Indiana Magazine of History Band

88 Indiana Magazine of History band. The Indians moved up the Rock River into Wisconsin and attempted to cross the Mississippi at a point near the Bad Axe River. They were surrounded by troops and slaugh- tered while swimming or attempting to gain the water. A few of the Indians succeeded in crossing the Mississippi, and Black Hawk escaped only to be captured by a party of Winnebago and delivered to Col. Zachary Taylor at Prairie du Chien. The so-called war had lasted just fifteen weeks. Black Hawk and the other leaders were held in prison for a while and then released. After a tour of the East, Black Hawk took up his residence near the Iowa River and later moved to the Des Moines, where he died on October 3, 1838. Jackson’s work is certainly the definitive edition of Black Hawk’s autobiography. The format, designed by Ralph Eckerstrom, and the printing, done at the Print Shop of the University of Illinois, are both excellent examples of fine bookmaking. If there is a criticism of the book, it is that Jackson did cot use the large collection of William Clark Papers at the Kansas State Historical Society. These letter- books answer many questions about the British Band. For example, they help to explain why Black Hawk, ranking only as a medicine man and brave, was able to exert so much influence over this band in the spring of 1832. The recognized chiefs, Black Thunder, Na-Moctt, and Ioway, had all died in 1831. (Felix St. Vrain to William Clark, St. Louis, May 28, 1831; Rock Island, April 6, 1832.) Illinois State Museum Wayne C. Temple Culture on the Moving Frontier. By Louis B. Wright. (Bloom- ington : Indiana University Press, 1955, pp. 273. Index. $3.50.) One of the perennial problems of American history is to explain the differences between the European and the American. The major difference is in culture, although that word can have many shades of meaning. To use the word “culture” to describe conditions on the American frontier is perhaps a misuse of the word, yet there was definitely no cultural vacuum, once the European immigrants reached that outer rim of civilization which is usually meant by the word frontier. Frederick Jackson Turner tried to explain the Book Reviews 89 great distinctions of the Americans by the influence of the frontier, but the frontier in his original use implied that the vacuum did exist and that the European had to go as it were through this vacuum to emerge from it an American. Everett Dick seems to be the only one who really tried to prove this extreme thesis of a decline to savagery in his Vanguard of the Frontier (1941). Louis Wright is really using the word “culture” in the better sense as that which flowers in civilization; and he tries in these lectures to show that there were always elements of this old civilization on the English American frontier and that the pioneers were engaged in a constant struggle to increase and to intensify this culture. The culture on the frontier which he makes the subject of his study is that of the eastern seaboard, especially that of New England. He correctly assumes that any culture or civilization worthy of the name would be the English culture in a country that is definitely English-speaking. He takes it for granted that the necessary agents of that culture were the towns and the libraries of the pioneers. In the south where towns were few the aristocracy had to have a person- al or family library. There were books in surprising num- bers on all English frontiers. In nearly every part of the frontier the desire to perpetuate among the children of the pioneers their religious and political faiths was the chief incentive to maintain as much as possible of older cultural patterns which the settlers had learned in the lands from which they came. Wright has given a simple straightforward account in which his purpose is very evident. Unfortunately, he seems to have printed his spoken discourse without reorganization ; the spoken lecture adaptable to an audience is rather shallow on the printed page. Some of his illustrative material, use- ful to relieve the strain of a long lecture, might have been eliminated. He has made an excellent use of the printed materials on the history of the frontier, although he has made these printed witnesses carry more proof than they should. In his desire to mark the progress of this British Protestant culture he has brushed aside the many exceptions, and ‘even understated the wide divergencies of religion that developed on the frontier among the sects. Nevertheless, he has stated in clear fashion the most important facts about the frontier and about the developments immediately after the advance 90 Indiana Magazine of History of the frontier. This dominant American culture is essentially the culture of England modified by frontier conditions. To develop this theme over the whole history of the American frontier was too great a task for four lectures, however pleasant they were to hear; the book suffers from this and from the fact that he has derived many of his ideas from secondary sources. (This disappointment is realized only by reading the footnotes hidden in the back of the book.) But he has spoken well on a theme that needs a more rigorous and more extended study by American historians. University of Notre Dame Thomas T. McAvoy Machines of Plenty: Pioneering in American Agriculture. By Stewart H. Holbrook. (New York: The Macmillan Com- pany, 1955, pp. 246. Illustrations, bibliography, and index. $4.00.) Reversing the slogan of the famous wagon-makers, this attractively designed and illustrated volume provides much less in scope and content than its title promises. Instead of the naturally expected history of farm mechanization, the reader is presented with a smattering sketch of the career and times of Jerome Increase Case and the industry which he founded. The book thus belongs to the genre of promotive business histories, whether presented directly as such or under more general guise. Inevitably this sort of history does not lend itself to critical objectivity. J. I. C. seldom made mistakes and when he did he invariably profited by them. Competitors were un- fair in selling practices, but, apparently, not the Cases. The prevailing tone is wholly in accord with the conservative revisionist appreciative reappraisal of capitalists and capital- ism. However, Holbrook’s conservatism in matter is in sharp contrast to his aberrational manner of presentation. In or- ganization and expression he flouts elementary standards of composition to say nothing of the accepted usages of historical writing. After the fashion of writers of popular fiction, he separates the divisions of his narration merely by number, with no organizational titles. This noncommittal arrange- ment, no doubt, has the advantage, in the author’s design, .

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