(ISSN 0043-6534)

WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

The State Historical Society ofWisconsin • Vol. 72, No. 4 • Summer, 1989

'W»«>' N 1 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN H. NICHOLAS MULLER III, Director Officers MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR., President GERALD D. VISTE, Treasurer Gf.ov.Gt.H.Miixx.fi, First Vice-President H. NICHOLAS MULLER III, Secretory MRS. B. L. BERNHARDT, Second Vice-President

THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846-two years before statehood-and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and disseminating knowledge ofWisconsin and of the trans-Allegheny West. The Society serves as the archive of the State of Wisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspaf)ers, and aural and graphic materials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and research facility in Madison as well as a statewide system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and pwpular.

MEMBERSHIP in the Society is of>en to the public. Individual membership (one fjerson) is $25. Household or ContrUmting membership (one or two fjersons) is $45. Supporting membership is $100. Sustaining membership is $250. A Patron contributes $500 or more. A member of any organization sup(K)rting the advancement of history (e.g., local historical societies, museums, Wisconsin Trust for Historic Preservation, genealogical and/or archeological societies, etc.) can receive a $5 discount at any level. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board of Curators which includes twenty-four elected members, the Governor or desigfnee, three appointees of the Governor, a legislator from the majority and minority from each house, and ex officio, the President of the University of Wisconsin System, the designee of the Friends Coordinating Council, the President of the Wisconsin History Foundation, Inc., and the President of the Administrative Committee of the Wisconsin Council for Local History. A complete listing of the Curators app>ears inside the back cover.

The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, at the juncture of State and Park streets on the University of Wisconsin campus. The State Historical Museum is located at 30 North Carroll Street. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows:

General Administration 262-3266 Library circulation desk 262-3421 Affiliated local societies 262-2316 Maps 262-5867 Archives reading room 262-3338 Membership 262-9613 Contribution of manuscript materials 262-3248 Microforms reading room 262-9621 Editorial offices 262-9603 Museum tours 262-7700 Film collections 262-0585 Newspapers reference 262-9584 Genealogical and general reference inquiries . 262-9590 Picture and sound collections 262-9581 Government publications and reference 262-2781 Public information office 262-9606 Historic preservation 262-1339 Salesdesk 262-8000 Historic sites 262-9606 School services 262-7539 Hours of operation 262-8060 Speakers bureau 262-9606

ON THE COVER: An artist's rendering of how Frank Lloyd Wright's 1893 boathouse design for Madison's Lake Monona might took today as part of a proposed civic marina development. The rendering departs from the design especially with respect to the corner pavilions, which project too far from the facade. The Evjue Foundation and The Capital Times have offered to build the structure as a gift to the city, should the marina be approved. The boathouse would stand on the site for which it was designed and would be used as a boat-rental office, exhibit gallery, viewing pavilion, and meeting space. The story of Wright's boathouse designs for Lakes Mendota and Monona begins on page 273. Rendering and color separations courtesy The CapitalTimes. Volume 72, Number 4 / Summer, 1989 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

Published quarterly by the State Historical Society ofWisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison, From Cooksville to Chungking: Wisconsin 53706. Distributed The Dam-Designing Career of to members as part of their dues. (Individual membership, John L. Savage 243 $25; senior citizen individual Benjamin D. Rhodes membership, $20; family senior citizen individual, $20; family, $30; senior citizen family, $25; supporting, $100; sustaining, $250; patron, $500 or more.) Frank Lloyd Wright's 1893 Boathouse Designs Single numbers from Volume for Madison's Lakes 273 57 forward are $2. Microfilmed John O. Holzhueter copies available through University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106; reprints of Volumes 1 through 20 and The Northwest Ordinance and most issues of Volumes 21 Regional Identity 293 through 56 are available from Kraus Reprint Company, Peter S. Onuf Route 100, Millwood, New York 10546. Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Book Reviews 305 Society does not assume responsibility for statements Book Review Index 312 made by contributors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin. Accessions 313 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wisconsin Magazine Wisconsin History Checklist 317 of History, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Copyright © 1989 by Contributors 319 the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Magazine of History is indexed annually by the editors; cumulative indexes are assembled decennially. In addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, Historical Abstracts, Index to Literature on the American Indian, and the Combined Retrospective Index tofoumals in Editor History, 1838-1974. PAUL H. HASS Photographs identified with WHi negative numbers are Associate Editors from the Historical Society's collections. WILLIAM C. MARTEN JOHN O. HOLZHUETER I'l .. .11111, ll, The Hoover Dam and Lake Mead with a nearly full reservoir in June, 1982. Lake Mead extends 110 miles upstream into the lower end of the Grand Canyon and has a shoreline of 822 miles when full Photograph by E. E. Hertzog. This and the other photographs in this article which do not have WHi negative numbers are reproduced courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation. From Cooksville to Chungking: The Dam-Designing Career of John L. Savage

By Benjamin D. Rhodes

first met John L. Savage in the fall The John L. Savage I met that day and I of 1948 when I was a boy of twelve came to know over the next few years fell a bit and hadjust moved to Denver, Colorado. My short of my youthful expectations. He was al­ grandmother and Savage were first cousins most six feet tall with short white hair, blue and "Uncle Jack," almost seventy and a wid­ eyes, and rimless glasses. But he was com­ ower, was invited to Sunday dinner, the first of pletely unassuming and hardly projected the many such family occasions. Before he ar­ personality of a man who had risen to the top rived, I learned that Savage had grown up in of his profession and had traveled the globe. Cooksville, Wisconsin, and had been trained He spoke in a soft voice through partially as a civil engineer at the University ofWiscon­ clenched teeth without perceptibly moving his sin. At the time I first met him. Savage was a lips. Most of his conversation dealt with ordi­ private consulting engineer. Two and a half nary subjects of the day rather than his engi­ years previously he had retired as the chief de­ neering accomplishments: the weather and signing engineer of the Bureau of Reclama­ traffic, the regretable outcome of the presi­ tion, whose engineering offices were in Den­ dential election, his difficulty in adjusting to a ver. In that position he had supervised the new pair of bifocal glasses, and his folly in hav­ design of such projects as the Hoover Dam, ing purchased a Lincoln Continental with a V- the Grand Coulee Dam, the Parker Dam, the 12 engine which gave constant mechanical Imperial Dam, the Davis Dam, the Shasta trouble. What he said was pleasant, low-keyed, Dam, the Norris and Wheeler Dams (for the and not particularly animated or humorous.' Tennessee Valley Authority), and the pro­ From my perspective. Uncle Jack seemed a posed Yangtze Gorge Dam in China. The normal person for his age with normal inter­ Boulder Dam (the name was changed to ests. He was not, as several writers have Hoover Dam in 1947) was familiar to me be­ claimed, a man so abnormally absorbed with cause I had a View Master three-dimensional his work that he had no outside interests or photographic disc depicting its construction. hobbies whatsoever. On his travels to the Ori­ At the time, however, I was unclear about its ent he had collected numerous decorations, location and thought it was somewhere near objects of art, and pieces of furniture which Boulder, Colorado, instead of Boulder City, Nevada. I was also aware, from having seen an artist's rendition in the press, that Savage had 'See L. Vaughn Downs, The Mightiest of Them All: Mem­ designed the world's largest dam which was to ories of Grand Coulee Dam (Fairfield, Washington, 1986). be built some day on the Yangtze River in Downs (who was married to Savage's niece) recalls on page China. I looked forward to meeting such a 35 that when Savage and engineer Fred Sharkey drove to a nearby dam "they got to telling jokes and laughed so prominent person. hard that Fred almost wrecked the car. ..."

Copyright © J 989 by The State Historical Society ofWisconsin 243 Alt rights of reproduction in any form reserved Courtesy ihe Bureau of Reclamation John L. Savage in China, late in his dam-designing career. were displayed in his home. In a hallway he Only occasionally did dam designing enter had a combination piano and violin contrap­ the conversation. Once, with reference to my tion which was enclosed in a glass case. Some­ newly acquired interest in mountaineering, thing in the mechanism had jammed and Un­ we discussed the need to be alert when clam­ cle Jack said he intended to diagnose and bering over high cliffs—something he had of­ repair the problem during his retirement. An­ ten done in the course of his career. On an­ other project which he planned was to subject other occasion he told briefly of his trips to a fine violin to a scientific analysis to determine Asia and of having met Chiang Kai-shek and the secrets of its tone quality. That he was a Jawaharlal Nehru. His description of Nehru man with normal interests was demonstrated made a particular impression on me because also by his marriage in January, 1950, to Olga Uncle Jack said that in India when a Commu­ Miner, the widow of a colleague. According to nist was discovered, Nehru had him put in jail my grandmother. Uncle Jack had been the and then threw away the key. Only some time surprised recipient (during the ten years he later did I realize that he had been speaking was a widower) of several marriage proposals figuratively. And I recall sitting on a sofa with from women whom he felt would not have Uncle Jack and my sister while we examined shown any interest in him before he became the View Master disc of Hoover Dam, holding prominent. it up to the light and passing it around. With

244 RHODES: JOHN L. SAVAGE great pride and sparkling eyes he described interviewer in 1941, he was just "one of Uncle for us the various geological features and en­ Sam's employees" and had merely been in the gineering structures. But one got the impres­ right place at the right time.^ sion that Uncle Jack was saying, "I worked on From the point of view of his parents, this project with a number of colleagues," not Edwin Parker Savage and Mary Stebbins Sav­ that he meant, "I singlehandedly designed it." age, their son could have chosen a more con­ venient time for making his entry into the world. His birth on Christmas Day, 1879, on a farm near Cooksville must have complicated S a man who valued his personal that day's family festivities. Located in rolling privacy and desired historical A^ tobacco and corn-producing country ten miles anonymity. Savage made the task of anyone west of Edgerton, the unincorporated village who might wish to examine his career as dif­ of Cooksville consisted of solidly constructed ficult as possible. He left no personal papers brick houses which contrasted with the usual which might aid in reconstructing his person­ frame homes of rural Wisconsin. Nearby ality and character. Most of what survives in flowed the meandering Yahara River. (Per­ his own hand consists of technical engineering haps, as a child, Savage observed the several reports and impersonal personnel forms, tiny dams in the vicinity which powered small none of which were very helpful in bringing grist mills.) Until he was seventeen Savage led Jack Savage back to life on paper. To his per­ the pastoral life of a farm boy. His spare time sonal relief, but to our regret, he was not called was usually spent assisting his father in hard, upon to explain and defend his designs in tes­ physical labor. On at least two occasions— timony before congressional committees; that there were probably more—Savage deviated duty fell to such titled officials as the Commis­ from his father's work ethic. Years later he ad- sioner of Reclamation and the Chief Engi­ neer. Had Savage been asked to testify he, no doubt, would have insisted that much of the credit for his efforts belonged to his associates ^Roscoe Fleming, "The Story of John Lucian Savage,' in the Bureau of Reclamation. As he told an in Rocky Mountain News, October 4, 1941.

John L. Savage's homestead in the Cooksville vicinity. Historic Preservation photo

•.^#.^.

^^"^#^ Historic Preservation photo The Isaac Porter brick house in the Cooksville vicinity, 1978. Photo by Nancy Douglas.

mitted to having once shot out the windows of his junior and senior years at Madison High a deserted farmhouse with a slingshot, a crime School. For the next four years he studied civil for which he escaped detection and punish­ engineering at the University of Wisconsin. ment. He was not so fortunate, however, when To make ends meet he spent his summers he decided to play a game of baseball instead working as a surveyor for the United States of following his father's instruction to bring in Geological Survey. For reasons of economy the hay from a distant field. As the game con­ Savage lived at home, and he acquired a repu­ cluded at sunset. Savage unwisely filled his hay tation as a serious student who spent his time wagon from a neighbor's stack. The following studying rather than socializing. His excel­ day his misdeed was discovered and young lence as a student of engineering was recog­ Savage experienced "a painful sequel" at the nized by his election to the honorary society hand of his father. Tau Beta Pi. And, befitting a future dam de­ Savage completed the first eight grades at signer, he produced a senior thesis entided the local country school and Evansville High "The Accuracy of Various Approximate School. During the next two years he attended Methods of Calculating the Stresses in the the Hillside Home School at Spring Green, a Members of a Two-Hinged Arch." Savage's private academy operated by Frank Lloyd chief extracurricular activity was serving for Wright's aunts, Jane and Nell Lloyd Jones. three years on the staff of the school yearbook, They stressed classical studies to prepare their theBadger. In this publication each member of students for college work, and the school en­ the graduating class was honored with a pho­ joyed an excellent reputadon. In 1898 his tograph, a brief list of extracurricular acdvi- family moved to Madison and he completed ties, and the tide of their senior thesis. Finally

246 WHi(X3)23e40 The Home Building of the Hillside Home School, about 1910-1915.

the character of each senior was summarized the challenge of finding employment. A in a satirical and often supercilious quotation. month prior to his graduation he took and His friends on the Badger staff played an in­ passed the federal civil service examination in spired prank on the quiet and studious Savage civil engineering. Probably because it was the when they printed beneath his picture the onlyjob offer he had received, the aspiring en­ phrase, "Women are out of his sphere."^ gineer decided to accept a rather unpromising As the proud possessor of a bachelor's de­ position as an engineering aide in the United gree in civil engineering. Jack Savage—he was States Reclamation Service "Temporary always "Jack" to his friends—next had to face Force" at a salary of only sixty dollars per month.^ In June, 1903, when he received his initial appointment to work on the Minidoka 'Abel Wolman and W. H. Lyles, "John Lucian Sav­ irrigation project in the Snake River Valley of age," in National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs Idaho, Savage could hardly have known that (1978), 49:225. John L. Savage, Personnel Information he was about to begin his life's work. In reality. Sheet,July II, 1940, enclosed in Official Personnel Folder Savage found that government service of­ ofJoh n L. Savage, National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri (hereinafter cited as Savage personnel fered rich opportunities to perform unprece­ file); University of Wisconsin, The Badger: The Book of the dented civil engineering and significant public Class of 1904, p. 114. (In Savage's day the photos of seniors did not appear in the yearbook until the year following their graduation.) An idyllic portrait of Cooksville life and society is contained in Lillian Russell Porter, Choice Seed in the Wilderness: From the Diary of Ann Eliza Bacon Porter, ••Appointment file of John L. Savage, May 11, 1903, Cooksville, Wisconsin, 1845-1890 (Rockland, Maine, 1964). Savage personnel file. 247 WHi(X3)45100

A football game and an art class at Hillside Home School, about 1910-1915.

WHi(X3)45099 »ls,y^^^^

Tf |i Ml i • ^Hfr~%\^ , Jfc^^* m^ 1 n

^•H/ WHi(X3)45103

Above, Bascom Hall, about 1897, from a lantern slide by Louis D. Sumner. Below, the Engineering Building at the University ofWisconsin, about 1900.

WHi(X3)4o096

«.^iJNa!l^El|»lH«3iil&.».»<««, c»»ai»>*ifc j>'V'i 'iSJii WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 service. To him these were more important worst snowstorm and cold wave of the month. considerations than his compensation. Having survived two years in the field. Savage From its origins in the Bitterroot and Teton was transferred to the Boise office of the mountains, the untamed Snake River flowed United States Reclamation Service as an assist­ from Idaho Falls southwesterly through Poca- ant engineer. Already he had earned a reputa­ tello. Twin Falls, and Boise before bending tion as a man with an enormous capacity for northward through Hell's Canyon eventually work; he was also remembered by one associ­ tojoin the Columbia. The Snake River plain of ate as "the worst cook and the worst pistol shot southern Idaho was barren and unproduc­ in the world."^ tive; within a few feet of the river stretched great expanses of sand and sagebrush. The initial objective of the Minidoka project, lo­ cated halfway between Twin Falls and Poca- OR the next eight years Boise was tello, was to construct a rockfill dam and spill­ F Savage's home. As an assistant way. Normally in dam construction it was engineer he was assigned to design irrigation necessary to divert the river around the con­ structures under the direction of supervising struction site. But at Minidoka the dam was engineer D. W. Ross. After just six months built by first dropping large rocks into the Savage was promoted to engineer at $1,800 river; then smaller stones were added until a per year (a $200 increase) and over the next water-tight structure was created. As Lake year and a half his salary advanced to $2,100. Walcott filled behind the Minidoka Dam, the At the same time Savage's work was approv­ water was distributed through canals con­ ingly observed by consulting engineer An­ structed by horse-drawn scrapers. For Savage drew J. Wiley of Boise. Already Wiley had the work of surveying and directing the con­ played a leading role in the design and con­ struction was exhilarating because it produced struction of such major dams as Belle Fourche immediate results of benefit to humanity. (South Dakota), Roosevelt (Arizona), and Sho­ "When I first went out to the Snake River Val­ shone and Pathfinder (Wyoming). He was ley," he later explained, "I saw only a river, about to begin the design of the world's high­ and a lot of wasteland. After the dam was up est dam: the 350-foot Arrowrock Dam, a con­ the land changed. It got water. Farmers crete gravity-arch structure to be built on the moved in to work the soil. Crops grew. Then Boise River. Seeing the need for a skilled as­ came villages and towns. That's why I think sistant, Wiley (in July, 1908) carried out a this is the happiest, most thrilling work in the lightning personnel raid and lured the twenty- world."^ eight-year-old Savage away from his govern­ ment position. From the outset the two engi­ Nevertheless, the performance of field- neers, who shared a common talent and work lacked many of the amenities of civiliza­ similar personalities, established a good work­ tion. Upon his arrival at Minidoka, Savage was ing relationship. Wiley, like his young assist­ greeted by an unseasonable snowstorm and by ant, was shy, averse to publicity, and reluctant a yellow flag in the sagebrush warning of the to speak in public. prevalence of smallpox. Moreover, the men Despite his resignation. Savage maintained camped in tents and bathed in the river; they a close and cordial relationship with the Recla­ formed a polar bear club which required all mation Service. Much of Wiley's practice was members to swim in the Snake River once each as a government consultant, and under his di­ month of the year. On December 31, 1903, a rection Savage designed the Salmon River large audience of co-workers observed Savage Dam, the Swan Falls power plant on the Snake pay his dues to the club when he streaked into River, the Barber power plant on the Boise the water, having procrastinated until the

•"Edgar C. McMechen, "The Billion Dollar Engineer," ^Frederick Haynes Newell, Water Resources: Present and in Reclamation Era (March, 1937), 27:82-84; appointment Future (New Haven, 1920), 135-137, 169-170; Wolman file of John L. Savage, June 16, 1905, Savage personnel and Lyles, "John Lucian Savage," 227. file.

