illinois, saw her husband verbally and physically abused and,

finally, murdered by an anti-Mormon mob. But clearly her greatest trial of all

was Joseph Smith's espousal of plural marriage as a component of the Mor-

mon gospel. All other trials she had borne admirably, but this proved to be

beyond her capacity to endure. It is in relating this aspect of Emma's life that

Newell and Avery have demonstrated detailed research and objective anal-

ysis.

Only on this controversial doctrine did Emma Smith show any tendency

to waver in her faith. Joseph knew very well that his wife would have diffi-

culty in accepting plural marriage, and consequently she was kept in the dark

about the practice for years following its introduction. In 1843 she grudgingly

gave her approval to Joseph's plural marriages-several years after their con-

summation in certain cases-but she never truly accepted the principle. Ulti-

mately, Emma Smith's open opposition to the doctrine led her to sever her

ties with the westward-bound Mormon congregation which followed Brig-

ham Young after Smith's martyrdom.

The period from this parting of the ways in 1846 until her death thirty-

three years later marked yet another chapter in Emma Smith's life. Having

chosen to remain in the Midwest rather than relocate to the Rocky

Mountains-a decision she based primarily upon her distaste for the contin-

uance of polygamy-Emma eventually remarried, saw her son, Joseph Smith

216                                                 OHIO HISTORY

III, assume the leadership of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-

ter Day Saints, a group which rejected plural marriage, and found herself

singled out for persecution by many of the Utah-based Mormons. Brigham

Young, who actively promoted plural marriage among the Utah Mormans,

helped to effectively demote Emma from being the Elect Lady of early Mor-

monism to the shrew of the post-Joseph Smith period-an unjust rap which

this biography should lay to rest once and for all.

The book has few weaknesses, and these must be considered as minor.

Newell and Avery occasionally lapse into repetition of previously stated

points. For example, the reader is told twice within four pages that "contrary

to popular belief' (p. 210) and, again, "contrary to later reports" (p. 214),

William Marks, a prominent ecclesiastical leader, was never excommunicated

from the Mormon church. Also, in discussing the development of a unique

system of ritualization which Joseph Smith instituted in the years prior to his

death, the authors have relied almost exclusively upon the work of one re-

cent scholar. Consideration of other available studies may have given this

portion of the book additional breadth.

On the whole, however, Mormon Enigma is a fine study and a welcome ad-

dition to the history of early Mormonism. Linda King Newell and Valeen

Tippetts Avery are to be commended for their excellent work. The puzzle of

Emma Hale Smith is now much clearer.

Los Angeles County Museum                           M. Guy Bishop

Lee and Grant: A Dual Biography. By Gene Smith. (New York: McGraw-Hill

Book Company, 1984. xiv + 412p.; illustrations, bibliography, notes, in-

dex. $17.95.)

Interest in the Civil War era and the two great protagonists, U. S. Grant

and Robert E. Lee, has continued unabated decade after decade. In writing

this dual biography, Gene Smith, the author of works on Woodrow Wilson

and Herbert Hoover, compressed his fast-paced account within the limits of

an average volume. The work is well proportioned and balanced in the pages

allotted to the various phases of each man's career. Alternating chapters

such as those on the postwar presidencies enable one to compare and con-

trast the personalities and achievements of the Virginian and the Ohioan.

The book is not without its weaknesses, however. Smith eschews any sub-

stantial analysis of the societies in which each youth grew to manhood.

Since he presents them as representative figures of two distinct social orders,

this omission is significant. The background of the Mexican War is reduced

to a few sentences. The sectional controversy of the 1850s and the critical,

federal election of 1864 are seriously neglected. Thus, Lee's speculation

about a new peace administration coming from the election is overlooked.

The same is true of Grant's acute judgment that the civic order which ob-

tained during the campaign was a testament to Union strength.

Smith asserts that temperament and character, not intelligence, are the

distinguishing determinants that mark superior military leaders. He has a

sharp eye for the pithy comment and the telling vignette. The portrait of Lee

that emerges from these pages is more finely drawn, more complete than that

Book Reviews                                                   217

of the Ohioan. The commonly known characteristics and the fierce fighting

streak are well presented. Inadequately detailed is his relationship with his

wife, his mother and several other women. As for Grant, the familiar person

is developed but there is not enough of the reader, the bookman whose

clearly written dispatches helped subordinates in every campaign. Nor was

he devoid of any military knowledge, for there is evidence he knew and dis-

cussed critically the specifics of every Mexican War campaign.

