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Book Reviews, Book Notes & Periodical Literature Volume 51 (1992), pp. 99-153 |
COAL, CLASS, AND COLOR: BLACKS IN SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA, 1915-32. By Joe William Trotter, Jr. (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1990. Pp. xvi, 290. $13.95.)
In this study of black industrial working-class formation, or "proletarianization," historian Joe William Trotter of Carnegie Mellon University analyzes the development of the black coal mining work force in southern West Virginia. Professor Trotter defines proletarianization as "the process by which southern rural and semirural blacks became new industrial workers and crystallized into a new class."(xvii) The time period of this study, 1915-32, represents the nadir of black influence in the coalfield counties of Boone, Fayette, Kanawha, Logan, McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, Raleigh, and Wyoming when the African-American population in these counties rose to 79,007.
Black miners were recruited from the South to a labor-scarce, rural, mountainous region where they joined native whites and European immigrants in an emergent multi-ethnic, multi-racial society. A "new class" of blacks emerged from the intersection of their experiences as southern "peasants" and as "proletarians" in the coalfields. They might have been a "new class," but Trotter finds the same persistent white racism at work in the coalfields to relegate blacks to the lowest, dirtiest, and most dangerous jobs in the mines. Black miners found their social and institutional lives even more circumscribed above ground in the coal communities by whites who were determined to restrict them to an inferior status. Trotter sees racism reaching a crescendo during World War I and the early 1920s. Two lynchings occurred during this period, and a previously fluid social system was transformed by the rising tide of racism into formal inequality for blacks in education, the law, health care, and social welfare services.
Professor Trotter is at his best when describing the broad range of African- American responses to this intensification of racism. Black miners became proficient at their jobs, moved frequently in search of higher wages and better conditions, and most importantly for Trotter, they formed bonds of racial solidarity with the black middle- and upper-classes who provided goods, services, and leadership for the black community. This interclass solidarity within the race provided the base from which blacks created their own churches, fraternal orders, political and civil rights organizations, and indeed community itself.
Of course, this process was not unique to the coalfields, but as Trotter demonstrates so well, local particulars were distinctive to southern West Virginia. Unlike the dynamic economy of the industrial cities, for example, mining towns were extremely dependent on a single industry which dominated not just employment, but nearly every other aspect of life. Also, workers were highly dispersed in this rural landscape, and they were not rigidly supervised on the job during this era when miners were still paid by the ton. As a result, they were far more difficult for the union to organize, and much easier for the companies to control than was the case with urban industrial workers. Moreover, blacks faced fewer legal restrictions in West Virginia than in the South, and they were never legally disfranchised. In fact, in a few counties, particularly McDowell, blacks exerted substantial political influence. This was probably true in the state legislature too where blacks had served since the 1890s and won some significant political victories: a state anti-lynching law; a state law banning the showing of The Birth of a Nation; state-supported social welfare institutions run by and for blacks, such as industrial schools, an asylum, and poor house; and appropriations for the expansion of black schools and colleges. Blacks also joined newly created chapters of the NAACP, and a few belonged to Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. Trotter makes a major contribution in his perceptive analysis of these developments.
Coal, Class, and Color "should help us transcend the debilitating debates over . . . the primacy of class versus race in shaping the black miners' experience," Trotter writes, by showing that experience within the "multiple frameworks of class, race, and region, and by treating black miners as central actors in the larger drama."(267) But the evidence and interpretation presented here leads us to the conclusion that race is, in fact, transcendent in explaining the black experience in southern West Virginia, however complex the matrix of social relations.
The problem with interpreting the black miners' experience in West Virginia is its ambiguity; the bottle is partly full in the southern context, but in light of American ideals the vessel seems all too empty. Even as "lynching sentiments" were "seething" just beneath the surface, lawmakers, and even county sheriffs were actually taking measures to prevent such racial violence -- a significant point considering the role of many local officials in racial violence elsewhere in the nation. Moreover, even though blacks never constituted a major proportion of the population in West Virginia, the fact that they were able to win significant political victories begs the question of how so few could gain these concessions unless a majority of the politicians in the overwhelmingly white legislature agreed with them.
Another unresolved question is how "proletarianization" differs in practice from the standard approach, which emphasizes the development of black communities as parallel social structures within a segregated system, and how it improves on the oppression model. This problem is compounded by the near absence from the class-race analysis of the United Mine Workers of America, the major labor organization among this segment of the working class. The UMWA was involved in monumental organizational struggles throughout the period, and Professor Trotter recognizes that blacks played an important role in this movement, but he considers this a "transitory alliance" with white workers. Space permitting, this might be effectively disputed.
Despite these observations, Coal, Class, and Color is an excellent study of the black coal mining community in southern West Virginia at the peak of its influence. This richly textured study shows just how complex race relations were even in this relatively remote, rural-industrial setting, and will serve as the standard work on the topic for a long time to come.
Ronald L. Lewis
West Virginia University
LAWYER'S LAWYER: THE LIFE OF JOHN W. DAVIS. By William H. Harbaugh (1973; reprint, Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1990. Pp. 647. $17.95.)
John W. Davis is often remembered as the 1924 Democratic nominee for president who emerged from a party fragmented and battered by a tortuous nominating convention in New York City. But that distinction, however notable, was a political diversion from Davis's true craft as the foremost corporate lawyer of his day. William H. Harbaugh's classic account of Davis's life, legal philosophy, and social thought, originally published in 1973, follows Davis's distinguished career as Solicitor General of the United States in the first Wilson administration, Ambassador to the Court of St. James following World War I, and doyen of the elite Wall Street firm of Davis, Polk, and Wardell. When he died at the age of eighty-one in 1955, Davis had argued 141 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including the losing presentation in the 1954 segregation case, his final appearance before the court.
Davis was born in Clarksburg in 1873, the son of Anna and John J. Davis, one of West Virginia's leading Constitutional Unionists. The elder Davis was pro- slavery and anti-secessionist, and his pragmatic support for West Virginia statehood was tempered by an abiding hatred for the centralizing tendencies of national government. John W. Davis absorbed his father's states' rights views, if not the volatile personality, adopting at the core of his being the doctrine that personal liberty and property rights were inseparable natural rights of man. These tenets were formalized during his law school training at Washington and Lee, where Davis internalized the rigidly conservative premise that the United States Constitution and statutes were fixed in meaning, not subject to liberal judicial interpretation.(20)
Dr. Harbaugh's choice of Davis as the subject of a scholarly biography challenged him to write a balanced narrative about someone with whom he was philosophically at odds. Harbaugh accepted and met this challenge, producing an exhaustively documented and readable volume. Lawyer's Lawyer portrays a man whose character, integrity, and talent made him universally respected, even among his bitterest adversaries. Yet Harbaugh counterbalances Davis's gentle personal decency with the lawyer's stubborn resistance to admit possible structural injustices in American corporate capitalism, whose concentration of wealth and power assaulted the democratic Jeffersonian principles Davis held dear.
Davis, described as at heart "always a Spencerian or Social Darwinist,"(118) uncritically accepted and defended the existing social order, at the top of which he rested. Harbaugh approves Davis's opposition to certain New Deal programs that were "hastily and loosely framed," (Davis was a charter member of the reactionary Liberty League), but points out that never did Davis "speak understandingly of the poverty, malnutrition, and despair that pervaded the nation." Nor did Davis ever acknowledge that the political centralization he detested was "simply the logical response to the financial and industrial centralization he so consistently ignored."(342)
Davis, eighty years old in 1953, did not hesitate when South Carolina Governor James F. Byrnes asked him to defend the state in Briggs v. Elliott, the South Carolina segregation case which was combined with Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Pitted against Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP, a personal admirer of Davis, Davis argued for literal interpretation of the "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Harbaugh concludes that Davis probably sincerely believed that federally-mandated integration of schools would irretrievably fracture race relations, but that he also "privately defended poll taxes, never criticized the exclusion of blacks from Democratic primaries, and never commented, privately or publicly, on the nation's dual system of justice."(493) Davis therefore embraced the Plessy dictum that "if one race be inferior socially to the other, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane,"(492) and also accepted the engineering of black social and political powerlessness by state and local practices. Davis went so far as to declare that since "the highest authorities" had consistently defended a state's right to maintain segregated schools, the issue should not even be open to debate in the courts.(499)
In a perceptive foreword to the 1990 reissue, Calvin Woodward suggests that Davis's anti-New Deal, pro-segregationist views have once again become not only relevant but "appallingly popular" in the Reagan-Bush years.(xi) Indeed, the judicial temperament of the federal courts has shifted back toward the Davis interpretation of limited power, where "it was not for the government to compensate for the accident of birth, no matter how impoverished the cultural or economic inheritance."(118) The recent pronouncements of new Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that he embraces natural law signal a resurgence of Davis's view that the state and the high court exist only to prevent monopoly, preserve order and national security, and protect liberty and property. The current leaning of the courts renders premature, then, the 1954 observation by Paul Wilson, Assistant Attorney General of Kansas, who reluctantly defended his state's segregated school system in the Brown case. John W. Davis's arguments in the segregation cases, said Wilson, displayed "a great lawyer at the end of his life speaking, however eloquently, in support of a policy that was no longer tolerable in a free country."(506)
John Hennen
West Virginia University
MARY LEE SETTLE'S BEULAH QUINTET: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM. By Brian Rosenberg (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1991. Pp. xv, 141. $25.00.)
Apart from George Garret's Understanding Mary Lee Settle, Rosenberg's new work is the only book-length treatment of the prolific author who is published internationally, generally esteemed in critical circles, and a winner of the National Book Award. While Settle's books are often well- reviewed, her audience is not as large as she deserves, and there are occasional notes of irony in the critical reception of her books. In Rosenberg's study, Settle has found an able advocate as well as an interpreter.
The books that comprise the Beulah Quintet are analyzed in the order of their historical chronology, although they were not written in that order. Rosenberg reads each one deeply and with appreciation. The first of the series, the remarkable novel Prisons, is "at once the marginal and the central novel." Whereas Settle's works often fragment time and setting in a manner reminiscent of Alain Robbe-Grillet, Prisons proceeds in a more discursive, linear way to its dramatic and moving conclusion. It is told in the first-person perspective of Johnny Church, a young Leveller during the English Civil War. Drawing upon extensive historical research, a trademark of Settle's fiction, both the style and content are consistent with a member of that radical faction and indicative of a certain class and upbringing. In Rosenberg's estimate, Settle's fictional characterization of Johnny Church, and his conscience and resolve, establish the historical context and recurring subtext of the next four books. In addition, Rosenberg finds in this first of the series an observation about the sources of American culture and politics as well. It is to the Levellers that we owe much of our notion of freedom, and it is their conflict and proclamations to which we must return in order to make sense of our own struggles.
Rosenberg's reading of Prisons suggests that rarely are the personal and the political so skillfully related in works of fiction, and this implicitly undermines the "great man" theory of history propounded by Thomas Carlyle. He concentrates on the fundamental irony of Church's fate and the historical failure of the Levellers's movement to substantiate Settle's insistence that they were a source of the modern democratic experiment. He finds everything about the style of the novel -- first-person narration, use of period speech, the suggestive imagery -- supports Settle's contention that failure can be dialectically reversed in history, the process that Jean-Paul Sartre called the game of "loser wins."
The novels that follow Prisons in the Beulah Quintet are all set in the New World, principally in West Virginia, and are peopled with the descendants of Johnny Church who must in one way or another relive his struggle for freedom. O Beulah Land, actually written first, has for its protagonist Hannah, a pioneer in pre-Revolutionary America. As Hannah and her relations make a new life for themselves in the mountains of western Virginia, they develop an ironic relation to the land they tame and possess. Rosenberg emphasizes the dilemma at the center of that relation: are those who were dispossessed healed or corrupted by dispossessing others?
Rosenberg's themes are suggestive of Rodger Cunningham's recent study Apples on the Flood: Minority Discourse And Appalachia, a nonfiction treatment of precisely the same issues Settle has addressed through historical fiction.
The third novel, Know Nothing, is seen as stylistically similar to its preceding volume by Rosenberg, although he also characterizes it as her most accessible to a popular audience. He finds in it, nevertheless, the same political undercurrents that are elsewhere in the Beulah Quintet: "Because the antebellum South is among the most dangerously mythologized of all historical eras, Know Nothing is the most emphatically antimythological novel in the quintet." The protagonist in the third novel acquiesces where his ancestors struggled, with or without success. Drowning in passivity and the decay of earlier promise, he is fodder for the Civil War. The fourth novel, The Scapegoat, won wide critical acclaim, and Rosenberg is honest enough to attribute some of the attention to the fact that it followed Settle's National Book Award for Blood Tie. Yet he also contends that The Scapegoat, set in the period of West Virginia's mine wars and featuring Mother Jones as a principal player, is more pleasing to literary critics than most historical fiction. Highbrows who did not know what to make of the preceding volumes could embrace the latest offering as a proletarian novel. Although the descendants of previous characters appear here, there is no single dominant protagonist, and Rosenberg finds its style and structure close to that of Blood Tie. He notes that the same event is told from multiple perspectives, and characterizes The Scapegoat as being "more radically fragmented" and carrying "different epistemological implications."
Rosenberg makes much significance of the portrayal of Mother Jones, the first genuine historical figure given prominence since Cromwell in the first of the Beulah books. Extended flashbacks, previously used in Prisons, are matched by flash-forwards (a term Rosenberg credits to George Garrett) revealing consequences of decisions and actions and the future shift of fortunes. But the shifting of social classes and fortunes was already a theme contemporary with the mine wars, since farming had been replaced by industry.
After a false start with Fight Night on a Sweet Saturday, Settle concluded the quintet with The Killing Ground, featuring a later Hannah, one who is contemporary with the reader. The fight here is still for freedom and whether one has the resolve to carry it through. The prison is "Canona" society with its hillside homes and country clubs, a theme reworked in Charley Bland. Rosenberg raises this point by noting the reappearance in The Killing Ground of characters previously found in non-Beulah novels. He contends that some readers have been confused by trying to see the novelist-narrator of this last book as Mary Lee Settle herself, rather than as a fictional construct who speaks in first person. In all fairness to Settle, this is apparently a widespread misunderstanding among modern readers, as the furor against Bret Easton Ellis for American Psycho demonstrates.
Throughout Rosenberg's critical rereading of the Beulah Quintet is a consideration of what a recent biographer of George Orwell has termed "the politics of literary reputation." Historical fiction has been increasingly seen in this century as a degraded genre, particularly in the United States. Critics who praise Settle's works of contemporary settings are not prepared, Rosenberg contends, to deal with her historical fiction. But if the proliferation of formula romance novels has made historical fiction suspect, he finds that there is an argument to be made that the Beulah Quintet revives a grand literary tradition, and even pushes it beyond its previous limitations. Rosenberg compares her accomplishment to Latin American writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and East Europeans like Milan Kundera. Regardless of the critics' verdict on historical fiction, he concludes: ". . . the novels that comprise the Beulah Quintet are simply too valuable to be overlooked."
Rosenberg's detailed and insightful study of this ambitious literary project is supplemented with an appendix containing an interview with Settle from 1987. It is useful in that it confirms and sometimes clarifies the interpretations the critic has advanced in the preceding pages. Yet, even more strikingly, it confirms the sympathy with Settle's sensibility that runs throughout Rosenberg's commentary. It tempts the reader to admire what she has to say as much as how well she says it.
Gordon Simmons
Trans Allegheny Books
COAL TOWNS: LIFE, WORK, AND CULTURE IN COMPANY TOWNS OF SOUTHERN APPALACHIA, 1880-1960. By Crandall A. Shifflett (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1991. Pp. xx, 259. $34.95.)
"Which side are you on?" This seemingly innocent question has paralyzed the historiography of Appalachian bituminous coal mining for decades. The first students of coalfield history were company apologists, glorifying the enterprising operators who had carved the mighty industry from the rugged mountains. The next generation were scholars investigating coal culture, radical labor historians searching for a genuine tradition of industrial worker class-consciousness amidst the chronic turbulence of the coal industry.
Coal Towns seeks to move the debate concerning the nature of the coalfields beyond partisan considerations into the realm of social history. In particular, Crandall Shifflett attempts to apply Herbert Gutman's concept of "work culture" and Eugene Genovese's sophisticated theoretical construct of "paternalism" to the history of coal communities in industrializing Appalachia. Shifflett is a professor of American history at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, whose first book analyzed "tobacco patronage" agricultural society in nineteenth-century Virginia.
Shifflett's avowed goal is "to explore the nature of the coal-town order in all of its complexity and variety, beginning with the background culture of the white majority and moving into the social community of individual towns."(xviii) Rather than addressing the "physical setting and power relationships,"(1) Coal Towns investigates "the interaction of structural components and cultural values,"(175) and asserts that "a laboring people's culture arose out of this blend of the inherited tradition and the environmental conditions of industrial labor."(212) "Mine culture," states Shifflett, "like agriculture, was a shared working-class culture."(111)
In order to reinterpret coal culture -- "to relate work and culture"(110) -- Shifflett chiefly utilizes three bodies of primary source materials: periodic federal government documents such as the 1922 United States Coal Commission report; scores of oral histories contained in a wide variety of repositories; and the voluminous corporate records of two "case study" coal companies -- Stonega in southwest Virginia, and Borderland in Mingo County, West Virginia. The first is taken to be representative of large, well-financed "model" company towns, the latter is an example of towns established by smaller, independently-operated companies.
Shifflett's vision of coal culture, heavily dependent upon oral history tapes, is strikingly different from the recent interpretations of Ron Eller, Ron Lewis, and especially David Corbin, who portrayed coal company towns as fundamentally oppressive institutions. Many labor historians "failed to set the experience of miners within the context of workingmen's realities and the perceptions of the age."(116) Coal Towns asserts that "social and cultural life in the towns . . . became a source of communal identity, mutual assistance, and solidarity."(xvi) Life in the five hundred or so Appalachian coalfield communities was richer, more complex, and ultimately more satisfying than recent scholarship has admitted. Shifflett's intriguing reinterpretation of mining life, however, relies less on reconfiguring the very nature of the coal towns themselves than on a major reassessment of the world that white miners and their families left behind to enter coal-town culture.
Shifflett sees late nineteenth-century Appalachia less as Eller's preindustrial paradise than as a society in agony, "not a golden age of untrammeled yeomanry but a period of crisis on the land, agricultural decline, advancing tenantry, and a darkening future for the next generation."(10) "If mountain life had been so idyllic," states the author, "mountain families would not have left."(7) Pioneer Appalachians "probably strung more beans than dulcimers."(8) Therefore, "against a preindustrial backdrop of a limiting present and a dimming future, it need not be shocking to learn, for example, that many former mining-town residents were not alienated by the company-town experience."(7) "The coal mines simply offered a better life."(24)
Often allowing coal people to speak for themselves through excerpts from oral history transcripts, Shifflett deftly revises the popular and scholarly conceptions of the characteristic institutions of coalfield culture in light of the world from which the miners came. A profound labor shortage prevented overt oppression by the operators, and the continually evolving, "dynamic" nature of the complex communities frustrated company efforts to control workers. Shifflett takes at face value company paternalism, "contentment sociology," and efforts to humanize the painful process of industrialization. In this view, the venerable company store is less an instrument of corporate oppression than a welcome commissary of goods seldom found in rural preindustrial Appalachia. The issuance of scrip is not seen as an inappropriate response to the financial realities of rural mountain existence. Poorly-attended company churches were not attempts to mold a docile labor force, but legitimate expressions of the new working-class values. Health care was efficient and affordable beyond the dreams of the inhabitants of isolated mountaineer homesteads. Leisure activities, such as community baseball clubs, while sponsored by coal company paternalism, were nonetheless valid responses to industrial culture. Shifflett's fascinating and provocative analysis of "nonunionism" will ruffle many a feather in labor history circles.
While Shifflett's adroit theoretical construct allows him to navigate smoothly the perilous shoals of coalfield history by changing the terms of the debate, several factors will likely prevent Coal Towns from persuading many historians who do not share its author's view of the veracity of oral history as a reliable primary source. Although Shifflett presents a powerful thesis, too often he suggests more than he proves. Shifflett's focus on white mountaineer culture leads him to over-emphasize ethnic conflict and racial segregation. Questions of Stonega's typicality will perhaps trouble some scholars.
Moreover, there are serious gaps in Shifflett's research, both primary and secondary. The landmark unpublished doctoral dissertations of Mack Gillenwater, Jerry Thomas, and Ken Sullivan are conspicuously absent from his notes, as is the pioneering "model town" analysis of Robert Munn, which appeared in the pages of this journal in 1979. Valuable primary source materials, such as the federal manuscript census, state mine inspection reports, the survey forms of the 1922 Coal Commission, and the UMWA Journal are also missing. More disturbing is the lack of quantified analysis, especially in light of Stonega's voluminous records: "For each mine worker, time and attendance records, number of days worked, number of cars loaded, and mine safety records were scrupulously kept."(179) Simple statistical manipulations of such data might have allowed for concrete conclusions rather than assumptions based upon miners' selective memories and notoriously obtuse government reports. This is particularly surprising because Shifflett expressly identifies his study with the Annales school of historiography.
These caveats aside, Shifflett builds a powerful case by moving the debate about the nature of coal culture away from impassioned political rhetoric towards an analytical investigation of the unique and distinctive society produced by the sudden appearance of industry in a rural mountainous setting. All students of coal history therefore owe Crandall Shifflett a considerable debt of gratitude for his provocative synthesis, a work which substantially advances this debate.
Stuart McGehee
Eastern Regional Coal Archives
CIVIL WAR IN CABELL COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA, 1861-1865. By Joe Geiger, Jr. (Charleston: Pictorial Histories Publishing, 1991. Pp. 148. $9.95.)
The author of this book has researched many well-known and unknown facts, diaries, manuscripts and photographs pertaining to Cabell County preceding and during the Civil War. Although Cabell borders the Ohio River and Unionist Ohio, it is surprising to learn the great division of its citizens. For example, Abraham Lincoln received only four votes in the entire county in the presidential election of 1860. Cabell County voted against secession but still supplied many men to the Confederate Army, including such units as the Border Rangers.
One of the book's most important features is the author's combining many detailed biographies with descriptions of military activities. Many of these individuals had a great effect on the course of the war in Cabell County and their legacy can still be seen and felt in the county today. Individuals, sites, and activities, such as General McClellan, Scary Creek, Cooney Rickets, Coalsmouth, General Jacob D. Cox, and Charleston, will bring to mind Civil War actions in surrounding counties and other areas of the United States and will whet the reader's appetite to know more.