250 Wash. No. 191 An upstream view of the Black Canyon damsite, 1922. Photo courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation.

River, the Oakley Reservoir Dam, and the citing opportunity. In 1915, Secretary of the American Falls power plant. In 1914 the Rec­ Interior Franklin K. Lane approved a plan lamation Service retained Savage as a consult­ submitted by chief of construction Sydney B. ant to design the spillway gates for the Arrow- Williamson for the establishment of an engi­ rock Dam. Under Section 10, Rule II of the neering office in the West. Supported by four civil service regulations his compensation was of the five Reclamation Commissioners (the limited to fifteen dollars a day "when actually fifth did not participate), Williamson recom­ employed." Working in association with Wiley mended that the western office be situated at as his mentor had been the equivalent of a Salt Lake City, Utah. Lane, while accepting the postgraduate education for Savage. As he concept of a western office, then unilaterally later recalled, "A.J. Wiley taught me engi­ announced that the new office would be lo­ neering."^ cated at his first choice, Denver. The main fac­ Soon a reorganization of the Reclamation tor in his decision, he maintained, was the Service presented Savage with a new and ex- proximity of Denver to Washington, D.C., by rail. Williamson, who was appointed chief en­ gineer, headed the early work of the new 'Service record card of John L. Savage, 1903-1943; office. After just six months he was succeeded Savage to Supervising Engineer D. W. Ross, June 2, 1908; by Frank E. Weymouth. A graduate in civil en­ appointment file ofJoh n L. Savage, October 1, 1914,all in gineering of the University of Maine, Wey­ Savage personnel file; Carey Longmire, "Billion-Dollar mouth had joined the Reclamation Service in Dam Builder," in Collier's (April 27, 1946), 117:26-17, 57-59. For Wiley's career see Dictionary of American Biog­ 1902 and had been the construction engineer raphy (^ew Y ork, 1936), 20:212-213. for the Arrowrock Dam near Boise. In that po-

251 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 sition he became familiar with the high quality Study of the irrigation and storage needs of designing work of Savage and Wiley. On June the Imperial Valley, including the location 5, 1916, Weymouth arranged for Savage to and cost of dams. Two years later Arthur P. join the Denver office as its designing engi­ Davis, the director of the Reclamation Service, neer at a yearly salary of $3,600. America's en­ joined by Interior Secretary Albert Fall, rec­ try into World War I the following year did ommended the construction of an ail- not affect his employment status as, at age American canal into the Imperial Valley and a thirty-seven. Savage was too old to be drafted. dam "at or near Boulder Canyon." In April, (Nor were dam designers in great demand on 1922, Representative Phil Swing and Senator the western front!) But just as the war ended. Hiram Johnson, both of California, intro­ Savage did alter his personal status when he duced bills to enact the recommendations con­ married Jesse Burdick Sexsmith of Boise. He tained in the Fall-Davis Report. And, six and "Mary" Savage, who were childless, made months later at Santa Fe, the seven states of their home in an unpretentious frame house the Colorado River basin signed an interstate in the Park Hill district of east Denver. Two compact apportioning the river's flow between blocks away. Savage was able to catch a street­ the upper and lower basins. Over the next six car which connected directly to the offices of and a half years the Swing-Johnson bill and the Reclamation Service in downtown Denver. the ratification of the compact were stalled by His twenty-two-year marriage to Mary, which opposition from Arizona, which regarded the ended with her death in 1940, was among the Boulder Canyon project as a power play de­ happiest periods—personally and profession­ signed to deprive Arizona of its water rights.^ ally—in Savage's life.^ In the interim, the Denver office was as­ In his new position Savage, as a practical signed the task of evaluating potential dam matter, found himself in charge of the design sites and developing a suitable dam design. work of the Reclamation Service, since the ad­ The selection of a dam site was the first order ministrative duties of the chief engineer re­ of business. Initially the granite cliffs of Boul­ quired Weymouth to spend much of his time der Canyon were viewed as the most favorable in the field. During World War I Savage's ef­ location for the proposed structure; an alter­ forts were devoted to the preparation of rou­ native site lay twenty-one miles downstream in tine designs and specifications for irrigation the volcanic breccia of Black Canyon. How­ projects in New Mexico, Utah, Washington, ever, the exact site could only be determined and Wyoming. However, at the conclusion of by conducting exhaustive geological and engi­ the war, a concerted political movement ap­ neering studies. "Jack Dam" Savage was now peared in southern California which de­ in the right place at the right time. manded federal action to control the flood- prone Colorado River and harness its water and power resources. The Californians were determined to avoid a repetition of the disas­ AVAGE first toured the Boulder trous flood of 1905—1907, when the Colorado S Canyon region in the spring of had broken through its levees in Mexico and 1921 when he and A.J. Wiley served on an en­ for eighteen months flowed uncontrolled into gineering board which recommended the the Imperial Valley and the Salton Sea. The construction of a concrete gravity-arch dam at Kinkaid Act, passed in May of 1920, directed the lower of two sites in Boulder Canyon. the Secretary of the Interior to prepare a

'Nealand, "An Administrative History," 25; Develop­ ment of the Imperial Valley [The Fall-Davis Report] (67 Cong., ^Appointment file of John L. Savage, June 5, 1916, 2 sess., Senate Document no. 142, serial 7977, Washing­ Savage personnel file; Dan Nealand (Archivist, National ton, 1922), 21. For the background, see Paul L. Klein- Archives Branch, Denver, Colorado), unpublished paper, sorge, The Boulder Canyon Project: Historical and Economic January, 1985, "An Administrative History: The Office of Aspects (Stanford, 1941), 39-54, Beverly Bowen Moeller, the Chief Engineer, Denver Headquarters Office of the Phil Swing and Boulder Dam (Berkeley, 1971), 5—19, and Bureau of Reclamation, 1915-1943," 1-25; McMechen, Joseph E. Stevens, Hoover Dam: An American Adventure "The Billion Dollar Engineer," 84. (Norman, 1988), 3-27. 252 J1 l*m«d«l«0 K UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR BUREAU OF RECLAMATION \ Jk»mm9rmr COLORADO RIVER BASIN B.ek Springi >s«<''S_ ; OCTOBEK !»74 \ W Y a ivi 1 N Q\ 1 s^„^^^|L m .If . ,_j}« \ , , .. — 1 SCALE IN MILES J» DAM \ V»tn

COL-OPlADa C ' __9r%tm

o i 1 ', I

' M^ob

UTAH

fM E V.

^v»V*4J0 DAMi I IFarmtngton

\ ^oi V«9«

C.Jy tv %v>>

O fiofittaif

A R I ZONA C A L I C F.

\ ^,Spring * "N PHOINIX

\ c::^^ * f^GU(V4 fl^A*

MA? NO. 5(- 3«0-8t Wash No. 03481 Looking Upstream through the channel of the Arizona Spillway, March, 1936. Note the man standing in the channel. Photo by G. Lawrence Ullom, courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation.

Upon his return to Denver, Savage produced general scheme of construction was also dis­ three alternative dam studies of varying cussed whereby rock cofferdams would be heights and thicknesses. Of the three, the built above and below the dam site. Thus, board recommended a curved gravity con­ while the work was in progress, the river crete dam which would stand 739 feet high. would be temporarily diverted through tun­ The power house would be located at the base nels blasted through cliffs on the Arizona side of the dam and its turbines would be supplied of the project. Before making a final decision with water through thirteen steel-lined con­ to build on the Boulder Canyon site. Savage duits eleven feet in diameter. Flood and irriga­ recommended a thorough inspection of the tion water would be released through a spill­ foundation. A minimum of thirty-five holes way located in the Arizona abutment and were to be drilled using rigs equipped with di­ carried back to the river by six tunnels. The amond bits, which would operate from barges dam itself would be composed of individual anchored in the river. Overall the Savage de­ blocks of poured concrete, and later the spaces sign for Boulder Canyon was marked by ex­ between the blocks would be grouted with treme simplicity and conservatism: only water concrete to form a monolithic structure. A for the power plant was to be passed through 254 '^^gger-rodmanbemgloweredoverthenmoftheBlackCanyontogivepointsfortwotransitparties Bcponso to record on horizontal and vertical angles. Photo by B. D. Glaha, April 20, 1932, courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation.

255 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

the dam. All flood and irrigation water would later supervised the construction of the be discharged through outlet valves which, he Hoover Dam. pointed out, "are easily accessible at all times Visually the Weymouth design for Black and are located in the granite abutment en­ Canyon was similar to the present Hoover tirely away from the dam, thereby adding Dam: a 700-foot-tall gravity-arch monolith de­ safety to the main structure."'° signed to withstand stresses of forty tons per Had Savage's Boulder Canyon design been square foot. Although Savage considered the constructed it would have been more than Weymouth dam "a safe structure," he re­ twice the height of any dam in the world (and garded the design to be incomplete. One it would have been twelve and a half feet shortcoming of the Weymouth plan was that it higher than the eventual Hoover Dam). At the provided inadequate diversion capacity dur­ time. Savage could not have foreseen that the ing the construction phase. Moreover, he Reclamation Service would soon abandon questioned whether it was wise to locate all the Boulder Canyon in favor of a new location outlet conduits in the body of the dam because twenty-one miles downstream. Yet the prelim­ of the danger of high-pressure leaks caused by inary Boulder Canyon designs were hardly a cracked conduit linings. Above all. Savage study in futility. Seven years later, when he questioned the lack of any provision for a spill­ was called upon to design a dam in Black Can­ way. Optimistically—too optimistically in Sav­ yon, Savage applied to that structure many of age's opinion—the Weymouth design as­ the same concepts he had used in his earlier sumed that the dam would be able to survive in studies for Boulder Canyon. the event an unexpected flood caused water to By the spring of 1923 diamond drilling at spill over the crest of the structure. As a pre­ Black Canyon was finally complete. The liminary design the Weymouth plan served its weight of the geological and engineering evi­ purpose of providing ideas and estimates, but dence demonstrated to Savage and his Denver it was not a finished product." colleagues that the Black Canyon site would be For the next four years design work on the more accessible for purposes of construction. Colorado River project marked time as the And, most important of all, for the same reser­ Swing-Johnson bill languished in Congress. In voir capacity a dam in Black Canyon would be the meantime Savage and his Denver col­ less costly than one in Boulder Canyon. The leagues developed a new and more sophisti­ Bureau of Reclamation (the name of the cated method for analyzing concrete arch agency was changed in 1923) formally en­ dams. Prior to 1923 the Reclamation Service dorsed the Black Canyon site in the Wey­ had calculated stresses in arch dams by deter­ mouth Report of 1924, named after chief en­ mining mathematically the vertical and hori­ gineer Weymouth. The report itself, zontal pressures existing in a centrally located consisting of eight typewritten volumes, was section of the concrete. An assumption was completed by the Denver office under great then made that similar stresses existed in other pressure, but it was not considered sufficiently parts of the structure. The chief weakness of complete to be issued as a public document. the traditional method was that inconsisten­ Savage, although he now was entitled chief de­ cies were frequently found between the signing engineer, played only a supervisory stresses predicted by theory and those actually role in the preliminary design contained in the measured once a dam was completed. Savage's Weymouth Report; that design was hurriedly drawn up for estimating purposes by Wey­ mouth and engineer Walker R. Young, who "Excerpts from the Weymouth Report are printed in Colorado River Development: Colorado River Investigations [of] Water Storage and Power Development Grand Canyon to the Im­ perial Valley (70 Cong., 2 sess., Senate Document no. 186, ^"Development of the Imperial Valley, Appendix A, 22— serial 8989, Washington, 1929), 99-144; J. L. Savage, 28; Savage to Weymouth, December 8, 1921, box 123, "Revised Plan for Boulder Canyon Dam and Power Plant, LJnited States Reclamation Service, Records of the Office Memorandum to Colorado River Board," November 24, of the Chief Engineer, Denver, Colorado, RG 115, Na­ 1928, Bureau of Reclamation, Colorado River Project, file tional Archives, IDenver Branch (hereinafter cited as NA/ no. 301.1-B, RG 115, National Archives, Washington, Denver). D.C. (hereinafter cited as NA).

256 P45-301-1583NA Workmen going on shift at the Hoover Dam in a skip operated by Six Companies, Inc., Cableway, March 26, 1933. Photo byB.D. Glaha, courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation.

257 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 trial-load technique expanded the mathemati­ chief engineer Raymond F. Walter emphati­ cal analysis to cover a detailed cross-section of cally urged Secretary of the Interior Hubert the dam at many different elevations. At the Work to approve an emergency salary infu­ same time, the new method of analysis sought sion of $7,800 for the Denver office. Walter to take into account such factors as uplift upon explained: "Mr. Savage, who is in close touch the base and horizontal sections of the dam, with his personnel, predicts it will result in tangential shear, twisting forces, the effect of holding practically all the present Denver or­ foundation irregularities, and the stresses ganization." However, when the new salary produced by temperature changes in con­ plan was approved on December 3, depart­ crete. During the period in which the Swing- ment supervisors were excluded. Not until the Johnson bill was bottled up in Congress, the summer of 1927 did Savage receive an in­ Denver office experimented successfully with crease to $6,000 a year. But Savage was not the trial-load method in designing the 160- disappointed. "I'm not a very good business­ foot Deadwood Dam in Idaho, the 200-foot man," he told one interviewer. "The Bureau Gibson Dam in Montana, and the 405-foot gave me all my opportunities and I was proud Owyhee Dam in Oregon.'^ of its projects. I don't think I could have been Had salary been the most important consid­ happier anywhere."'^ eration in Savage's life, the development of the trial-load method of analysis could well have been his final contribution as an em­ IS first great engineering op­ ployee of the government. In the fall of 1926 portunity arrived unexpect­ Savage and his Denver colleagues became the H edly in the summer of 1928, and Savage made object of a determined personnel raid by the the most of it. In May, Representative Phil J. G. White Corporation. Frank E. Weymouth, Swing at last succeeded in maneuvering the who had formerly headed the Denver office, Swing-Johnson bill through the House of was now chief engineer of the White Corpora­ Representatives. In the Senate, Hiram John­ tion and was in charge of a major project in son was narrowly thwarted by a filibuster Mexico: the 218-foot Calles Dam near Aquas- mounted by Arizona senators Henry W. calientes. The White Corporation needed ex­ Ashurst and Carl Hayden. However, since the perienced design engineers and Weymouth, Senate was committed to take up the bill as the who was well aware of the modest salary struc­ first item of business in December, its chances ture of the Bureau of Reclamation, knew of passage suddenly appeared favorable. Be­ where they could be found. Within a few fore adjourning for the summer. Congress di­ months the Denver office had lost eight of its rected that the designs of the Bureau of Recla­ engineers to the White Corporation; six of the mation were to be submitted to the review of eight had accepted salaries more than double "five eminent engineers and geologists"; the those paid by the Bureau of Reclamation. Sav­ board was to be known as the Colorado River age himself, who in 1926 was paid $5,600, was Board. Following the recommendations of offered the fabulous annual salary of $12,000 Commissioner Elwood Mead, Secretary of the plus moving expenses to Mexico. The offer Interior Work appointed to the board General must have been a tempting one, for it ex­ William Sibert of the Army Corps of Engi­ ceeded by $3,000 the highest salary Savage neers, Robert Ridgway, the chief engineer of made during his thirty-five years as a govern­ ment employee. To avert a wholesale depar­ ture of the engineering staff to Mexico City, '^"Engineering Employees of the Bureau of Reclama­ tion (Denver Office) Who Have Received Offers from the '^Bureau of Reclamation, Boulder Canyon Project Final J. G. White engineering corporation to work in Mexico," Reports: Trial Load Method of Analyzing Arch Dams (Denver, November 22, 1926 (enclosed in R. F. Walter to Commis­ 1938), 13-24; R. F. Walter, "Preliminary Statement Re­ sioner of Reclamation Elwood Mead, November 23, garding Boulder Dam," in Western Construction News (Jan­ 1926), box 462564, Records of the Office of the Chief En­ uary 10, 1929), 7-11, contains a clear description in lay­ gineer, RG 115, NA/Denver; Wolman and Lyles, "John man's terms of the trial-load method of analysis. Lucian Savage," 232. 258 ^

K,

o.^*'^-"-

•'i -,

Drillers working on the canyon wall above the Hoover Dam powerplant location, April 10, 1933. Photo byB.D. Glaha, courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation.