The author is apparently uncomfortable with military history. First, there

are no maps to aid the non-specialist. The treatment of the Mexican conflict

and Lee's service in Texas is thin. The same judgment applies to the Civil

War, except for the discussion of the Richmond-Petersburg front during

the period from February 1865 to Appomattox. The important battles of

Ft. Donelson and Shiloh and Grant's leadership in each are presented in

sketchy two and three-page accounts. Similarly, Lee's efforts at the Seven

Days and Antietam merit only the most general description. Vicksburg and

Gettysburg are in somewhat sharper focus, but the narrative is so broad that

the leadership factor is not well developed. Although he avers that Grant

compelled Lee to fight his type of action, Grant's strategic planning for 1864 is

dismissed in one paragraph.

Both Lee and Grant were under great stress in the face of the enemy chal-

lenge. That each man received praise and inspired sacrifices is obvious. But

the work fails to demonstrate with effective analysis how each produced

such a series of battlefield-campaign victories. In addition, one concludes

that intelligence was a greater factor than is here admitted.

Attractive for its brisk and interesting style, this volume of popular history

will have its appeal, but it must be used with extreme caution in view of its

severe limitations.

Ohio Wesleyan University                           Richard W. Smith

Ida Tarbell: Portrait of a Muckraker. By Kathleen Brady. (New York:

Seaview/Putnam, 1984. 286p.; essay on sources, notes, bibliography, in-

dex. $17.95.)

Well informed students of the history of journalism will find the general

outline of this book familiar. Ida Tarbell fit the profile of the average muck-

raker drawn by Louis Filler some forty-five years ago with one significant ex-

ception: Tarbell was the only woman among that remarkable group of writers

who from roughly 1903 through 1910 tugged at the conscience of the Ameri-

can middle class. The fact that Tarbell suceeded in what was an overwhelm-

ingly man's profession is what prompted Kathleen Brady, a Time magazine

staff writer, to write this book. On the issues of the women's movement in the

early twentieth century Tarbell surprisingly turned out to be a "weather

vane" rather than an innovator.

Brady's portrait of a muckraker is organized into four parts. The "Begin-

nings" covers Tarbell's childhood, education and early careers as a teacher

in a one room schoolhouse and as an editorial assistant for The Chautauquan

magazine. "Exhaltation" reviews her nearly three years doing research at

the Bibliotheque Nationale, while earning a living as a free-lance writer for

218                                                  OHIO HISTORY

American newspapers and monthlies. It was these articles that brought Tar-

bell to the attention of Samuel S. McClure and led to a job with McClure's

Magazine in 1894. "Success," the heart of the book, details Tarbell's work at

McClure's and describes her emergence as a muckraker with the serializa-

tion of her History of the Standard Oil Company. This section also explains

her decision, along with her disgruntled colleagues, to break with McClure

and to go off to establish the rival American Magazine. While at The Ameri-

can she pursued her interest in the plight of the working class and explored

the intricacies of the tariff question. At this time she also articulated her con-

servative position on the "woman question." The final part of the book

"Valor" deals with Tarbell's twenty-seven year struggle with Parkinson's

disease while continuing to lead an active life. In the post World War I era

she became an advocate of industrial cooperation, expressing her views on

the lecture circuit and in her essays and books about industrialists and in-

dustrial life.

Unstated and tentatively, Brady uses ego psychology to explain the trans-

formation of her subject. Tarbell's childhood inquisitiveness, encouraged

by her father, led to her interest in research. Breaking away from her family

Tarbell went to France to do research and to write. Establishing her own

identity she returned home triumphantly to vindicate her father. Franklin S.

Tarbell had been one of the independent oil producers who unsuccessfully

fought John D. Rockefeller in western Pennsylvania. He died in 1905, soon

after the publication of his daughter's history of Standard Oil. Within a

short time Ida left McClure's and began expressing her antifeminist views.

She would later, because of her close ties to Ray Stannard Baker, become a

Wilson administration insider, and still later become an apologist for Elbert

H. Gary, Herbert H. Hoover, Owen D. Young and even Benito Mussolini.

Though gracefully and sensitively written and filled with interesting infor-

mation, the book has flaws. Suggesting that Tarbell betrayed her journalistic

principles to defend Herbert Hoover's reputation, Brady cites a June 6, 1922,

memorandum to reconstruct a meeting with Hoover in 1924 about issues relat-

ed to the Teapot Dome scandal (pp. 228-231). Also, historical scholarship

from the past fifteen years, which could have been used to strengthen this

study, appears not to have been consulted. In particular the work of Robert

Stinson, whose argument Brady closely follows on the antifeminist issue, is

not cited.