There were many skirmishes, raids, and chases in and around Cabell County during the war and it is sometimes difficult to follow the sequence of events. This is not necessarily the fault of the author but simply the course of the war. The Battle of Barboursville was a short, bloody affair with few casualties, but it had a great effect on the area. The reader will enjoy the interesting account of German troops refusing to fight at Barboursville and the ensuing charges and counter-charges. The Confederate raid on Guyandotte was much more brutal and resulted in the burning of the town by Union forces. This was typical of one army's retaliation against enemy supporters. These actions are as well covered in this book as the historical records will allow. It is interesting to note that following the war, there was very little retaliation against the secessionists in Cabell and within five years they were allowed to vote and organize Confederate veterans groups, such as Camp Garnett which is in existence today.
The author, like most historians, contends that Albert Gallatin Jenkins was the most influential Cabell County resident to participate in the war. His plantation Greenbottom often aided the Confederates, but at other times the Union Army took food, horses, and cattle from the family. The homestead at Greenbottom is still standing and in good condition. It is unfortunate that the author could not elaborate on General Jenkins's activities because many of them did not occur in Cabell County and would be repeating information in Jack Dickinson's book, Jenkins of Greenbottom. Because of Jenkins's prominence, it would have been appropriate to have a close-up photograph of his grave in the Confederate plot in Huntington's Spring Hill Cemetery, his third and final distinguished resting place.
This book contains many previously unpublished photographs of battle sites, buildings, graves and individuals. Unfortunately, some are of questionable quality and captions are inadequate. For example, J. J. Mansfield's gravestone epitaph is well described in the text but the picture (40) shows only a silhouette. There is a duplicate picture of General John Hunt Oley's grave (116) but it is not identified.
Quotations and reproductions of newspaper articles will be of special interest to present-day Cabell County residents, especially those whose relatives participated in the war. The chapter notes and bibliography are well done, which should be of great help to anyone wishing to find more details about incidents or individuals covered in the book. Appendices listing participants in the Union and Confederate armies will aid genealogists searching for relatives in Cabell County.
The author intended this book to focus on Civil War activities in Cabell County and he achieved this goal. The book will be most valuable to those who have connections with participants in the war or who presently live in Cabell County.
Noble K. Wyatt
Kanawha Valley Civil War Roundtable
WAR DIARIES: THE 1861 KANAWHA VALLEY CAMPAIGNS. Ed. by David L. Phillips. Rebecca L. Hill, Chief Researcher (Leesburg, VA: Gauley Mountain Press, 1991. Pp. 480. $30.00.)
The spiraling interest in all aspects of the Civil War has generated a greater search for the details of that conflict's origins, first campaigns and early players. this has led to a number of new historical works on the Kanawha Valley campaign of 1861. A knowledge of this campaign is crucial to an understanding of the war itself: a border area where the first family separations took place; the often painful choosing of sides; initial, often inept efforts at raising troops and the establishing of defenses and strategic objectives. All of these things were quite new and at time frightening to Americans. Some of the Civil War's initial armed clashes took place here and some participants later played major roles in other campaigns.
Terry Lowry's 1982 Battle of Scary Creek: Military Operations in the Kanawha Valley, April-July 1861, introduced the 1861 Kanawha campaign to readers. Later works provided more insight into this subject, but the main characters remained only as names of communities, place names on maps.
War diaries opens a new world of understanding those key individuals who did so much to shape the events of West Virginia in 1861. Although William Wintz's 1989 Civil War Memoirs of Two Rebel Sisters pointed the way, this is the first full use of diaries and letters of people like Christopher and Ellen Tompkins and Jacob Cox, whom the reader is allowed to see and feel as critically important players in the real-life drama of the Civil War's opening. The hand of the editor is deft. Misspellings and grammatical errors are intentionally left intact. Phillips's insertions of descriptions of simultaneous events, of which the diarists were unaware, give greater meaning and a larger perspective to local occurrences.
The work is well organized and understandable, even for those readers who may be unfamiliar with the characters and events. There are a few typesetting errors, but no more than what is to be expected in an essentially self- published effort, and illustrations are not as professionally reproduced as might be hoped. The high level of energy reflected in the writing, thanks to skillful editing, is sustained throughout the work.
This is clearly a work that comes at just the right time for those who are interested in the critical 1861 Kanawha campaign. It is an opportunity to gain more in-depth knowledge of its key players and must reading for those interested in the mainstream of western Virginia history and politics of the early 1860s. This work will become a major resource for students of the Civil War era in West Virginia.
Michael J. Pauley
Culture & History
ANTIETAM: ESSAYS ON THE 1862 MARYLAND CAMPAIGN. Ed. by Gary W. Gallagher (Kent, OH: The Kent State Univ. Press, 1989, Pp. 130. $8.95.)
Antietam: Essays on the 1862 Maryland Campaign is a book which serious students of the Civil War and the casual reader alike can enjoy. The slender size of this volume, combined with its rather plain appearance, belie the fine quality of its contents. It is not necessary for the reader to possess working knowledge of the Antietam campaign to understand this work. However, those who have previously read such books as Landscape Turned Red by Stephen W. Sears will more readily relate to and appreciate these essays.
This information-packed volume consists of a collection of essays composed by four renowned Civil War historians. The essays include "A Season of Opportunity" and "The Campaign in Perspective" by Gary Gallagher; "Drama Between the Rivers" by Dennis Frye; "The Army of Northern Virginia in September 1862" by Robert K. Krick; and "George B. McClellan and the Maryland Campaign" by A. Wilson Greene.
Each author analyzes a specific phase of the campaign in thought-provoking detail. Dennis Frye's description of the campaign as it involved Harpers Ferry and the Confederate loss of Special Orders #191 is perhaps the most readable of the essays. Frye carefully delineates Union and Confederate maneuvers, both tactical and strategic, in explaining how the Rebels managed to escape disaster and capture Harpers Ferry and its garrison of 12,500 Federals.
"A Season of Opportunity" explores the various reasons why Robert E. Lee, with the approval of Jefferson Davis, decided to invade Maryland. The Southerners reasoned that a successful campaign in the North might result in foreign intervention on the side of the Confederacy, as well as having several other positive effects. Conversely, the author convincingly makes the case that the real opportunity lay with the North. Had General McClellan been a more aggressive soldier and campaign strategist, he might have destroyed Lee's army, thereby ending the war.
Krick's analysis of the Army of Northern Virginia in the fall of 1862 is the most penetrating of the essays. It is also the least readable, being overburdened with technical jargon. Casual readers may be perturbed by Mr. Krick's style, but he presents a superb picture of Lee's great army and its part in this pivotal campaign.
A. Wilson Greene very skillfully summarizes McClellan's costly mistakes. The author points out that although the general was inept in directing his massive army, he thought he was doing splendidly and often bragged to his superiors about his many achievements. The author also persuasively argues that Ambrose Burnside, the usual "scapegoat" of Antietam, has been erroneously blamed for the Union Army's failure at Antietam Creek on September 17, 1862.
Finally, Gary Gallagher integrates contemporary opinions on the results of Antietam within a truly excellent discussion of how the war changed after the battle. A concise but comprehensive bibliography complements this impeccable collection of essays. It is an excellent book with which to increase your knowledge of America's bloodiest day.
Tim McKinney
Charlton Heights
LEE CONSIDERED: GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE AND CIVIL WAR HISTORY. By Alan T. Nolan (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1991. Pp. 240. $19.95.)
Stating that Robert E. Lee's actions should be "explored and not just accepted," Alan T. Nolan attempts to identify several "fictions" concerning Lee and the Confederacy in his latest work, Lee Considered. Among other things, Nolan argues that Lee could have prevented Virginia's secession; that Lee's men "did not always behave civilly in the North"; that Lee "was aware of and embraced the preservation of slavery as a Confederate war aim"; and that after the war "Lee and his fellow Southerners were groping for a new method of white supremacy and exploitation of the blacks."
Citing a wide variety of sources, including Lee's own writing on these and other topics, Nolan confidently and skillfully sets forth his thesis. His revisionist method of using these sources does, however, come into question. When citing a source that can be interpreted in several ways, Nolan always concludes that his interpretation is correct, and argues the point with varying degrees of success. While this method offers some interesting, even thought-provoking text, it is not necessarily the thread that binds good historical research. Indeed, many of the details with which Nolan deals are of relatively little importance.
In Chapter Four, entitled "General Lee," Nolan argues that the "South's true grand strategy" was defensive, and that Lee possessed a "fundamental misconception of the proper Southern grand strategy," his "counterproductive strategy of the offensive." Instead of pursuing an offensive victory, Lee should have remained on the defensive and worn down Northern will. Nolan argues this point skillfully, presenting his readers with a highly credible discussion of the price the South paid for having Robert E. Lee. He further concludes, as have many other Lee historians, that Antietam was Lee's greatest mistake. This is perhaps the best chapter in Lee Considered, with one important caveat: Nolan fails to consider the overall context of General Lee's actions. The virtually unbroken string of Federal successes in the west frequently obligated Lee to assume the offensive.
Nolan's thesis also suffers from his attempts to reduce the causes and meaning of the war merely to slavery. Economic issues and sectional rivalry that predated the war by decades are entirely dismissed. The evidence given for the characterization of Lee as an advocate of slavery is also suspect.
Lee Considered is interesting and well written. It is a work calculated to provoke its readers, and it does that best of all. Seeing whether or not Nolan's conclusions survive in the "court" of public opinion will be almost as interesting as reading the book itself.
Tim McKinney
Charlton Heights
BATTLE TACTICS OF THE CIVIL WAR. By Paddy Griffith (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1989. Pp. 239. $25.00.)
World War I began with the armies of most of the great powers on the offensive. Almost everyone expected a war of movement, a war that would quickly reach a decisive conclusion. The most innovative of the war plans, the German Schlieffen Plan, failed as did most of the later ambitious attacks with distant objectives. Stalemated trench warfare became the order of the day on the western front, with the offense, especially when elastic defensive tactics were employed, usually suffering greater casualties. In the minds of many military theorists and popularizers of the Great War, the cult of the offensive was obsolete strategy. New military technology, especially improved artillery and rapid-fire weapons, shifted the balance in favor of the defense. The bloody American Civil War, the first modern war should have served as a portent for the future, since it was fought with improved weapons, trench systems and railroads. Yet the European generals failed to grasp the obvious, especially the advantage that improved weapons gave the defense over the offense, with the infantry paying the price on the corpse-strewn battlefields of Europe.
Paddy Griffith, a native of Liverpool and now senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, England, has written a fascinating book that brings the above analysis into serious question. To Griffith there are precious few "lessons" to be learned from this American conflict that have relevance for World War I. He views the Civil War as the last of the Napoleonic wars rather than the first modern war. Griffith has an important advantage over many Americans who write about the Civil War. First, he has a profound understanding of tactics. Second, and most importantly, he is able to write from a broad perspective. An expert on Napoleonic warfare, he has also mastered the literature on the Civil War. Frequently, American historians can be justly accused of too narrow a focus in their treatment of American subjects. They often do not have the depth of knowledge to place an American historical event in a comparative context.
Central to the author's thesis is his rejection of the widely held view that a "genuine revolution in firepower" occurred on the battlefields of the Civil War. In opposition to Shelby Foote of public television fame and most other Civil War historians, Griffith finds the slaughter not at all different in extent from the Napoleonic battles. There was no record bloodbath; Napoleonic conflicts were actually more lethal. Napoleon's infantry carried smoothbore muzzle-loading flintlock muskets with a battle effectiveness of fifty to sixty yards. The new Civil War rifles, especially the rifled-breech loader and muzzle-loading guns, had a much superior potential range, but potential and actual battle performance were not the same. If the small number of snipers are excluded, Griffith asserts, the effective ranges of Civil War and Napoleonic musketry were not that different. The obvious question then arises: If there was no revolution in firepower, why the emphasis on trenches and the indecisive nature of the fighting? Griffith concludes, "as in so many other eras of military history, in fact, it transpires that human factors such as training and doctrine -- or the lack of them -- exerted a much greater underlying influence upon the outcome than did the precise specifications of the weaponry in use."(27) He argues that the West Point-dominated officer corps of both sides, trained to be engineers, emphasized the spade over the bayonet. Typically, an attacking force would advance to within close range of the enemy, engaging in a prolonged fire fight at a distance not unlike Napoleonic times. The difference was that the last thirty-three yards were not crossed with a rapid rush and mass shock tactics. The glint of steel would have unnerved the defender and broken his will. If a large reserve of heavy cavalry, similar to that of Napoleon, had been present to support these shock tactics, many battles would have been turned into routs by offensive-minded generals. The crux of Griffith's thesis is that the nature of warfare in 1861- 65 had not fundamentally changed since Waterloo. If Napoleon and his generals had conducted the conflict, "the Civil War could have shown us decisive results as dazzling as anything seen in the days of Napoleon."(192)
A non-controversial point made by the author is that artillery in the 1860s was not capable of assisting the offensive as it did during 1914-18. Artillery, not the tank or machine gun, proved to be the decisive weapon of World War I. Conversely, direct fire at long-range was inaccurate. Griffith's view that Civil War artillery was not as vulnerable to rifle fire as previously thought, however, is bound to raise an eyebrow or two.
The greatest value of this provocative study is to force Civil War enthusiasts to rethink prevailing views on the nature of the conflict. There will certainly be considerable disagreement with Griffith. Some of his generalizations don't ring true. For example, is it really correct to argue that the psychological impact of First Manassas decisively affected the conduct of the war thereafter, with the Federals having an inferiority complex? Also, his use of statistics on frontal assaults to buttress his thesis do not always inspire confidence. One is reminded of the remark, "there are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Based largely on secondary sources, and written in a pleasing, informal style, Griffith's work is certain to engage the interest of both the specialist and general reader. This is definitely a work that should be added to any Civil War library.
David Woodward
Marshall University
AN AMERICAN ILIAD: THE STORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. By Charles Pierce Roland (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1991. Pp. 288. $30.00.)
First impressions can be very deceiving. An American Iliad appears to attempt an overview of the most important event in the history of our nation in a scant 263 pages, the equivalent of "Cliff's Notes on the Civil War." The author, however, quickly dispels this assumption. Roland's method of telling the story of the Civil War is a valuable one. In a society that processes information by the "sound-bite," few people will begin extensive multi-volume accounts of this war. Unfortunately, this leaves many without any knowledge of how these few years shaped a nation. An American Iliad should help fill this void.
Roland describes the campaigns and tactics that would make legends of Lee, Grant and Jackson, but his account extends also to the politicians. The strong hand played by both Northern and Southern politicians determined the outcome of the conflict just as surely as the generals. The author's profiles of these leaders, both military and political, show their strengths and weaknesses. He provides an honest account that will surely lead the reader to look further into these lives. The character of Lincoln, of course, is the thread which carries throughout the book. Lincoln's greatness is seen in his dedication to preserve the Union at all costs. The author emphasizes that the Gettysburg Address was more than political rhetoric. It was the message that drove the man.
Perhaps the greatest contribution of Roland's book is his skill as a writer which encourages the reader to seek more information. He does not overlook any facet of the war. Considering the length of the book, the author's thorough treatment is surprising. He presents a complete portrait of the Civil War era, but the images will lead the reader to focus on one aspect or another.
The author graphically illustrates the price paid by the South. With only two major battles occurring on northern sod, it is the South we see in flames. The vision is more than just an army destroyed, it is the end of a culture. As the conflict wears on, the inhumanity of man becomes more evident. There are heroes and glory in war, but there is also revenge. This tragedy is magnified when the conflict is brother against brother.
It is frustrating to have a library patron ask for "a" book on a particular subject. An American Iliad can be strongly recommended to fill this need on the Civil War. However, it would be surprising if the reader stopped with this work.
J. D. Waggoner
West Virginia Library Commission
THE EDUCATION OF BLACKS IN THE SOUTH, 1860-1935. By James D. Anderson (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1988. Pp. xvi, 366. $10.95.)
Focusing on the period 1860-1935, this book examines the development of black education in the American South. It explores the "structure, ideology, and content of black education as part and parcel of the larger political subordination of blacks." As Anderson argues, "it was the social system in which blacks lived that made their educational institutions so fundamentally different from those of other Americans." More importantly, however, this study emphasizes the "unique system of public and private education" that black southerners developed for themselves.
Anderson carefully situates his study within the broader context of American education. From the early nineteenth century through the early twentieth century, he shows how the history of American education was marked by two contradictory themes: training for citizenship in a democratic society versus schooling for second-class citizenship along class and particularly racial lines. These contradictory traditions, Anderson concludes, reflected the protracted struggle between "two social systems -- slavery and peasantry on one hand, and capitalism and free labor on the other."
In a series of seven tightly interconnected chapters, Anderson rewrites much of the conventional historiography of black education, emphasizing the dynamic self-activity of blacks themselves. First, building upon the theoretical insights of the late labor historian Herbert Gutman, he documents the role of former slaves in shaping their own education, showing how they built upon fundamental beliefs in the value of literate culture which they developed under slavery. The first generation of free African Americans developed a grassroots literacy movement that stretched back to the antebellum period, before northern benevolent societies, the federal government, and white politicians got involved in the process of educating the freedmen and women. In short, Anderson concludes, "such a view of postbellum southern education acknowledges the important contributions of northerners but recognizes the ex- slaves as the principal challenge to the region's long-standing resistance to free schooling."(6)
Second, Anderson focuses on the actual content of black education and moves beyond merely assessing the intellectual and ideological debates that marked efforts to educate former slaves. Thus, he helps to sharpen our understanding of the goals and relationships between black institutions like Hampton Institute, Tuskegee Institute, and others. Although Hampton and Tuskegee became known as trades or technical schools, for example, their main mission was the training of public school teachers: using manual labor as a requirement of teacher training rather than as a systematic effort to produce an artisan class. Despite substantial support from northern philanthropists, especially after the initiation of the Conferences of Education in the South (which began at Capon Springs, West Virginia, and continued to meet in various places through 1914), most black students attended private normal schools, secondary schools, and colleges, which pursued classical liberal education with little effort focused on trades and manual training. Moreover, these were the institutions that provided most teachers for black public school education in the South.
Third, this study shows how whites responded to black education in a variety of ways, depending upon particular configurations of class backgrounds, political, and social interests. While rural white planters staunchly resisted universal public school education for blacks, white urban industrialists supported a system of universal public schooling with clearly prescribed racial and class limitations. Conversely, while northern white missionaries advocated the lifting of racial ceilings on black education, northern white industrialists hoped to limit black educational aspirations in accord with prevailing southern racist norms. Thus, by depicting a variety of white responses to black education, Anderson shows how some northerners advocated greater ceilings on black education than some southern whites.
A splendid work of historical scholarship, this study documents significant changes in black education over time. Black education moved forward in the wake of the Civil War, when blacks used their expanding educational institutions to develop leadership training for citizenship in a modern democracy. Although they adopted a classical liberal curriculum (which varied little from that of New England white schools), Anderson convincingly argues that this curriculum was not an imitation of white schooling. Indeed, it was used to counteract prevailing racial stereotypes of black people.
Despite remarkable strides during the Reconstruction period, black education changed significantly thereafter. As former slaves continued to struggle to implement their vision of education, they faced the emergence of what Anderson calls the Hampton-Tuskegee model of black education: emphasis on a pedagogy and ideology that sought "a social consensus that did not challenge traditional inequalities of wealth and power."(33) In an exceedingly detailed analysis of the ideas of Yankee Samuel Armstrong, founder of Hampton, Anderson shows how Armstrong waged a vigorous campaign against black suffrage, and used Hampton as a model for training blacks to occupy lowly roles as unskilled farm and domestic laborers in the southern economy. Under the leadership of Armstrong's famous student Booker T. Washington, the Hampton idea also underlay the formation of Tuskegee: thus, the Hampton-Tuskegee idea.
Under the impact of World War I and the mass migration of southern blacks to the North, black education entered yet another phase. White northern philanthropists, their southern allies, and blacks themselves embarked upon what became known as the Rosenwald school building program for elementary and increasingly for high schools by the mid-1920s. Although philanthropists hoped to replicate the Hampton-Tuskegee idea in these new building efforts, Anderson shows that they were only partially successful. Indeed, their efforts fell apart at the outset of the Great Depression, which clearly revealed that whites and blacks competed for the same jobs and that the training of blacks for a secure realm of subordinate jobs was impossible. As this reality dawned on white philanthropists, they turned their efforts toward the funding of black collegiate education.
Based upon a broad range of primary and secondary sources, this study represents a milestone in the historiography of black education. Nonetheless, the study casts a wide net across the southern states and thus necessarily leaves some issues inadequately explored. The changing relationship between students, teachers, administrators, and the larger black community warrants much greater attention. As teachers increased their training and differentiated themselves from the mass of their students, for example, how did this affect their relationships in and out of the classroom? Moreover, the role of gender in shaping black education merits fuller treatment. How harmonious or conflictual was the relationship between black men and women educators and how did it change over the years, especially under the impact of World War I and the Great Depression? Finally, covering a wide scope, the book offers few examples from certain locales. While the study provides data on black education in West Virginia, for instance, it is not analyzed or discussed in sufficient depth. Compared to other southern states, West Virginia developed an unusually favorable reputation for supporting black education. Company-owned towns frequently provided better educational facilities for blacks than rural farm areas, but this variant of black education is not analyzed.
Such questions notwithstanding, this is a compelling book. It not only moves the study of black education well into the twentieth century, it links it to the antebellum and emancipation periods and raises a variety of issues for scholars to ponder over the next several decades. The Education of Blacks in the South will help to chart the course of research on black education for years to come. Indeed, this book is required reading for anyone seeking historical insights into the problems and prospects of black education today.
Joe W. Trotter
Carnegie-Mellon University
THE GREAT MIGRATION IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: NEW DIMENSIONS OF RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER. Ed. by Joe William Trotter, Jr. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1991. Pp. x, 160. $10.95.)
The Great Migration in Historical Perspective, a new collection of essays edited by Joe William Trotter, Jr., challenges the traditional views of black migration from the South to other parts of the United States. The essays investigate this out-migration which began as a trickle immediately after the Civil War grew to a stream in the late 1800s and became a flood during the period from World War I to the end of World War II.
The collection deals with black migration to West Virginia and other areas of the upper South, to northern industrial areas, Chicago and other parts of the mid-West and the far West. Census data, letters from those who migrated and those who remained in the South, newspaper accounts of visits to and from the South and other primary materials present a grassroots view of what motivated many blacks to leave their homes and strike out for new opportunities elsewhere. These materials provide insight into the motivation for the move and show that many of the migrants were women seeking new lives for themselves and their children. The children were often left behind until sufficient funds were saved to send for them. Most migration studies of immigrants and blacks attributed moves of this type to males who prepared the way for their families, but apparently they overlooked a large group of independent women who did the same.