259 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 the New York City Transportation Board, and erations of safety, had placed all outlet works Charles Berkey, professor of geology at Co­ in the canyon walls away from the main dam. '^ lumbia University. The final two members To the great relief of Savage and his Den­ were chosen from the University ofWisconsin ver colleagues, the Colorado River Board faculty: professor of engineering Daniel W. quickly and unanimously approved the re­ Mead and professor of geology Warren J. vised version of the Weymouth design. The Mead. Presumably Savage and the two Wis­ main change required by the board was the consin Meads were able to take at least some strengthening of the concrete gravity-arch time away from their official duties to com­ dam so that maximum stresses would not ex­ pare Wisconsin notes.'"* ceed thirty tons of pressure per square foot, Over the next six months Savage devoted instead of the forty-ton limit proposed by Sav­ himself to the preparation of "tentative pre­ age. Apparently the board's action was an at­ liminary plans." His starting point was the tempt to assuage public worry about the over­ massive gravity-arch concrete dam proposed all safety of the structure. Such anxiety was in the Weymouth plan of 1924. That struc­ heightened by the collapse on March 12,1928, ture, designed with a stress limit of forty tons of the 215-foot St. Francis Dam near Los per square foot, was unchanged in Savage's re­ Angeles, which killed 450. A prestigious com­ port to the Colorado River Board of Novem­ mittee of the American Society of Civil Engi­ ber 24, 1928. He assumed, however, that the neers concluded that the disaster was due to a final design would be refined at Denver using defective foundation and was no reflection the trial-load method of analysis so as to upon the safety of a well-designed structure. achieve a more economical use of the concrete Still, the accident was a source of concern be­ and a greater accuracy in the calculation of cause the St. Francis dam was of the same gen­ stresses. In several important respects the new eral concrete gravity-arch type as the dam pro­ designs departed from the Weymouth plan: posed by Savage for Black Canyon. they doubled the diversion capacity during Savage and his Denver colleagues were construction; all had two glory hole spillways generally pleased by the report of the Colo­ as opposed to none in the Weymouth plan; all rado River Board. In their opinion, however, located the power plant at the base of the dam the thirty-ton stress limit was unnecessary and instead of 2,500 feet downstream; and the impossible to achieve. Savage pointed out that new plans eliminated all outlet works from the if the dam were to be enlarged, the base of the dam and placed them in the canyon walls in­ structure would extend beyond two well- stead. defined faults located in the floor of the can­ According to Savage, the "revised general yon some 900 feet apart. To extend the base plan" offered numerous advantages over the beyond the lines of movement would clearly Weymouth design. It provided sufficient spill­ be an unsound engineering practice. Further­ way capacity to prevent flood water from flow­ more, Commissioner of Reclamation Elwood ing over the top of the dam. ("While the dam Mead, a master of Washington politics, sup­ might suffer no irreparable damage from ported Savage's efforts by appointing a presti­ such overtopping," he wrote, "every expedi­ gious board of consulting engineers to assist ent ought to be exhausted before subjecting the Denver office in presenting its plans to the the structure to such a test.") It greatly re­ Colorado River Board. The new board of con­ duced the chance of cofferdam failure by dou­ sultants consisted of Andrew J. Wiley (Sav­ bling the diversion capacity; it also simplified age's mentor), Louis C. Hill of Los Angeles, the outlet works and centralized the operation professor William F. Durand of Stanford Uni­ of the dam and power plant. On the whole the versity), and David C. Henny of Portland, Or­ 1928 Savage design was marked by character­ egon. Presently the maneuvering of Mead and istic simplicity and conservatism; its basic con­ cept was similar to his design of 1921 for the '^J. L. Savage, "Revised Plan for Boulder Canyon Dam lower Boulder Canyon site which, for consid- and Power Plant, Memorandum to Colorado River Board," November 24, 1928, Bureau of Reclamation, Col­ "Moeller, Phil Swing and Boulder Dam, 103—116. orado River Project, file no. 301.1-B, RG 115, NA.

260 r ./

^F ^p

f^'^^-^.yi^^-

Wash. No. 2401 Worferi riding an inclined rail skip from the Nevada rim to the top of Hoover Dam, April 16,1934. Photo by W. B. Radford, courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation.

Savage paid off handsomely. At its last formal pression, rather than retarding further recla­ meeting on November 19, 1932, the Colorado mation projects, actually provided an River Board approved the final cross-section, enormous stimulus to dam construction in the which was calculated to have a maximum belief that such projects were beneficial to the stress at the upstream edge of the base of forty nation and would provide employment at the tons per square foot.'^ In effect. Savage's de­ same time. Therefore, the work load of the sign of 1928 had been endorsed without modi­ Bureau of Reclamation's design staff became fication. '^Savage, "Outline of studies pertaining to the Boulder Dam and power plant," June 15, 1929, Bureau of Recla­ mation, Colorado River Project, file no. 301, RG 115, NA; "INNING the necessary appro­ Department of the Interior, Memorandum for the Press, priations and approval for the April 25, 1929, Bureau of Reclamation, Colorado River w Project, file no. 301, RG 115, NA; Reclamation Era (Janu­ Hoover Dam had occupied the better part of ary, 1933), 24:4—5. For the St. Francis disaster, see Robert one of the most prosperous decades in Ameri­ B. Jansen, Dams and Public Safety (Department of the Inte­ can history. And the onset of the Great De­ rior, Denver, 1980), 171-183.

261 '^ e>>r

.™.:. ».

BCP3318 Looking upstream toward the powerplant, June 24,1935. Photo courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation.

more overwhelming than ever. Not only did design the first two major TVA projects, the Savage have to supervise the preparation of 265-foot Norris Dam and the 72-foot Wheeler 15,000 individual design drawings for the Dam, both of which were concrete gravity Hoover Dam, but he had also to turn his atten­ structures.'^ tion to several new and exciting projects pro­ Simultaneously Savage began planning for moted by the New Deal of President Franklin the most ambidous hydroelectric and water D. Roosevelt. During Roosevelt's Hundred storage project ever constructed in the United Days, in the spring of 1933, Congress ap­ States: the Columbia Basin Project. In this case proved the creation of the Tennessee Valley the basic plan for bringing Columbia River Authority. Conceived as an experiment in so­ water to the parched lands of Central Wash- cial planning, the TVA was designed to revi­ talize the depressed Tennessee Valley through a network of hydroelectric projects. One hitch was that the TVA at first had no de­ "Tennessee Valley Authority, The Norris Project, Tech­ signing engineers of its own. Therefore, Sav­ nical Report No. 1 (Washington, 1940), 71-159; Tennessee Valley Authority, The Wheeler Project, Technical Report No. age and the Denver staff were called upon to 2 (Washington, 1940), 35-95. 262 P45-300-01262 The Hoover Dam from almost the same viewpoint. May 6,1977. Photo by E. E. Hertzog, courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation.

ington did not even originate with profes­ in the Panama Canal. The principal expenses sional engineers. William M. Clapp, an attor­ would include the building of extensive irriga­ ney from Ephrata, Washington, was the first tion canals, two thirteen-story-tall power to suggest damming the Columbia near the plants, and the world's largest masonry struc­ present town of Grand Coulee. A portion of ture. The dam itself would be almost a mile in the water impounded by the dam would then length and would stand taller than the Wash­ be pumped 500 feet uphill to the dry valley ington Monument. Even President Roosevelt known as the Grand Coulee. And from the felt that there was no point in asking Congress Grand Coulee irrigation water would be dis­ to approve such a concept all at once. In tributed by means of canals. March, 1933, the new president flatly told The promoters of the project faced two ma­ Washington Senator Clarence Dill that the jor obstacles. First, there was no imperative dam was too big, too expensive, and would national need for new agricultural produc­ produce too much power. All that he felt able tion. An even more formidable hurdle was to support was a comparatively "low" dam that the project was estimated to cost $450 mil­ about 145 feet high. Presumably at a later date lion, which was more than had been invested the dam could be raised another 400 feet to its 263 WHi(X3)45088 The Norris Dam of the Tennessee Valley Authority, another John L. Savage project.

ultimate height. In September, 1934, the con­ Ham F. Durand and D. C. Henny, had previ­ struction of the low dam was begun with ously been consultants for the Hoover Dam. financing provided by the Public Works Ad­ The chairman was Charles H. "Boss" Paul of ministration. Not undl the following summer Dayton, Ohio, a longtime consultant to the were the western supporters of the high dam Bureau of Reclamation; the final engineer was able to include authorization for the ex­ Joseph Jacobs of Seattle. Their task was first to panded project in an appropriation for river approve the design for the dam and later to re­ and harbor improvements. Thereupon, Sec­ view the construction process. To harness the retary of the Interior Harold Ickes signed a Columbia, Savage proposed a gravity dam of "change order" altering the contract of the unprecedented size: 553 feet high and 4,300 MWAK Company (a consortium of construc­ feet long, protected by a 1650-foot-long spill­ tion companies) from a low to a high project.'^ way in the center of the structure. The con­ For Savage, this indecisiveness necessitated his struction was carefully planned to proceed in preparing two separate designs. clearly defined stages. First Savage provided By the summer of 1935 Savage's high dam for the western portion of the dam to be built plan was ready for review by a board of con­ while the river was diverted around the con­ sultants appointed by Reclamation Commis­ struction by cofferdams. Later the process was sioner Elwood Mead. Three of the members, reversed and the river diverted through the geologist Charles Berkey and engineers Wil- partially completed dam while foundation work proceeded on the eastern portion. To support the weight of the dam. Savage went to "*Department of the Interior, The Story of the Columbia great pains to strengthen the foundation. Un­ Basin Project CWashin^lon, 1964), 47-56; Clarence C. Dill, der pressure, cement grout was injected into Where Water Falls (Spokane, 1970), 167-180; George Sundborg, Hail Columbia: The Thirty-Year Struggle for holes drilled in the granite base. Inspection Grand Coulee Dam (New York, 1954), 262-270. cores, recovered through diamond drilling. 264 RHODES: JOHN L. SAVAGE proved that multiple layers of grout had (the administrator of several federal relief bonded to the foundation, which met with the programs), and Eleanor Roosevelt. A formal approval of Savage and the consulting board. ballot, listing the ten survivors, was then pre­ One of the most difficult engineering prob­ sented to the 128 professors attending the lems was how to protect the structure from be­ spring faculty meeting. Savage, identified only ing sheared or cracked by twisting forces as as "engineer (alumnus)" finished in seventh the reservoir filled. The solution devised by place. Nevertheless, President Glenn Frank Savage was to design six-foot-wide gaps or included Savage in the final list of six honorary "twist adjustment slots" which were staggered degree recipients, presumably because at least at fifty-foot intervals. As the reservoir filled, one of those with higher vote totals declined to the dam flexed without cracking and the re­ accept the honor. In the award ceremony, maining spaces were then grouted with con­ held on June 18, 1934, the thoroughly non- crete. Model tests in the Denver office con­ political Savage was the only person to receive vinced the consultants that the design was a degree who was even remotely connected correct, as cracks appeared in the plaster with the controversial Roosevelt administra­ model in the exact locations predicted by Sav­ tion.^^ A further loss of anonymity came in age. Finally, to speed up the cooling of the 1936 when Savage was deemed sufficiently concrete. Savage provided for the circulation eminent to be listed in Who's Who in America. of artificially cooled water, the same proce­ Then, on February 8, 1937, a significant dure used successfully at the Hoover Dam.'^ honor came his way when the Colorado Engi­ neering Council presented him with its gold medal award for distinguished engineering service. In making the presentation, the chief ^HE inevitable accolades result­ engineer of the Bureau of Reclamation, Ray­ T' ing from his design successes mond F. Walter, said of Savage: "I believe he is meant that Savage, who hated publicity, was the most outstanding and widely known au­ for the first time in his life a public figure. In thority on high dams in the United States if June, 1934, he acquired the learned title of not in the world." Also taking note of Savage's Doctor, which he detested and never used, accomplishment was an unidentified connois­ when his alma mater awarded him an honor­ seur of gold who broke into his home and ary doctor of science degree. Actually there helped himself to the medal.2' was some question whether the faculty of the University ofWisconsin had any idea as to who Savage was or why he was worthy of an honor­ ary degree. At Madison the University of Wis­ 'HE latter years of the thirties consin Committee on Honorary Degrees con­ T' found Savage heavily engaged sidered fourteen candidates nominated by in the design of southwestern projects, espe- departments (including Savage, president James B. Conant of Harvard University, presi­ ^"C. A. Smith, Secretary of the University of Wisconsin dent Karl T. Compton of the Massachusetts Faculty, to President Glenn Frank, March 6, 1934; un­ Institute of Technology, Karl Young, profes­ signed, undated memorandum. University of Wisconsin sor of English at Yale University, Albert Rus­ Committee on Honorary Degrees, "General list of names sell Mann, provost of Cornell University, and which have been before the Committee and are regarded favorably"; Presentation Remarks, Honorary Degrees, Frederick Stock, conductor of the Chicago June 18, 1934, Chancellors' and Presidents' General Cor­ Symphony Orchestra). Also in the running respondence Files, University of Wisconsin Archives, were about ten additional possibilities, many Madison, box 148. Besides Savage the recipients of honor­ of whom were associated with the New Deal, ary degrees were John Alden Carpenter, Karl Young, Ro­ bert Barber Goodman, Albert Russell Mann, and Karl such as Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Secre­ Taylor Compton. tary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, Senator 2'McMechen, "The Billion Dollar Engineer," 82-84; Robert Wagner of New York, Harry Hopkins Katharine Hartman Axley, "Dr. John Savage, U. Class of 1903: The World Was His Workshop," in the Madison CapitalTimes,]\i\y 1, 1963, John L. Savage file. University •s'Downs, The Mightiest of Them All, 19-35. of Wisconsin Archives.

265 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 daily of facilities for distributing water from 1941, for example. Savage spent a week at San Lake Mead, which was filling behind Hoover Francisco advising the Navy about a huge un­ Dam. The 320-foot Parker Dam, a concrete derground fuel storage project being con­ arch structure completed in 1938, permitted structed at Pearl Harbor. At the same time the the diversion of water to Los Angeles via the Commonwealth of Australia asked for Sav­ Colorado Aqueduct. Likewise, the Imperial age's services as a consultant in regard to dams Dam, a gravity concrete dam finished in 1939, in New South Wales, Victoria, and the city of completed the dream of supplying Califor­ Melbourne. On July 15, 1941, President nia's Imperial Valley with Colorado River wa­ Roosevelt signed a special act authorizing Sav­ ter via the concrete lined All-American Canal, age to undertake the Australian mission. He a structure which was also designed by Savage next traveled to Mexico to serve as a consult­ and his Denver associates. Nearing his sixtieth ant on several irrigation projects. Then in the birthday. Savage was next assigned to design a fall of 1943 Savage undertook the most excit­ dam for irrigation and flood control purposes ing engineering project of his entire career on the Sacramento River in California. His re­ when he was asked to spend six months in sponse was to propose a massive concrete China studying the hydroelectric and flood gravity dam (602 feet high and 3,460 feet control possibilities of the Yangtze River and long) which was almost as large as the Hoover its tributaries. "An opportunity to be of service Dam. Although the construction contract for to the valiant people of China would be a sig­ the Shasta Dam was awarded in the summer of nal honor," said Savage in accepting the invita­ 1938, the actual completion of the project was tion of the Chinese Nationalist government at delayed by wartime conditions until 1945. Chungking.^^ And, on the eve of America's entry into World His mission to China began in May, 1944, War II, Savage undertook the complicated de­ when the sixty-four-year-old Savage flew sign of the Davis Dam located at the Bullshead "over the hump" from India to Chungking. site about fifty miles below the Hoover Dam. For two months he toured potential power In an unusual design Savage suggested exca­ sites on the tributaries of the Yangtze in Szech- vating an entirely new river channel around wan province. (In this region it was possible to the eastern end of the dam site, and using the move about freely without danger of Japanese material from the new channel to build an attack.) In August the Nationalist government earth and rockfill dam. The new channel was asked Savage to expand his agenda by study­ then lined with concrete and equipped with a ing the feasibility of "a project of the utmost spillway and intakes for the power plant. Con­ importance" in the Yangtze Gorge below struction began in 1942 as a defense project Chungking—an area which was partially un­ and was eventually completed eight years der Japanese military occupation. A brief ex­ later.22 amination of the available data showed that Until World War II most of Savage's career the engineering and economic possibilities of had been spent designing projects for the Bu­ the project were unprecedented. Within the reau of Reclamation. Increasingly, however, limestone cliffs of the gorge, Savage began to he was asked to provide advice to other gov­ contemplate the construction of the world's ernment agencies and foreign governments. largest dam. The 750-foot-tall structure, to be As a result his personnel file became cluttered designed by the Bureau of Reclamation and with form after form authorizing administra­ constructed by Chinese laborers under the su­ tive furloughs so that he might undertake out­ pervision of American engineers, would be side consulting assignments. In the summer of higher and more massive than the Hoover Dam, produce five times the electrical power

^^T. W. Mermel, ed.. Register of Dams in the United States (New York, 1958), 54, 98, 156, 184; Pacific Constructors, ^^New York Times, July 16, 1941; John L. Savage, Appli­ Inc., Shasta Dam and Its Builders (Los Angeles, 1945), 21— cation for Federal Employment, November 11, 1943, Sav­ 46; Department of the Interior,DavisDamandPowerplant: age personnel file; Savage to Haldore Hanson, September Technical Record of Design and Construction (Denver, 1955), 5, 1943, RG 59, General Records of the Department of 51-63. State, File No. 893.64A/35, NA.

266 .;».'

John L. Savage's Grand Coulee Dam in Washington. WHi(X3)45091

of the Grand Coulee power plant, and create a Soon after writing these words Savage, reservoir 250 miles long, while still permitting traveling by sampan to a point within two the passage of ocean-going ships by means of miles of the Japanese lines, was able personally hydraulic navigation facilities. Such a project to survey one of the potential dam sites. Be­ would herald China's arrival as a major power fore leaving China on November 24, 1944, he and solidify United States-Chinese relations. prepared a preliminary report in which he Revenue from the production of electric presented five alternatives for the dam and power would pay the cost of construction. power plant. All five sites were located within a Moreover, the Yangtze Gorge Dam would be ten-kilometer section of the Yangtze Gorge the capstone of Savage's career as the designer upstream from the city of Ichang. In the first of the world's most significant dams. "This four designs the power plant would be located happens to be the most intriguing project on entirely underground in diversion tunnels. which I have been privileged to work," he Since site number five was unsuitable for di- noted in beginning his study. His immediate problem was that the Yangtze Gorge was the front line between the Chinese and Japanese. "The best dam site is located at the last for­ tified place held by the Chinese forces," he re­ ^•"Savage to J. Hall Paxton, Second Secretary, United States Embassy^ Chungking, China, June 28, 1944, RG 59, ported. "I hope it will be possible to inspect File No. 893.64/7-344, NA; Savage to Paxton, August 4, this site."^'' 1944, RG 59, File No. 893.64/8-844, NA.