University of Cincinnati                            James E. Cebula

Ty Cobb. By Charles C. Alexander. (New York: Oxford University Press,

1984. 292p.; illustrations, notes, index. $16.95.)

In late August 1905 a wirey young man from a small Georgia town made his

first trip North. He had come to play baseball for the Detroit Tigers. And he

brought with him extraordinary skills as an outfielder and hitter and, since

first playing ball as a child, a fiercely competitive spirit. When he retired

twenty-three years later, he had come to be feared and hated for his rough

play. Setting records for stolen bases and base hits, he had helped the Ben-

gals to win three pennants. In 1936, he led all other baseball greats, including

Book Reviews                                                  219

Babe Ruth, in the balloting for induction into the new Baseball Hall of Fame.

Some of the Georgia Peach's marks stood until the 1970s and 1980s, nearly a

half century after his departure from the game.

Virtually all scholars and fans of the summer game regard him as the

greatest player of the "Silver Age" (1900-19). Because home runs then

proved dear-nine shots over the fences could set the season record-a ball

player had to settle for a single or double and steal bases to score. None bet-

ter played that branch of baseball than Cobb. Indeed, one rival team's

manager in 1910 called him "the greatest piece of baseball machinery that

ever stepped on the diamond."

Cobb's preeminence ended abruptly. In 1920, Babe Ruth's sudden and

unprecedented ability to hit the long ball began to transform the game. The

ball itself had become livelier due to still unexplained changes in its manu-

facture while the banning of the spitter, among other factors, made an of-

fense based on power possible. Even before Cobb's retirement, Ruth, not

Cobb, was the country's most admired baseball player. In the New Era, the

summer game had become the contest of big shoulders, not bat control.

And far more began attending games. As Warren Susman has noted, Ruth's

muscle and hedonism well symbolized the values and aspirations of many in

the twenties. Cobb hated men easily and added Ruth to his list. The Bam-

bino's profligate lifestyle and brutish batmanship appalled Cobb, who, to

the end, remained disciplined in personal habit and at the plate. Neverthe-

less, later studies by baseball statistician Bill James confirmed that Ruth cre-

ated more runs than Cobb. In 1969, baseball writers selected Ruth and not

Cobb as the game's all-time greatest player.

In the first scholarly treatment of the Peach, Charles C. Alexander rescues

Cobb from Ruth's fat shadow. Alexander's task was complicated. Because

the Cobb family refused to cooperate, he had to rely on miscellaneous man-

uscript collections and-with care-various newspapers' sports pages and

magazines. Cobb himself was the greatest obstacle. The son of a school

teacher, Cobb was an unusually shrewd ballplayer and not the ignorant

cracker of a Ring Lardner story. Off days were spent at museums and art gal-

leries. Deliberately seeking the Detroit business establishment's counsel on

investing, he wisely speculated in stock in companies on the make, notably

General Motors and Coca Cola. He left baseball a wealthy man. Yet for all his

intelligence, the Peach never learned to control his temper or prejudices. He

was petty when not simply mean. He earned the enmity of many of his team-

mates and rivals. Sometimes he slid into third base with too much zeal.

He was also a racist who frequently picked fights with "insolent" blacks.

At Cleveland's Hotel Euclid in 1909, Cobb slapped a black elevator operator

and then came to blows with a black watchman. Only after prolonged negoti-

ations did local authorities drop their efforts to prosecute the hot-tempered

Georgian. Until then, Cobb had to travel East through Canada to avoid ar-

rest in the Buckeye State.

For many biographers, such unpleasantness proves too burdensome. In

his recent biography of Grant, William McFeely finds Grant's shortcomings

so removed from his own that the author ultimately seems scornful when not

dismissive toward the general. That distaste makes the book a struggle: the

reader is left wondering why the subject warranted McFeely's attentions in

the first place.

220                                                 OHIO HISTORY

A biographer need not be reverential, but the sensitive one understands

that attitudes and behavior have a time and place. Alexander explains

Cobb's violently racist views along with a host of other personal flaws with-

out obscuring the Peach's importance or forgetting Cobb's era and origins.

Most Southern and many Northern whites shared Cobb's racism. More-

over, Cobb could be harsh regardless of race, national origin, or sex. Base-

ball's second greatest player failed as a husband and friend and found him-

self dying painfully of cancer with few with whom to share his last days.

These sad and unbecoming moments in Cobb's life are treated with more

tragedy than condescension by Alexander. He does not forget, like some,

why he wrote the book. Cobb was a great athlete and a complex, eventually

unhappy figure worthy of the historian's labors. Alexander's Cobb is not

only a masterful biography but a model to those wrestling with the problems

of an unlikeable protagonist.