Professor Trotter's essay on black coal miners is of particular interest to students of West Virginia history. He traces the movement of former farmers and farm laborers from a number of different southern states to the coal mines of West Virginia. While most of what might be called his "macro view" of black migration has been used in other books and articles, Trotter's "micro view" is a new approach. He, like the other authors in the collection, emphasizes the use of primary materials to investigate the individual's motivation for migration. By using interviews, letters and material from previously little used West Virginia Bureau of Negro Welfare and Statistics reports, he has painted a new, believable and more humane picture of black migrants to the state. Trotter's essay reiterates the theme of the volume which is contained in the subtitle New Dimensions of Race, Class and Gender. The new dimension is that the migrants -- not economic conditions, sociological and political factors and white manipulation of blacks through the use of labor agencies and recruiters -- were responsible for the decision to move from the South to other parts of the country.
Professor Trotter's historiographical essay, "Black Migration in Historical Perspective, A Review of the Literature," is thorough and interesting. He identifies various schools of thought, places them in their historical context and lists major historical contributions to each. He then shows how the articles in this volume collectively address the new approach, yet to be named, to black migration. In his conclusion, he calls for more historical research to further understanding of black migration.
The Great Migration in Historical Perspective is a welcome addition to the literature in black history. Even if a new school of historical interpretation fails to develop from this and other works, the book makes a contribution to our understanding of the impact of black migration on United States industry, culture, and politics. It also adds to the growing number of works by authors who interpret history by concentrating on the common person, the participant, rather than institutions which appear to control that person. It is hoped that this book will be followed by similar works on blacks and immigrants in the near future.
Kenneth R. Bailey
West Virginia Institute of Technology
CIVIL RIGHTS, THE CONSTITUTION, AND CONGRESS, 1863-1869. By Earl M. Maltz (Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1990. Pp. xii, 198. $25.00.)
Almost from the very day of its ratification, scholars, jurists and others have struggled to determine the original intent of the drafters of the American Constitution and the relevance of original intent to contemporary judicial decisions. The issue is particularly sensitive and crucial in interpreting many of the constitutional amendments, especially the Fourteenth. In his study Civil Rights, the Constitution, and Congress, 1863-1869, Earl Maltz, a professor of law, jumps with vigor into the debate. Starting from the position of an originalist, one who contends "that courts should consider themselves bound by original understanding," Maltz argues that the civil rights legislation of the post-Civil War era, including the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments, needs to be considered as a whole. He presents a reasonable, though not original, case that moderate and conservative Republicans, bound by their nineteenth-century definition of federalism, controlled Congress. Their view of the role of federal government prevailed in congressional civil rights legislation and amendments to the Constitution.
Although Maltz deals with most key civil rights legislation, his greatest effort is expended on an analysis of the Fourteenth Amendment. In this discussion he raises the fundamental question of whether the drafters of the amendment intended it as a vehicle to grant broad new powers to the federal government. After an involved description of voting patterns, congressional speeches and legal precedence, Maltz concludes that the dominant conservative Republicans had no such goal in mind.
Much of Maltz's overall argument hinges on what he contends were two key elements of the ideology of conservative Republicans. He asserts that these Republicans favored "the concept of limited absolute equality." Here Maltz is on safe ground; surely no scholar has recently argued that the conservative Republicans supported total racial equality. His discussion of this issue, however, exposes major problems. Maltz does not ask why various Republicans adopted the views they did. Neither does he delineate the numerous differences within the Republican party. In fact, it seems fair to suggest that Maltz is either uninterested in or unaware of the divisions within the party and yet an appreciation of those divisions is critical to an understanding of congressional action. Too often Maltz seems to be analyzing these men primarily as constitutional thinkers, when in reality they were essentially politicians.
This is not to deny Maltz's second contention, that conservative Republicans were quite "concerned about maintaining constraints on the scope of federal power generally." However, in pressing his case Maltz has chosen to ignore that congressmen are elected officials, responsible to the voters. The Republicans he discusses rarely forgot that central fact of their political lives. In deciding to rely almost solely on congressional debates as his sources, Maltz has denied himself the opportunity to assess the overall political environment in which Congress operated. By denying the relevance to his argument of correspondence from constituents and editorial opinion, Maltz puts himself in the position of suggesting that Congress acted in a vacuum and that congressmen's views were not subject to public opinion.
Curiously, though, at times Maltz does show an appreciation that southern actions were forcing Congress to reassess earlier policies and legislation. For example, he correctly acknowledges that southern rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment forced Congress to respond, but he fails to give the reader any sense of growing northern impatience with Reconstruction that compelled Congress to develop what became military reconstruction. This is the key matter for Maltz because military reconstruction required black suffrage in the South, something that conservative Republicans had opposed for several, including constitutional, reasons only months before. Had their constitutional views changed or had events pushed them to new ground? In fairness, it should be stated that Maltz seems to be more interested in a constitutional basis for congressional action than in explaining the pressures that led Congress to adopt certain legislation.
Maltz has supplied a fairly in-depth examination of the intricacies of Republican constitutional theories and how they inform the debates over the Civil War amendments. Recognizing that his main concern is to determine original intent helps to place his analysis in the proper setting. Rather than viewing the legislation as the result of a historical process, Maltz is most interested in helping judges understand the intent of the framers. That is both the study's greatest strength and its most glaring weakness.
Robert Sawrey
Marshall University
A. PHILIP RANDOLPH: PIONEER OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. By Paula E. Pfeffer (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1990. Pp. xi, 336. $29.95.)
The overwhelming purpose of slavery in the United States was economic exploitation. The continued exploitation following the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was predicated on a subservience intertwined with race, which permitted Americans of European descent to dominate those of African descent. A. Philip Randolph's recognition of this factor in American internal economic relationships characterized his thinking throughout a long and achievement- filled career.
Paula Pfeffer's portrayal of Randolph's prominent role in the leadership of the African-American community is an essential link connecting Frederick Douglass and George Washington Carver with the radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. Randolph's early organization of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and his eventually successful fight for its recognition as a legitimate bargaining unit, provided the financial basis and organizational skills for his later career. He introduced an economic thread into a post- World War II civil rights movement which has been seen primarily as a political and social phenomenon.
Migrating from north Florida to the bustle of New York City, Randolph entered the freedom movement when civil rights had probably reached their lowest depths in modern America. Capitalizing on policy changes toward labor resulting from the Depression and World War II, Randolph used his involvement in the labor movement to spur fair employment practices and integration of the armed services, which eventually provided a much broader economic foundation for African Americans. This foundation would allow room for more action. Although Randolph was committed to resolving race problems with black leadership, he had to call on wealthier white associates to continue the movement and attain, in concert with other black leaders, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
This reliance on white associates, combined with his allegiance to the labor movement, led to a growing split in his waning years with a new radical black Left which rejected both. Young leaders of movements such as the Black Panthers were oblivious to the radicalism exhibited by Randolph in an earlier age. "Rather we die standing on our feet fighting for our rights than to exist upon our knees begging for life,"(300) sounds more like Huey Newton than the Shakespearean oratory of the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
This book has been laboriously researched and documented. The detail in the writing, although cumbersome reading at times, provides a thorough background of the events surrounding A. Philip Randolph and the economic factors in the formation of the modern civil rights movement. West Virginia historians might have hoped for a more thorough review of Randolph's involvement and interaction with John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers of America, rather than the brief mention that the two were congenial associates. The idea that economic power is essential to political change and civil rights, if not an articulated policy in the United Mine Workers' attitude to race relations, was certainly a by-product of the early integration of the mines. An analysis of Randolph's relationship with Lewis and the United Mine Workers (which was unique within the labor movement and presaged an integrated economic response to problems of black workers in a predominantly white union) could have made an important contribution to the study of the Appalachian region and its involvement in a wider struggle for freedom.
I. D. Talbott
Glenville State College LAW, GENDER & INJUSTICE: A LEGAL HISTORY OF U.S. WOMEN. By Joan Hoff (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1991. Pp. 525.)
Joan Hoff's new book on the legal history of American women is the fifth work in a series called "Feminist Crosscurrents." She states at the outset that after two centuries the law still does not meet women's needs and that the "only hope" is legal change based on "radical feminism." This study, then, is not just an examination of women and the law from a historical perspective, but also a personal reinterpretation.
Hoff argues a fundamental theory that whenever women achieve some advance in their legal status, changes in contemporary society make this new status less meaningful. Women get rights men have when those rights are no longer important. For example, equal pay for equal work laws were enacted at a time of high unemployment. This argument underlies a key theme of the book: in the battle for legal rights, women have received too little, too late.
Readers will find this work largely interpretive with a heavy dose of legal philosophy from a feminist perspective. Hoff divides constitutional development for women into four separate stages, beginning with the post- Revolutionary era and concluding with the Supreme Court's 1989 Webster abortion decision. The Constitution, she argues, is a document written and defined by males and cannot be used as a basis for women's rights enforcement. Had the Equal Rights Amendment movement succeeded, the result would have brought limited improvement in women's status.
Following a colonial era of near complete subordination for married women, women's legal status only began to improve in the mid-nineteenth century with the laws of individual states. These laws brought an end to the debilitating legal principle of coverture. But that improvement over the years has been largely "erratic." Protective legislation promoted by Progressive reformers in the early twentieth century demonstrates this. Here the unintended consequence was to assign women to "sex-segregated inferior jobs." The popularity of no- fault divorce in the 1970s suggested some real benefits for women. Yet Hoff cites statistics which show that no-fault reform is leading to a "feminization of poverty."
In short, readers must be prepared for a pessimistic outlook on the future of women's legal status in America. The word "injustice" in the title itself suggests a long history of failure to provide not equality for women (because equality is always defined by men), but equity. In the 1990s, the battle lines will be drawn, Hoff says, over the issue of pornography. Whether or not one agrees with Hoff's position, this book is well worth reading. With the knowledge learned here, readers cannot help but develop a much better appreciation of the still existing legal disabilities of American women and the pressing need for further change. How that change will be accomplished is still open to debate.
Donna Spindel
Marshall University
WOMEN, MINORITIES, AND UNIONS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR. By Norma M. Riccucci (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990. Pp. 201. $37.95.)
Numerous works have documented the efforts of unions to organize workers in private companies, but few scholars have made attempts to look at the activities of unions in the public sector. Similarly, despite the fact that affirmative action has promoted equal employment opportunities for men and women, few scholars have focused on union involvement in the public sphere. Frequently, it is more difficult to win recognition of unions in public than in private companies. Norma Riccucci breaks new ground in her recent publication Women, Minorities, and Unions in the Public Sector. Riccucci documents the involvement of unions in the employment of women and minorities. She also analyzes union attitudes toward the equal employment of women and minorities in the government sector, determining their motivations for support or opposition to unionization of public workers.
Riccucci addresses the legal obligations of unions, labor-management cooperation, uniformed service jobs, and comparable worth. Interspersed throughout the book, the reader will find helpful charts, which include data on women and minorities in the public sector work force, union membership, female union officers, female representation in uniformed services, and federal government employees' annual salaries by gender. Riccucci includes eighteen charts illustrating the disparity between male and female/minority employment in the public sector.
Women, Minorities, and Unions in the Public Sector dispels the assumption that unions always promote and protect the interests of all their members, whether in the public or private sphere. Riccucci recounts an incident in which the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union brought a grievance against a manufacturing company because twenty-five female cutters were paid less than their male counterparts. The union won $29,771.36 in back wages for the female employees but insisted that only 25 percent of the amount be paid to the women. The rest should be paid to the one hundred male cutters to keep them from being dissatisfied to which the company agreed. The case demonstrates the disparity in union treatment of their male and female workers. Riccucci argues that an understanding of union involvement is necessary in order to clarify the role of unions in policymaking processes involving Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Affirmative Action (AA) regulations. She concludes that because craft and industrial unions do not always support EEO and AA measures, their role in policy-making should be limited.
The author proves that union treatment of male, female and minority workers depends upon the particular type of union. Craft unions have resisted the entry of women and minorities more so than other unions. Industrial unions have reacted to female/minority employment rather ambiguously. Riccucci argues successfully that there is no absolute policy in regard to union efforts to organize female workers. In some cases, the national union may support a particular situation regarding women, which the local union may oppose.
Riccucci does not propose to answer all the questions about union support for women and minorities in the public sector. But she raises important questions surrounding the issue. Riccucci attempts to deal with a very complicated issue that has heretofore been overlooked. For that reason, there are some shortcomings. As indicated in her introduction, some chapters emphasize minority male concerns, while others focus on women. While she states in a footnote that use of the term "women" refers to women of all colors, she does differentiate between white and minority women in her charts.
Perhaps the book would have been strengthened had Riccucci placed it within the national historical context. She discusses the decline and popularity of unions, but fails to point to national reasons for those changes. She also shows that during the last two decades female involvement in unions increased, but ignores the influence of the women's rights movement on that change.
Riccucci's conclusions are based largely on 113 cases of law relating to women, minorities, and unions in the public sector, and some union records. Her secondary sources include journal articles and books on public policy, and works by Philip Foner and William Gould.
Jerra Jenrette
West Virginia University
REPUBLICANS AND RECONSTRUCTION IN VIRGINIA, 1865-70. By Richard Lowe (Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press, 1991. Pp. 261. $35.00.)
Richard Lowe has strengthened our knowledge of Reconstruction through his in- depth study of the role of the Republican party in Virginia during that turbulent and controversial period. While a number of scholars have explored the history of Virginia during the era and even related the state's experiences to national events, few have contributed book-length studies on the subject. Lowe has turned a key to understanding the Reconstruction era in Virginia, and that key is the story of Republicans in the state.
Professor Lowe describes his work as post-revisionist rather than revisionist. He has elected to take a positive view of Republican efforts during the period and to accentuate the successes which Republicans had in Virginia, especially in the areas of civil rights and constitutional reform. Lowe borders upon glorification of Virginia Republicans, but cannot escape the self-promoting and divisive attitudes and political maneuvers of Virginia's Republican leaders. Republican factions ran the gamut from political carpetbaggers to moderate coalitionists. The party included black activists, interstate business leaders, and conservative Whigs. Post-revisionist thought certainly should be included in a study of Republicanism during Reconstruction. Yet, Lowe's own study reveals power struggles between such men as John C. Underwood and Francis H. Pierpont, James W. Hunnicutt and John Minor Botts, Henry H. Wells and William Mahone. These battles and many others over numerous personal and political issues contributed to the Republican downfall in Virginia in 1869 as much as lack of northern support. Neither should blame be totally focused upon conservatives in the party. Lowe points to the internal power struggles but still holds to revisionist views and blames Republican losses upon northern apathy and, to a greater degree, upon naivete and stubbornness among conservative Republicans.
Still, Lowe avoids being pedantic about his conclusions. His research is thorough and his character studies, gripping. He particularly contributes original and revealing research on the social history of blacks in Virginia's Reconstruction. Black political history is somewhat lacking, but such history is often relative to available source material, and Lowe's discussion of Virginia's black Republican leaders carries the same impact as all other character sketches in the book.
The author attempts a fresh approach throughout the book. He manages this through the use of Republican perspective. However, that perspective favors liberal and radical Republicans at the expense of moderates and conservatives. Governor Francis H. Pierpont furnishes a case in point. Lowe attributes Pierpont's conciliatory and cooperative politics to a naive sense of reality and manipulation by the conservatives. Yet, students of West Virginia history know Pierpont as an astute wartime politician who realized the need for cooperation among diverse groups for the good of the Union and state. Pierpont carried his views into Reconstruction and believed that Virginia could be more quickly healed and held together through efforts toward reconciliation.
Lowe also tries to avoid an economic interpretation of Reconstruction. Although it holds true importance, the rather stale explanation of Reconstruction in Virginia from a railroad perspective, with William Mahone as the central figure, receives only light treatment in this book.
Professor Lowe uses a traditional, chronological organization. He introduces the work with a historiographical discussion and explanation of his choice of emphasis and moves into a background sketch of Virginia Republicanism. Such a sketch necessitates a treatment of West Virginia history, and Lowe exhibits the awkwardness that many writers do when touching upon the joint history of Virginia and West Virginia during the 1860s. Lowe uses Pierpont as the main transitional figure and, thus, tends to exaggerate his roots in the Republican party.
Following the two introductory chapters, Lowe stresses the growing rifts between conservative and radical Republicans and prepares the reader for congressional intervention and Pierpont's ouster. He devotes a chapter to the role of blacks in the party and explains their growing influence as a prelude to a chapter on the constitutional convention of 1867 and 1868 and John C. Underwood's leadership role. Sluggishness among federal military and congressional officials in backing the radicals and the new constitution and Republican rivalries allowed a moderate Republican movement led by Franklin Stearns to supplant Governor Henry H. Wells's power in a "Year of Drift." Gilbert C. Walkers's gubernatorial victory and the union of his True Republicans with the Conservative party during the election of 1869 meant the "End of Reconstruction." Interestingly, Lowe seems to give more credit for political astuteness to Stearns and Walker than to Pierpont and Botts despite the moderate efforts of each.
Richard Lowe concludes that the Republican party did not lose its importance after the conservative surge of 1869 and 1870. He contends that it controlled politics through coalition efforts such as the Readjuster movement. This view is in keeping with Lowe's consistent positive view of the Republicans.
Lowe generally offers a fair treatment of Virginia's Reconstruction politics. He gives a crafted mixture of political and social history and enlightens Virginia's Reconstruction history. In a time of renewed interest in the Civil War, Reconstruction should be correspondingly studied. Lowe has helped to remind us of this and brings the era into a fresh perspective.
Randall S. Gooden
West Virginia University
LINCOLN, THE SOUTH AND SLAVERY: THE POLITICAL DIMENSION. By Robert W. Johannsen (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1991. Pp. 144. $19.95.)
The complex character and political savvy of Abraham Lincoln has been meticulously examined by a host of historians for over a century. Not until Robert W Johannsen's Lincoln, the South, and Slavery however, has the political dimension of Lincoln's antislavery stance been carefully probed.
>From the passage of Stephen A. Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 to Lincoln's election as president in 1860, Lincoln's moral convictions on the slavery issue radically changed. Motivated by political ambition, his argument against slavery evolved in the six years prior to his becoming president from a "middle-ground" to a more extremist position. Through a skillful presentation of the facts, the author explains how and why Lincoln came to view Stephen A. Douglas as the personification of the slaveholding South, and why Lincoln distrusted popular sovereignty, claiming the voters "would be corrupted by self-interest and not reject slavery."
Johannsen asserts that Lincoln was firmly against slavery and the South much earlier in the 1850s than he admitted, and that he did not vigorously oppose slavery publicly until it was politically expedient. Placing the motivation for much of Lincoln's political activity of the early 1850s on simply trying to preserve the Whig party, the author states that the "turmoil in Kansas, the increased militancy of the Southern proslavery leadership, the utter hopelessness of Whig fortunes, the rapid rise of Republican strength, and the imminence of the 1856 election, all worked their own peculiar influences on Lincoln's state of mind."
As Lincoln reluctantly embraced the Republican party in 1856 his ambiguity on the slavery issue remained intact. He "straddled the fence" with consummate skill while defending himself against Douglas's attacks on his famous "House Divided" speech. Ever the astute politician, Lincoln chose carefully the time and place for his public pronouncements on the slavery issue, weighing diligently the social and political impact his statements might have. He did not believe the South would secede and the South did not believe Lincoln when he declared that the idea of "forcing slavery into a free State, or out of a slave State, at the point of a bayonet, is nonsense."
In the final analysis it is the author's contention that Lincoln's callous attitude toward the South in the 1860 election, and the realization that Republicans could elect a president without the support of the South, contributed to the final bloody result. Robert W. Johannsen offers compelling evidence to support his hypothesis in Lincoln, the South, and Slavery, and it is a work which every Lincoln fan or Civil War student should read.
Tim McKinney
Charlton Heights
GENTRY AND COMMON FOLK: POLITICAL CULTURE ON A VIRGINIA FRONTIER, 1740-1789. By Albert H. Tillson, Jr. (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1991. Pp. 228. $30.00.)
In Gentry and Common Folk Professor Albert H. Tillson, Jr. examines the changing political values and processes in the upper, or southern, part of the Valley of Virginia during the late colonial and Revolutionary periods. Although the upper valley differed in geography, population, and economy from most of Virginia, its leaders recreated both the governmental institutions and the political culture of the east. Power was placed in the hands of an elite whose position rested in part on land ownership, family connections, and domination of public offices and church affairs.
Common folk of the upper valley appear to have been less inclined than their eastern counterparts to defer to the gentry. For instance, in 1756, as a result of bloody and widespread Indian incursions in the wake of Braddock's defeat, upper valley militia participated in the Sandy Creek expedition against the Shawnee. But despite every effort of their commander Andrew Lewis, most of them, encouraged by their captains, turned back before reaching the Indian towns. Their refusal to continue on, however, stemmed more from the hardships they encountered, including incessant rains, swollen streams, loss of horses and food supplies, and failure to sight any Indians, than from any defiant antagonism toward Lewis. In short, the independent and self-reliant frontier militia did not defer to their leaders when their own self-interests were at stake.
Tillson maintains that in the upper valley respect for authority eroded during the Revolutionary era and that the war fostered a new political ethos dominated by regional values, voluntarism, and republicanism. He contends that Dunmore's War diminished the involvement of upper valley elite with eastern aristocracy and that by 1775 upper valley leaders began to resist royal authority and gave active support to the patriot cause.
The Revolution also contributed to a weakening of deferential behavior among the common people of the upper valley. Perhaps resistance to British authority inevitably led to questioning authority at other levels. Militia companies, which had for some time included indocile elements, began to insist upon a voice in the choice of officers, volunteer riflemen gained favor over traditional militia organizations, and court-martial procedures were democratized.
Resistance to the costs of war, heavy taxes, poor public credit, conscription for the Continental Army, and troublesome conditions among the militia also undermined the deferential politics of pre-Revolutionary times. Old tensions between the upper valley elite and the common folk were heightened by activities of surveyors and land speculators, with considerable popular animosity directed toward James Patton, John Buchanan, Thomas Walker, Judge Richard Henderson, and other land barons.
Meanwhile, ideas of popular sovereignty were taking firm root in the upper valley. The belief that public decisions belonged to the people led to movements for new counties and even new states, notably that of Franklin. Local governments, however, underwent but few alterations. Nevertheless, upper valley leaders increasingly accommodated themselves to the desires of their constituents and used republican ideology whenever it seemed to be to their advantage.
The most serious threat to patriot authority in the upper valley arose from the Tory movement, which began about 1780 and centered to some extent among the German and Welsh elements of the population. Resting in part on ethnic frictions, Toryism was identified with local interests and hostility toward upper valley leaders, as well as what many perceived as an alien world. Ironically, the methods used to suppress Toryism further undermined traditional political values and increased the acceptance of the new popular attitudes of the region.