267 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

version tunnels, the power plant there would design of the Yangtze Gorge Project. In the be encased within the main dam itself. In all meantime Savage, having passed the age of the studies the main dam was practically iden­ sixty-five, decided to retire on pension. In ap­ tical: a massive concrete straight gravity struc­ proving his application a filing clerk of the Di­ ture about 738 feet high and 2,493 feet long vision of Personnel Supervision and Manage­ protected during floods by an overflow spill­ ment impersonally noted: "OK for opt. retire way controlled by drum gates and tube valve eff. 4/30/45. Over 60 yrs. of age and more than outlets. The most striking departure in design 30 yrs. service." His retirement, however, did from comparable works in America was that not sever his connection with the Yangtze most of the vulnerable features, such as the Gorge Project. Having filed a sworn affidavit power plant, were located underground with testifying that he neither advocated a strike the objective of making the project "100 per against the United States Government nor its cent bomb-proof." violent overthrow. Savage became a consult­ In submitting the report. Savage remarked ing engineer to the Bureau of Reclamation at a that the study of the Yangtze Gorge had pro­ salary of fifty dollars per day.^^ vided "one of the greatest pleasures in my At Denver, work on the Yangtze project be­ forty years of engineering experience." Per­ gan in the spring of 1946 under the direction sonally, he said, the study had been "ex­ of William C. Beatty, the former chief me­ tremely interesting" because of the "unprece­ chanical engineer of the Denver office, who dented magnitude" of the engineering was frequently advised by Savage. Until de­ challenge, and also because of China's clear tailed geological information became available need for the flood control, irrigation, naviga­ it was not practical to reach a decision on the tional, and hydroelectric benefits of the pro­ exact dam site. Instead, following a program ject. "The Yangtze Gorge Project," he con­ outlined by Savage, the engineers studied var­ cluded, "is a CLASSIC. It will be of utmost ious methods of grouting the foundation and importance to China. It will bring widespread drilling and lining the diversion tunnels. At employment. It will bring high standards of the same time studies were made of various living. It will change China from a weak to a methods for passing ocean-going ships strong nation. The Yangtze Gorge Project around the dam. Savage's original design had should be constructed for the benefit of China provided for an enormous single lock basin. and the world at large."^^ Beatty modified the design by adding four or five huge gantry cranes which could hoist or lower 10,000-ton ships the 530 feet from the river to the reservoir. In the end Beatty, how­ LN his resume for Who's Who in ever, found that a conventional system of five O'America Savage listed ninety- locks around the dam would be lower in cost three dams on which he had been either the than a mechanical lift system and was capable chief designing engineer or consulting engi­ of passing more ships in a day. "I concur in this neer. Yet, of the lot, his favorites were the recommendation," noted Savage.^^ Hoover Dam, the first of his major projects, and the Yangtze Gorge Project, which turned out to be the last. Of necessity, further plan­ ^^Roscoe Fleming, "Projects of Good Will: John L. Sav­ age Travels to Many Countries Giving Advice on Dam ning of the Yangtze project had to await the Construction," in the Christian Science Monitor, May 1, end of the Pacific War in August, 1945. On 1948; John L. Savage, Retirement Application, April 6, October 1, 1945, as a measure to bolster Na­ 1945; John L. Savage, Affidavit of Non-Affiliation, July tionalist China, the Bureau of Reclamation 18, 1946, Savage personnel file. and the National Resources Commission of ^'Roscoe Fleming, "Damming the Yangtze Gorge," in China signed a contract to proceed with the Popular Mechanics (March, 1946), 85:100-103; Savage to Chief Engineer Walker R. Young, August 24, 1946, Yangtze Gorge Project, Design Data and Reports, box 15, ^'J. L. Savage, Preliminary Report on Yangtze Gorge RG 115, NA/Denver; Operating Time Studies, Yangtze Project, November, 1944, Bureau of Reclamation, Gorge Navigation Locks, July 2, 1946, Yangtze Gorge Yangtze Gorge Project, Design Data and Reports, box 15, Project, Design Data and Reports, box 15, RG 115, NA/ RG 115, NA/Denver. Denver. 268 Courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation Savage and his hosts examining the Yangtze River Gorge in 1944.

By the summer of 1947 substandal pro­ government and, with it, the Yangtze Gorge gress had been made toward the realization of Project. In January, 1947, General George C. Savage's dream for the Yangtze Gorge. On the Marshall, the special representative of Presi­ basis of comparadve geological and engineer­ dent Harry S. Truman, abandoned a year­ ing studies, site three was determined to be the long mission to mediate between the Chinese most favorable location for the dam. Also de­ Nationalists and Communists. Within just a cided were the general location and design of few months civil war had broken out. And, al­ the dual power plants, the location and design though the Nationalists at first held the upper of the navigation facility (now consisdng of a hand, it was clear that China could hardly pro­ single series of eight locks instead of five), and ceed with the world's largest dam in an atmo­ a general scheme of construcdon. The main sphere of military and financial chaos. More- questions remaining to be solved were the height of the dam and the design of the coffer­ dams.^^ ^^Department of the Interior, Status Report, August On the other side of the Pacific, events were 15, 1947, Yangtze Gorge Project, Design Data and Re­ unfolding which would doom the NationaHst ports, box 15, RG 115, NA/Denver. 269 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 over, there were already clear indications that American Concrete Institute presented him the Nationalists were losing the military initia­ with the Henry C. Turner gold medal "in rec­ tive and popular support. Given these unset­ ognition of long and distinguished service in tled circumstances. Commissioner of Recla­ the design of hydraulic structures." The West­ mation Michael W. Straus concluded that no ern Society of Engineers named him the win­ purpose would be served in preparing designs ner of its Washington Award in 1949 for "un­ for a project which could not be started for selfish public service devoted to the creation of years to come. On June 13, therefore, chief monumental hydraulic structures utilizing engineer Walker R. Young directed Beatty to natural resources." And, in 1950, the Depart­ suspend further design studies.^^ Savage's ment of the Interior presented him with a final dream of constructing the world's largest, gold medal for distinguished service. As Com­ most modern, and bomb-proof dam and missioner of Reclamation Straus noted: "We power plant had, in effect, become a casualty have Mr. Savage's monuments on all sides. of the Chinese Civil War. But perhaps Sav­ And for many years it has seemed to be illegal age's dream did not expire after all. In the for any dam to be built in the world without 1980's engineers of the People's Republic of Mr. Savage's supervision. "^° China developed plans for the Three Gorges dam in a granite intrusion forty kilometers up­ stream from the sites studied by Savage. Surely it was not just a coincidence that the S the recipient of acclaim from Chinese proposal closely resembled Savage's A'professiona l societies, govern­ design for site five of the Yangtze Gorge Pro­ ment officials, and even Popular Mechanics ject. In the event that the Three Gorges dam is Magazine (he was named to its Hall of Fame in completed in the future, it will owe at least an 1952) it would have been understandable had indirect debt to Savage and his colleagues in Savage developed an inflated ego. Yet all com­ the Bureau of Reclamation. mentators agree that one of his chief charac­ teristics throughout his life was extreme per­ Probably because he had no choice in the sonal modesty. Of course he was proud of his matter. Savage accepted the demise of his designs, but he felt it was only fair to give cherished project philosophically. "Because of much of the credit to his colleagues in the Bu­ the current situation in China," he admitted in reau of Reclamation. Recalling the design of 1950, "it is doubtful it will be completed for the Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams, Savage some time." In the same spirit he accepted the truthfully noted: "Such important develop­ numerous honors that inevitably came his ments are accomplished by joint efforts of a way. In 1944 he was named a "Friend of large number of engineers and not alone by China" and presented with a gold medal by any individual." He neglected to mention, the National Resources Commission of Na­ however, that his role—one that he per­ tionalist China. In 1945 he received the John formed with unusual distinction—had been to Fritz gold medal from the American Society of initiate the original design concepts on a blank Civil Engineers, the American Society of Me­ sheet of paper. Nor did he mention his contri­ chanical Engineers, the American Institute of butions to the trial-load method of analysis, his Electrical Engineers, and the American Insti­ consolidation of the foundations at the Grand tute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers Coulee and Shasta Dams by unprecedented for "superlative public service in conceiving grouting, his devising of techniques for arti­ and administering the engineering of mam­ ficially cooling masses of concrete, his insis­ moth dams, both in America and beyond the tence upon developing research laboratories seven seas." (After both medals were pur­ as an aid in dam designing, or his ability to pre­ loined by a burglar—the third time his home dict problems likely to occur during dam con­ had been broken into—Savage belatedly de­ struction and to incorporate solutions to those cided to rent a safe deposit box.) In 1946 the

^^Young to Straus, June 13, 1946, Yangtze Gorge Pro­ '"Wolman and Lyles, "John Lucian Savage," 234-235; ject, Design Data and Reports, box 15, RG 115, NA/ "John Lucian Savage—Engineer to the World," in Recla- Denver. matiouEra (May, 1950), 36:91-92, 101. 270 ^^BP*%-

\ ^1 ^:

**':if

^^

' ^'J wjir ^i"i '-yiTriYi-i i" r" Courtesy the Bureau of Reclamation Nature dwarfing man again: John Savage on his China trip during World War II.

271 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 problems in his designs. Naturally shy and re­ died on December 28, 1967, three days after served. Savage regarded publicity as an incon­ his eighty-eighth birthday.^^ venience that had to be tolerated; whenever Perhaps the final irony of his life was that possible it was to be avoided. What he liked John L. Savage, a man who hated publicity most in life was being left alone to apply his an­ and was dedicated to public service, had actu­ alytical powers to specific engineering prob­ ally left to posterity monuments as permanent lems. Required to fill out a new all-purpose as any created in the entire history of man­ civil service application in 1943, Savage re­ kind. When the dean of the University ofWis­ plied to the question "State what kind of work consin College of Mechanics and Engineering you prefer" with the obvious but succinct an­ nominated Savage for an honorary degree he swer: "Design of dams and appurtenant struc­ composed a gracious tribute which, although tures."^' written in 1934, applied with equal validity to In 1953 Savage told an interviewer that his his entire career of almost sixty years: "Mr. great hopes for his retirement were to travel to Savage represents to a high degree that combi­ the Cooksville farm where he had grown up nation of conservatism so necessary for safety and to take "a look at all the big dams in the in his field and the ability to apply newly- West." Failing health prevented Savage from discovered principles and theories in the in­ realizing these dreams. By 1961 he was not terest of economy that is characteristic of the well enough to accept in person the award for great engineer. [He is] an outstanding exam­ distinguished service presented by the Bea­ ple of a man of high character and great ability vers, an organization of contractors. Nor who is giving service of the highest order. "^^ could he accept from the University of Wis­ consin Alumni Association the 1961 Golden Badger award for outstanding achievement in ^^Wolman and Lyles, "John Lucian Savage," 232; Pro­ heavy construction engineering. His final ceedings of the Sixth Annual Awards Dinner, The Bea­ years were spent in the Julia Temple Nursing vers, Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles, January 19, 1961, en­ Home in Englewood, Colorado, where he closed in Stan Oliner, Curator of Books and Manuscripts, Colorado Historical Society, to author, March 6, 1988. '^F. E. Turneaure, Dean, College of Mechanics and Engineering, to President Glenn Frank, June 12, 1934, "John L. Savage, Application for Federal Employ­ Chancellors' and Presidents' General Correspondence ment, November 11, 1943, Savage personnel file. Files, University of Wisconsin Archives, box 148.

272 WHi(X3)44411 Frank Lloyd Wright's 1893 boathouse for Madison's Lake Mendota. Known as the "City Boathouse," it was the result of an architectural competition sponsored by the Madison Improvement Association and was one of Wright's first important commissions as an independent architect. His tie to the boathouse was not remem­ bered when it was razed in 1926. Lucien S. and James J. Hanks Collection.

Frank Lloyd Wright's 1893 Boathouse Designs for Madison's Lakes

By John O. Holzhueter

|N February 13, 1926, a Madison services the boathouse provided: berth o realtor named Chandler rentals, boat and canoe rentals through a con­ Burnell Chapman and a group o'f friends be­ cessionaire, and bait sales. Frank Lloyd gan dismantling a large boathouse that stood Wright's name never surfaced in the tame on the shore of Lake Mendota, at the foot of year-long proceedings before the boathouse, North Carroll Street behind a house owned by now regarded as an important work of the ar­ Chapman. And although the boathouse had chitect's early career, was razed. been built in 1893 from designs by Frank It came down because Chapman and other Lloyd Wright, the event went unremarked nearby residents believed that it had been ne­ and virtually unreported except for a one- glected and had become a nuisance, and be­ paragraph story buried inside Madison's Capi­ cause they managed to persuade the city coun­ tal Times. cil that they were right. Chapman and a What objections were voiced had been neighbor, Mrs. Frank G. Brown, may also heard the previous summer, and they had have had a financial motive. They owned the nothing to do with either architecture or property immediately adjacent to the boat- Wright. Instead they concerned the loss of house; and, it was reported, because of the city's agreement with the organization that built it, title to the land on which it stood AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article will appear in substanUally would revert to them. As always, lake frontage the same form in the catalog for the Elvehjem Museum of Art exhibition, "Frank Lloyd Wright and Madison: Eight was among the most valuable land in the city.' Decades of Artistic and Social Interaction," under the general editorship of Paul E. Sprague. 'The story appears in the Capital Times, February 16,

Copyright © 1989 by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin 273 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved WHi(X3)45104 Above, the Chandler Burnett Chapman family's large dwelling on the northwest corner ofLangdon and North Carroll streets. Below, the family's Shingle Style house (640 North Carroll Street) that stood behind the older home. Wright's boathouse was just to the right of the Shingle Style home The Chapman family stood to benefit by having it removed Lucien S. and James J. Hanks Collection

^

274 Above, Wright's Lake Mendota boathouse at street level. The residential scale of the upper story WHi(X3)43817 harmonized nicely with the neighborhood houses. (Lucien S. and James J. Hanks Collection.) Below, the North Carroll-Langdon intersection in 1985. (Carole Cartwright, photographer.) The Chapman house (left) has been much altered; the dwelling on the right—long owned by the widowed Mrs. Frank G. Brown—was erected a few years after Wright's boathouse. Brown had been president of the Madison Improvement Association which commissioned the boathouse. Mrs. Brown and Chandler Burnell Chapman led the movement to remove the boathouse in 1925—1926.

275 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

Wright appears to have been unaware of very few Madisonians would have remem­ the impending demolition, preoccupied as he bered that he designed the boathouse; any was with scandal at the time—as the father of a who did evidently chose to keep their counsel. newborn daughter by his then-mistress and Even the association which held the competi­ soon-to-be-wife, Olgivanna Milanoff, and as tion was little more than a memory by 1926, al­ the disaffected husband of an equally disaf­ though when the story began in 1893, it prom­ fected wife, Miriam Noel. ised much for Madison's development.^ The reason for Madison's lack of concern with the Carroll Street boathouse and Wright's connection to it is simple: at the time N the early 1890's the city was suf­ of its design Wright was an unknown twenty- fering from what is now called an six-year-old draftsman for the Chicago archi­ I "image problem," despite the facts that it was tectural firm of Adler and Sullivan. By 1926

^For Wright's 1925-1926 troubles see Brendan Gill, 1926, p. 6, col. 2. FrankCusterof Madison graciously sup­ Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: G. P. plied this citation as well as that for the Casino in footnote Putnam's Sons, 1987), chap. 17; and Robert C. Twombly, 12. Events leading up to the dismantling can be traced in Frank Lloyd Wright: His Life and His Architecture (New York: Madison Common Council, Proceedings, January 9, Febru­ John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1979), 182-191. Wright's best ary 13, and June 12, 1925; and the Wisconsin State Journal friend, Robert Lamp, had died a few years before, leaving (Madison), February 13 (which notes the financial advan­ few persons in Madison who would have followed tage the property owners would realize) and June 13, Wright's career from 1893 forward and who would have 1925. For Chapman, see the Capital Times, December 16, been interested enough to get in touch with him. Persons 1945 (obituary). Not all of the property reverted to the who used the boathouse in 1926 were generally unaware owners. The street end itself belonged to the City of Madi­ of its origins, as the author learned when he delivered a son, which later built a stairway on it; but a few feet on ei­ talk about Robert M. Lamp and Frank Lloyd Wright to the ther side of the right-of-way might have been involved, Madison Literary Club on November 9, 1987. The audi­ and a certain amount of trespass, with attendant insur­ ence included longtime Madisonians of some promi­ ance problems and inevitable nuisance, certainly must nence, most of whom remembered the boathouse well but have distressed the Browns and Chapmans. Putting an did not associate it with Wright. Ronald Mattox was espe­ end to these problems would have enhanced the value of cially helpful in describing the boathouse and in tracing their property as well as acquisition of land. the date it was razed.