Cobb is one of several very able new scholarly treatments of American ath-

letics. And Alexander, who has written excellent histories of modern Ameri-

can thought and culture, should continue his excursion into baseball histo-

ry. Ohio historians can hope that Alexander will next consider the lives of

Tris Speaker and Rocky Colavito.

University of Wisconsin-Madison                 James L. Baughman

Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845. By Rob-

ert V. Remini. (New York: Harper & Row, 1984. xxiii + 638p.; notes, maps,

illustrations, photographs, index. $27.95.)

Few presidents have captivated the historical imagination more contra-

dictorily than Andrew Jackson. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s, Age of Jackson

inaugurated the modern era of Jacksonian scholarship on a positive note.

Writing in the liberal tradition of the New Deal, Schlesinger portrayed the

seventh President as a principled advocate of democracy, the emodiment of

the common person's aspirations, and a charismatic political leader. This ad-

ulatory theme in Jacksonian scholarship waned in the early 1960s as histori-

ans raised doubts about how fully this self-made Tennessee oligarch and

slaveholder embraced either the common man or egalitarian goals. Scholars

wrestled the temperamental Jackson onto the psychiatrist's couch, loaded

computers with social and economic data that frequently confounded Schle-

singer's conclusions, and charged Old Hickory with slipshod governmental

administration. The behavioral revolution in political history coupled with

the "new" social history of the 1960s and 1970s paid Jackson the ultimate in-

sult: it ignored him.

Throughout this downward spiral in Jackson's reputation, Robert Remini

has persisted in his view of Jackson as the central force in the age that has

come to bear his name. This third and concluding volume of Jackson's biog-

raphy completes Remini's restoration efforts. It takes Jackson's life from the

Nullification Crisis to his death in 1845. Remini leaves little doubt that Jack-

son was an extraordinary figure, a person larger than the times in which he

lived.

Remini argues that Jackson decisively shaped American politics and the

Book Reviews                                                  221

presidency by securing both to a foundation of popular will. Much recent

Jacksonian scholarship, especially that of Edward Pessen, has portrayed

Jackson as an expedient politician who cynically manipulated popular will.

Remini, however, argues persuasively that Jackson really meant what he

said; that he was, indeed, the tribune of the people and that they alone,

through him, could speak to the nation's greatness. Remini convincingly

demonstrates that on a range of domestic issues Jackson placed his "total

trust" in the "virtue of the real people, the great working class . . ." (p. 450).

Indeed, it was this implicit faith in the people that gave Jackson the power to

challenge both Congress and the Supreme Court and to pursue in the Nullifi-

cation Crisis a program of forceful unionism. Remini, to some extent, echoes

the earlier assessments made by Jackson's first biographer, James Parton,

but his superb grasp of the era and the evidence gives these conclusions a

new sense of authority.

Remini offers a finely etched analysis of Jackson the person that makes

these volumes more than political biography. Old Hickory was temperamen-

tal, aggressive, and often poor in his judgements about the honesty of others

(the famous defalcation of Samuel Swartwout, the collector of the custom's

house in New York, was a particular blow to Jackson's pride). As important,

Remini argues, Jackson possessed an even more distinctive quality-grit. He

suffered through more than the usual distractions of life (duels, deaths of

family and friends, broken finances and busted businesses), yet he perse-

vered through force of will.

Remini makes Jackson's life fascinating by revealing how personal force

and political necessity blended harmoniously. Jackson not only preserved

the Union during the fateful Nullification Crisis, but he strengthened the

presidential office, advanced the spirit and practice of democratic govern-

ment, and made the two-party system viable. Only Jackson's retirement,

Remini argues, allowed American politics to function normally. As a result,

Jackson had the distinction of becoming, through the notion of Jacksonian

Democracy, a metaphor for his age and a lesson to our own era in the continu-

ing virtues of open government.

In sum, Remini has given us a biography of classic proportions, one that es-

tablishes him as the preeminent authority on Old Hickory and his times.

University of Florida                               Kermit L. Hall

Dubious Alliance: The Making of Minnesota's DFL Party. By John Earl

Haynes. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. vii + 264p.;

notes, note on sources, index. $35.00 cloth; $14.95 paper.)