In his final chapter, Tillson applies the techniques of structuralism, as developed by Claude Levi-Strauss, to John Stuart's Memoir of Indian Wars and Other Occurrences. Although he recognizes that "several aspects of historical narratives such as Stuart's limit their susceptibility to structural analysis"(146), Tillson asserts that "the most significant and inclusive structured element of Stuart's text is his description of authority and order"(147) and that it leads him to deviate from his focus on the Greenbrier region and from his strictly chronological pattern of development. As examples, he cites Stuart's attention to Andrew Lewis's performance at the Battle of Point Pleasant and details the role of Dick Pointer in the defense of Fort Donnally (which Tillson consistently spells "Donnelly").
Tillson contends that Stuart's Memoir reveals "fundamental differences between the colonial and revolutionary periods"(153) and that it implies a "decline in traditional patterns of authority and order" which contributed to "a loss of virtue in Greenbrier society(151)." He maintains that "throughout the colonial period, Andrew Lewis and the Greenbrier settlers were morally superior to the Indians and to the British officials who deceived and betrayed them"(155), but that the Revolutionary militiamen reversed these roles in the murder of Cornstalk.
Some of Tillson's examples and arguments in support of his post-structuralist views are open to question. For instance, Andrew Lewis's refusal to make "selfabasing appeals for popular support"(150) and his cold, aloof manner may have been as much personality traits as indications of preoccupation with authority.
In order to portray Colonel John Fields's disdain for authority, Tillson gives a somewhat distorted account of the attack on Walter Kelly's settlement at Cedar Grove in 1774. In a similar vein, he fails to mention the important service of John Pryor and Philip Hammond in warning Greenbrier settlers of an attack in 1778. Hammond's role, equal to that of the slave Dick Pointer, in stemming the attack on Fort Donnally is also overlooked. Stuart's Memoir gives attention to all of these matters.
Historians have long been familiar with the sources which Tillson uses both extensively and judiciously. Noting that Jack P. Greene and others hold a contrary view that there was no "substantial erosion of popular respect for the elite or the values that sanctioned its authority"(2), Tillson reaches conclusions closer to those of Rhys Isaac, Norman K. Risjord, and Richard Beeman, who emphasize developing divisions between the elite and the common folk and the growing importance of issue-oriented politics. Tillson has produced a careful and stimulating study of a significant segment of the Virginia frontier during a formative half century of its history.
Otis K. Rice
West Virginia Institute of Technology
VIRGINIA FOLK LEGENDS. Ed. by Thomas E. Barden (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1991. Pp. xiv, 348. $14.95.) Both the general reader seeking a good haunting tale and the serious academic folklore scholar will find much of interest in Virginia Folk Legends, edited by Thomas E. Barden. This important collection of stories is extracted from the vast gathering of materials made between mid-1937 and mid-1942 by employees of the Virginia Writers' Project (VWP), a subsidiary of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). This publication, with its rich text and the editor's equally rich introductory information, creates a multifaceted study of a region's oral literature traditions. It is important to look at three aspects of this work: the content itself, the understanding of such material within its historical context as presented by the editor, and finally, its larger comparison to other works and needed efforts.
The editor has selected 150 stories from a collection of hundreds which fall easily into groups he feels "emerged organically from the categories of the WPA collection itself." With the extension of the usual definition of legend, the table of contents lists stories about animals, beginnings, the Civil War and emancipation, conjure and witchcraft, ghosts, haunted houses, Indians, legendary people from the African-American files, legendary people from the Anglo-American files, murder and violence, place-names, Simon Kenton, spirit dogs, supernatural events, treasure, and unusual events. Each of these groupings begins with an excellent introduction by the editor. It is here that he makes academic reference to similar materials from the history of folklore study, discusses his particular choice of stories to represent the category from the collection itself, and attempts to interpret the meaning and role of oral folk literature within the everyday human experience from which it arises. The editor includes extensive footnoting, as well as motif indexing and informant data.
The reader will find stories that are very similar to many regions (even extending internationally and spanning the course of history), such as the forces of good versus evil and the physical appearances that each take. Animal transformation, witches, ghosts, haunted houses, and the trickster are all here. The more regional lore contains stories of Simon Kenton (the WPA collector nearly deleted these legendary stories because they did not conform to factual information about this individual). The West Virginia reader should find interest in this material, especially when reading both the stories and the historical information provided by the editor. Stories dealing with place naming are always intriguing and call to mind the West Virginia definitive study by Hamill Kenny, West Virginia Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning (1945).
Virginia Folk Legends also contains several interesting accounts of mysterious treasures buried long ago and supposedly never reclaimed. Of special interest are the stories of the Swift Mines. The four stories included here about the vast silver treasures of one individual, a Mr. Swift, are exact extensions of the same lore appearing in the West Virginia collection by Lucullus Virgil McWhorter entitled The Border Settlers of Northwestern Virginia: From 1768 to 1795 (1915). The supernatural or ghostly and the preternatural or ghastly devil and witch stories (the editor considers all as supernatural) contain all the usual elements of such encounters. The helpful, revengeful, or noisy ghost in one form or another appears in all the ghostly tales. The witch tales also have a large proportion of silver bullets, animal transformations, and bewitched cows. One particular story, "Cooking a Witch's Shoulder" contains the same motifs found in the story "The Black Cat Murders," collected and published by West Virginia folklorist Patrick W Gainer in Witches, Ghosts and Signs (1975). All the stories in Virginia Folk Legends are certainly entertaining and the editor challenges the reader to extract the "realness and truthfulness" of the stories.
The importance of this collection most certainly lies well beyond the interesting stories. The fact that large collections of such material were made nationwide by the WPA is highly significant. Associated with this national collecting project were John A. Lomax and Benjamin (B. A.) Botkin, who served as folklore unit directors. Much of this work later found its way into print and all readers of folklore will instantly recognize the acclaimed A Treasury of American Folklore, edited by B. A. Botkin (1954), as well as other regional collections which he edited and published. It is interesting to note that Lomax was replaced by Botkin because he was giving too much emphasis to publishing from the ongoing collections when in the long run, Botkin was the ultimate beneficiary of publications from the project. Despite the WPA folklore materials published by Lomax and Botkin, much remained stored and forgotten at university and state archives libraries. Such was the case with the Virginia collection until Mr. Barden, a graduate student, and others at the University of Virginia rediscovered the collection in the university library and began researching and editing the materials for publication.
This definitive collection of Virginia traditional oral literature, endorsed by the American Folklore Society, New Series works, is certainly important in its own right. But it also acknowledges the vast amount of boxed-up materials that likewise lie waiting in many other repositories around the country. West Virginia materials generally have been collected and published by interested individual folklorists, working without support from any official agency. Patrick W. Gainer, Ruth Anne Musick, William B. Price, Marie Boette, Margaret Prescott Montague, and other West Virginia folklorists should be readily recognized by the general public and their works in print still maintain a popular audience. However, a great amount of folklore material remains unpublished (the unpublished Ruth Anne Musick collection alone contains enough for many texts). Virginia Folk Legends will perhaps be the beginning of a great revival of publishing American regional oral literature collections.
Noel W. Tenney
Off-Campus Adjunct Instructor
West Virginia University
THE AMERICAN SOUTH: A HISTORY. By William J. Cooper, Jr. and Thomas E. Terrill (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. $50.00.)
The American South: A History fulfills the stated ambition of its authors; it is "a comprehensive history of the South from colonial times to the present." In this mammoth volume, William J. Cooper and Thomas E. Terrill stress the historical "two-ness" or dialectic of southern history. Emphasizing the tensions between blacks and whites, rural and urban, agriculture and industry, owners and producers, peace and war, male and female, piety and violence, self-justification and self-reproach, liberty and slavery, the authors analyze the South as both a distinct region and an integral part of the United States. The first half of this eight hundred-page volume begins with the earliest attempts at English settlement and closes with the Civil War. The second half carries the reader from presidential Reconstruction into the Reagan era.
The authors deal with southern distinctiveness from the very beginning. Emphasizing geography and the initial intent of the southern colonies as profit maximizing enterprises, the development of slavery and southern individualism prior to independence receive detailed attention. In explaining the South's role in the creation of the Constitution and the nation, Cooper and Terrill consider the evident contradiction between a devotion to liberty and owning slaves. It is suggested that the constant exposure to the debasing status of slavery enhanced southern determination to protect white liberty at all cost. Rather than perceiving the contradiction, southerners saw their right to property in the persons of African slaves as an essential expression of their liberty and free will. This expression of liberty in the form of slavery shaped southern political insistence on the supremacy of the state over the federal government. By the time the Constitution was ratified, slavery was overwhelmingly a southern institution and already faced negative sentiments outside the South. For this reason, southerners perceived any attack or intrusion upon the supremacy of states' rights as an attack upon slavery and individual liberty.
As equating the South's devotion to slavery with liberty, Cooper and Terrill provide insight into the psyche of southerners. Even a southerner who did not own slaves would fight to protect individualism and liberty. It is this southern psyche which rules the history of the South to the Civil War. While southerners might vehemently disagree over tariffs, banks, industry, or the role of the federal government, any attack upon slavery rapidly solidified their regional identity. As long as legislation, such as the Missouri Compromise, provided some level of protection for slavery, southerners retained national party identities. The rise of the Republican party and the election of Abraham Lincoln excluded the South, in southern minds, from national politics. Lincoln won without any southern support and his party openly expressed disdain for slavery and the South. The southern devotion to liberty expressed in the ownership of slaves ties the first half of The American South together. By emphasizing this paradox, the authors explain the political waxing and waning of the southern states in partisan politics and regional versus national identification until the Civil War.
The remainder of The American South, covering Reconstruction to the present, loses much of its initial compactness. This may reflect, though not directly stated, the shattering of continuity in southern history by the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction. The unifying and interactive themes of liberty, slavery, and individualism disappear. They are replaced by less carefully constructed themes of regionalism, white supremacy, and the Solid South. The interaction of the South with the rest of the nation is strikingly different in tone. Political analysis is concentrated on the state level within the South. The authors, of course, deal with national issues such as the Compromise of 1877 and the Populist movement. They also discuss the Redeemers and the New South Creed. But as southerners pursued solidification of political loyalties and race relations, the authors' focus and the text turns inward. This does not change until Woodrow Wilson gains the White House in 1914. After World War I, the interactive tone of the text returns. Here the heritage of Progressivism, industrial development, the Great Depression, world wars, and increasingly controversial race relations draw the South back into the national scene.
Cooper and Terrill go beyond strictly political history. Both the antebellum and post-Civil War discussions include sections on the role of women, blacks, class distinctions, religion, and cultural and intellectual developments. They integrate some of the most recent literature on gender roles, slave families, poor whites, and industrial labor. A discussion of southern Appalachia describes the cultural and economic destruction caused by a capitalist invasion early in the twentieth century. A chapter entitled "The End of Jim Crow: The Civil Rights Revolution" proved particularly impressive. Possibly, however, "gaining confidence" had less to do with the timing of revolutionary civil rights activity than cumulative decades of careful preparation. The discussion of women in the antebellum era failed to distinguish clearly between upper- and lower-class whites. The essential contribution of female labor to the survival of small farms received better coverage in the post- Civil War chapters. Similarly, the role of merchants in the post-Civil War economy received ample attention, while the devastating slide of small landowners into tenancy deserved more. Overall, the authors successfully condensed the proliferation of social and women's history studies into a usable format.
The authors stress both continuity and change in southern history; their dialectical approach addresses both general and more specific issues. The tension developed between liberty and slavery in the early national era is particularly compelling. The southern (white) psyche, aptly described as "pathological," appears throughout the volume. Southerners carried and carry a great number of "two-nesses" or contradictions. A deeper analysis might address more directly the link between the fears caused by those contradictions and the behavior patterns they manifested. Greater attention might also have been given to the psyche of southern blacks and southern women. Understandably, such an ambitious undertaking prohibits the depth some might hope for.
The American South provides a much needed synthesis of southern history which scholars will find an essential tool for many years to come. It would serve well as a text in upper-level undergraduate courses or a companion reader in graduate seminars. The closing bibliographical essay is extensive, providing a good beginning point for almost any relevant research topic. Cooper and Terrill also deserve commendations for directly confronting stereotypes and labels commonly used to demean southern blacks, poor whites, the people of the Appalachian Mountains, and southerners in general.
Pamela C. Edwards
University of Delaware
SIXTY MILLION ACRES: AMERICAN VETERANS AND THE PUBLIC LANDS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR. By James W. Oberly (Kent, OH: Kent State Univ. Press, 1990. Pp. 222. $28.00.)
Sixty Million Acres is an examination of the vast bounty land warrant files and preemption claim files of the General Land Office. In seven chapters Oberly takes the reader through an intricate journey, exploring this disposition of the public domain. His book is embellished with thirteen illustrations, two maps, and thirty-two tables which explain every aspect of his research. Although this is a unique monograph concerning warrants, the field of research on public land disposal is not a new topic. Paul P. Gates, Malcolm Rohrbough, Vernon Carstensen, and Thomas C. Donaldson preceded Oberly in publishing extensive accounts of our public lands' disposal. Sixty Million Acres presents one particular aspect, the sale of land warrants, as another chapter in the history of public lands before the Civil War.
The purpose of Oberly's research is to present the effects bounty land grants had on both federal land policy and individual Americans. The initial task is to explain the origins of the bounty land grants between 1847 and 1855. Some of the questions Oberly attempts to answer are what the veterans did with their warrants, how many sold the warrants for cash and whether any veterans claimed land with their warrants. An understanding of the political, administrative and economic aspects of land warrants explains the markets for public lands before the Civil War and how these warrants were used at western land offices to purchase land.
The years under investigation fall during a time when a veterans' benefits program, land in exchange for service, was being maintained by the federal government. There were many problems with the oversight of this program. It is also difficult to explain personal motives for obtaining western lands in the absence of family and veterans' documents. The basic research rests upon four samples of warrants. Five percent of the total warrants resulting from each legislative act serves as the sample for Oberly's study.
Congress encouraged enlistments during the Mexican War. With the passage of the Old Soldiers Act in 1855, sixty million acres of land were given to 550,000 veterans. In the antebellum days, Congress changed its policy from treating the public lands as a source of revenue to using them to promote the development of western territories into definable regions for settlement. In the process, Alexander Hamilton's policy of public lands disposal, based on cash sales, became obsolete. The old distribution system of selling the lands became a bonus for veterans. Now, the veteran was able to join the ranks of landowners, a privilege which before generally applied to the upper class. In 1847, Congress gave the veteran 160 acres under the Ten Regiments Act. Later, supplemental grants were given to serve as retroactive payments to veterans who enlisted in previous wars. In behalf of veterans, the United Brethren of the War of 1812 acted as a lobbyist and secured millions of acres in bounty land grants for its members.
Oberly concludes that the problems of measuring the importance of warrants in the contemporary markets remains to be solved. The attraction of the warrants in settling the western lands lies in the sale of these warrants to land speculators for the low price of $1.25 per acre. By 1849, the availability of warrants drove the price of public land down to ninety cents per acre. Yet by 1855, the reverse of this was true and the average price of public lands rebounded to $1.22 per acre. Oberly also factors in the cost of wheat and other agricultural goods in tracing the rise and fall of land prices.
After reading this quantitative study, one only wants to know more about the warrants and how their use affected final settlement patterns. Oberly's conclusions should stimulate researchers to explore information that supports and further defines his findings, as well as reveal more about these patterns.
Monty Baker
West Virginia Library Commission
AMERICAN CHAMELEON: INDIVIDUALISM IN A TRANS-NATIONAL CONTEXT. Ed. by Richard O. Curry and Lawrence B. Goodheart (Kent, OH: Kent State Univ. Press, 1991. Pp. xi, 276. $17.50.)
The great virtue of American Chameleon is also its great fault. Although a number of authors are included, the book is not exactly an anthology. Rather, it is a composite, for a number of the chapters are jointly authored by one of the editors. One of the results of this authorship is varied approaches to the subject of individualism in America, a diversity that is evident even in separate parts of some of the jointly written chapters, and which provides both richness and confusion.
Because an individual always exists as part of a group, individualism is an intrinsically problematic concept. However, in "The Slow Triumph of Liberal Individualism: Law and Politics in New York, 1780-1860," perhaps the most illuminating chapter, James A. Henretta makes a valuable analysis on developments in law between the foundation of the country and the Civil War. The explanation of how early landowners sought to obtain feudal power and how the New York legislature overcame those efforts is particularly well done. He clearly makes the point that the state broadened the opportunity for individual initiative in this regard while the courts continued to respect the anti-individualistic right of dower, the right of a widow to a life estate in one-third of her husband's property. He also traces the development of the equitable theory of contract, which allowed a court to invalidate a contract it considered unfair, into the will theory of contract, which "exhalted [sic] the primacy of the private bargain."(96) He then argues convincingly that these two developments contributed to the expansion of the rights of women in the Married Women's Property Act passed in New York in 1848 and to the expansion of an individualistic legal order. The power of his analysis raises curiosity about the usefulness of exploring these developments in Virginia and West Virginia.
The solid achievement of Henretta notwithstanding, one of the fundamental problems of dealing with individualism is the concept of conceit. The result is that much of the book focuses on the forces that inhibited individualism. Thus, Richard O. Curry directs his attention to the use of the McCarran-Walter Act to keep "undesirable aliens" out of the United States and to Executive Order 12333, which allows warrantless wiretaps against American citizens. Similarly, in the chapter on religion, Robert M. Calhoon considers the effect of evangelical preachers on slaves and slaveholders. It seems strange to consider the baptism of blacks as a contribution to individualism, but the actions of the evangelicals did involve the rejection of another orthodoxy.
Indeed, individualism is an empirical self-contradiction. One of the most telling examples in the book juxtaposes Charles Lindbergh's eloquent assertion of the joys of individual achievement with the fact of his corporate support. After returning to America from his solo flight across the Atlantic, he wrote: "What advantages are there to flying alone!. . . I'm a full boy . . . independent -- alone."(100) But then we are told that over a hundred companies had donated materials, parts, and services used in the flight of the Spirit of St. Louis.
Faced with such contradictions the reader must wonder whether the concept of individualism is internally coherent. Indeed, individualism seems less a concept that is useful in describing factual situations than it is a motivator. Thus, while maintaining "the classic statements of individualism are best understood as guides to masculine identity," the concept does not help to explain "the female quest for self-actualization." Linda K. Kerber's discussion of individualism as a trope ultimately seems to reveal more of the truth than the essays dealing with the effects of legislation on individualism.
Yehoshua Arieli properly emphasizes that "individualism was not only the ideology of the intellectual elite of the country but a living faith of most Americans."(171) He reminds us that for William Jennings Bryan the conflict was not between capitalism and socialism but between individualism and socialism. He also reminds us that Theodore Roosevelt offered "`not to destroy but to save individualism' from socialism and plutocracy."(182) Clearly the concept has had a key role among the ideals which have controlled our national life. The exploration of this role is begun but not completed by this book.
American Chameleon essentially fails to resolve a conflict in historical writing, the conflict between history as analysis and history as advocacy. Curry, in particular, seems more concerned with complaining about government encroachment on individual liberties than with explaining events. However, although it would be easy to reject the chapters complaining about restrictions on individualism, they still reveal an important impact of an idea upon social reality. The result is that, because of their inconsistencies, the various accounts end up revealing as much unintentionally as they do intentionally.
Robert J. O'Brien
West Virginia Wesleyan College
THE PAPERS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. REVOLUTIONARY WAR SERIES. VOL. 4: APRIL-JUNE 1776. Ed. by Philander D. Chase (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1991. Pp. xxv, 589. $47.50.)
During the spring of 1776 General George Washington radiated confidence. His Continental Army had just liberated Boston, occupied by the British army since 1768. His was a bloodless victory, a triumph that inspired Congress to strike a medal commemorating his achievement and which won him praise from powerful men. Landon Carter, a fellow Virginia planter, wrote that henceforth those who wished to understand greatness would have to study Washington; the President of Congress, John Hancock, said that Washington would be remembered forever for having molded a gaggle of undisciplined farmers into an effective army. Washington himself, uncharacteristically immodest, spoke of having succeeded in his campaign to retake Boston despite unprecedented difficulties. Ultimate victory was inevitable, he wrote that spring, unless crippling internal divisions ruined the cause.
This volume in the Revolutionary War Series chronicles the seventy-five days following Great Britain's abandonment of Boston. At the beginning of the period Washington moved his army to New York, where he began preparations for an anticipated British invasion sometime during the summer of 1776. Thereafter, the commander worked at a frantic pace, for as he indicated, the redcoats and their new allies, German mercenaries, would eventually come and the result would be a bloody, fiery trial.
Washington spoke repeatedly of the press of business, of having no time for relaxation and diversions. He labored from the moment he awakened until he fell asleep at night, he said, and he was hurried and harried all the while. If Washington had gradually overcome the uncertainties about his ability that had initially troubled him, he admitted that nearly a year's experience had not made difficult decisions come more easily. He spoke with feeling of the awesome burdens which "hang heavy upon my hands."(273)
Through these papers the reader can almost feel the concerns and anxieties with which Washington grappled. He had to decide where to place his defenses in Brooklyn and on Manhattan Island. The Highlands had to be secured as well, and troops also were required in New England in case the British invaded that sector. General Philip Schuyler, commander of America's northern army, begged for reinforcements to maintain his tenuous footing in Canada. Washington sent him ten regiments from his own army, although he feared that he would be seriously weakened by the sacrifice. Later, when Schuyler sought still more men, Washington persuaded Congress to send him militiamen instead. Washington also inveighed Congress for militiamen to supplement his own army, and he fought for naval craft to help defend the Hudson River and New York Harbor.
Nothing gave Washington more concern than morale and discipline within his army and a chronic shortage of supplies. The men under his command seethed over low wages and inequities in pay. Some militiamen went home without pay, a practice which "may be attended with very bad consequences," he said in something of an understatement. Washington was the final arbiter for every punishment recommended by his military tribunals. Day after day soldiers were convicted of improper absences, sleeping while on duty, mutiny, threatening or striking an officer, fighting among themselves, thefts, intemperance, profanity, desertion, refusing orders, and publicly revealing the password of the day. One officer was found guilty of "beating Sally Paterson, an Inhabitant of this town, on the head with a stick."(458) Washington customarily authorized the sentences, but, with an eye on esprit de corps, he sometimes pardoned an offender or lessened the severity of the sentence.