Shanty-like boathouses along the Lake Monona shoreline in 1934. Earlier structures like these prompted the 1893 Improvement Association competition for municipal boathouse designs. Wright's winning, but unbuilt, Monona design would have been erected almost on this exact spot. M. E. Diemer, photographer. WHi(D483)8410 HOLZHUETER; FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S 1893 BOATHOUSE DESIGNS

Wisconsin's capital and the home of the state's announcement intended for Madison, Mil­ university (then gaining prominence nation­ waukee, and Chicago architects asking for ally), and that it possessed one of the loveliest "competitive sketches of any boathouse or natural settings of any larger inland city in the boathouses to be built by the association dur­ nation. Indeed, Madison was growing slowly, ing the present year." Among those who en­ lacked a broad industrial base, and had only tered was former Madisonian Frank Lloyd one park (Orton, earlier a cemetery, and only Wright, then a resident of Oak Park, Illinois. one large block in size). Its finest assets. Lakes How he heard of the competition is not Mendota and Monona, were disfigured by known, but since his Madison friend Robert ramshackle private boathouses which dotted M. Lamp had recently joined the association their shores. Madison's civic leaders were well with a five-dollar pledge (which he never re­ aware of these shortcomings and set about rec­ deemed), he is a likely candidate.^ tifying them by forming two organizations at the beginning of the decade: the Madison 'David V. Mollenhoff, Madison: A History of the Forma­ Park and Pleasure Drive Association and the tive Years {Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 1982), Madison Improvement Association. 230—232; Madison Improvement Association, [Articles of Association, By-laws, List of Members, etc.] (Madison, 1893), Impetus for the latter group came initially photocopy. State Historical Society ofWisconsin (SHSW); from Napoleon Bonaparte Van Slyke, presi­ Wisconsin State J ournal, October 22, 1895. Some slight evi­ dent of what is today the First Wisconsin Bank. dence exists that Wright and Lamp were in touch early in In January, 1893, he called for establishing a 1893. As the first entry in Wright's decimal sequence for group that would oversee the landscaping of his projects as an independent architect, there is an 1893 cottage for Robert Lamp. The project appears in no other streets in the center of the city, removing the lists of Wright's work. About this time Lamp did erect a unsightly boathouses, and erecting associa­ small, shack-like cottage on Rocky Roost. Bruce Brooks tion-owned boathouses in their place. Pfeiffer, the Wright archivist, awards Lamp "responsibil­ His appeal received instant support, and by ity" for Wright's entering the competition, a mistaken idea the author may have given Pfeiffer by telling him about February 11, 1893, the Madison Improve­ Lamp's activity in the Improvement Association. See ment Association became a Wisconsin corpo­ Yukio Futagawa, ed. and photographer, and Bruce ration. A month later, on March 7, the associa­ Brooks Pfeiffer, text, Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph 1887— tion initiated its boathouse program with an 1901 (Tokyo: ADA Edita, 1986), text for figs. 88-90.

Substandard housing and outbuildings along what is now Brittingham Bay of Lake Monona, 1895—1905, an area that was also the subject of civic concern. Charles N. Brown, photographer. WHi(X3)22947

^•f. / •vJJ: WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

On May 11 Wright learned that the boat- Improvement Association's arrangements did house committee had selected his proposals, not. Thus, only one day after Frank Lloyd one for Lake Mendota, one for Lake Monona, Wright won the competition, the council's pact which were publicized as those of a "former with the Improvement Association sealed the Madison boy." The next day the city council fate of the Lake Mendota boathouse by leav­ adopted an ordinance setting guidelines for ing responsibility for it in private hands. the operation of the boathouses: "if at any The architect's two winning designs were time said association shall fail to keep said related in style and function, yet remained boathouses ... in good repair, or if the same highly individual conceptions conditioned by . . . shall become in the judgment of the com­ the distinctiveness of each site and its sur­ mon council for any reason objectionable to rounding neighborhood. Only the smaller of the public interest, the . . . council may ... re­ the two projects was realized. It was intended quire . . . them to be summarily removed, or to serve a fashionable residential area on the . . . may cause the same to be removed by the south shore of Lake Mendota. Its site, at the city's officers, agents or servants."* foot of North Carroll Street, began where the This ownership arrangement differed con­ lake bank drops precipitously towards the wa­ siderably from that of the Park and Pleasure ter. Wright made this difficult setting an asset Drive Association, which developed parks, by providing residents and visitors with an at­ roads, and public buildings at its own expense, tractive lookout and pavilion at street level then hired a park superintendent to run them from which they could descend to the boat- at city expense (years later turning over title house proper, using either an indoor stairway for the parks to the city). This system guaran­ or a flight of steps down the embankment on teed long-term maintenance for Park and the east side of the building. Although much Pleasure Drive Association improvements; the of the building was thus invisible from the street, from the lake it was highly visible. For those on Mendota's water or ice, Wright pro­ vided a monumental, red-brown and cream "•Madison Common Council, Proceedings, April 27, May 12, l?,9'i; Madison Democrat, May 12, 1893. structure surmounted by pavilions and an ar-

The old and the new along Lake Mendota's shoreline. At left, the residence and boathouse of the Thomas E. Brittinghams, 640 North Henry Street; center and right, two fraternity houses (Alpha Tau Omega, built 1914, and Psi Upsilon, built 1913) from the period of development (1900—1930) that encouraged removal of the Wright boathouse. WHi(X3)45097 HOLZHUETER: FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S 1893 BOATHOUSE DESIGNS cade, rising arrestingly thirty-two feet from its share of elegant and well-maintained boat- shoreline to the tops of the pavilions' roofs. houses, benefited from private largess which it Depending on the approach, the Lake Men­ did not need, while the working-class, indus­ dota design created two quite different, yet trial neighborhood adjacent to the Lake equally appropriate impressions. The Im­ Monona site received nothing—not even re­ provement Association advertised for bids im­ moval of the unsightly buildings along its mediately, and a local firm of Peter Gersbach shores. (The Mendota shoreline suffered less and John J. Zirkel won for $3,100. Construc­ from this blight.) Logically, the Lake Monona tion proceeded rapidly, and by October the neighborhood should have had first rights to structure was nearly complete.^ improvements, yet it did not receive them. No Plans for the second boathouse at the end doubt this occurred because the residents near of South Hancock Street on Lake Monona lan­ Carroll Street, whose contributions largely guished, however, owing to economic circum­ supported the Improvement Association, as­ stances over which the architect had no con­ serted themselves and prevailed. Frank G. trol. Late in the spring of 1893, a depression of Brown, the association president, then lived in international proportions struck the United the Carroll Street neighborhood, only three States, and by August many banks and indus­ blocks from the site. (By 1926, the Browns had tries had failed. It was at this time that the Im­ moved next door to the boathouse.)^ Had provement Association decided to reject all events gone the other way, a quite different the bids it had received for the Lake Monona chapter in architectural history would have boathouse because none was "satisfactory" been written, since Wright's Lake Monona de­ and all were "too high to meet requirements." sign was by far the more spectacular of the The low bidder, a Chicago contractor, was re­ two. jected because "the directors prefer to have the contract go to a local contractor if satisfac­ tory figures can be obtained." Then, as the panic worsened, a major underwriter of the ^HE Lake Mendota design, how­ project, the Chicago and North Western Rail­ T' ever, was not without merits. In way, was forced to withdraw its offer to donate it are found stylistic elements linked to both the boathouse's foundations, worth an esti­ Wright's architectural ancestry and his subse­ mated $2,000—a sum which was not included quent work. Typical for its time, it had a in the association's $4,000 Monona boathouse shingle-and-plaster surface. Considerably less budget. The association's president also ordinary, but with ample roots in Wright's ex­ blamed the depression for Madisonians' fail­ perience of the architecture of the day, was a ure to pay half of their pledges. This double semi-circular arcaded upper story, entered blow forced the Improvement Association to from a cul-de-sac at the foot of North Carroll shelve the project. Two years later it still Street. The curve was not unlike that of the hoped "for the construction . . . and for the re­ porch on Wright's George Blossom residence moval of the unsightly boat houses on the in Chicago's Woodlawn area (1892), and the shore of Third Lake [Lake Monona]." That arcade and pavilions owe an obvious debt to hope proved vain, and the larger of Wright's Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan's recently two boathouses was never realized.^ finished Schiller Building in Chicago where Wright had his office in 1893. The giant It is ironic that one of the city's best neigh­ borhoods, which already had more than its ^Wisconsin State Journal, August 9, October 3, 1893, Oc­ tober 22, 1895; Madison Improvement Association [Artic­ 'Wisconsin State Journal, ]une 15, 27, August 9, October les of Association]. On the economic situation see the "Panic 3, 1893. Thecolorsof the building were determined prin­ of 1893" entry in the Concise Dictionary of American History cipally by William G. Hyzer, a consultant in engineering (1983). and applied science. See Hyzer to Mary Jane Hamilton, 'At the time the boathouse was constructed the September 22, 1987, in the Elvehjem Museum of Art files Browns lived on East Oilman Street; later they moved to related to the exhibition, "Frank Lloyd Wright and Madi- the corner ofLangdon and North Carroll. When the boat- house was razed, Mrs. Brown was a widow. 279 Richard Nickel^ohn Vinci, Inc. Left, architect Louis Sullivan's Schiller Building, a brand-new structure in 1893 and by June of that year the site of Frank Lloyd Wright's first office, room 1501. Wright, who was on the verge of leaving Sullivan's employ at the time of the Improvement Associa­ tion competition that March, used arcades in both boathouses similar to those above the marquee and below the roof of the Schiller Build­ ing. Right, echoes of another Sullivan design, the Transportation Building of the 1893 Worhi's Columbian Exposition, are seen in the eaves of its pavilions and those of the Lake Mendota boathouse— both unusually broad for their time. Symmetry characterized both of these Sullivan works, as it did Wright's boathouses.

arched opening for the boats seems derivative nonresidential buildings, throughout his ca­ of both H. H. Richardson's and Sullivan's reer. Formal balance, however, easily leads to work with the exception that they used full unessential duplications like the double ar­ arches, while Wright employed a segmental cade and pavilions on the second story where, arch. Segmental arches would reappear in for example, a relatively flat deck with a single Wright's work at Lake Delavan, Wisconsin, in approach and pavilion, or even a simple rail­ 1900: the Fred B. Jones Boathouse, and the ing, would have met the requirements. Wright Henry Wallis Summer Residence. The han­ turned this unnecessary arcade (a Sullivan- dling of the Jones Boathouse site, too, resem­ esque feature) to esthetic advantage. It is a rel­ bles the Mendota site solution.^ atively low-ceilinged space which opens into a Another reference to Sullivan's work can be larger high-ceilinged space, heightening the seen in the design's symmetry, an artistic strat­ dramatic impact of the view. agem Wright continued often, especially for The "battered" walls which rise to the pavil­ ions (that is, the walls taper or narrow slightly from the first-story doorways to the sills of the *The most convenient works for comparing Wright's second-story arches) echo the work of both output for these early years are William Allin Storrer, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Complete Catalog (2nd Richardson and Sullivan; and the geometric ed., Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978; paperback ed., 1982), severity of the first story is especially like Sul­ 1-22; and Futagawa and Pfeiffer, franAL/o))d Wng-/i(Mon- livan's. The pavilions themselves and their ograph 1887-1901. For the Schiller Building see Paul E. juxtaposition with the arch bear a marked re­ Sprague, "Adler and Sullivan's Schiller Building: The lationship to the monumental arched en­ Garrick Theater," Prairie School Review, 2:5—20 (no. 2, 1965). Wright noted his Schiller Building address, room trance (the so-called Golden Gate) of Sul­ 1501, on the boathouse drawings. livan's Transportation Building for the 281 *_^^fe»-

Tt- ~i

.^:v

Front elevation (upper left, drawing 9304.006 in the Frank Lloyd Wright archives), cross-section (upper right, drawing 9304.007), and ground and floor plan (lower left, drawing 9304.001) of the Lake Mendota boathouse. Wright mislabeled the elevation "Boat House on Lake Monona," but indicated the intended surface materials: shingles, plaster, and wood orna­ ment. Cross-section details indicate roof drainage, the original slope of the lake bank (much of which was cut away), and a rip­ rap foundation of stone. The ground and floor plan indicates the crane that carried boats to the two levels of berths, the concession­ aire's quarters, the entry bridge and interior stairwell, and the like. Over the years Wright continued to sketch on the drawings in pencil; the overall foxing of the paper occurred when the draw­ ings were hastily stuffed into a recess at Taliesin during one of the severalflres that destroyed or damaged the dwelling but spared the studio. They were rediscovered years later, in bad condition, but have been professionally restored. The ground plan was first pub­ lished in the Architectural Review in June, 1900, and was not damaged as the working drawings were. HOLZHUETER: FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S 1893 BOATHOUSE DESIGNS

World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, de­ cade and the footbridge that led to the arcade signed in 1891, well before Wright left Sul­ from the street. livan's office. The eaves of the Transportation Building pavilions are extraordinarily deep, probably as deep as the five feet which Wright UST as Wright sensitively adjusted specified for the North Carroll Street boat- the Carroll Street boathouse to house. While the exceptionally broad eaves J the character of its residential setting and may have been derived from Sullivan, the low steep lakeshore siting, so he designed the Lake pitch of the pavilions' roofs was not. Together Monona boathouse for another aspect of the these two traits eventually became trademarks urban spectrum, a commercial-industrial rail of Wright's Prairie Style. corridor separating the city from the narrow Wright designed the boat bay and storage but level shore of Lake Monona. Sited at the area for convenience of handling. He placed foot of South Hancock Street, the boathouse the berths in two tiers, each holding fourteen would have been adjacent to working-class boats, and arranged for a "pivoted crane" to neighborhoods, factories, and the North move them. The crane swiveled from the cen­ Western passenger depot. Wright took into ter of a large beam which spanned the boat bay consideration that Monona was rimmed by inside the structure, pavilion to pavilion, and more public and private resorts and picnic its arm ran in a track along the circumference grounds than Mendota, and that it was the of the boat berths. This led Wright to employ a more popular lake for fishing and boating. Ac­ circular plan for the storage section inside the cordingly, he envisioned a boathouse twice the rectangular structure—a tidy combination of size of the one overlooking Mendota, accom­ elementary geometric shapes. Gadgets analo­ modating fifty-six boats instead of twenty- gous to the crane fascinated Wright through­ eight. out his life, including such items as innovative window closures and screens for the Lamp His vision extended well beyond mere util­ House in Madison, storage units, and so forth. ity, however. Again he provided visitors a splendid outlook over the lake from a second- The entrance to the boat bay provided nat­ story arcade, this time completely circular. ural shelter for small craft. Small decks at the The Monona site selected by the Improve­ edges of the pavilions enabled boaters and ment Association offered a far better reason passengers to embark or disembark under the for a monumental structure than the Mendota roof without venturing into the open or the site. It was highly visible from many direc­ wind. The piers which Wright specified to tions. People standing on the King Street axis form a small harbor seem not to have been of the Capitol Square would have been able to erected; or, if they were erected initially, they see any building tall enough to rise above the were not always reinstalled seasonally.^ one- and two-story buildings along East The roof atop the boathouse proper pre­ Wilson Street. Anyone crossing the Lake sented special drainage problems, which Monona causeway by rail (as the two main Wright solved neatly. The section between the lines did) would not miss it, no matter what its pavilions was sloped towards the lake, where height; those who came into town on the drains in the facade carried water away. The North Western Railway from the west would section towards the hill looked something like have seen almost no other structure as they half the roof of a roundhouse or circular in­ neared the depot. From the depot platform a dustrial building, pitched into the slope. On block to the east of the boathouse, it would that side, precipitation drained under the ar- have been the most prominent building in any direction.'" 'Wisconsin's winters require removal of piers in the fall, then reinstallation every spring after the ice melts. For an anecdote about Wright's using the slope behind the boathouse as a foil for the wind, a phenomenon he also '"The Sanborn-Perris insurance map for 1898, sheet applied to the Jacobs House II, see Herbert Jacobs with 10, in the SHSW substantiates details about the site. 1 am Katherine Jacobs, Building with Frank Lloyd Wright (San indebted to David Mollenhoff for pointing out the impli­ Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1978), 83. cations of the King Street axis. 283

WHi(X3)44326 The Lake Mendota Boathouse photographed from land. Left, two views towards the University of Wisconsin campus, providing detail of the arcades and the excavated lake bank. Above, the shoreline with its numerous boathouses, photographed around the turn of the century from the campus. Below, a rare view of the east elevation from the backyard of Mrs. Frank G. Brown's house. The exterior stairs descended on this side of boathouse.

.••' i WHi(XSl)272 m Copyright © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 1989

^"

^

• fMafe; —CJW^Wt* • 286 m..

WHi(X3)43816 The more monumental side of the Lake Mendota boathouse as it appeared from the lake, at left in 1898 (both views) and above in 1894. The view at the lower left is the most famous, having been published in Grant Carpenter Manson's Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910. Manson, then a Harvard graduate student, obtained a copy of it from the State Historical Society in March, 1940, for the special fee of $1 rather than the standard $2.50, after writing, "I do hope your estimate may be a bit high. I have had much similar work done in Chicago . . . for one dollar." The Society's print subsequently vanished, but another copy is in the Wright archives.

Wright took full advantage of the site's po­ boathouse would have been a dramatic civic tential visibility and planned a striking build­ signature, competing for public attention with ing sixty-eight feet square and sixty feet tall the lofty dome of the capitol and the less spec­ (about seven stories), surmounted by a twenty- tacular dome then atop the university's main foot flagpole. It was to have stood virtually in building, Bascom Hall. Wright's wood-and- the open, surrounded by water on three sides. plaster proposal was a monument to the city's On the land side, a footbridge just south of the lakes similar to its domed masonry monu­ railroad tracks led to its entrance. North of the ments to government and education. tracks, a gradual slope rose towards the city Dramatic as the roof was, it would have proper at nearly the narrowest point of the served a practical structural purpose as well as isthmus between the two lakes. an esthetic one. The weight of the second story The building's most prominent feature cer­ would have been suspended from it by means tainly would have been its cone-shaped, shin­ of iron rods attached to inverted wooden and gled roof, sixty-eight feet in diameter at its metal trusses, eliminating the need for load- eaves, rising forty feet to its peak. The roof bearing posts in the boat basin. Even the surmounted a structure twenty feet in height flagpole would have created interest, resting and sixty-eight feet square with full arches on a center plate, tapering slightly as it rose to (not segmental) centered on all four sides. pierce the peak of the inverted cone. Second- Pavilion-like corners, twenty-two feet square, floor visitors could enjoy two views: outside, of were to have visually anchored the circular the lake and city; inside, of both the web-like roof structure to the base. Because of its im­ roof structure above and the boats below, visi­ posing scale and its location, the Lake Monona ble through an open well in the center of the 287 -i

.^'ti,iS

'X HOOF TMI/SS

BOILER HOIJSE

SeJ, I ln..lF't.