Researching and writing the history of the American left can be an exer-

cise in intellectual frustration. In The Communist Controversy in Washington

(1966), Earl Latham distinguished between "the Communist problem"-the

fact of Communist involvement in domestic American politics-and "the

Communist issue"-political perceptions of a fundamental conflict of values

used by Republicans to attack New Deal Democrats in the post-World War II

period. Many scholars have addressed the issue to provide historical inter-

pretations of McCarthyism. Few historians have discussed the problem as

222                                                  OHIO HISTORY

faced by American liberals in their domestic political organizations. In Dubi-

ous Alliance, historian John Earl Haynes, currently Director of Tax and Cred-

it Analysis for the state of Minnesota, deals with the problem through a case

study of Minnesota's Farmer-Labor movement during the years from 1936

through 1948.

Rather than presenting either an internal study of Minnesota's Communist

Party or an external analysis of liberal attempts to stem Communist influence,

Haynes focuses on the meeting place of left-liberal politics in Farmer-Labor

circles. Tracing the origins of the Farmer-Labor movement from the Non-

Partisan League's activities in 1918, he shows the movement's domination of

Minnesota state politics by 1936 in the midst of the New Deal. The bulk of

the work centers on the ongoing tension between the Communist-led Popular

Front anti-fascist alliance and a disparate faction of New Deal liberals in local

political bodies, AFL unions, CIO organizations, and state farm cooperatives.

Dubious Alliance provides a detailed, year-by-year narrative of that continu-

ous battle from the defeat of the Farmer-Labor ticket in 1938, through the

rise of factionalism between 1938 and 1943 and the merger of the Farmer-

Labor and Democratic parties as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL)

in 1944, to the emergence of new liberal leaders. Chapters 9-11 chronicle the

leadership of Minneapolis Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey in building an anti-

communist liberal ideology, organization, and campaign network from 1946

through 1948 which led to the ousting of the Popular Front faction from the

DFL.

Haynes has conducted an impressive amount of archival research among

eighty-two manuscript collections in ten archives. His work benefits from

study of personal and organizational papers at the Minnesota Historical Soci-

ety, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Roosevelt and Truman

presidential libraries, Catholic University, and the labor history archives at

Wayne State University. To complement these sources, Haynes draws on FBI

files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and oral interviews

with key activists from both factions. What emerges is a complicated, fasci-

nating story of internecine domestic political infighting at a variety of levels-

precincts, wards, counties, AFL craft unions and city central bodies, CIO in-

dustrial unions and state organizations, the state DFL, and the Democratic

Party at the county, state, and national rankings.

Yet in structuring the eleven detailed narrative chapters around a strict

chronological framework, Haynes slights critical analysis. In drastically revis-

ing his 1978 University of Minnesota doctoral dissertation, Haynes chose to

sacrifice stylistic flow, narrative coherency, and interpretive scope. To but-

tress his involved political narrative, Haynes relies on minute descriptions of

political action in Minnesota's three largest and most influential urban areas-

Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth. In the note on sources, Haynes admits to

a "lack of sufficient coverage of farmers' organizations and rural politics" (p.

250). His clear political sympathies for the Humphrey faction lead to serious

critical lapses in comparing the ideological ambiguity, personalities, and or-

ganizational skills of the Popular Front and anticommunist liberal factions

within the DFL. By leaving his incisive analysis of the "intellectual kinship"

of the two factions for the concluding pages, Haynes shortchanges a prodi-

gious research effort.

Dubious Alliance raises important and thought-provoking questions in in-

terpreting the DFL's factional battles from its New Deal triumph in 1936

Book Reviews                                                   223

through Henry A. Wallace's ill-fated Progressive Party campaign of 1948 as

"the seminal political experience of Humphrey's generation of liberals"

(p. 7). Haynes' careful reconstruction of coalition building from 1946 through

1948 under the inspirational leadership of Humphrey, the organizational

skills of Orville Freeman as head of the Minnesota branch of Americans for

Democratic Action, and the farmer-labor alliance among farm cooperatives,

AFL unions, and CIO factions depicts the evolution of the postwar liberal

anticommunist consensus. He briefly notes the emergence of a younger gener-

ation of college-educated liberals which included Eugene McCarthy and

Walter Mondale.

Haynes provides a superbly researched chronicle of left-liberal political

factionalism which should serve as a model for future historians of New Deal

liberalism, the American Communist Party, the Popular Front, and McCar-

thyism. He persuasively argues that Communists (admitted and secret) ma-

nipulated the mainstream liberal party in Minnesota politics throughout this

period. In so doing, Haynes subtly questions the conclusions of revisionist

studies which argue that anticommunist liberals brought on McCarthyism

before McCarthy. Through extensive research, close attention to political

detail, and consideration of the ideological claims of both factions in Minne-

sota's DFL Party, Haynes has turned what might have been an exercise in

frustration into a significant piece of historical scholarship.

Tennessee Technological University                 Patrick D. Reagan