Provisions were essential if morale was to be maintained and the war won. Hardly a day passed when Washington was not apprised of shortages in arms and munitions here, a dearth of tents and entrenching tools there. Food sometimes was in short supply. Money was never to be found. There were not enough boats. The existing artillery was inadequate. Nails and tools were needed, and so were skilled artisans. The stock of medicine was alarmingly low. In June, Washington learned from John Hancock that the colonists' army in Canada had been recalled to New York, "ruined for Want of Discipline, and every Thing else necessary to constitute an Army."(454)
This volume provides an incredibly detailed look at the endless array of problems that confronted General Washington on the eve of the Battle of New York. The private Washington is difficult to discern in these papers, but Washington the soldier, and especially Washington the able administrator, is evident. Readers will come away more impressed than ever by the general's ability. In addition, readers will be delighted by the repeated insights into the patterns of life in the eighteenth century. This was a time when there were no banks, smallpox epidemics were an ever present threat, there were segregated cemeteries -- Washington refers to the "Jews Burying Ground" in New York -- and Martha Washington, the wife of the most famous man in America, resided in the home of a cabinetmaker when she stayed in Philadelphia. There is evidence as well of the class friction of the age. It is clear that some poor men in Virginia objected to patrols financed publicly for "keeping a rich mans Slaves in order," and Landon Carter, Washington's aristocratic admirer, expressed outrage at being governed by a Virginia Convention largely composed of men who were his social inferiors.(236-37)
Although there is little to criticize in this fine volume, the pace with which the Revolutionary War Series is proceeding is alarming. At the current rate, a half century will be consumed before Washington is finally brought to his retirement ceremony in Annapolis in December 1783. To expedite matters, series editor Philander D. Chase might in subsequent volumes wish to calendar some documents, such as the General Orders or letters from congressmen, that have been published elsewhere. It is, of course, a Hobson's Choice between completing the series more quickly or opting for the rich detail which has characterized and distinguished all the volumes in this modern edition of The Papers of George Washington.
John Ferling
West Georgia College
WOMEN AND SISTERS: THE ANTISLAVERY FEMINISTS IN AMERICAN CULTURE. By Jean Fagan Yellin (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1989. Pp. xxi, 226. $25.00.)
This book examines the iconography of the antislavery feminists in the antebellum period of American history. Through careful research and brilliant insight, Jean Yellin, Professor of English and Director of the Humanities program at Pace University, focuses attention on the leading figures in reform, abolitionism and feminism. Familiar reformers and images are given new meaning in this original study, which includes the images of slavery in sculpture, cartoons, prints, coins and medallions in classical antiquity and the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book combines methodology from history, art and literature.
The most common image studied depicts a suppliant slave woman kneeling or sitting in chains, being liberated by a white female reformer. The motto "Am I not a woman and a Sister?" heads the picture with an appropriate scriptural message, "Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them," showing the religious and paternalistic concerns of the reformers. This image of the slave woman is then compared to the white woman, who was considered an "Angel in the House" when she remained silent and invisible in public, but played a more active role at home.
Part one discusses the French abolitionist image of a "fettered slave," which dates from 1789. As early as 1830, Philadelphia poet Elizabeth Chandler issued appeals and letters to American women to free slaves from their bondage. She was the first American writer to make the image of a female slave a subject of her poems. Black abolitionists Sarah Mapps Douglass and Sarah Forten copied the motif for use in needlepoint and letters. Other antislavery writers like William Lloyd Garrison and Lydia Maria Child duplicated the image in their newspapers and books. In 1836, members of the Boston Female Antislavery Society used the image of a "fettered slave" to celebrate their legal freeing of a young girl from slavery. By that time, there were sixty female abolitionist societies in America employing the female slave picture in letterheads, pamphlets and coins.
Part two describes how the reformers sought to break the chains of the double slavery of women which united black and white in a common struggle. From a historical point of view, the author's research on the white and black antislavery feminists is the most interesting part of the book. By focusing her research on five women, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Lydia Maria Child, Harriet Jacobs and Sojourner Truth, Yellin gives insight into the minds and hearts of antislavery feminists, a brave group of women who challenged angry mobs by daring to speak out in public. A minority clearly ahead of their time, these women were even attacked by other female reformers like Catherine Beecher, an educational reformer who founded female academies to make women better "domestic angels."
Aristocratic Angelina Grimke, broke with her South Carolina family to champion the twin reforms of antislavery and feminism. In her "Appeal to the Christian Women of the South," she saw herself as a martyr for the cause of national reform and abolitionism. Social ostracism by her family and friends in the North and South was the price she paid for following her conscience. As a lecturer and reformer, she was the first American woman to speak before the Massachusetts legislature in 1838.
Angelina and Sarah Grimke urged Christian women in the North and South to convince their fathers, husbands and brothers to end slavery by petitioning Congress and state legislatures. The author sees a new image of American womanhood emerging from the lectures of the Grimke sisters, that of a self- liberating female who frees the slaves and herself from double social oppression. In public debates in 1837 and 1838 sexual discrimination was connected with racial oppression through Biblical arguments.
Lydia Maria Child, journalist, novelist and reformer, made the concept of sisterhood a literary subject. Focusing on the adverse affects of slavery on the free population, her romantic novels dealt with the themes of sexual abuse and miscegenation. The sad theme of the "Tragic Mulatto" involved a woman of mixed blood who could not attain romantic bliss through marriage with a white man because of racial taboos.
The most powerful black speaker and reformer of the period was Sojourner Truth, who gave an African-American perspective to the slavery debate. Born a slave named Isabella in New York in 1797, she was freed by a state emancipation law in 1827. A powerful orator, she contrasted the white woman's lot with that of a slave woman like herself, who was forced to give up her thirteen children to the slave trade. As a free woman she worked as a domestic and was able to free some of her children from slavery. A religious mystic, she assumed a new name and began to travel and preach in 1843. Her electrifying speech in 1851 at the Akron Women's Rights Convention silenced male critics and clergymen with the revolutionary idea, "a'nt I a woman?" She showed the harsh reality of a slave woman's life as a reproducer of slaves for the market economy.
Harriet Jacobs's slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl described the sexual oppression of a slave by her owner, a taboo subject in the era. The autobiography gives a good account of a slave family and the background of violence and jealousy on the plantation which burdened the life of a slave mother. Jacobs and Sojourner Truth showed that former slaves were not powerless, passive creatures, but were as capable as white women of self- liberation.
Part three describes the female slave image in stone and story by analyzing Hiram Powers's sculpture The Greek Slave and Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. By the 1840s and 1850s, American writers and artists came up with a new image of resignation in the slave emblem, similar to the passive picture of The Libyan Sibyl by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
The marble sculpture of The Greek Slave broadened the slave emblem to include white slavery in the Muslim world by depicting Greeks enslaved by the Turks. Both pro-slave and anti-slave advocates used the statue as propaganda. A new version of womanhood emerged which was different from the images of the antislavery feminists. Here the slave was seen as a passive victim who accepts her lot with Christian resignation, hoping for a reward in heaven, thereby reinforcing patriarchy.
In his earlier writings, Nathaniel Hawthorne showed hostility toward feminist reformers. In The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne looked at the idea of psychological slavery through his main character Hester Prynne, an adulteress who bore an illegitimate child. Prynne accepts her lot at the end of the book and symbolizes the woman as a victim. She conforms to the patriarchal notions of true womanhood.
The last section of the book discusses Henry James's 1886 novel The Bostonians. In this satire, James is most critical of the feminist movement. He models the character of Miss Birdseye on Elizabeth Peabody, a reformer and notorious eccentric. Verena Tarrant, the heroine of the novel, has to choose between marriage to a handsome southern man or a career as a crusader for women's rights. She decides to marry her suitor and abandon the public lecture circuit, thus reinforcing patriarchal notions of female domesticity.
By the turn-of-the-century, the suffrage movement adopted a new image of women to champion Progressive reform, that of the "Bugler Girl," with short hair and flowing robes stepping on broken chairs with the motto "Votes for Women." This image complemented the imperialism of the decade. Only remnants of the old antislavery emblem remained in the statue Forever Free by black artist Edmonia Lewis.
The book suffers from a repetitive writing style. It reads like a doctoral dissertation with the author trying to include all her research whether or not it fits her theme. The discussions of The Scarlet Letter and The Bostonians are the least successful parts of the book. A comparative discussion of the antislavery feminists in England and Brazil might have been more interesting than the literary images discussed. The book can be well recommended for literary scholars and historians of women's history. Its importance derives from its exhaustive research, sensitivity and challenging insights.
Patricia A. Mulvey
Bluefield State College
SPECULATORS AND SLAVES: MASTERS, TRADERS, AND SLAVES IN THE OLD SOUTH. By Michael Tadman (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Pp. xxviii, 317. $27.75.)
In the torrent of studies about American slavery over the last generation, none has focused upon the important but nebulous slave trade. This monograph, which concentrates upon the Old South's domestic chattel trade from 1820 to 1860, will supplant the classic study on the subject, Frederick Bancroft's Slave Trading in the Old South (1931). The application of econometric techniques generates many of the author's significant conclusions, but intelligent use of traditional sources and methods propels the work beyond a mere exercise in statistical manipulation. Unlike so many similar investigations, Tadman's findings are presented in a graceful prose.
Slave trading was at the core of the institution of slavery itself. With grave repercussions to all parties, means developed to accomplish the transfer of human property between individuals and over geographical distances. Southerners developed a false psychology to justify their inhumanity to the extent of fostering myths about their sales by ignoring the trade, manufacturing scapegoats, and dismissing slave traders as outcasts. The impact on blacks was obviously severe, and abolitionists employed the visible slave trade as a central reason for their indictment of the institution.
After establishing the sizeable nature of the domestic slave trade from 1787 to 1820, a period when most slaves who moved west did so with their owners, the investigation numerically separates slaves who, after 1820, either moved with the planter migration or were traded. It divides states and areas within states over time between slave-exporting and slave-importing areas. Quantification is concentrated in three areas: (1) the records of the New Orleans trade in the 1840s; (2) a comparison of age structure of slaves in the trade versus those moving with planters; and, (3) the cataloging of all identifiable slave traders in the single state of South Carolina in the 1850s by the use of age-structure technique. One result indicates that after 1820, most slaves who moved west were traded.
But several other startling conclusions emerge. The most noteworthy for future studies of American slavery is the great magnitude of the trade. In the 1850s, slave trading represented 60 to 70 percent of the three hundred thousand net slave movements from the Upper to Lower South. Previous scholars had stressed the importance of the coastal trade in slave commerce because of its visibility, but the vast majority of slaves moved overland in coffles. Except for the sex-selective New Orleans market, the slave trade involved approximately equal sexual ratios. From 1820 to 1860, a slave child in the Upper South had a 30 percent chance of being sold from his or her mother and family, and one of every three first marriages could possibly end because of a sale.
A richly-detailed account flushes out the slave trader and his methods from the historical shadows. Slave trading was seasonal, culminating in the Lower South in late fall. Traders concentrated their gathering efforts in rural areas, avoided public auctions, and used cash rather than credit to secure their goods. Like most commodity dealers, they were vigilant about market trends and procedures of trade, but unlike others, they faced extended travel, isolation, and a mobile, thinking ware. Slave traders were often men of standing in their community. With no guilt or ostracism, they were businessmen engaged in an honest calling that offered extremely high returns.
This study conclusively destroys a main tenet of the proslavery argument that masters were emotionally attached to slaves and sold only in the most extreme circumstances such as disciplinary reasons, for debt or on the master's death. Most slaveholders were enthusiastic sellers who conveyed their property in private transactions. Most sales were local, not interregional. The statistics show that the average owner in the Upper South sold one slave every ten or twelve years outside the local area, while sale of a slave within the same area occurred about every three years.
By reasonable appraisal, Speculators and Slaves confronts many other questions involving human commerce such as slave breeding, use of slaves for carnal purposes, the resulting pathos for the slave family, and the charges of abolitionists and proslavery rebuttals. This work is iconoclastic in the best sense of the historian's craft. Future scholars of American slavery will have to reckon with its conclusions.
John Edmund Stealey, III
Shepherd College
REVOLT AGAINST DESTINY: AN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By Paul A. Carter (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1989. Pp. 331. $27.00.)
Paul Carter ambitiously gives his latest book the subtitle An Intellectual History of the United States. It is not. At least it is not intellectual history in the conventional sense. There is no beginning or end, no account of sustained or unsustained intellectual movements that mark the nation's development, and no comprehensive treatment of the myriad themes that make up the intellectual history of the United States. Carter's subtitle may overstate but, nevertheless, his work is compelling. He has written a remarkable book, rich in the depth of his knowledge and insights, and filled with wit and grace. Revolt Against Destiny is a collection of ten carefully constructed and interwoven essays. Several themes permeate -- science, religion, the environment, the open land, and the concept of republicanism. The essays, which follow a loose chronology, focus recurrently on these themes. Of these, it is the idea of republicanism which receives Carter's greatest attention.
What is the nation's destiny? Are there inexorable patterns that shape a republic's rise and fall? To what extent can the people in a republic shape their destiny? These are some of the questions which fascinate Carter. He uses Crane Brinton's developmental theory in Anatomy of a Revolution in which Brinton observed that the French and other revolutions fell into a common and repetitious sequence: a moderate, reformist phase; a radical, leveling place marked by a reign of terror; and a reaction against terror's extremism. He applies Brinton's model from a Roman perspective. Following democracy, comes terror; after terror, Caesar; and after Caesar, world conquest. He comments on the ongoing struggle of republicanism against Caesarism from Rome to Napoleon to Mussolini.
Is the destiny of America to be that of former republics gone awry? Carter's answer is that it need not be. America has and can continue to revolt against destiny. To Carter the key is a willed republicanism. He cites numerous examples in which the American people and its leaders, from the earliest days of the republic through Ronald Reagan, consciously selected alternatives that have kept republican virtues vibrant: the Continental Congress in 1783 which successfully resisted a jeering mob of Pennsylvania militia demanding the authority within twenty minutes to appoint their own officers; the restraint following the American Civil War in which Americans avoided violent retribution; and the example of a high school senior who in 1986 spoke against the fatalistic notion that the United States was "due" for a war. "There's no deadline for going to war," the young man declared. "It really depends on whether we approach the problem with hope or with despair, whether we run from that which we fear or confront it." These are the kinds of responses that Carter notes in establishing a tradition of revolt against destiny.
Carter also convincingly argues that in comparison to other republics that have followed the Roman transformation, Americans have been, with several exceptions, not politically violent. He concludes that Americans have taken out their political frustrations by making speeches, marching in torchlight parades, or stuffing ballot boxes.
The book, as Carter aptly points out, is similar in structure to Louis Hartz' classic work The Liberal Tradition in America. Where Hartz finds the essence of the liberal tradition in the presence of free land and the absence of a feudal past, Carter finds it in the American people's commitment to republican government. Carter does note the importance of virgin land on shaping the nation. He touches at some length on the vast frontier of the New World and various restatements and modifications of Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis. He asserts that the frontier had meaning, but that an authoritarian, "baronial" way of life could just as soon have emerged as a Jeffersonian yeoman-farmer culture. To Carter, free land was a less important factor than the disposition to a republican form of government.
If Americans at the end of the twentieth century are to continue the revolt against destiny and retain republican virtue, they must, Carter argues, struggle against finiteness, the ultimate deterrent to the revolt. Whether it be the closing of the frontier, the management of resources, or preservation of the environment, Carter believes that Americans must contend with ingenuity against developments which make their world finite. In discussing the environment, he gives particular attention to Vladimir Vernadskii, a mid- twentieth century Russian scientist, who has become something of a cult figure in the former Soviet Union. In 1926 Vernadskii wrote The Biosphere, arguing that life does not passively take its shape from the pressures of its material environment; it actively enters into the environment and changes it. For Carter the message is obvious, everyone must work to insure that changes contribute to the preservation of the environment for generations to come. He concludes that the heritage is ours to cherish or destroy. Carter's vision of America is essentially optimistic. One can hope that the revolt against destiny which he sees continuing can be sustained against the challenges facing the nation at the end of the twentieth century.
This is a thought-provoking work, which offers a fascinating look at some ideas that have shaped the nation's intellectual history. One of its strengths is a lengthy bibliographical essay in which Carter describes in great detail a number of works which have influenced his thinking. For anyone teaching intellectual history or wanting to delve deeper, this essay is a wonderful treasure chest.
Bruce C. Flack
State College and University Systems of West Virginia
CLAUDIUS CROZET: FRENCH ENGINEER IN AMERICA, 1790-1864. By Robert E Hunter and Edwin L. Dooley, Jr. (Charlottesville: The Univ. Press of Virginia, 1989. Pp. ix, 224. $25.00.)
During the nineteenth century, proponents of the great engineering works, which were transforming a preindustrial society into the world's first urban, industrial countries, referred to the activities of engineers as the romance of engineering. It is an interesting term, conjuring up the idea that engineering is essentially a creative art form more related to architecture than to science. It is this concept that Claudius Crozet was referring to when he applied for the job of principal engineer of the Commonwealth of Virginia: "The essential and characteristick quality of an Engineer is a penetrating and inventive Genius, a mind which in Cases of difficulty can leave the beaten path to form new conceptions; those who possess such faculties alone are Engineers, and a trial of their abilities is the only way to discover them . . . I think myself equal to the task."
In many ways Crozet exemplified all of the strains which constituted the internal improvements movement in America begun before the Revolution and continuing throughout the nineteenth century. This movement, under such proponents as George Washington, envisaged a whole transportation network moving westward, uniting the original colonies with the mighty resources of the Ohio Valley and Northwest Territory by a series of canals, roads and later railways. Despite an 1808 report by Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, envisioning a national system of transportation routes, and its obvious support by influential people, the federal government's role in the internal improvements movement remained quite limited. It rested upon the states, developing urban industrial centers, and private enterprise to build a transportation network for the new republic. The resulting canals, roads, bridges and railways were constructed in a fiercely competitive atmosphere, with each east coast port from Boston to Norfolk vying with each other to become the premier port through a transportation link with the west. Nowhere was this spirit of competitiveness more evident than in Virginia. It is against this background that one must see the career of Claudius Crozet.
Crozet was born in Villefrance, France, in 1790. He was educated at the well- known Ecole Polytechnique, the artillery school in Metz and served with distinction in the Napoleonic wars as a military engineer. Following the French defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Crozet accompanied General Bernard in 1816 to America. He served with distinction but not without controversy at the newly formed military academy at West Point. It was Crozet who was largely instrumental in establishing the engineering tradition at West Point, and this institution provided the first professionally trained engineers in America.
The authors provide a clear picture of the activities at West Point and the controversy which erupted with regard to the superintendency of the academy, resulting in Crozet's departure in 1823. He then became principal engineer of Virginia, a post he held until 1831. While other engineers chose to work in the private sector, Crozet's career after West Point and throughout his later life was associated with public appointments. During his first term as principal engineer of Virginia he was involved with establishing a network of turnpikes and canals, most notably the James River and Kanawha Canal, where he initially served under America's pioneering civil engineer Benjamin Wright. In developing the principal turnpikes, the James River and Kanawha (along the former canal route), the Staunton to Parkersburg, the Northwestern and numerous other roads which linked these great east-west routes, Crozet was involved in all aspects from survey and design to economic and political factors.
During this term, Crozet established his reputation as an engineer whose work survives in existing road systems throughout Virginia. He became a champion of the trans-Allegheny part of Virginia in opposition to Tidewater interests and spent a good portion of his career in what was to become West Virginia. He could clearly foresee in the antebellum period that unless adequate transportation was provided for western Virginia, this section of the commonwealth would seek to separate itself from a state government perceived to be in the hands of eastern interests. It was this conflict which terminated his first appointment as principal engineer in 1831. From 1832-37 he served as the state engineer of Louisiana and president of Jefferson College.
Crozet returned to Virginia for a second term as the state's principal engineer from 1837-43. He became a convert to the new technology of railways and actively promoted their construction, even when in conflict with the vested interests, such as the promoters of the James River and Kanawha system. The authors bring their treatment of Crozet up through his final engineering project as assistant engineer on the Washington Aqueduct through his death in 1864 while serving as the principal of the Richmond Academy.
The standard biography of Crozet, published in 1936, in the tradition of its time, used many quotes from Crozet and gave far more detail of his engineering work than the present biography. Even for the general reader, the lack of information on the works associated with Crozet is a noticeable omission and illustrations of the projects mentioned in the text would have greatly enriched this biography. The history of technology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was popularized by Sir Samuel Smiles in his book Lives of Engineers. Smiles was interested in using his biographical approach to undergird his philosophy of self-help. Thus, his work, like many later histories and biographies published in the nineteenth century portray their subjects as heroes. The new biography of Crozet fits into this great pattern of biographical treatment of the lives of leading engineers. Although lacking in engineering detail and illustrations, the book is quite readable and recommended not only to those interested in the history of engineering, but in the history of Virginia and West Virginia. It provides insight into the history of the trans-Allegheny section of Virginia not found in standard texts. The authors, with justification from Crozet's own statements, herald him as a great Virginian. For West Virginia readers, Crozet should also be considered as one of their own.
Emory L. Kemp
Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archeology
THE EAGLE-DRAGON ALLIANCE: AMERICA'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA IN WORLD WAR II. By Wesley M. Bagby (Cranbury, NJ: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1992. Pp 306. $45.00.)
In The Eagle-Dragon Alliance, Professor Bagby has given us an intriguing yet irritating little book, as he documents relations between the United States and China during World War II. This was the most intense period of involvement between these two countries in history. It was a time in which the United States interjected itself into Chinese affairs, seeking to ensure that China's territorial integrity was assured, and that the country would be officially recognized in the post-war world as one of the five major nations.
It was a time in which the United States tried desperately but failed to reform China politically, socially and economically. The United States, through its actions and omissions, involved itself in the struggle between the Nationalists and Chinese Communists. Many of those Americans who knew China best saw their careers and reputations destroyed, in most cases for telling the truth. Others, who knew China less well, became the makers of America's policies toward the "Dragon Kingdom."
The events which Bagby chronicles played a major role in reshaping the post- war world and in crystallizing Chinese-American relations for more than the next quarter century. Contrary to our hopes and expectations, American activities helped the Communists win control of China, made the Soviet Union a power in Asia, and kept Asia in turmoil for more than a generation.
This book is obviously designed for the student or casual reader and contains little that a scholar would find new. Chapters are short and subdivided into clearly labeled sections. Each chapter has a summary paragraph or two. Those readers with some prior knowledge of the subject may dislike this organization and find the summaries repetitious.
The strengths of this work must include the documentation. Just over two hundred pages of text are supported by some forty pages of end notes, the vast majority of which are source citations. For the neophyte reader, there is a brief chronology listing major events and a list of key people who appear in the text, some of whom require more description. There is a solid bibliography and a very usable index.
The depiction and careful documentation of these events are the intriguing parts of Bagby's work. Readers are constantly asking couldn't the United States have foreseen the results; why were the key participants oblivious to what appears obvious today; and why were we denied information which was then available? This irritation is properly directed toward the makers of American foreign policy during the war period.