#

- ; Ifc-t ».,• t_

Above, drawing for the roof truss of the University ofWisconsin "boiler house," now Radio Hall, from the office of Allan D. Conover, 1885. Wright worked as a draftsman for Conover at the time and at the very least was familiar with this drawing. Below, Wright's drawing of the truss for the unbuilt 1893 Lake Monona boathouse, which is an obvious adaptation of the boiler-house truss, even to placement of elements on the page. The second-story viewing platform of the boathouse was to have been suspended from trusses.

^HW^B HOLZHUETER: FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S 1893 BOATHOUSE DESIGNS

second floor, not unlike the interior of the did not forget. In 1895 he revived ideas in it present capitol rotunda. for a music pavilion included in the The roof trusses echo Wright's earliest ex­ Cheltenham Beach Resort Project (unbuilt) posure to architectural drafting: his 1885— for Chicago's south side, a design commis­ 1886 experiences in Madison with Allan D. sioned by his frequent client E. C. Waller and Conover, a professor of engineering and the an associate, Norman B. Ream. Nor was it for­ supervising architect for a complex of four gotten by Wright's Madison employer, Allan buildings during that period on the University D. Conover, who with his partner in 1896, Lew of Wisconsin campus. The trusses for the F. Porter, obviously drew upon it for their Ca­ boiler house, now expanded as Radio Hall, are sino building (now razed) at the Monona Lake startlingly similar to those Wright specified for Assembly grounds, a Chautauqua-like com­ the Monona boathouse; even the placement of plex which is now the site of Madison's Olin details on the two drawings is suggestive. If Park on the lake's south shore. And it has Wright did not himself draft the boiler house again become an object of interest in 1989— truss, the drawing at least demonstrates that nearly a century after its conception—thanks he had an opportunity to learn about this de­ to an offer by the Evjue Foundation, Inc., the sign well before adapting it into the circular charitable arm of Madison's Capital Times, to form of the Lake Monona project. construct it for the city as part of a proposed Functional arrangements for the Monona civic marina on the same site Wright envi­ boathouse were to have been similar to those sioned it.'^ in the Mendota structure. Again, a track and The date Wright inscribed on the subse­ hoist enabled stacking the boats in two tiers; an quent working drawings for both boathouses interior shelter assisted boaters in embarking is highly suggestive; June 8, 1893, his twenty- and debarking; a harbor provided some shel­ sixth birthday. Perhaps he coincidentally ter; and a small bridge led to the structure. In finished them on that day; and there are indi­ addition, the Monona boathouse would have cations of haste, since he mistakenly captioned had leaded glass windows and unusual tin- the drawing of the Lake Mendota boathouse's roofed canopies over the entrance doorways. front elevation as Lake Monona. But perhaps, Much of this was excessive, however, sym­ when still a young man, he indulged in the metry once again having led to duplication. same sort of birthday sentimentality that came Two stairways may not have been needed; the to mark the large celebrations staged at Ta­ arches were useless except on the lake side; the liesin in his later years. Even his choice for a entire roof was an extravagance; and the sec­ seal at this earliest point in his private practice ond story was not essential, merely providing a smacks of sentiment. He told his apprentices pleasant spot for leisure. Surely these unes­ years later that the wild lilies of Wisconsin in­ sential elements were not lost upon the com­ spired it, though seals of that basic round mittee that selected Wright's proposals. And shape and orange color were readily pur­ just as surely the members decided they were chased at stationers of the day.'^ appropriate in view of the organization's goals to improve Madison's appearance as well as its public services." '^Futagawa and Pfeiffer, FrankLloyd Wright Monograph 1887-1901, pp. 122-123; Wisconsin Slate J ournal, ]u\y 18, Had the Lake Monona boathouse been \%'i?>; Madison Democrat, ]u\y 16, 1896; Capita/r™«, April erected, it would have constituted Wright's 22, 1989. largest early public work. It was a project he "The dated drawings in the sets of plans for the boat- houses are 9304.02 (Mendota) and 9308.01 (Monona), both in the Frank Lloyd Wright Memorial Foundation Ar­ chives, Scottsdale, Arizona (FLWA). Wright made the "Wright's total fee for the two designs and for super­ comment regarding his seal in his talk to apprentices on vising construction of the Lake Mendota boathouse came Sunday, August 29, 1954, which is recorded on reel 105, to $442.25. The Mendota structure cost the Madison Im­ FLWA. The birthday coincidence contains yet another provement Association |3,276.88, not including $247.10 possible element of sentiment. Robert Lamp and Wright for the crane and $898.12 for grading Carroll Street to were born a year apart to the day. If Lamp had indeed in­ create a level site at the street's end. See Wisconsin State formed Wright of the competition, then the drawings Journal, October 22, 1895. could have been a kind of joint birthday present, espe- 289 WHi(X3)36003 The Casino on Madison's Monona Lake Assembly grounds, designed and built in 1896 by Wright's former Madison employer Allan D. Conover and Conover's partner, Lew Porter. The design concept obviously derives from Wright's 1893 boathouses. The casino was razed years ago; the Assembly grounds are now Madison's Olin Park.

^HE Carroll Street boathouse be­ Kentlands, a suburban development in T-came an instant Madison suc­ Gaithersburg, Maryland, fairly near Washing­ cess. The Chicago and North Western Railway ton, D.C.)'* used an engraving of it for an early twentieth- As time went on, however, the boathouse century promotional booklet. Lakes and Resorts attracted less and less attention, becoming of the Northwest. A locally produced booklet, simply a durable institution known as the "City Madison and Its Lakes, featured it on its cover; a Boathouse." Just how it was maintained and postcard publisher peddled a view with the University crew rowing in front of it; and local residents and commercial photographers of­ "The two promotional booklets appear in the SHSW library's large pamphlet collection; various photographic ten photographed it. In architectural circles, views appear in the SHSW iconographic collections. See too, it was destined to become well known, also Robert C. Spencer, Jr., "The Work of Frank Lloyd The first significant professional article about Wright from 1893 to \900," Architectural Review, 7:61-72 Wright's work appeared in 1900, illustrated in (June, 1900), reprint, Palos Park, Illinois: Prairie School part by two photographs and a plan of the Press, n.d. (illustrations on p. 67); Grant C. Manson, Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910: The First Golden Age (New York: Van boathouse. Architectural historian Grant C. Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1958), 59-60; Mark N. Berry to Manson accords it some prominence in his im­ Kathy Parks (Kentlands information), December 5, 1988, portant work, Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910: The in the author's files. In the course of his research, Manson First Golden Age (1958), adverdng that it bears corresponded with Annie Nunns of the SHSW, an ac­ "Wright's signature" for his work of the quaintance of Wright's from their school days. Nunns ar­ ranged for the research and photograph which Manson 1890's. (An adaptation of the design was de­ published. The photograph no longer appears in the vised in 1988 as a combination boathouse and SHSW collections, but their correspondence exists. See amphitheater stage by the architects of the Manson to Nunns, March 1, 12, 16, April 1, 4, 10, 24; Nunns to Manson, March 6, March (illegible), 21, April 3, 8; and J. Gardner Bennett (researcher) to Nunns, April 7, cially since the two had shared a keen interest in boating. all 1940, in Grant Manson folder, General Administrative See Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York: Correspondence, 1900-1980, box 127, series 934, Wis­ Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943), 35. consin State Archives, SHSW. 290 i- ,^5

Copyright © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 1982 Copyright © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 1982

Front elevation (upper left, drawing 9308.001 in the Frank Lloyd Wright archives), cross-section (upper right, drawing 9308.004), and ground and floor plan (lower left, drawing 9304.008) of the Lake Monona boathouse. Twice the size of the Lake Mendota structure, housing fifty-six boats as opposed to twenty-eight, this boathouse would have dominated the view of the city for rail passengers coming from the south and west, making it an instantly recognizable landmark. It was to have stood on pilings just across the modem rail tracks at the foot of Madison's South Hancock Street, where a four-lane drive now exists. The depression of 1893 led the North Western Railway to withdraw promised support, and half the pledges Madisonians made towards it also went unredeemed. Hence it was never built.

Copyright © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 1982

291 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 the concession was operated are something of Lloyd Wright's most important early Madison a mystery, as the city's government was not in­ building. volved and the Improvement Association's re­ Mrs. Brown and Chapman's timing ap­ cords do not survive. By 1907 the association pears to have been calculated. They had was defunct, having forfeited its incorporated waited only two months after the death of the status on January 3, 1907. Without an active one man in Madison who was likely to have group to keep it in repair, the boathouse been able to forestall it: John M. Olin, the slowly began to deteriorate, and in February, longtime president of the Madison Park and 1925, the city council's street committee rec­ Pleasure Drive Association, who died Decem­ ommended removing it. The recommenda­ ber 7, 1924. Olin certainly would have ar­ tion evidently came at the instigation of the ranged to accept the title. Even though Olin two adjoining property owners: Chandler and Frank G. Brown had shared an interest in Chapman and Mrs. Frank G. Brown, the civic improvement, they were bitterly divided widow of the president of the Madison Im­ personally. Mrs. Brown was not about to risk provement Association at the time the boat- being thwarted by her late husband's old ad­ house was erected. Both told the council that versary when she felt it was time for the boat- they would not assume responsibility for acci­ house's removal, whether officially for reasons dents which might occur at the boathouse. of safety or unofficially for practical real estate Both, however, stood to receive a substantial purposes. Thus it was that in February, 1926, benefit from the boathouse's removal since one of Frank Lloyd Wright's important early they would receive title to at least some of the creations quietly went out of existence. Sixty- land on which it stood, and their property two years later its significance still awaits local would become more salable. recognition.'^ On February 13 the council acted as the street committee had recommended, giving the defunct Improvement Association (none of whose former officers were living) and the ^'Wisconsin State Journal, February 13, 1925; Madison adjoining property owners (Mrs. Brown and Common Council, Proceedings, February 13, June 12, 1925; forfeited incorporation papers (January 3, 1907) of Chapman) one year to dismantle the building. the Madison Improvement Association in Wisconsin, Sec­ The next June, boathouse patrons petitioned retary of State, Corporation Division, incorporation pa­ the council to rescind its action, and an ordi­ pers: domestic corporations, file M683 in series 356, Wis­ nance to that effect was introduced, officially consin State Archives, in Archives, SHSW; letters between transferring responsibility for the structure Olin and Frank G. Brown and his brother Fred Brown, in the John M. Olin Papers, Archives, SHSW; Capital Times, from the Madison Improvement Association February 16, 1926; Olin obituary in the Wisconsin State to the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Asso­ Journal, December 8, 1924. ciation. A hearing on this new ordinance was The Chapman property eventually became a rooming scheduled, but the committee failed to report house, while Mrs. Brown sold her dwelling to Alpha Phi it back for action. Exactly a year to the day af­ sorority in the summer of 1927. See Sanborn-Perris maps for the area, SHSW; and Anne Waidelich, Dane County ter the February ordinance was passed. Chap­ Municipal Reference Service, to the author, October 16, man and his friends began to demolish Frank 1987.

292 The Northwest Ordinance and Regional Identity

By Peter S. Onuf

N 1887, at a celebration in Ma­ Ohio veteran agreed with Hoar that the moral 1 rietta, Ohio, commemorating its authority of the Ordinance derived from the passage one hundred years earlier. Senator heroic deeds of pioneer settlers as well as the George F. Hoar of Massachusetts assessed the sacrifices of those who fought and died to pre­ impact of the Northwest Ordinance on Ameri­ serve their legacy. "The Ordinance itself was can history. According to Hoar, the principles not a living force," Colonel Wager Swayne as­ of the Ordinance had inspired the nation in its serted, "and could not be till its articles of com­ epochal struggles for freedom. First, "the men pact were put on as armor by those heroes of of the Revolution fought that [those] princi­ the Revolution. They carried its flag into the ples . . . might become living realities." More wilderness." The Ordinance was at the same recently, "the five States of the Northwest sent time both more and less than a constitutional nearly a million soldiers into the war for the document guaranteeing the creation of free Union. ... It is this that makes the birthday of states in the Northwest. By itself, it "was not a Ohio another birthday of the nation itself. living force." Only the pioneer settlers who Forever honored be Marietta as another Plym­ ventured forth "into the wilderness" could outh. The Ordinance belongs with the Decla­ give life to its principles: "those men of'76 . . . ration of Independence and the Constitution. were the Ordinance." As succeeding genera­ It is one of the three title-deeds of American tions continued to cherish the Ordinance, so it constitutional liberty." would endure.' In a later celebratory address, a prominent Hoar and Swayne elaborated on themes de­ veloped by northwestern writers and orators in the decades before the Civil War. They too EDITORS' NOTE: This essay was delivered as a Northwest moved beyond the text of the document to Ordinance Lecture at the State Historical Society of Wis­ identify its "living" principles. Antebellum consin in Madison on April 12, 1988. The essay was publicists celebrated the conquesr of the wil­ adapted from the concluding chapter of the author's derness and the region's rapid economic de­ Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance (Bloomington, 1987), which is reviewed on page 306 of velopment rather than victory on the bat­ this issue of the Magazine. The lecture series and a mu­ tlefield. But they also sought to fashion a seum exhibit, "Liberty's Legacy," were sponsored by the founding myth that would inspire contempo­ alumni association of the Big Ten Conference with the as­ rary sons to uphold the legacy of their revolu- sistance of the State Historical Society ofWisconsin, and were funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In the Winter, 1988-1989 and in suc­ ' Hoar's and Swayne's speeches are reprinted in Wager ceeding issues we will publish other such essays marking Swayne, The Ordinance of'87 and the War of'61 (New York, the bicentennial of the Northwest Ordinance. 1892), quotations at 63-64 and 79 respectively.

Copyright © 1989 by The State Historical Society ofWisconsin 293 Alt rights of reproduction in any form reserved WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 tionary forefathers. The Northwest Ordi­ can landscape, beautiful in its diversity and its nance occupied a central place in this patriotic busy pursuits, as well as for its ennobling ef­ rhetoric: it constituted a direct link between fects on an enterprising citizenry. But another the first settlers of the region and the national landscape presented itself across the Ohio: founders; at the same time, the compact there, in Indianan Isaac Naylor's words, slav­ articles—notably Article VI excluding slav­ ery "stamps sterility upon the soil, and paraly­ ery—set forth the most advanced Revolution­ sis [upon] the physical, intellectual, and moral ary ideals. Northwesterners supposedly em­ power of the people."^ braced these ideals and gave them "living Toward the Civil War, the contrasting force" when they moved to the territory. "look" of slavery and freedom became a stock Controversy in the Northwest over how to feature in Republican rhetoric. But earlier interpret and apply specific Ordinance provi­ generations of northwestern publicists had sions—including Article VI—inspired North- had to forge a free-soil esthetic when distinc­ westerners to look back to the founding era to tions between North and South were not yet discover the meaning and direction of their rigorous or clear and comparisons that were own historical experience. The Ordinance reported in early travelers' accounts were of­ thus shaped continuing discussion over first ten unfavorable to the Northwest. The En­ principles, and enabled the people of the glishman Elias Pym Fordham, though pro­ Northwest to identify the founding of their fessedly hostile to slavery, found Kentucky states with the national founding. Once with its "refined manners and cultivated boundaries were settled, the Ordinance states minds" a much more attractive place than the admitted, and the slavery question definitively free states and territory across the river: "The resolved by the rapid growth of the free popu­ question in these wildernesses is this: Shall we lation, the Ordinance could then fill an impor­ have civilization and refinement, or sordid tant need as a symbol of regional distinctive­ manners and semi-barbarism, till time shall ness. produce so much inequality of condition that the poor man must serve the rich man for his daily bread? . . . Servitude in any form is an evil, but the structure of civilized society is N attempting to describe the char­ raised upon it."'' I acter of the rising state of Ohio, orator Arius Nye asked his listeners to imagine Other Britons, notably Morris Birkbeck, "an acute and comprehensive observer . . . oc­ founder of the famous English settlement at cupying a position from which he could take, Albion, Illinois, were more adamantly op­ with a coup d'oeil, a view of the state of Ohio, as it posed to slavery, but they usually agreed that is." This ideal observer would be rewarded the south side of the Ohio looked more pros­ with a panorama "so diversified as, at once, to perous and civilized. Thus, Adlard Welby, an­ beautify its aspect to the eye, and to stimulate other British visitor, also preferred Kentucky and reward the industry of its inhabitants." He to Ohio: the Kentucky "climate is fine, the land would discern "indications of mineral re­ sources and wealth, encouraging, promoting, 'Isaac Naylor, "Pioneer Life in Clark County," unpub­ and rewarding the industry and enterprise of lished manuscript in the Isaac Naylor Papers, Indiana a people, without unduly exciting their cupid­ Historical Society, Indianapolis. Eric Foner notes that ity and introducing extravagant adventure, vi­ many of his Republicans made similar distinctions be­ tween areas in the Northwest settled by enterprising Yan­ cious indulgence, and the extremes of luxury kees and those settled by southerners. See Foner, Free Soil, and poverty."^ Here, in short, was a republi- Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Be­ fore the Civil War (New York, 1970), 48-50. ••Elias Pym Fordham, Personal Narrative of Travels in ^Arius Nye, "A Fragment of the Early History of the Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky: State of Ohio, Being the Substance of an Address Deliv­ and of a Residence in the Illinois Territory, 1817—1818, edited ered at Marietta, on the 48th Anniversary of the First Set­ by Frederic Ausdn Ogg (Cleveland, 1906), 93, 229. For a tlement of the State," April 9, 1836, in the Transactions of useful analysis of travelers' accounts, see John Jakle, Im­ the Ohio Historical and Philosophical Society, 1 (1836), 304— ages of the Ohio Valley: A Historical Geography of Travel, 1740 334, quotation at 309-310. to 1860 (New York, 1977).