Yet there are other irritations with this slim volume as well. One that will strike some readers is the rather large number of typographical errors. A book of this type deserves better editing. In this case, much of the responsibility should be borne by the editors rather than the author. A single example of this is the consistent placement of a period after the S in Harry S Truman.
A greater frustration is that the Sino-American Co-operative Organization (SACO) is not mentioned until the penultimate chapter. Then it is not mentioned in either the glossary or the index. This organization, for better or worse, played a much larger role in our involvement in China and subsequent Chinese reactions to the United States than is evident from this belated and brief mention. There is also the feeling that the book ends too abruptly. Bagby does a good job in leading the reader into the war. Considering the post-war consequences of American involvements, stopping when the fighting ends does not do the topic justice. Some remarks on our role in the disarmament of Japanese troops, and our movement of Nationalist forces to various places in China should not have been omitted.
Other irritations are perhaps more personal to the reviewer. One cannot fault Bagby for his use of the Wade-Giles system of romanization of Chinese names. After all, that was the system generally in use during the period covered by this work. However, students using The Eagle-Dragon Alliance as a starting point for further research will be frustrated in seeking references which use the pinyin system of romanization. Perhaps in the next printing of the book, a list of people and place names in the two systems of romanization can be included or a conversion chart can be provided.
The manner in which some primary sources are used was also less than ideal. More attention is given to the uninformed observations of Ernest Hemingway than to the more knowledgeable opinions of people such as Edgar Snow. This can also be noted in the bibliography, which generally rates much above average. Snow's Far Eastern Front and The Battle for Asia surely deserve a place there. The bibliography is also weak on the inclusion of newspaper and journal articles. The latter, especially, were a vital source for understanding and determining American policy during the war and immediate post-war period.
These shortcomings, however, should not deter the reader from a book that is well conceived and generally well done. Some will find Bagby's style too terse, a characteristic familiar to those who know the author does not believe in wasting words. Still, for students beginning studies of China, The Eagle-Dragon Alliance can be highly recommended.
Art Barbeau
West Liberty State College
THE GOLDENSEAL BOOK OF THE WEST VIRGINIA MINE WARS. Ed. by Ken Sullivan (Charleston: Pictorial Histories Publishing, 1991. Pp. iv, 104. $9.95.)
Editor Ken Sullivan has compiled nineteen articles on the West Virginia mine wars originally published between 1977 and 1991 in Goldenseal, the magazine of West Virginia traditional life. The legendary battles to win recognition of the United Mine Workers in the New River and southern West Virginia coalfields between 1902 and 1921 have been documented by historians, poets, songwriters, screenwriters and storytellers. Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Sid Hatfield and Don Chafin are all represented, as well as some of the wars' lesser-known figures such as Francis E. "Cesco" Estep, a victim of the infamous "Bull Moose Special." There are also accounts of the mine wars from the nonunion side and of the United Mine Workers in the heyday of John L. Lewis.
The Goldenseal Book of the West Virginia Mine Wars is well illustrated with historic photographs, reproductions from the United Mine Workers journal and maps. This collection of personal reminiscences and research will interest anyone searching for more information on West Virginia's labor struggles.
LAW AND ORDER VS. THE MINERS: WEST VIRGINIA, 1906-1933. By Richard D. Lunt (1979; reprint, Charleston: Appalachian Editions, 1992. Pp, 223. $12.95.)
In 1907, Judge Alston Dayton issued an injunction against organizing activities by the United Mine Workers at the Hitchman Coal and Coke Company near Wheeling, but was overruled in the Circuit Court of Appeals in 1914. The case was argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1917, resulting in a two-part decision. The court recognized the UMW as a legal organization but upheld Dayton's injunction against union activities at Hitchman. The court declared that individual contracts between employers and employees were valid, including those contracts forbidding employees from joining unions as a condition of employment (the notorious "yellow dog" contract).
Based largely on primary sources, Richard Lunt's study focuses on the UMW drive to organize West Virginia in the wake of the Hitchman decision through the 1932 Norris-LaGuardia Act, which outlawed yellow dog contracts and limited the use of injunctions. Lunt also discusses the roles of such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Federation of Labor in the struggle for union recognition and the guarantee of basic civil rights in the coalfields.
THE C. C. C. CAMPS IN WEST VIRGINIA 1933-1942. By Milton Harr (by the author, 1583 Quarrier Street, Charleston, WV 1992. Pp. 59. $3.95 plus postage and handling.)
This small publication will serve as an authoritative ready reference to the Civilian Conservation Corps camps in West Virginia. The brief introduction describes the camp structure and organization for the sixty-six camp sites located in the state. There is also information on the camp numbering system, types of camps, the process of selecting and ranking enrollees and a description of the average camp buildings and arrangements. Five agencies operated camps in West Virginia. The United States Forest Service had twenty- two camps, the Division of Forestry, Conservation Commission had twenty-six, sixteen on private and ten on state lands, and the State Parks of the same agency had eight camps. The United States Soil Conservation Service operated eleven on private farm lands and the Army Corps of Engineers had one camp located at the Bluestone Reservoir. Mr. Harr provides a brief description of each camp within these classifications, giving its dates of operation, exact location, some of the personnel, and activities performed. At least five of the camps were integrated, one was for black youth only, and only two were for veterans of World War I. The designation system used alerts the reader to each of these, as well as the type of camp. The publication includes handy compilations of all the camps, their type and location. There are also a few photographs and an outline map for site reference.
A TRIBUTE TO THE COAL MINER. Vols. 3 and 4. By Pauline Haga (Crab Orchard, WV: the author, Box 1061, Crab Orchard, WV 25827. 1991. Pp. 53; 54.)
The local historian for Raleigh and Fayette counties continues her series of photographic publications on the coal mining history of the two counties. She uses some one hundred and fifty photographs in each volume, many borrowed from local sources. Brief captions, a few reprinted articles and a little text, provides a view of the miner, his working and living conditions and surroundings, and family life. Respect for the miner and his family dominate the presentation. The fourth volume reprints a number of first-hand accounts describing the Stanaford City shootout between miners and operators in February 1903. Included are articles listing the twelve known miner deaths, accounts of the hearings and the testing of the Gatling gun several months later. For anyone interested in the history of coal mining, Raleigh and Fayette counties or the casual study of old photographs, A Tribute to the Coal Miner will be a valuable addition to their library or table.
TRIBUTE TO THE RAILROADER. Idem. (Pp. 52. $12.00.)
Following the format established for her series A Tribute to the Coal Miner, this first volume on the railroader features a number of photographs and newspaper accounts detailing the life and times of the railroader. In addition to the men who worked the various lines in southern West Virginia, there are old photographs of steam engines, depots and related sites. Some few reach across the border into Virginia. A number of the photos come from the Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society Collection. Readers interested in the by-gone days of mountain railroading will enjoy the photographs of trestles, bridges and steep grades, as well as those showing historical speeches such as that delivered by William Jennings Bryan at Thurmond.
RALEIGH COUNTY'S SCHOOL DAYS OF YESTERYEAR. Vol 1. Idem. (Pp. 52.)
This is a pictorial presentation of a number of Raleigh County's schools, dating from the 1830s to the present. The photographs are all in black and white and of varying size and quality. Buildings, students and teachers make up the majority of the illustrations. There appears to be no particular arrangement to the schools featured and selected for this first volume. Ms. Haga promises another volume if there is sufficient interest in this first issue on the Raleigh County schools. Several schools, including the Bennett Mountain log school (now part of the Youth Museum's complex in Beckley), Eccles, and Mark Twain receive additional narrative while others have only a photograph and caption. Teachers, such as members of the Toney family, Miss Ethel Robertson, Mrs. Lavoy Covey Hedrick and Ms. Cora Deck also command additional narrative to accompany their photographs. This small illustrated book on Raleigh County's schools will be of particular interest to many educated in the county's public school system.
BOONE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA, HISTORY, 1990. By the Boone County Genealogical Society (Waynesville, NC: Walsworth Publishing, 1990. Pp. iv, 340.)
HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA, 1989. By the Clay County History Book Committee (Salem, WV: Walsworth Publishing, 1989. Pp. 385.)
LINCOLN COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA, AND ITS PEOPLE. By the Lincoln County Genealogical Society (Waynesville, NC: Walsworth Publishing, 1991. Pp. iv, 187.)
MERCER COUNTY HISTORY. SESQUICENTENNIAL YEAR, 1987. By the Mercer County Historical Society (Waynesville, NC: Walsworth Press, 1991. Pp. ii, 680.)
PENDLETON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA: PAST AND PRESENT. By the Pendleton County History Committee (Waynesville, NC: Walsworth Press, 1991. Pp. iv, 255.)
WELCH AND ITS PEOPLE. By Rose R. Marino (Marceline, MO: Walsworth Publishing, 1985. Pp. 571.)
Boone, Clay, Lincoln, Mercer and Pendleton counties have all issued new local and family histories, including information on the founding of the county, local businesses, churches, schools, and other community organizations. The primary feature of each book, all of which are illustrated and indexed, is the compilation of hundreds of family genealogies.
Mercer County's Sesquicentennial Year, 1987 is an expanded version of the county's history published in 1985. It features Mercer's 1860 census records and the Confederate history of the county, with letters and other personal accounts of the Civil War.
Welch and its People focuses solely on the McDowell County town and is based on information taken from a variety of local sources, including the McDowell Recorder, Welch Daily News, high school annuals, and personal interviews. Like the county histories, this volume consists mostly of genealogy. There are brief historical sections throughout the text chronicling some of Welch's past, and the concluding thirty-five pages are devoted to landmarks, businesses, churches, clubs, and other aspects of Welch history. Because there is little published information on McDowell County, this volume makes a needed contribution to researchers.
"CHASING ANCESTORS" is a new quarterly publication produced by local Raleigh County historian Pauline Haga. The first issue makes connections with the Houck family which came into West Virginia from North Carolina. It also publishes Bladen County, North Carolina, wills and cemetery readings for the McCalls, and the Wood Cemetery in Floyd County, Virginia. There are a number of 1907 Raleigh Register newspaper articles reprinted and some Logan County wills. The publication is liberally illustrated with historical and a few recent photographs. Ordering information on the publication is available from the publisher, P. 0. Box 1051, Crab Orchard, WV 25827.
DEATHS NO. 4, 1915-1922 [RALEIGH COUNTY]. By Pauline Haga (by the author, Box 1061, Crab Orchard, WV 25827. Unpaged.)
RALEIGH COUNTY CEMETERIES NO. 4. Idem. (Unpaged.)
The exact transcription of the Raleigh County death records for the years 1915-1922 are presented alphabetically for each year in Deaths.
Fourteen Raleigh County cemeteries are listed in the other volume. The compiler provides a list of the cemeteries, maps, photoreproductions of markers, funeral records and newspaper clippings. The information from the gravestones is reproduced as transcribed by the compiler. There is no index to the random listing of cemetery recordings and both volumes are unpaged.
A NEW RIVER HERITAGE. Vol. 1. By William Sanders (Parsons: McClain Printing, 1991. Pp. xxi, 298.)
Based largely on the author's own memories and interviews with long-time residents, this volume traces family and community histories of the New River area. Photographs, family trees, and cemetery listings document such communities as Glen Lyn, Toney's Ferry, Hatcher, and Athens. The Adair, Caperton, McClaugherty, Meadows, Dingess, and French families are among those included. An index to family cemeteries is also provided.
TALES AND TRAILS FROM THE FAYETTE TRIBUNE. Compiled by Dale Payne and Bob Beckelheimer (Fayetteville: L W Printing, 1991. Pp. 117.)
Articles reprinted from the Oak Hill Fayette Tribune from July 4, 1912 through September 12, 1935 provide an extensive local history for Fayette County and a number of adjacent areas. The articles are presented chronologically with four pages of contents providing subject access. A name index provides additional access to the many newspaper articles reprinted. Twenty-six historical photographs illustrate the text. The greatest number of articles relate to the Civil War with sections on battles, incidents, war claims and veterans' memories. Other articles present information on early transportation, communities, early settlement and past customs.
A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF GAULEY BRIDGE. By the Gauley Bridge Historical Society (n. p. 1991. Pp. 158.)
This collection of black and white photographs, along with brief narratives, documents the Fayette County towns of Gauley Bridge, Kanawha Falls, Glen Ferris, and Hawks Nest. From an 1850 artist's rendering of the covered bridge over the Gauley River to contemporary photos of leading citizens, A Pictorial History of Gauley Bridge will no doubt recall a host of memories for long-time residents of the area. It is also a good introduction for those unfamiliar with the county's history from Civil War battleground to a place in West Virginia's developing tourism industry.
LANDMARKS: CHARLESTON, HUNTINGTON AND BEYOND. . . . By William D. Goebel (Charleston: Landmarks Publishing, 1991. Pp. 102. $29.95.)
Charleston artist William Goebel has captured dozens of West Virginia's architectural gems in this collection of pen and ink drawings. >From the stately Daniel Boone Hotel in Charleston to the simple elegance of the Greenbrier River Inn, the artist portrays pieces of the built past that have often been greatly altered or even razed. Goebel also voices his own feelings about historic preservation and adaptive reuse, reminding us that if we "don't take an active interest in preserving the tangible remains of our heritage, we may as well not even have one."
THE DIARIES OF OLIVER CROMWELL MORRIS. Transcribed by Elizabeth L. Joyce (by the author, 9604 Sonjo Court, Fairfax, VA 22032. 1991. Pp. 63.)
Oliver C. Morris was a Civil War veteran and Circuit Court Clerk for Wirt County. The diaries span the years March 21, 1859-November 12, 1859, September 3, 1862-May 11, 1864 and November 7, 1864-May 24, 1865. There is no explanation given for the missing dates in between. The first period covers the diarist's journey from Brownsville, Pennsylvania, to Tonica, Illinois, and work on a farm there. The other two diaries document his Civil War service, including Sherman's march through Georgia in which Morris participated. The major portion of the diary entries are routine with many references to the weather. The entries are preceded by a brief sketch of Morris's life and followed by a few of his service records.
MILITARY OPERATIONS 1861-1864: FAYETTEVILLE, WEST VIRGINIA AND THE LYNCHBURG CAMPAIGN. By Milton W. Humphreys (1926; reprint, Gauley Bridge: Cotton Hill Publications, n. d. Pp. 103.)
Milton Humphreys, a native of Greenbrier County, was a student at Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, when the Civil War began. He joined the Confederate Monroe Artillery, which became known as Bryan's Battery, as the "`Gunner of the First Gun'." According to the brief biography by the original publisher of this book, Humphreys was a first-rate artilleryman and the first ever to employ "indirect" firing (in which the gun is concealed from those being bombarded) during the shelling of Union forces at Fayetteville in May 1863.
This slim volume includes Humphreys's own diary accounts of the battle at Fayetteville as well as technical gunnery notes on the artillery and ammunition used during the war. There is a much more detailed analysis of the events leading up to the Battle of Lynchburg on June 18, 1864. Humphreys discusses the battles at Cloyd's Mountain, New River Bridge, New Hope and finally, Lynchburg, relying on his journal, The War of the Rebellion official records, written and oral accounts of other soldiers, and reexaminations of the battlefields.
THE CIVIL WAR IN GILMER COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. By Rosemary L. Gainer (Grantsville: Red Clay Press, 1991. Pp. 24. Available from Pat Gainer's Enterprises, Route 77, Box 86, Glenville, WV 26351.)
This small book presents the local history of the Civil War in Gilmer County. Ms. Gainer concentrates on the war at home and the breakdown of law and order. Because of the sparse population and remoteness of the county to the major engagements and strategy of the war the population either served the Union or Confederate armies or suffered the pillaging of partisan bands representing both sides or taking advantage of the absence of law and order. The effects of the war on the county are given personal recognition in the treatment of Thomas M. Harris, David Wright and the Schoolcraft brothers. The author uses these accounts, county records and several other primary and secondary sources for her study. The reader must have an understanding of Gilmer County's location and place names or be prepared to locate this information to appreciate this account of The Civil War in Gilmer County.
THUNDER IN THE HILLS: A HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR IN JEFFERSON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. By Stephen Douglas Engle (Charleston: Mountain State Press, 1989. Pp. 103. $15.75.)
Jefferson County was important to both the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War. Most of its residents sympathized with the Confederacy, making it vital to the Union because the capitol at Washington lay only sixty miles to the east. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ran through the county and there was also a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Between 1861 and 1865, there were more than eighty operations in Jefferson, as each army battled for control.
This brief history of the war in Jefferson County concentrates on the military aspects and is illustrated with maps of troop positions. The author uses personal recollections, military service records, and contemporary newspapers, as well as numerous secondary sources on the war and Jefferson County. Appendices list all of the maneuvers in the county by date.
CIVIL WAR VIRGINIA: BATTLEGROUND FOR A NATION. By James I. Robertson, Jr. (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1991. Pp. vii, 188. $18.95.)
Intended both as a supplement to Civil War Sites in Virginia: A Tour Guide, and as a replacement for the smaller Virginia, 1861-1865: Iron Gate to the Confederacy written by Robertson in 1961, this excellent study will help anyone interested in following the war through the Virginia battlefields. Beginning in Harpers Ferry and moving from campaign to campaign culminating at Appomattox, the author explains the larger strategies and the small but interesting anecdotes with the same clarity and human perspective.
Virginia's secession was essential to the survival of the young Confederacy. The resources and manpower supplied by the Old Dominion were crucial both politically and militarily. This overview discusses not only the battles and troop movements, but looks into the human suffering and pathos of a state trapped between protecting its own property and interests and bearing the responsibility of being the Confederate capitol, the main target of Union armies. Although small, this book is filled with excellent prints and photographs of the people and places it describes. Also well-documented are Virginia's prisons and hospitals, many of which were the largest in the Confederacy. The chapter on the homefront paints a vivid picture of the harshness and pain suffered by the general population. The devastation wrought throughout Virginia (over two hundred military engagements took place there) would take many years from which to recover.
This book is an especially good introduction to Virginia's Civil War history because it provides some background information and integrates that with general Confederate history.
COMPENDIUM OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES: ALABAMA. By Stewart Sifakis (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1992. Pp. 144. $24.95.)
_____. FLORIDA AND ARKANSAS (idem. Pp. 141. $24.95.)
_____. NORTH CAROLINA (idem. Pp. 187. $24.95.)
_____. TENNESSEE (idem. Pp. 197. $24.95.)
_____. VIRGINIA (idem. Pp. 285. $29.95.)
Stewart Sifakis, author of Who Was Who in the Civil War, has recently produced an excellent companion series to Frederick H. Dyer's often used Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. Published by Facts on File, this series is the first to compile a complete record of the Confederate military units and the battles in which they fought. Researchers who have used the Guide to Virginia Military Organizations by Lee A. Wallace will certainly appreciate this similar work on the rest of the Confederate states and their regiments. A compilation of this nature has been needed on the South as a whole. Each volume includes chapters on artillery, cavalry and infantry and lists nicknames, organizational details, mustering information and officers for all regiments. The lists of assignments and battles allow for fairly accurate placement in position and time for each unit. West Virginia units are included in the Virginia volume. Researchers will note that for many regiments, further readings are advised and references given. An annotated bibliography, general index, name index, and battle index are included with each volume.
Forthcoming volumes in this series, to be published in October 1992, are Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Georgia, and Texas. A single volume will combine the border states of Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri with those units from the Indian nations that sided with the Confederacy. The last volume, Tables of Organization of all the Confederate armies and departments, will be published in December. These books are affordable, well designed and easy to read. The series will prove to be an excellent reference for historians, genealogists, and Civil War researchers.
IMAGES OF APPALACHIAN COALFIELDS. By Builder Levy (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1989. Pp. xiii, 124. $24.95.)
New York City teacher Builder Levy made frequent trips to the Appalachian coalfields over a fourteen year period to photograph mining communities. This collection vividly portrays the lives of miners and their families in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s. Ninety-three black and white duotones, with brief captions, "portray a once-beautiful region that has been increasingly scarred by an industry that has never demonstrated respect for the land or its people." The introduction discusses the mining process and changes in technology, the union, coal communities, and some of the effects of mining on the community and environment. But it is the photographs that tell the real story. Levy's work has been compared to that of Lewis Hine, whose early twentieth-century portrayal of the coalfields has become a standard photographic reference. Levy provides explicit visual documentation of ordinary life in his Images of Appalachian Coalfields.
THE WOLFPEN NOTEBOOKS: A RECORD OF APPALACHIAN LIFE. By James Still (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1991. Pp. xi, 178. $19.00.)
Award-winning Appalachian author James Still has been praised for his ability to capture the essence of mountain life in such works as River of Earth and The Run for the Elbertas. One of the keys to Still's success is his attention to language. A keen observer of the people and culture around him, Still kept a record of conversations and customs in a series of notebooks that have now been published in a single volume. Of the material contained within The Wolfpen Notebooks, the author says: "`The first notebook entry was recorded some forty-five years ago. Most of the participants are dead. Save for their gravestones, this is the only record for some that they lived and laughed and wept and had opinions like the rest of us. I have long tried to speak for them. Here they are speaking for themselves'." It is his faithful transcription of everyday life that has won Still such literary honors as the Marjorie Peabody Waite Award and the O. Henry Memorial Prize.
The Wolfpen Notebooks includes a foreword by Eliot Wigginton, creator of the Foxfire series. In an interview with one of Wigginton's students, Still discusses his work and experiences in the eastern Kentucky hills. Taken together, this collection is an insight into the craft of effective storytelling.
STRAIGHT UP TO SEE THE SKY. By Timothy Truman (Forestville, CA: Eclipse Books, 1991. Pp. 126. $14.95.)
Extensively illustrated by the author, Straight Up to See the Sky is an account of life on the trans-Allegheny frontier. Truman's subjects include Christopher Gist, Mary Ingles, Chief Cornstalk, Simon Girty, and "Mad" Anne Bailey. There are also brief sections devoted to Lord Dunmore's War and the raids into the Ohio country, which opened the way for expanded white settlement after 1795.
Based largely on such standard sources as C. B. Allman, Lyman Draper, Wills DeHaas, and Joseph Doddridge, Truman's biographical sketches provide an engaging look at the larger-than-life figures that peopled West Virginia's frontier period.
IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHIEF JOHN LOGAN. By Samuel W. Rogers (Logan: Radarta, 1990. Pp. xii, 284. $6.00.)
Well-researched and well-written historical fiction has, in recent years, made history more accessible to those who may find traditional historical writing stilted. Novelist-historian Allan Eckert has capitalized on the format of the biographical novel to bring the colonial frontier period to life for many readers. Using this popular style, Samuel Rogers now recounts the life of Tahgahjute, Chief Logan of the Mingo.
>From the early French settlements in the New World through the American Revolution, control of the trans-Allegheny frontier region was disputed by the French, English, Americans, and several Indian tribes. One of the enduring legends of this era is that of Logan. An influential force on the frontier during the 1770s, Logan was brutally murdered in 1780. Several theories exist as to who perpetrated the crime and Rogers has relied on contemporary records and traditional accounts to document his claims. A bibliography and explanatory end notes are provided for each chapter. There is also a glossary of Indian and French words and a list of characters at the end of the book.
A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. Vol. 9, VIRGINIA, Pt. 2. Ed. by John P. Kaminski, et al (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1990. Pp. xxix, 1176.)
Virginia was the tenth state to ratify the Constitution and its actions were vital to the survival of the new nation. This second volume of the Virginia debates in the documentary history series of ratification chronicles the election of delegates to the state's constitutional convention in March 1788, public debates over the Constitution from April 1 to May 31, and the convention itself from June 2 to 27.
The leaders of the Revolution, so united in the patriot cause, were terribly divided over the course the independent states should follow. The Federalists, led in Virginia by James Madison, sought the expanded power of a central government, while the Antifederalists, with their Virginia spokesman Patrick Henry, believed a confederation of states best served the ideals of the Revolution. This debate raged in every state, but Virginia played an especially important role. Had it not ratified the Constitution, a North-South split would have been initiated, isolating Georgia and South Carolina (which ratified the Constitution on December 31, 1787 and May 23, 1788, respectively) from those states that had already adopted it.
This volume includes maps, a chronology of events, lists of officeholders and convention delegates, and county election dates. It is a valuable reference for anyone interested in the aftermath of the Revolution and the early national period.
WHO BUILT AMERICA?: WORKING PEOPLE & THE NATION'S ECONOMY, POLITICS, CULTURE & SOCIETY. VOL. 2: FROM THE GILDED AGE TO THE PRESENT Ed. by Steven Brier, et al (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. Pp. xxviii, 743. $20.00.)
Sponsored by City University of New York's American Social History Project, Who Built America? surveys American history from the perspective of those groups notably absent from traditional accounts -- laborers, small farmers, women, African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants. Volume two traces the nation's development from the nineteenth-century growth of industrial capitalism to the uncertainty surrounding the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.
The volume is richly illustrated with photographs, cartoons and illustrations from the popular press, broadsides, and advertisements. The text is interspersed with excerpts from letters, pamphlets, and oral history interviews depicting working people's observations on the world around them. A bibliography is provided for each chapter.
Who Built America? is a departure from the traditional consensus interpretation of American history. Like Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, this work reminds the reader that history is more than great national events. The everyday experiences and struggles of working people are a meaningful and integral part of our heritage.
RACE AND HISTORY. SELECTED ESSAYS, 1938-1988. By John Hope Franklin (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1989. Pp. xi, 450. $29.95.)
Eminent historian John Hope Franklin has assembled twenty-seven of his own essays on a wide variety of topics spanning fifty years of scholarship. The earliest essay, "Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Movement," first appeared in the New England Quarterly in 1938. The most recent, "John Hope Franklin: A Life of Learning," was the 1988 Charles Homer Haskins Lecture delivered before the American Council of Learned Societies.
Franklin addresses such issues as the morality of the founding fathers, the treatment of slaves in antebellum North Carolina, and the use of history as propaganda (in Franklin's words, "propaganda as history") in D. W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation. He also considers the historian's role in public and foreign policymaking.
AMERICAN HERITAGE (42:1, February-March 1991) "Father of the Forests," by T. H. Watkins, short biography of the founder of the National Forest movement, with a section on the destruction of the Canaan Valley forest.
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW (96:2, April 1991) "Chambersburg: Anatomy of a Confederate Reprisal," by Everard H. Smith, describes the destruction of this Pennsylvania town by troops under General McCausland.
ANCESTREE (14:1, Spring 1991) "Ye Goode Shippe, Abigail," offers facts gathered regarding the ship which brought passengers to Virginia during the 1620s.
(14:2, Summer 1991) "Down to the Sea in Ships," provides passenger lists for the Gildart and the Johnson arriving in Maryland on May 5, 1747, with Scottish rebels; "Discovering Your Roots," includes all installments of this serialized McComas family history, as printed in the Logan Banner.
(14:4, Winter 1991) "Russell, A Mother County," by Theodosia Barrett offers a brief synopsis of the county's early history; "Daughter County, Lee," by Bonnie S. Ball, contains information about early Lee County settlers; "Cemeteries," is a reprint of a Logan Banner article concerning the relocation of cemeteries in the Verdunville, Mount Gay area for Corridor G.
APPALACHIA (Fall 1990) "Building a Bridge to College," by Carl Hoffman, discusses the Mountain Leadership Program of West Virginia's noted Woodlands Institute.
APPALACHIAN JOURNAL (18:3, Spring 1991) "Writing Out of the Region," by Meredith Sue Willis, discusses the responsibilities writers feel for their home territories.
BERKELEY JOURNAL (1990) "The Newkirk Family of Berkeley County," by Don C. Wood, traces the Newkirk family through deed transactions; "The Newkirk Houses and Plantations of Little Georgetown," by Don C. Wood, includes the history of several family homes; "Little Georgetown," by Don C. Wood, offers information from contemporary newspapers, census and court records, photos including the 1936 flood; "The Hammers Family of Berkeley County," by Don C. Wood, includes family genealogy, maps and photos included; "Ellis Ellis Stone House and the George Myles Land," by Don C. Wood, relates the deed history and architectural styles of the various homesteads built on the original James Davis land grant, including the James Mason house, the James Ellis house, the Marie Ellis Williamson house and the Teter Myers French house, photos included; "McCoy Ferry," by Don C. Wood, is a brief description of this early crossing on the Potomac River; "The Log Cabin," by Don C. Wood, traces its ownership through deeds and chancery records; "Jacob Seibert House," by Don C. Wood, outlines the ownership of another house in the Little Georgetown area, photos included; "The Peter Speck Family of Berkeley County," by Don C. Wood, traces the family from their Pennsylvania origins; "Hedges-Wandling House and Roberts Mill Run," by Don C. Wood, includes the family history of those families through whose hands this property has passed; "The New Free School System 1865," by Don C. Wood, contains abstracts from the Opequon Township Clerk's Book for 1865-66 regarding the operation of a free school.
(1991) "Introduction," by Trudy Slater, offers an overview of Gerrardstown and of several of the old properties; "John Gerrard Family," by Don C. Wood, includes information from family deeds as well as from John Gerrard's 1787 will; "Gerrard Family Research," by Trudy Slater, suggests that the Gerrard family may have come originally from Maryland; "The John Hays Family," by Don C. Wood, uses deeds and wills to establish family lineage; "Bowers Family of Berkeley County," by Don C. Wood, includes five generations; "The Wilsons of Prospect Hill and Bonbrook," by Trudy Slater, is condensed from letters, genealogies and family Bibles; "Mill Creek Baptist Church," by Trudy Slater, provides information about this early Baptist Church; "Presbyterian Church," by Trudy Slater, is a brief item about the old and new Presbyterian churches, photos included; "Presbyterian Manse," by Trudy Slater, describes the residence of the pastor; "Prebyterian [sic] Hall," by Trudy Slater, describes its community function; "Stonewall Academy," by Trudy Slater, is a brief history of this little building; "Methodist Churches of Gerrardstown," by Trudy Slater, provides a general history of this denomination in Gerrardstown; "United Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed Churches," by Trudy Slater, includes a list of early ministers; "Mt. Pleasant School, Mt. Olive Church," by Trudy Slater, provides a history of the Mt. Pleasant community including photos from the Johnson family; "Prospect Hill," by Trudy Slater, describes this Georgian mansion at the foot of North Mountain; "The Gilbert McKown House (Marshy Dell)," by John Douglas Miller, describes the construction of this log house; "James Bell House (The Tavern)," by Trudy Slater, includes a history of the building's uses; "The Tanyard House," by Trudy Slater, is a brief description of the house; "Marlin-Wilson-Gray House," by Trudy Slater, provides a history of the house and original owners; "The Earl McCormick House," by Trudy Slater; "The Emmanuel Groff House," by Trudy Slater, includes information from deed books regarding the original ownership; "Groff Family," by Trudy Slater, outlines the offspring of Emmanuel and Elizabeth Groff; "Mill Creek Manor, The G. William Groff House," by Trudy Slater, photos included; "The Maples," by Trudy Slater, features architectural elements of the house; "Aspen Hall, Dr. J. P. Carter House," by Trudy Slater, highlights the family home and relates several of the doctor's experiences; "The Stores of Gerrardstown," by Trudy Slater, provides a brief summary of three old establishments, photos included.
BOONE GENEALOGICAL QUARTERLY (14:1, January 1991) "Death Records from August 1990 to Jan. 11, 1991," contains names and dates from obituaries of individuals from Boone and Logan counties.
(14:2, April 1991) "Union Army Bones," by Jane Bone Donovan, provides information about William M. Bone and Doctor Henderson Bone of Company I, 2nd West Virginia Cavalry.
(14:3, July 1991) "I Remember When," by Fred S. Kinder, recounts his childhood on Brush Creek in the early years of the century; "Miller Cemetary,"[sic] by Eric John White II, lists the names found on headstones in this cemetery in Foster; "Map" of Ballard Cemetery removed for Corridor G on Turtle Creek; "Baldwin" by Leslie Baldwin provides some family history for the Logan County branch.
CANAL HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY PROCEEDINGS (Vol. 10, March 1991) "The Little Kanawha Navigation," by Larry Sypolt and Emory Kemp, documents the history of navigation on the Little Kanawha River, which flows through Braxton, Gilmer, Calhoun, Wirt and Wood counties, from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries, includes illustrations.
COAL PEOPLE (15:11, March 1991) "Bootlegging That Extra Dollar!" describes the wine and beer making activities of immigrants in the southern coalfields.
(15:12, April 1991) "Boney Pickers: Coal Prep the Old-Fashioned Way!" by Stuart McGehee, outlines the evolution of coal preparation from manual cleaning to the introduction of modern technology.
(16:1, May 1991) "Those Good Ole' School Days," by Catherine Sowers, is a recent interview with Stuart McGehee regarding early twentieth-century schools in coal mining communities.
(16:5, September 1991) "Wreck of the Eighty-Five: Great Maybeury Rail Disaster," by Stuart McGehee, is a reprint of the account of the 1937 derailment, photos included.
(16:10, February 1992) "My Sweetheart's the Mule in the Mines," by Irene Gavin, describes the relationship the young mule drivers had with their charges.
DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (125:3, March 1991) "Mary Draper Ingles," by Adelaide M. Cole, describes the ordeal of Ingles and the first pioneers in West Virginia.
DOWN HOME (1:2, November 1991) "26th Ohio Vets," letter from S. F. Robinson, describes the Civil War history of this regiment; "A World Famous Spa Goes to War," by Debbie Schwarz Simpson, describes the Greenbrier as a military hospital during World War II, photos included.
(1:4, January 1992) "He owned 2 Million Acres Yet, Died a Pauper," by Charles A. Goddard, retells a George W. Summers story about an early land speculator; "A City of Stone in the Pocahontas Woods," by Maureen Crockett, describes the park at Beartown.
FREDERICK FINDINGS (4:2, Spring 1991) "Roll of Captain Charles Porterfield's Company, Eleventh Regiment, Virginia Continental Line," concluded from a previous issue; "Hampshire County, (West) Virginia, Deed Book I," continued from a previous issue; "The Adams Family of Frederick and Hampshire Counties, Virginia," continued from a previous issue, includes some footnoted references; "Abstracts of Frederick County, Virginia, Court Order Book I, 1742-1745," continued from a previous issue; "Berkeley County, (West) Virginia, Deed Book I," continued from a previous issue.
GILMER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER (no date) "A True Riverboat Adventure," is a transcript of an interview with John Kimble conducted by Ron Miller relating his experiences working on a riverboat on Steer Creek.
(1:2, September 1991) "History of Sinking Creek Community," by Mrs. W. Farley Bush, is a reprint of a 1925 sketch.
(1:3, January 1992) "Ghost Towns of Sinking Creek," by J. R. Bush and L. C. Collins, is an amusing account of the growth and death of two communities named Lucerne.
GLEN JEAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY (March 1992) "Town of Glen Jean," is a collection of reprints regarding the community and prominent citizens.
GOLDENSEAL (17:1, Spring 1991) "A Man and His Mill: Jim Wells Takes on the Greenville Mill," by Michael M. Meador, describes one man's attempt to refurbish a century-old gristmill, photos included; "Low Tech: The Workings of a Water Mill," by Michael Workman describes the actual operation of a grain grinding mill, includes drawings; "Stepping Back in Time: Another West Virginia Gristmill," by Clara Castelar Bjorlie, is the story of a restored Berkeley County mill and its owner, photos included; "The Preacher and the Bear: A Monongalia Church Celebrates an Unusual Tradition," by Linda Hepler, relates the history of the Forks-of-Cheat Baptist Church, photos included; "The Mule School: The West Virginia Home Front in World War II," by H. L. Hames, discusses the training of pack mules and infantry in West Virginia, photos included; "Paw Paw: The Centennial of a Panhandle Town," by Bill Moulden, relates the history of this Morgan County community and the fruit that named it, photos included; "Riding on Fire: The Great Maybeury Railroad Disaster," by Stuart McGehee, describes the train tragedy in 1937, photos included; "Irish Mountain: The Story of a West Virginia Immigrant Community," by Lois C. McLean, recounts the rise and decline of a small Irish farming settlement, photos included; "recalling an Irish Mountain Farm Family: The O'Leary-Gwinn Connection," by Leona G. Brown, describes the combination of two Irish families, one Protestant and one Catholic, photos included; "Cool Springs Park: Harlan Castle Goes Into Business," by Norman Julian, discusses the shop and collections of this Preston County native, photos included; "Another Roadside Attraction: The Chester Teapot," by Katherine M. Jourdan, is a story of a giant teapot saved by the city of Chester as a local landmark.
(17:2, Summer 1991) "John Hershey Saddler," by Joseph B. C. White, describes the work of a master saddle and harness maker; "Melvin Wine," by Susan Leffler, discusses one of West Virginia's best fiddlers and his family, photos included; "The Way We Were: Jefferson County, 1941," by Bill Theriault, describes an early Jefferson County film promoter, photos included; "Canning and Camping: Girls' 4-H in Mason County," by Joseph Platania, discusses the early 4-H movement in Mason County, photos included; "The Gunfight at Matewan: An Anniversary Speech," by Lon K. Savage, from a speech commemorating the miners' struggles in the West Virginia coalfields, photos included; "The Dust Settles: Felts Papers Offer More on Matewan," by Topper Sherwood, discusses the newly-surfaced papers in the Felts Collection and their connection to the Matewan shootout, photos included; "Family Farming," by Lorna Chamberlain, recounts the farm life of the Milton Taylor family in Wetzel County, photos included; "The Man Who Fed the Animals: Nap Holbrook and the Early Days at Watoga," by Maureen Crockett, describes the CCC camp at Watoga and a long career in conservation, photos included; "Job's Temple: A Gilmer County Landmark," by James Woofter, recounts the building of this small church and the homecoming gatherings that began in 1936; "Hero and Desperado: Reflections on the Reburial of Lewis Wetzel," by Gordon L. Swartz III, describes the famous Indian fighter and his final resting place.
(17:3, Fall 1991) "Grandma and Grandpa Zekany: Growing Up Hungarian in Logan County," by Donna Jean Rittenhouse, story of a young girl brought up by her Hungarian grandparents, photos included; "Harvesting the Victory: Richwood Joins the WWII War Effort," by Louis E. Keefer, describes the use of Richwood workers as contract labor in World War II, photos included; "Weather Watchers: Frontline Volunteers for the National Weather Service," by Skip Johnson, discusses the volunteer work of the Winklers of Pickens; "Ballads and Baskets: The Clyde Case Story," by Susan Leffler, story of a banjo-playing basketweaver, photos included; "Allegheny Lodge: Looking Back on a Lost Landmark," by Leona G. Brown, tells of the famous lodge and the memories of those who worked there; "Martinsburg Memories: My Life as an Outdoorsman," by Paul Hensley Fansler, describes a young man's love for the woods around Martinsburg; "Smoke Pilot: Flying Forester Asher Kelly," interview by Robert Beanblossom, describes the exploits of a fire-fighting pilot, photos included; "Friday Night Rites: High School Football in the Northern Panhandle," by Bob Barnett, recounts the importance of football in a small town; "Basic Education: Gladys Fox Recalls Her One-Room Schools," interview by Mary Cobb, discusses the career of a young teacher and her tiny classrooms; "How Folk Music Got That Way: Thanksgiving Memories," by Lloyd Davis, recollections of young and old on folk music and memories. (17:4, Winter 1991) "Nothing but Hardwood: The Meadow River Lumber Company," by Ben Crookshanks, is the story of the Raine brothers and their lumber enterprise, photos included; "One Tree's Story," by Melinda Russell, describes the journey of a tree from shade to flooring, photos included; "Silver Yodelin' Bill," interview by Barbara Diane Smik, recounts the career of an early country music performer, photos included; "Chautauqua: Bringing Culture to Clarksburg," by Mary V. Stealey, describes the once popular tent shows and cultural programs of the early 1900s, photos included; "wings Over Glen Dale: When Fokker Trimotors Flew Over West Virginia," by Louis E. Keefer, discusses the famous aircraft designer's plant in Marshall County, photos included; "Mr. Basketball: The Clair Bee Story," by Rogers McAvoy, story of the Wood County native who became a basketball and sportswriting star, photos included; "While the Iron is Hot: From Blacksmithing to Modern Welding," by J. Z. Ellison, story of a blacksmith apprentice in Monroe County, photos included; "The Worst Flood Since Noah: Point Pleasant Floods," by Irene B. Brand, describes the terrible flood of 1913, photos included; "Smoke and Cinders: Railroading Up Big Sandy and Back in Time," by Bob Withers, story of the Norfolk and Western rail system in West Virginia, photos included; "Cabin Creek Quilts Coming Back," by Susan Leffler, discusses the improving market for Cabin Creek's quilters, photos included; "Music Man Joe Dobbs," by Susan Leffler, profiles the popular musician and radio personality.
(18:1, Spring 1992) "Home to Swandale," by Cody A. Burdette, a writer returns to his home and memories, photos included; "The Golden Rule: Doing Business in Barbour County," by Barbara Smith, is the story of a department store and the family who ran it, photos included; "24 Tons Was Enough: Gene McGraw Recalls Old-Time Mining," by Andy Yale, describes a miner's life and work in the early years of mining, photos included; "Buying on Time: A 1920's Couple Sets Up Housekeeping," by Lorna Chamberlain, tells of a young pair in Wellsburg and their early homelife, photos included; "Wheeling West Virginia -- No Comma: A Postcard Pun," by Louis E. Keefer, describes humorous postcards about the Ohio River town, photos included; "Drillers, Shooters and Roustabouts: Oil at Dunkard Ridge," by Donna M. Weems and Norma Jean Venable, discusses the oil boom in Monongalia County, photos included; "John Hardy: The Man and the Song," by Richard Ramella, describes an 1894 hanging and the folk song about the event, photos included; "Wall of China: Recalling the Greatest Dump in the World," by Bob Barnett, describes the large Newell Park dump close to Homer Laughlin, photos included; "Long Enough and Strong Enough: The Winning Liars from Vandalia 1991," the stories performed at last year's Vandalia gathering.
HACKER'S CREEK JOURNAL (9:1, Fall 1990) "Brierpoint Cemetery," also known as the old Smith Cemetery, inventories gravestone readings from the cemetery located near the Roanoke boat dock of Stonewall Jackson Lake; "Jacksonville Cemetery," by Hartzell G. Strader, lists names found in the cemetery near Walkersville; "The Life and Times of John Theodore Schiefer," by William Foster Hayes III, continued from a previous issue; "The First Twenty Years of Johann Michael Busch's Family," by Philip E. Bush, outlines the German origins of the Bush family, footnotes; "Some Curtis Revelations," by Patricia L. Curtis Wiggins, provides a sketch of the Curtis migration to Lewis County; "Soldiers and Public Service in Dunmore's War," transcribes by Dennis B. Rogers and Ed Schoolcraft, contains a selections of companies serving in this conflict. (9:2, Winter 1991) "Yesteryears," by Bill Adler, is a reprint detailing the Waggoner family massacre as contained in the obituary of a Mrs. Elizabeth Hardman; "Jonathan Coburn II and His Family," by Mona J. Mattingly, traces the Coburn descendants from Augusta County to Jesse's Run, footnotes; "The Kesling Family," by Hartzel G. Strader, includes information from county court records; "The Life and Times of John Theodore Schiefer," by William Foster Hayes III, continued from a previous issue.
(9:3, Spring 1991) "The Life and Times of John Theodore Schiefer," by William Foster Hayes III, continued from a previous issue; "Fairview School," by Maurice L. Allman, recounts the experiences of a former pupil; "Elizabeth," by Linda Brake Meyers, is a sketch of the Brake family, footnotes; "Joseph Bennett of Pendleton County," includes his will appraisement bill and inventory; "The Family Trunk," by James and Vicki Mitchell, are transcripts of the deed agreements of John Godfrey.
(9:4, Summer 1991) "The Nebraska Branch of Hackers," by Eleanor and Ruth Hacker, outlines the relationship of this western branch of the Hacker family to those in West Virginia; "Indian Captives and Colonel Bouquet/Boquet," by Joy Gregoire Gilchrist, provides an overview of Colonel Bouquet's 1763-64 march to Tuscarora, Ohio, to secure the release of captives, with a reprint of a 1764 Pennsylvania Journal & Weekly Advertiser article listing the returned captives; "Honesty Isn't Always the Policy," by Ruth Strother, describes the Revolutionary War service of Lewis County resident Mark Smith; "The Life and Times of John Theodore Schiefer (1830-1869) Lewis County Hero -- Civil War Tragedy. Part X," by William Foster Hayes III, details the movements of Company B, 15th West Virginia Infantry for the first six months of the 1864; "One Hundred Twenty Fifth Anniversary of Smith Run Methodist Church," includes a brief history and a list of pastors who have served there.
(10:1, Fall 1991) "Abstracts from Lewis County Minute Book -- 1819," selected pages copied from the WPA edition; "The Jackson Influence," by Linda Brake Meyers, traces the life of Eliza Cummins Jackson, grandmother of Thomas J. Jackson, footnotes; "Hardesty Corrected Strange Hall," submitted by Robert B. Smith, is a reprint of an article clarifying the identities of the Bennett brothers of Skin Creek; "The German Origins of Henry Flesher," by David Armstrong, discusses the immigration process of the 1750s; "Militia From Hacker's Creek Area in Dunmore's War -- 1774," by Earl D. Balsley, is compiled from payroll lists; "Hinkle Fort in Pendleton County, West Virginia, by Mrs. Elsie Byrd Boggs, discusses the genealogy of the John Justus Hinkle, Sr. family; "The Life and Times of John Theodore Schiefer," by William Foster Hayes III, continued from a previous issue.
(10:2, Winter 1992) "Civil Ward Days of Mrs. Virginia Jackson Marshall," by Nancy Jackson, includes a reprint of a 1936 article outlining the life of Mrs. Jackson; "John Hacker, the Pioneer and His Family," focuses on events which occurred as the Hackers moved west; "The Life and Times of John Theodore Schiefer," by William Foster Hayes III, continued from a previous issue; "Indian Attack Takes Settlers by Surprise," by Louise Zimmer, reprint relates Tecumseh's ambush of the Carpenter party; "early Ministries of Upshur County," is a list of ministers and their churches; "Broad Run Baptist church," by Ms. Pauline Beeghley, outlines the history of the church from its 1804 beginnings; "The Heckert Pioneers of Troy and Cox's Mills," by Kyle Emerson and C. W. Heckert, traces the family history into the twentieth century; "The `Currence Fort' at Mill Creek: Proof That It Never Existed," by David Armstrong, discusses the evidence concerning the Mill Creek Fort.
HARRISON COUNTY GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY (Summer 1991) "Harrison County, W. Va., Births Book," continued from a previous issue; "Olive Branch Cemetery," provides names on the gravestones from this Sardis District cemetery; "Harrison County Veterans Historical Project Book I," continued from a previous issue; "Yoho," by Verna B. Riggs, is an excerpt from the Yoho and Morris Family History; "The Story of Esau," by Genevieve C. Wallet, relates the story of Colonel Benjamin Wilson's slave; "Newspaper Clippings," from Dr. Greer's family papers.
HARRISON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY (Fall 1991) "Fathers and Sons," by Dorothy Davis, provides a history of the Samuel Preston Moore family, early nineteenth-century residents of Clarksburg.
(Spring 1992) "Isaac Costin and the Empire Laundry," by Dorothy Davis, offers a biographical sketch of this Clarksburg resident and describes his business activities.
HERITAGE OF MINGO (7:2, Fall/Winter 1991) "Glanden Cemetery," inventories names found in the cemetery at Baisden; "Melvin Lee (Bug) White Cemetery," provides names from the cemetery at Lenore; "Coal House Building," gives a brief history of this unusual building at Williamson; "How Tug River Got Its Name," by Amanda Meade Brewer, recounts the tradition of the Sandy Creek Expedition; "Yarns from Yesterday," by C. T. Mitchell, contains several newspaper items regarding the Thomas Patrick Lowe family; "Elijah L. Ferrell Family Cemetery," by M. Elizabeth Ferrell, includes names from the newer part of the cemetery; "Murphy Cemetery," is a list of names found on gravestones near Kermit.
HERITAGE WINDOWS (7:1, January 1991) "Tyler County Star," transcribed by Hilda M. Anderson, contains scattered items from this Middlebourne newspaper from the winter of 1891; "Tyler County Marriages, Book 2," copied by Hilda Hays Wright, continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Births, Book 1," copied by E. Tennant, continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Deaths," copied by Hilda M. Anderson, continued from a previous issue; "General Index to Wills," copied by Hilda Hays Wright, continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Directory, Vol. 1, 1905," copied by Hilda M. Anderson, continued from a previous issue.
(7:2, April 1991) "Pop and the Civil War," by Irvin Elder, recounts his father's memories of the Civil War; "Tyler County Star," transcribed by Hilda M. Anderson, includes items from the spring of 1891 found in this local newspaper; "Tyler County Marriages, Book 2," copied by Hilda Hays Wright, continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Births, Book 1," copied by E. Tennant, continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Deaths," copied by Hilda M. Anderson, continued from a previous issue; "General Index to Wills," copied by Hilda Hays Wright, continued from a previous issue.
(7:4, October 1991) "Tyler County Star," transcribed by Hilda M. Anderson, offers news items from May 25, 1911, including an article about the Tyler Brick & Tile Company's plant in Middlebourne; "Tyler County Marriages, Book 2," copied by Hilda Hays Wright, continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Births, Book 1," copied by E. Tennant, continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Deaths," copied by Hilda M. Anderson, continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Directory, Vol. 1," copied by Hilda M. Anderson, continued from a previous issue.
(8:1, January 1992) "Dedication of the New Methodist Episcopal Church," is a reprint of an 1892 article in the Tyler County Star; "Tyler County Star," information gleaned from the first three months of 1892 include court officers, school reports, obituaries and news of local residents; "Tyler County Marriages," transcribed by Hilda Hays Wright, Book 2, page 21 (1868) continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Deaths," transcribed by Hilda M. Anderson, Book 1 (1885-86), continued from a previous issue; "Tyler County Directory," by Hilda M. Anderson, Volume 1 (1905), continued from a previous issue.
JOURNAL OF THE BRAXTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY (19:4, December 1991) "The Humphreys Family," by William Bradley Humphreys, provides a brief family history with special emphasis on Milton W. Humphreys, includes letters dated 1866-71 from Washington College to his brothers in Sutton, with reference to the day of Robert E. Lee's death.
(20:1, March 1992) "The Hickman Family," by Jeniver James Jones, contains information compiled from several sources; "The Record of the William K. Singleton Family," by Jessie Singleton Maxwell, provides birth and death dates for family members.
JOURNAL OF THE KANAWHA VALLEY GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY (15:1, January-February 1991) "History of the 315th Field Artillery," continued from a previous issue; "Kanawha Land Records, Book A," continued from a previous issue; "Ancient Charters," reprints the second charter to the Treasurer & Company of Virginia in 1609 with the names of those coming to Virginia, to be continued; "Expeditions Against the Cherokee Indians," lists the men enlisted in William Christian's battalion; "Beulah Baptist Church Cemetery," by Richard Marks, lists the names found in this Ohio church whose cemetery faces Huntington from across the river; "Jordan Cemetery," inventories names found in this cemetery in Poca District.
(15:2, March-April 1991) "Ancient Charters," continued from a previous issue; "Henry County, Virginia," lists those males over sixteen who took the oath of allegiance; "Stone Bible," reprints names found in a family Bible presented to its original owner in 1817; "Kanawha Land Records, Book A," continued from a previous issue.
(15:3, May-June 1991) "Sunday Exponent-Telegram," reprints articles from 1933 including names and records contained in the Simers, Regester, Lamb, Shuttlesworth, Davis and Miller family Bibles; "Kanawha County Land Records," continued from a previous issue; "Fayette County, West Virginia," reprints a Shirley Donnelly column about Ansted and Westlake Cemetery; "Holston Settlements of Southwest Virginia," lists those from the Holston area who petitioned Rev. Charles Cummings at the 1773 session of the Presbytery; "Captain Rowland's Company," provides a roster of men called to defend against the British and Indians; "List of the Confederate Dead," by Edith M. Proctor, concluded from a previous issue.
(15:4, July-August 1991) "Union Memorial Cemetery," by Christos Christov, Jr., lists the names in this cemetery found in Milton, Cabell County; "Kanawha County, (West) Virginia Land Records, Book A," continued from a previous issue; "History of the New Haven Post Office," by George Cleaton Wilding, is a reprint of a 1925 article; "Burford Cemetery," by George Thomas," documents names found on these gravestones; "Board Cemetery, Clendenin, West Virginia," by Richard and Marietta Barrett.
(15:5, September-October 1991) "Ensminger Ancestors," by Maxine Swango, traces the family migration into Monroe County; "Teays Valley Cemetery," by Ruth C. Renfro, provides names for both marked and unmarked graves; "Spurlock Family Cemetery," by Cindy Begley, records names from this plot near Huntington; "Kanawha County Land Book 1787," by Helen Stinson, is an alphabetical list of persons owning property; "Jones Cemetery on Martin's Branch," by Billing Redding Lewis, offers annotated lists from two Jones cemeteries; "Jones Cemetery," by Richard F. Legg, inventories gravestones found in Poca District, Kanawha County; "Jackson Family," reprints an article documenting the old family Bible; "St. Albans, Kanawha County, West Virginia," is a reprint in a series by Shirley Donnelly.
(15:6, November-December 1991) "Kanawha Land records -- Deed Book A," concluded in this issue; "Membership and Surnames," provides a surname index for names searched as of November 1991; "Legg Cemetery," lists names found in this Martin's Branch District Cemetery; "Legg Cemetery," provides gravestone list from the Legg Family Cemetery in Poca District.
(16:1, Spring 1992) "Yoder-Mosteller Cemetery," By Carol Sue Gradey and Christi Lynn Mosteller, provides the names found in the Coal River Road Cemetery; "Jones Family Cemetery," by Raphael S. Cavender, lists the eight graves on Coopers Creek Road; "Nicholas Cemetery," by Charlotte White Fowlar, lists names found on the gravestones of this cemetery near Haynes Branch; "Mayors of Charleston, WV," lists the names and years in office for Charleston mayors from 1861 to 1991; "Kanawha Riflemen C.S.A.," is a roster of those who served in this military unit; "Kanawha Riflemen Biographies," is a reprint from Laidley's History of Kanawha County of several riflemen; "Index to Laidley's History of Kanawha County," is an alphabetical list of names to be found in the 1911 county history.
THE KYOWVA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER (14:1, Spring 1991) "Barboursville Town Cemetery," inventories names found in this community cemetery; "The Enslows," provides some information about this influential Huntington family; "Cabell County, West Virginia (Virginia) Marriages, 1809-1825," is alphabetized by groom's name.
(14:4, Winter 1991) "Cabell County Virginia (W. Va.) Marriages, 1836-1839," compiled by Ernestine Hippert, arranged chronologically and alphabetically; "Cabell County (WV) Milton-Barboursville Directory, 1929," covers Barboursville Rural Route and Ona.
(15:1, spring 1992) "Life in Early Cabell County (VA/WV)," compiled by Violet Hysell, includes a nineteenth-century interview with John W. Blake; "Abstracts of Deed Books I & II 1808-1819," continued from a previous issue; "Civil War Veterans," is a list of those veterans living in Cabell County in 1890; "Milton-Barboursville Directory, 1929," is a reprint of the list of Milton Rural Route residents in 1929.
LEDGER OF GENEALOGY (8:4, December 1991) "1793 Kanawha Co., Virginia, Tithable List," provides alphabetical listing of tithable individuals; "14th Virginia Cavalry C.S.A. Roster," continued from a previous issue, includes some information for each soldier; "Early Kanawha County, Virginia, Court Records," contains the transcription of the October 5 and 6, 1789, session of court officers listed; "Early Settlers in Wood County, Virginia, 1772-1778," by Donald F. Black, chronological and alphabetical listings; "Strange Creek Cemetery," provides names for this cemetery between Gassaway and Ivydale; "WV Union Veteran Civil War Medals," concluded from a previous issue.
(9:1, March 1992) "John Young, Lieutenant at Elk," by Orton Jones, is the first installment of a series beginning with the arrival of the Jungs from Germany and John's early military career; "Harrison County, Virginia, Heads of Families -- 1785," provides a list of contemporary residents; "Buckingham County, Virginia, Marriages 1784-1794," contains a list of the few remaining marriage bonds; "Kanawha County Tax List of 1809," includes names from present-day Braxton, Clay, Fayette, Nicholas and Webster counties; "14th Virginia Cavalry C.S.A. Roster," continued from a previous issue.
THE LOG TRAIN (8:1, January 1991) "Living in a Mill Town," by J. Roy Lipscomb, recollections of life in a small West Virginia lumber town at the turn of the century.
(8:4, April 1991) "Buffalo Creek & Gauley in the Early 1960s," by William W. Warden, Jr., records in photographs the final phase of this railroad; "Lingerwood Steam Skidding at Meadow River Lumber, 1916," by Andrew Larson, is a reprint which includes original drawings, photographs and captions.
MAGAZINE OF THE JEFFERSON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY (December 1991) "Rezin Davis Shepherd, III (R. D. MacLean): He Loved Shakespeare as His Life," by Jack Peyrouse, offers a biography of an actor whose family has long been associated with Jefferson County, footnotes; "The Jones Family: Stonemasons of Shepherdstown," by Elizabeth Snyder Lowe and Marianne Johnson, includes a partial list of buildings built be Charlie Jones and his five sons; "Provenance of the Twenty-five Confederate Battle-Markers," discusses the origins of the Jefferson County monuments.
MERCER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER (October 1991) "Mercer County Courthouse History," by John Maxey, provides a sketch of early court history.
MORGAN COUNTY HISTORICAL & GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER (November 1991) "Grand Army of the Republic," lists persons from Morgan County.
NICHOLAS COUNTY HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY (December 1991) "Happenings in 1885," contains items from the Nicholas County Chronicle.
(February 1992) "History of the Morris Girls," by Paul J. Summers, provides the first chapter of this legend as remembered by the Morris family.
(April 1992) "History of the Morris Girls," by Paul J. Summers, continued from a previous issue.
NORTHWEST OHIO QUARTERLY (63:1 & 2, Winter/Spring 1991) "Civil War Letters of Arlington Dunn, 123rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry," edited by Richard L. Manion, recounts the experiences of a Union soldier in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
NOW AND THEN (8:1, Spring 1991) "Southern Skiing," by Mary Alice Basconi, describes the tourist business and the resorts of West Virginia ski areas.
(8:3, Fall 1991) "The Hills Meet Hollywood," by Pat Arnow, a guide to films about Appalachia, many about or made in West Virginia.
NOW AND THEN [Clay County Landmarks Commission and Historical Society] (Fall 1991) "In Search of Charlotte McKee," by Rev. Albert Elswick, continues research regarding an early Clay County ancestor; "Hayhurst Cemetery," found in a 1937 records survey lists gravestones in the Marion County cemetery; "Lives of Father and Son Cover History of Nation," is a reprint of a 1934 article from the Charleston Gazette concerning Kanawha County pioneer resident David Crocker Summers, son of Jehue Summers.
PALIMPSEST (72:1, Spring 1991) "Henry Tanner and Booker T. Washington," by Jack Lufkin, story of the famous black artist and his portrait of Booker T. Washington; "The Story of Ann Raley: Mother of the Coppoc Boys," by Richard Acton, describes the family of one of John Brown's cohorts.
POCAHONTAS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY (May 1989) "Main Street in Marlinton," provides information concerning the history of buildings along the street.
PROLOGUE (23:2, Summer 1991) "Not Without Protest: Life in the Appalachian Coalfields," by Lisa Benkurt Auel, describes the living conditions and unionization efforts in the coalfields, photos included.
RITCHIE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER (18:4, October-December 1990) "Hazelgreen Cemetery," by Mrs. Paul Hamilton, continued from a previous issue.
(19:1, January-March 1991) "The Northwestern Turnpike," by David M. Scott, outlines the creation and probable route of this early all-Virginia highway from Winchester to Parkersburg, map; "Census of Pensioners," continued from a previous issue.
(19:2, April-June 1991) "Frederick Cemetery," by Frances C. Frederick and Donna E. Davis, lists the names from the cemetery on Fonzo Road; "Cunningham Cemetery," by Frances C. Frederick and Lillian Cunningham, includes annotated list of gravestone readings from a cemetery near Smithville; "Barker Cemetery," by Frances C. Frederick and Nancy Knight, is an annotated list of names from this Prunty Road gravesite; "Webb Cemetery," contains gravestone readings from the cemetery west of Smithville.
(19:4, October-December 1991) "Gleanings, by Maggie Wilson, includes two entries from the Ritchie County Road Orders, Book 1 and items of interest found in the minutes of Harrisville town council meetings, such as the dates of telephone and electric power installation in this community.
(20:1, January-March 1992) "The Old Stone House," discusses the origins and evolution of Ritchie County's oldest landmark.
TAYLOR COUNTY IN PROFILE (7:4, December 1991) "Roll Call of Co. H 12th Reg of West Virginia," as recorded by A. G. Hull, lists those present at Camp Russell near Kearnstown, Virginia, on November 21, 1864.
UP AND DOWN THE VALLEY (March 1992) "A 2000 Year Debate Continues: Hamilton and Jefferson," contains a brief explanation of the philosophical and political viewpoints implied in the terms "Hamiltonian" and Jeffersonian" in current usage.
THE UPSHUR COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY (6:2, Summer 1990) "Telephone Directory," lists Upshur County residents in the first directory of the Peoples United telephone System of West Virginia (January 1906).
(7:1, Fall 1991) "Early Glassmaking in Upshur County," provides a brief word about some early twentieth-century companies.
VANDALIA JOURNAL (January 1991) "Elder Thomas Harmon," reprints letters published in the 1890s by this Cabell County missionary.
(April 1991) "The Children of John Lewis Safreed," traces this Jackson/Putnam County family, includes related court records.
(July 1991) "The Hoge Cemetery," by Rev. James C. Hoge, includes a history of the individuals buried there, footnotes; "Shiverdecker Cemetery," by Nada and Richard Smith, lists names found in this small cemetery near Poca; "Putnam County Communities 1891-1900," by Bill Wintz, offers early names for many Kanawha Valley communities.
(October 1991) "Jackson Cemetery," itemizes the gravestone readings from the cemetery on Eighteen Mile Creek in Putnam County; "The Long Family History," by Paul B. Long, traces the history of the family at Elm Grove.
(January 1992) "County Convention," is a reprint of an item from the August 16, 1876 Putnam Democrat. THE WEBSTER INDEPENDENT (3:2, Fall/Winter 1990) "Another Version of the History of William Given of Bath County, Virginia," By Jeannette Cogar Rhodes, offers an alternative Given lineage, footnotes; "The 1910 Federal Census for Hacker Valley District," with introduction; "A Museum for Webster County," includes information about John Morgan McLaughlin and the house he built in Webster Springs.
WEST AUGUSTA HISTORICAL & GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY (January-February 1991) "Pioneers in Wood County," by John A. House, lists names of county residents in 1800, annotated; "Wood County Cemetery Inscriptions, Vol. IV," continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Marriages," by Wes Cochran, continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Deaths," by Linda Camp, continued from a previous issue; "1910 Census of Wood County (Clay District)," by C. A. Cox, Jr., continued from a previous issue.
(March-April 1991) "1910 Census of Wood County (Clay District)," by C. A. Cox, Jr., continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Deaths," by Linda Camp, continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Marriages," by Wes Cochran, continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Cemetery Inscriptions, Vol. IV," continued from a previous issue; "Pioneers in Wood County," by John A. House, continued from a previous issue.
(May-June 1991) "Pioneers in Wood County," by John A. House, continued from a previous issue; "1910 Census of Wood County (Clay District)," by C. A. Cox, Jr., continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Cemetery Inscriptions, Vol. IV," continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Marriages," by Wes Cochran, continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Deaths," by Linda Camp, continued from a previous issue.
(July-August 1991) "Pioneers in Wood County," by John A. House, continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Deaths," by Linda Camp, continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Cemetery Inscriptions, Vol. IV," continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Marriages," by Wes Cochran, continued from a previous issue; "1910 Census of Wood County (Clay District)," by C. A. Cox, Jr., continued from a previous issue.
(September-October 1991) "Pioneers in Wood County," by John A. House, continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Cemetery Inscriptions, Vol. IV," continued from a previous issue; "Index to Wood County Marriages," indexes material found in previous issues; "Wood County Deaths," by Linda Camp, continued from a previous issue; "1910 Census of Wood County (Clay District)," by C. A. Cox, Jr., continued from a previous issue.
(November-December 1991) "Pioneers in Wood County," by John A. House, continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Cemetery Inscriptions, Vol. IV," continued from a previous issue; "1910 Census of Wood County (Clay District)," by C. A. Cox, Jr., continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Deaths," by Linda Camp, continued from a previous issue.
(January-February 1992) "Index to Wood County Marriages," continued from previous issue; "Wood County Cemetery Inscriptions, Vol. IV," continued from a previous issue; "Wood County Deaths, 1853-1894," by Linda Camp, continued from a previous issue; "1900 Census of Wood County, Union District," by C. A. Cox, Jr., begins a transcription of Union District to be continued in subsequent issues.
WEST VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY (7:2, March 1991) "The Honorable Howard Sutherland: West Virginia's Congressman-at-Large," by Timothy Armstead, discusses the brief position of at-large representative prior to redistricting of 1915.
(7:3, June 1991) "Berkeley County's Historical Decision," by Fredrick H. Armstrong, focuses on the validity of the 1863 cote to become part of West Virginia.
(7:4, September 1991) "Sarah Young's `Little Journal,'" edited by Fredrick H. Armstrong, offers a young woman's view of the conflict as recorded in her Civil War diary.
(8:1, Winter 1991-92) "Cass Gilbert's Vision for West Virginia's Capitol," by Timothy Armstead and Fredrick H. Armstrong," outlines the evolution of site selection, architectural renderings and discussion of Gilbert's decision to gild the dome.
WETZEL COUNTY GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER (February 1991) "Wetzel County Death Records," continued from a previous issue; "H. H. Hardesty's Harrison County," covers the formulation of the county and distinguished individuals; "Marshall County Marriages," continued from a previous issue; "Arlene Cozart's Obituary Collection," continued from a previous issue.
(May 1991) "Wetzel County, West Virginia Marriages 1853-1854," by Rick Toothman, lists marriages not found to be recorded at the courthouse; "Wetzel County Death Records," continued from a previous issue; "H. H. Hardesty's History of Harrison County," continued from a previous issue; "Marshall County Marriages," continued from a previous issue; "Arlene Cozart's Obituary Collection," continued from a previous issue.
(August 1991) "History of the Pan-Handle, Historical Collections of the Counties of Ohio, Brooke, Marshall & Hancock," is a reprint of a brief account of the Wetzel family; "H. H. Hardesty's History of Harrison County," continued from a previous issue; "Marshall County Marriages," continued from a previous issue; "Arlene Cozart's Obituary Collection," continued from a previous issue.
(November 1991) "Presidents, Soldiers, Statesmen," by H. H. Hardesty, continued from a previous issue; "Wetzel County Death Records," continued from a previous issue; "Marshall County Marriages," continued from a previous issue; "Arlene Cozart's Obituary Collection," continued from a previous issue.
(February 1991) "Presidents, Soldiers, Statesmen," by H. H. Hardesty, continued from a previous issue; "Wetzel County Death Records, Jan. 1, 1890 to Dec. 31, 1894," last names R-S, continued from a previous issue; "H. H. Hardesty's History of Harrison County," continued from a previous issue; "Marshall County, WV, Marriages, 1835-1874," continued from a previous issue; "Arlene Cozart's Obituary Collection," continued from a previous issue.