294 ONUF: THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE fertile and well cleared, and inclosed; the tucky's soil was already legend in the 1780's houses well built, and the landscape as we when John Filson wrote his famous promo­ passed frequently beautiful."^ tional tract. In those years, wrote New En- Kentucky was more pleasing to many Brit­ glander George Ogden, Kentucky was like "a ish visitors because the slave system imposed garden planted in the wilderness": "all was order and structure on the naturally beautiful nature, and all was liberty."^ But Kentucky landscape: the social inequality essential to civ­ squandered these advantages while Ohio, the ilization was mirrored in the balance between young giant to the north, surpassed her in nature and man-made improvements. But the wealth and numbers. In the late 1830's Caleb identification of slavery and civilization was Atwater rhapsodized at length on Virginia's hotly disputed by northern republicans, par­ great natural resources, concluding that if ticularly in the wake of the Missouri contro­ "Rufus Putnam and his pilgrims had settled in versy. Bolstered by census data demonstrating Virginia [which then included Kentucky], on more rapid population growth and economic the same day on which they did in Ohio, and development in free territory, northern writ­ under the same law, which he and they fol­ ers challenged the visitors' aristocratic as­ lowed here, prohibiting slavery forever in that sumption that civilization depended on in­ state, Virginia would now contain five millions equality. Instead, proponents of freedom of white freemen; and in the next fifty years, celebrated frontier equality, or what an early Virginia would contain twenty millions of orator, Stephen Smith, called "that state of happy human beings." But the Old Domin­ mediocrity in which is to be found the greatest ion's natural attractions had been forfeited, share of happiness." The emphasis on equality while "the broad and deep streams of wealth, reflected the traditional republican aversion numbers, enterprise, youth, vigor, and the to aristocracy, but was combined here with a very life blood of the slave holding states" were celebration of industry, enterprise, and devel­ "now rolling into Ohio like mighty floods."* opment. Smith pictured the leveling of for­ For Atwater and other promoters of freedom, ests, "the state everywhere filling with respect­ natural abundance represented a potential for able farmers," and countless new towns development which could only be fulfilled— arising in what was not long since "an absolute and made beautiful—by enterprise and indus­ wilderness." Smith and his successors saw try. An alternative esthetic was implicit in this beauty in dynamic terms, in the transforming premise: a beautiful landscape was dynamic, hand of man in nature, not in the neo-pastoral homogeneous, and man-made. balance which traditional social theorists Canals and other internal improvements found so appealing.^ organized the countryside, facilitating private pursuits and bringing Northwesterners closer to each other and to the larger world. "We seem to live at a more rapid rate than for­ ECAUSE they equated civiliza­ merly," Judge Timothy Walker said in 1837: tion with improvement and de­ B "Society itself sweeps along at a velocity un­ velopment, northern writers were willing— known before." John H. Farnham of Indiana even anxious—to concede the South's natural exulted in "the spirit of Internal Improvement advantages. The superior fertility of Ken­ [that] has caused these vast Western forests to bow to the genius of Civilization."^ Ohioans

"Adlard Welby, A Visit to North America and the English Settlement in Illinois (London, 1821), reprinted in Reuben 'George W. Ogden, Letters from the West (New Bedford, Gold Thwaites, ed.. Early Western Travels, 1748-1846 (32 1823), reprinted in Thwaites, ed.. Early Western Travels, vols., Cleveland, 1904-1907), 12:39-341, Quotation at 19:19-112, quotation at 95. 228. *Caleb Atwater, A History of the State of Ohio, Natural and •"Stephen C. Smith, An Oration . . . at the New Meeting C!M7(2nd ed., Cincinnad, 1838), 330-331. House in Marietta (Marietta, 1808), 14. See also Benjamin 'Timothy Walker, Annual Discourse, Delivered before the Ruggles, An Oration Delivered at the New Meeting House, in Ohio Historical and Philosophical Society, At Columbus, On the Manetta (Marietta, 1809). 23d of December, 1837 (Cincinnad, 1838), 21.

295 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

believed that better transportation combined the Northwest. Ohio's ascent to national lead­ with technological innovations—notably in ership in wealth and population demon­ steam power—and industrial development strated the superiority of free institutions in would sustain their state's rapid strides toward encouraging private enterprise and com­ preeminence in the union. After reviewing merce. By contrast, the institution of slavery the state's many advantages, Atwater con­ stifled industry, retarded population growth, fidently concluded that Ohio would soon "be and thus undermined "union" both within the the very first state in this union, in numbers, slave states and between North and South. wealth and power."'" Union depended on the common interests Ohio's greatness depended on the heroic of enterprising individuals in what Arius Nye efforts of its own people, not simply on nat­ described as the "aggregate moving mass." ure's bounties. Patriotic orators linked indi­ The history of the Northwest demonstrated vidual enterprise and social and economic that enterprise flourished best under free in­ progress with the "principles of freedom" set stitutions, where the "curse of slavery" was ex­ forth by the founders. At a settlement anni­ cluded. Therefore, Ohio, "the truest democ­ versary in 1833, Judge John M. Goodenow racy which had yet existed," provided not only celebrated the effects of "Liberal Principles": a model for other, less enhghtened states, but "Like steam engines and rail-roads in the ma­ for the union as a whole. Ohio would be first in terial world—may they continue to remove the union; in order to survive, the union every mountain and all distance in our social would have to become more like Ohio.'^ and intellectual state."" For Goodenow the The identification between Ohio and the transforming landscape mirrored man's union helped promote the apotheosis of the moral and intellectual progress. The spirit of Northwest Ordinance. Northwestern publi­ enterprise and "ACTION" also strengthened cists linked the opening of the West to the the American union. "Commerce," Caleb birth of the nation by depicting the Ordinance Atwater explained, "produces a healthy action as one of the founders' central achievements. in the body politic: it leads to industry, to en­ The founders' commitments to freedom and terprise, and they again lead to competency, enterprise became manifest in the new world comfort, and happiness. Mutual wants pro­ created by enterprising Northwesterners at duce mutual dependence; and thus an union the same time slaveholding southerners and of interest forms a cement, a bond of union."'^ their northern allies were abandoning them. Atwater's conception of union was a famil­ iar one by the 1830's. Ever since the I780's, pro-development theorists had argued that iHIOANS took the lead in relat­ interlocking interest was the best guarantee of ing the growing prosperity and intersectional harmony and union; westerners o population of the trans-Ohio region to the from free and slave states alike were enthusi­ Northwest Ordinance. Beginning in the late astic proponents of internal improvements 1820's, patriotic orators and promoters that would bring them closer to eastern mar­ sought to explain—and sustain—their state's kets. But Atwater's discussion reflected a extraordinary development. While fertile soil growing sense of regional distinctiveness: for and easy, natural access to the larger world him, the principle of union was best exem­ were frequently cited, the appeal of such ex­ plified within Ohio and the other free states of planations declined with the diminishing land supply; settlers intent on fresh land at low '"Atwater, History of Ohio, 351. For a similar prediction, prices were already bypassing Ohio en route see John A. Bryan, The Ohio Annual Register. . . for the Year to newly opened areas to the west. But Ohio /

296 ONUF: THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE continued to thrive, compensating for its nat­ 1802, giving "us a free republican polity, and a ural disadvantages by man-made improve­ government of laws," their most important ments on the natural landscape. Publicists ar­ achievement had been to "peril the wilderness gued that Ohio's economy was in the midst of a and the savage foe" to "purchase a country development boom. The capacity of the land and a home in the west . . . for us." Because to support more people and produce more Ohio's founding was linked to the purchase of wealth was vastly increased by the spreading government lands. Congress' land and gov­ network of canals and the rise of dozens of ernment ordinances of 1785 and 1787 consti­ new towns and cities, bustling with commerce tuted the new state's true organic law. and manufacturing. And the key to the ex­ According to the Ohio historians, pur­ traordinary transformation of this once "im­ chasers of federal land under the ordinances mense forest" was the Northwest Ordinance.''' transcended simple self-interest. Judge Timo­ The free enterprise that enlightened policy thy Walker told another settlement anniver­ encouraged provided the motive force for sary crowd at Marietta that the Ordinance had changes in the landscape and also defined the "prepared this then wilderness for social exist­ "character" of the people who formed the new ence, by throwing around it the first protec­ state. Inl836,ata speech commemorating the tion of law." "The emigrant therefore knew forty-eighth anniversary of the settlement of beforehand, that this was a land of the highest Marietta, Arius Nye asserted that "one com­ political as well as natural promise," and there­ mon and predominant characteristic [had fore "journeyed with confidence towards his been] impressed . . . upon the aggregate mov­ new Canaan."'^ The Ohio pioneers had con­ ing mass and its several individuals" who set­ verted the promise into a sacred, reciprocal tled the state, and that was "ACTION, in all the obligation. In Salmon Chase's words, "the forms by which it is displayed by men in the purchaser of land became, by that act, a party pursuit of earthly good."'° Just as nature alone to the compact, and bound by its perpetual could not explain the state's present prosper­ covenants."'^ As each settler, in taking up fed­ ity, so too the heterogeneous origins of the eral lands, embraced "the genuine principles first settlers seemed to offer little hope for the of freedom" embodied in the Northwest Ordi­ development of a distinctive "national charac­ nance, enlightened private interest and the ter." Ohioans lacked "the homogeneous char­ public good converged. acter of a more ancient and fixed people," con­ ceded Nye. But the very impulse that brought pioneering settlers west transformed them— and their posterity—as it transformed the wil­ ' HASE'S "principles of freedom" derness. They were an active, dynamic people c were set forth in the Ordi­ who founded a new world; because that nance's compact articles, most notably in Ar­ founding was enacted by the first settlers in ticle VI, which excluded slavery from the ter­ their conquest of the wilderness, subsequent ritory. By the 1830's, many Ohioans defined generations of Ohioans could share in the freedom both in opposition to slavery and by founding by continuing their forefathers' im­ association with private enterprise. Both proving works. senses were evoked when they celebrated the "vigour and spirit of their institutions." With Ohio publicists defined the state's founding countless other writers, Edward D. Mansfield in terms that justified and dignified their own attributed the "direction" of the "policy and "pursuit of earthly good." The first settlers views" of free government in Ohio to the Or­ had not been state-makers in the classic sense. dinance; having established a foundation of Though they had taken time off from their free institutions—and having excluded slav- private business to draft a constitution in

'^Walker, Annual Discourse, 9, 6. '•*Caleb Atwater, History of Ohio, 352. "Salmon Chase, ed.. The Statutes of Ohio and of the '^Nye, "Fragment of the Early History," Transactions, Northwestern Territory Adopted or Enacted from 1788 to 1833 304-334, quotation at 312. Inclusive (C\nc\nnzu, 1833), 16—17. 297 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 ery—the Ordinance "has had great, and not dom." In the notion that the principles of the less certain because unseen influence, upon Ordinance were imprinted immediately on the prosperity and happiness of that immense nature, the American obsession with written and now populous district."'^ constitutions merged with an organic concep­ Freedom and prosperity were inextricably tion of political community rooted in the soil. linked. According to another anniversary ora­ "No ancient rubbish had to be cleared away," tor, William M. Corry, the Northwest Ordi­ Walker wrote (echoing language Manasseh nance "unsealed those exhaustless fountains Cutler had used fifty years earlier). "The of emigration, whose current setting west­ whole region, with some trifling exceptions, ward, has animated with living streams, so was then one continuous solitude, upon which large a portion of this expansive valley." Em­ no laws operated but the laws of nature. "^^ Be­ ploying similar imagery, the historian Caleb cause the authors of congressional western Atwater wrote, "we have had flowing towards policy did not face the same constraints (the us, a flood of immigrants who love liberty." "ancient rubbish") facing constitution-writers Corry and Atwater conceived the true found­ elsewhere, the gap between principles and ing of the state to be in the reciprocal action of practice disappeared. As a result. Congress' the settlers' love of liberty and "those excellent intentions were translated directly into the laws of Congress," which furnished "a perfect free institutions that shaped Northwestern de­ mould for well proportioned republicans."'^ velopment. Subsequent generations could as­ The result, James H. Perkins told the recently certain the guiding principles of the North­ formed Ohio Historical Society, was that "in west Ordinance without referring to its text: Ohio. . . was first founded a nearly true demo­ they were clearly apparent in the freedom and cratic community," free of the marks of the prosperity Ohioans so abundantly enjoyed. "feudal spirit" still apparent in the eastern states and of the "servile element [which] pre­ vented the full operation of the principle of HE idea of the Ordinance in­ self-rule" in the South. It would not be too T voked by Ohio orators and much to say, as Perkins did, that Ohio was "the publicists beginning the 1830's was easily de­ truest democracy which had yet existed."^" In tached from the document itself. By empha­ the same vein. Chase concluded that the free­ sizing the transcendent and universal "princi­ dom established by the Ordinance was a "fit ples of freedom" embodied in the Ordinance, consummation" of the "glorious labors" of the Ohioans shifted attention away from the ac­ old Congress, "unadulterated by that compro­ tual text even while celebrating its fundamen­ mise with circumstances"—meaning slavery— tal importance. According to their accounts, "the effects of which are visible in the constitu­ the Ordinance was so much a part of the fabric tion and history of the union."2' Ohio was the of their state's political and social life that the freest, most democratic, and thus most truly text itself easily could be overlooked: this is American state. what Mansfield meant when he spoke of the Congress could create free institutions in Ordinance's "unseen influence" upon Ohio's the Northwest where, in Walker's words, "all "prosperity and happiness."^^ It was the docu­ was open and free, as an unsullied sheet, to re­ ment itself that was no longer "seen." Yet its ceive the best impressions of legislative wis­ beneficent effects were apparent everywhere:

'^Edward D. Mansfield, The Political Grammar of the ^^Timothy Walker, Introduction to American Law (Phila­ United States (New York, 1834), 145. delphia, 837; facsimile reprint. New York, 1972), 44; "William M. Corry oration in Celebration of the Forty- Manasseh Cutler, An Explanation of the Map which Delineates Seventh Anniversary of the First Settlement of the State of Ohio ... the Federal Lands (Salem, Massachusetts, 1787), re­ (Cincinnad, 1835), 5, 9, 10-11; Atwater, History of Ohio, printed in William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler, 352. Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, ™James H. Perkins, "Discourse before the Ohio His­ LL.D., 2 vols. (Cincinnad, 1888), 2:393-406, quotation at torical Society," Transactions, 268-285, quotation at 282. 404. ^^Chase,ed., Statutes, 18. ^'Mansfield, Political Grammar, 145. 298 ONUF: THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE

Ohioans simply had to look about them to Review called the Ordinance "a national com­ read the living text. pact, forbidding slavery, securing civil and re­ At the 1841 Buckeye Celebration, orator ligious freedom, and all those privileges that N. C. Read presented a reading of the state's others had struggled for through ages of founding conceived as text translated into blood and turmoil."2*' Under the Ordinance, landscape: 2* liberty was secured without bloodshed at the very founding of a new society, thus marking Whilst yet in her native grandeur, the or­ dinance of 1787, as she slept in all the an epoch in world history. Orator Jordon magnificence of her wild beauty and un­ Pugh elaborated this theme: the Ordinance broken repose, threw over her the splen­ was dor of freedom, and consecrated her an American production; the offspring forever as the home of the free.—Thus, of American wisdom and experience. with the principles of the Revolution, mingled Like the declaration of independence, with her very soil by the ordinance of '87— like the constitution that binds these robed in all the spotless purity of free states together, its language is simple and principles—she came into the Union as a unostentatious. But how comprehensive State. is its spirit! How potent are its truths! Read invited his listeners to imagine the text of The west tells its present effect, and the the Ordinance actually superimposed on and future shadows forth yet mightier results. Its impress is upon our charac­ merged with the territory's "native grandeur" ter, and upon our legislation. There it and thus become part of the "very soil" of the must remain as long as the Saxon race in­ state. At the same time, by identifying it with herits the soil. "the principles of the Revolution," he elevated the Ordinance to the same plane as the other In Pugh's inflated rhetoric, mere words ("un­ great state papers of the founding era. ostentatious language") were discounted In either case, whether the Ordinance was while the Ordinance's "spirit" and "truths" best known by its fruits or by its essential prin­ were attested by its "comprehensive" and "po­ ciples. Read directed attention away from a tent" effects on the people, laws, and land­ close reading of the document itself. The text scape of the Northwest. Only "that wondrous of the Ordinance is, in fact, remarkably com­ prosperity which we now behold" could reveal plex and incoherent, accurately reflecting the the Ordinance's true meaning.^^ confusion and urgency facing Congress in Celebrations of the Ordinance thus sug­ 1787. But Read and other Ohio publicists gested that the founding fathers of the Old were fashioning another, transcendent Ordi­ Northwest were none other than the founders nance to suit their conception of the state's his­ of the American nation itself. But the region's tory. settlers were also portrayed as active partici­ In its apotheosis, the Northwest Ordinance pants in a continuing process of social and eco­ became more and more of an abstraction, dis­ nomic development that transformed republi­ solving into other great constitutional docu­ can principles into concrete reality. In their ments. According to Caleb Atwater, it "was own way, the pioneers who landed at Marietta justly considered as the Magna Charta of in 1788 and the enterprising legions who fol- Ohio, and all of the states northwest of the Ohio river." "That blessed boon," added Wil­ liam D. Gallagher, "sprang from the profound regard of the Fathers of the Republic for the ^'Atwater, History of Ohio, 352; William D. Gallagher, Rights of Man."2^ In a typical gloss of its lead­ Facts and Conditions of Progress in the North-West. Being the Annual Discourse for 1850, Before the Historical and Philo­ ing principles, a writer in the North American sophical Society of Ohio (Cincinnati, 1850), 18. ^^Review of Salmon Chase's edition of Statutes of Ohio, in the North American Review, 47 (1838), 1-56, quotation at 2. ^"•Hon N. C. Read, The Anniversary Oration of the Buckeye ^'Jordon Pugh in Celebration of the Fifty-Seventh Anniver­ Celebration, 7th April, A. D., 1841 (Cincinnad, 1841), 8; my sary of the Settlement of Ohio, April 8th, 1844 (Cincinnati, emphasis. 1844), 21, 13. 299 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 lowed were also "founders" of Ohio and the ster based his claim on Dane's own authority: other Ordinance states. The result of defining concerned that southerners might gain credit the founding in this double sense was to iden­ for a measure that all agreed had "afforded tify the first Ohioans with the first Americans material means in promoting the prosperity and thus to establish their republican pedi­ and rapid growth of the West," Dane insisted gree. In the same way, causes, the great princi­ on his own preeminent role, notably in the ples "impressed" on the Northwestern wilder­ last-minute insertion of Article VI. Given his ness by the Ordinance, were defined by—and close ties to the Ohio Company and his mem­ easily confused with—their effects, material bership on the committee that actually drafted improvements in a transforming landscape. the Ordinance—the manuscript draft was in his hand—Dane could make a strong case for himself. "If there be any praise or blame," he concluded in his influential General Abridge­ HE growing importance of the ment of American Law, "it belongs to Massachu­ T' Northwest Ordinance as a re­ setts; as one of her members [Dane himself] gional symbol prompted contemporary histo­ formed it and furnished . . . [most of its] mat­ rians to look beyond the text to try to deter­ '30 mine its true authorship. The identity of the ter. document's author—or authors—was by no Throughout the 1830's many Northwest­ means self-evident, and even today remains erners exalted Dane, "the venerable author of controversial.^^ Differences of opinion often the Ordinance of 1787." In 1833, "Natives of reflected a writer's own background, with ex- Ohio" toasted his "political wisdom" for secur­ southerners promoting the claim of Thomas ing "the blessings of religion, and learning, Jefferson and transplanted Yankees counter­ and freedom[;] his name will be hallowed for­ ing with arguments for Nathan Dane of Mas­ ever."^' Dane's death in February, 1835, un­ sachusetts. The answer also depended on how leashed a flood of encomiums. William Corry the Ordinance was approached and defined: a asserted that Dane, "Lycurgus-like," had close reading, focusing on the text itself and its given law to the entire Northwest: "the land­ immediate context, strengthened the case for marks of his scheme of government for our Dane; while an emphasis on the principles be­ territory will only fail with its prosperity, of hind the textjustified the attribution to Jeffer­ which they are the permanent foundation." At son or Rufus King—authors of earlier anti- the same settlement anniversary celebration, slavery proposals—or to the founding fathers the Ordinance was toasted: "may its principles generally. be firmly implanted in our affections, and the remembrance of its author (the venerated In his famous exchange with Senator Ro­ Dane) indelibly engraven in the hearts of our bert Hayne of South Carolina in 1830, Daniel children." Later on, perhaps reflecting the in­ Webster celebrated Nathan Dane's key contri­ fluence of countless more toasts, Samuel bution as author of the Ordinance in guaran­ Findlay stretched hyperbole toward impiety. teeing freedom in the Northwest. Webster Nathan Dane's "mighty intellect like the sun of doubted "whether one single law of any law­ Heaven, dawned upon the west, and driving giver, ancient or modern, has produced ef­ fects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character, than the Ordinance of'87."^^ Web- '"Nathan Dane, A General Abridgement and Digest of American Law (9 vols., Boston, 1823-1829), Note A, Ap­ ^*The historiography is discussed in Ray Allen Bi- pendix to vol. 9, 75-76. For Dane's analysis of the Ordi­ lington, "The Historians of the Northwest Ordinance," in nance text, see his letter to Webster, March 26, 1830, in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 40 (1947), the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 10 397-413; Philip R. Shriver, "America's Other Bicenten­ (1869), 475-480. Dane noted that the adopted draft was nial," in The Old Northwest, 9 (1983), 219-235; and James in his hand in a letter to John H. Farnham, May 12, 1831, David Griffin, "Historians and the Sixth Article of the Or­ inlhe Publications of the Indiana Historical Society, 1 (1897), dinance of 1787," in OAioZ/utor)', 78 (1969), 252-260. 69-71. 2'Daniel Webster, January 20, 1830, in Register of De­ ^'Minutes of the Indiana Historical Society, November bates in Congress (13 vols., Washington, 1824-1837), 21 8, 1831, ibid., 1:27; Goodenow, in Celebration of the Forty- Cong., 1 Sess., 6:39. Fifth Anniversary, 14.

300 ONUF: THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE before it the darkness of barbarism, illumi­ The apotheosis of Nathan Dane was really a nated it with the light of civilization, of science celebration of the booming northwestern and the arts."^^ In 1837 Timothy Walker economy. As Dane himself suggested in 1829, brought Dane hagiography to a climax when the question of authorship had only become "a he called the Yankee jurist "another Moses." subject of particular importance" in recent "For brevity, comprehension, and forecast," years when, after decades of erratic growth, he concluded, the Ordinance "has no superior the trans-Ohio region finally came into its in the annals of legislation. "33 own. A Cincinnati writer later noted that much of the "reverence and admiration" of the Ordinance "may be attributed to the great prosperity and growth of the States which 'HESE rhetorical flights had litde have grown up under its kindly influence."^^ to do with their ostensible sub­ T- But because the actual connection between the ject. Though sober students of the historical drafting of the Ordinance and the region's be­ record like Peter Force continued to insist on lated ascent to prosperity and power seemed Dane's authorship, Northwesterners soon lost somewhat remote and tenuous, it was unclear interest in him.^"* It was hard to see the author how much credit the draftsman deserved. in such inflated comparisons, just as it was Northwesterners were eager to link their ris­ hard to find such sterling literary qualities in ing fortunes with the national founding, but the text. Nonetheless, the tributes to Dane are the weight of Dane's putative achievement revealing. Northwestern publicists needed a proved disproportionately heavy for so mod­ founding father to give mythic resonance to est a figure to bear. The region's historians their histories. Therefore, just as the authors needed a more plausible founding father, bet­ of the federal Constitution were considered ter connected to the national pantheon and the nation's founders, Dane, author of the Or­ equal to the rhetorical task. The solution was dinance, was portrayed as founder of the to move beyond the text of the Ordinance to Northwest. But writers and orators tended to identify the author or authors of its guiding identify Dane, the author-founder, with his principles. "works"—the populous and prosperous free states of the West—in the same way they sug­ gested that the true "text" of the Ordinance was imprinted on the landscape. The result HE tendency to emphasize the was that the image of Dane became lost in the T fundamental principles em­ enduring "landmarks of his scheme," in the bodied in the Ordinance—and thus to neglect "light" of progress and "civilization," and in the document itself—helped bolster the argu­ the "principles" that shaped the character of ment for Thomas Jefferson. Though it was Northwesterners. well-known that he was in Europe when the Ordinance was actually adopted, a broader in­ terpretation of congressional western policy ^^William Corry, in Celebration of the Forty-Seventh Anni­ credited the Virginian with establishing the versary, 12; toasts to the Ordinance and to Dane (by Sa­ principle of slavery exclusion in his original muel Findlay), ibid., 34, 62. draft of the 1784 ordinance for territorial gov­ "Walker, Annual Discourse, 6; Introduction to American ernment. Dane's Article VI simply imple­ Law, 44. '"•An article in the Cincinnati Chronicle, no date given, mented the Jeffersonian principle. This ver­ reprinted in National Intelligencer (Washington, D. C), sion of the drafting of the Ordinance proved August 6, 1846, had argued that Rufus King's March 16, increasingly attractive in the Northwest for 1785, motion to exclude slavery from the national terri­ several related reasons: a strictly Yankee gene­ tory was the real source of "the Anti-Slavery Clause as it alogy for key Ordinance principles would fuel now exists in the Ordinance." (The motion never came to a vote. See Donald Robinson, Slavery in the Structure oj divisiveness in a region heavily settled by American Politics [revised ed.. New York, 1979], 380.) Force responded with an accurate reconstruction of events, properly crediting Dane, in the National Intelli­ '^Dane, General Abridgement, 9:75; also the article in the gencer, August 26, 1847. Cincinnati Chronicle cited in previous note. 301 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

southerners; Jefferson, of course, carried Corwin urged his colleagues to extend the more weight as a putative founder than Dane; provisions of the Ordinance to the new territo­ and finally, by asserting that they were Jeffer­ ries. The Ordinance's "doctrine of free terri­ son's heirs, Northwesterners could portray tory is not new; it is coeval with the Constitu­ themselves as authentic American patriots. tion, born the same year, of the same parents, Modern-day southerners, Virginians in­ and baptized in the same good old republican cluded, had betrayed the founders' noble church." In opposing the machinations of the principles. slave power, Corwin took his "stand upon the Jefferson was presented as an antislavery Ordinance of 1787. There the path is marked figure in the Illinois convention struggle of by the blood of the Revolution." He chided 1823—1824. Anticonventionists sought to con­ "southern gentlemen" who would "desecrate vince the state's large southern population the memory of Jefferson," the author of both that Jefferson had long been committed to the Declaration and the Northwest Ordi­ keeping the Northwest free.^^ The managers nance, by abandoning his antislavery princi­ of the anticonvention campaign argued that ples:^^ freedom was secured to the region by enlight­ When the ample patrimony of Virginia ened southerners: first, Virginia had magnan­ was transferred to the Confederacy [in imously ceded its western lands to Congress; the 1784 cession],Jefferson, and those of then Jefferson had taken the lead in establish­ his school, who made this noble dona­ ing new governments on liberal principles— tion, at once declared that slavery should including the prohibition of slavery. In oppos­ not pollute the soil of five rich and pow­ ing the introduction of slavery in Illinois, the erful new States. Such was Virginian, anticonventionists appealed to the intentions such was American opinion then. of Jefferson and the founding fathers, thus The venerable Edward Coles, a native Vir­ setting the Northwest Ordinance in the ginian and the antislavery governor of Illinois broader context of the American founding. In during the convention struggle, made the later decades, antislavery Northwesterners most elaborate argument for Virginia's contri­ adopted the same strategy in seeking to forge bution and Jefferson's authorship in a paper a regional consensus for freedom and against read before the Historical Society of Pennsyl­ the "slave power." As the sectional crisis wors­ vania in 1856. Not only had the Old Dominion ened, politicians and publicists became more ceded the Northwest to the United States un­ and more insistent that the Ordinance was "an der express conditions, but at the request of American production," expressing the most Congress she had "formally ratified and con­ cherished values and goals of the nation's firmed" Article V (altering the size of the new founders.^^ states specified in the Virginia cession) and In Senate debates over the organization of "tacitly gave her assent to the whole ordinance Oregon and California in 1848, Ohio's Tom of 1787." Coles asserted that Jefferson was the "enlightened and benevolent author" of the Ordinance, basing his claim on the far- '"See particularly. Remarks Addressed to the Citizens of Illi­ nois, in the Proposed Introduction of Slavery [Vandalia, 1824?; ranging operation of his 1784 proposal to ex­ copy at Boston Public Library]. Jefferson's discussion of clude slavery in all federal territory after 1800. slavery in his Notes on Virginia was reprinted in the Illinois Even the delayed effect of Jefferson's pro­ Intelligencer, ]u\y 2, 1824. posal supposedly revealed a truly abolitionist "Pugh, in Celebration of the Fifty-Seventh Anniversary, 21. intent: "it is clearly seen that the illustrious au- Pugh tried to apportion credit for the Ordinance fairly, "acknowledg[ing] our indebtedness to the sage of Monti- cello," while still insisting that "the great merit of framing this Ordinance belongs to Mr. Dane," ibid., 17. But the ar­ '^Corwin, Speech on Compromise Bill, July 24, 1848, guments of Salmon Chase and other antislavery leaders in Isaac Strohm, ed.. Speeches of Thomas Corwin, with a about the founders' true devotion to freedom tipped the Sketch of His Life (Dayton, 1859), 404-461, quotations at balance decisively away from Dane. I have found no sub­ 406-407,451, 461, 414. For more on the founders' intent sequent northwestern reference to his authorship. On and a refutation of "popular sovereignty," see Corwin's Chase and the founders, see the excellent discussion in Speech on Current Political Issues, ibid., 477-510, quota­ Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 73—102. tion at 495-499.

302 ONUF: THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE thor of the ordinance intended it to abolish the cause is the 6th article of the Ordinance of'87, then existing state of slavery, as well as to pro­ prohibiting slavery. . . . The proximate cause hibit its ever being tolerated in the country is, free men, free thought, free speech, a free northwest of the Ohio River. " By arguing that press, and free labor." "This article is worth Article VI represented an expedient and com­ more to Indiana," Naylor concluded, "than all promised version of Jefferson's more compre­ the gold of California, multiplied a thousand hensive and advanced position. Coles could ig­ times."'*" nore Dane's claims to authorship. As the "author" of Article VI, Jefferson was Coles was not simply making Jefferson into thus Indiana's true founder. But Naylor care­ an abolitionist—a most unlikely characteriza­ fully distinguished "remote" from proximate tion of the owner of 200 slaves. Instead, with causes: if the principles of freedom could be Corwin and other Northwesterners, Coles in­ traced back to Jefferson and the founders, it sisted that Jefferson was no freak: the found­ was the "free men" of the northwestern states ers generally had cherished the goal of secur­ who kept them alive. It was this sense of partic­ ing freedom in the Northwest. "If unanimity ipating in a continuous founding—a vast co­ of opinion and repetition of legislative action operative enterprise linking contemporary can give weight," Coles argued, "the Ordi­ Northwesterners to the American founding nance is entitled to even more than the Consti­ fathers—that most inspired publicists. The tution, which encountered much opposition people knew what the Ordinance was "worth": in the national convention." But incredibly, its value, like the "gold of California," was im­ the Taney court had—in the Dred Scott deci­ bedded in the land itself. In the words of a sion of 1857—"denounced" the Ordinance "as Pittsburgh editor, "there is no statute or law violating the great principles on which our enacted by any nation ancient or modern Government is founded." "What adds to the whose glorious and beneficial results are so astonishment is, that this has been done by prominently displayed in the very face of the men professing to be of the Jefferson school of land." The pioneers of Ohio had been drawn politics."^^ to a "boundless wild" land, Arius Nye ex­ plained, "devoted and consecrated, by a sol­ emn national act, to the abode of freedom." Free land was the "proximate" cause of free jN the eve of the Civil War, many men, and in the material abundance that the o Northwesterners had come to land afforded, the value of freedom shone see the Northwest Ordinance as one of the forth."*' When Tom Corwin took his "stand great state papers of the founding era, per­ upon the Ordinance of 1787," he had his feet haps even—in its guarantees of freedom and firmly on free ground. civil liberty—the most authentically "Ameri­ can production" of them all. Patriotic writers celebrated the Ordinance and its "enlightened and benevolent author" as the ultimate cause N an essay on the General Character, of the region's amazing development. Isaac I Present and Future Prospects of Naylor of Indiana explained his state's "aston­ the People of Ohio (1827), Caleb Atwater ishing progress and prosperity": "the remote showed how the idea of state-founding merged with the celebration of economic de­ velopment. Pioneer settlers, constitution- '^Edward Coles, "History of the Ordinance of 1787," read before Historical Society of Pennsylvania, June 9, 1856, reprinted in Clarence E. Alvord, ed.. Governor ••"Naylor, "Pioneer Life in Clark County." Edward Coles (Vol. 15 of Collections of the Illinois State Histor­ •""The Ordinance of 1787," in Neville Craig, ed.. The ical Society, Springfield, 1920), 376-98, quotadons at 377, Olden Time (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1876; orig. pub., Pitts­ 385-386, and 397-398. New Englander Charies Francis burgh, 1848), issue of June, 1847, 2:277; Nye, "Fragment Adams agreed that "the celebrated ordinance" of 1787 of the Early History," Transactions, 308. For a superb dis­ "reinstated the Jefferson proviso respecting slavery." See cussion of the importance of free land in republican ideol­ Adams to Edwin Legg, September 26, 1859, in the Adams ogy, see Yoner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, especially 1— Family Papers, American Antiquarian Society. 39, and, on the intentions of the founders, 73-102.

303 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 writers, and canal builders all participated in a founding and the rise of the free West. Seen in continuous founding. Thus, Atwater sug­ this light, the Ordinance constituted the ulti­ gested, the landscape itself, properly viewed, mate, remote cause of the region's prosperity should inspire state pride and patriotism. and abundance, "the charter of our social and Atwater advised his fellow citizens to political prosperity."*^ Here, in Judge Walk­ er's words, was the "sagacious forecast" of the be prepared for celebrating the final completion of the grand works, now in authors of the Ordinance who established the successful and rapid progress in this social and legal conditions under which land state. While the Erie rolls its waves, while could be taken up. The "first cause of our won­ the Ohio and Mississippi pour their derful progress is undoubtedly to be found in floods, these works shall remain, MONU­ the character and position of our soil." But MENTS of the patriotism, of the enter- when the potential "settler turned from the prize, of the energy and wisdom of the contemplation of the soil, to the first funda­ founders of this great and growing com­ mental law by which his rights would be munity. determined"—the Northwest Ordinance— In a sense, internal improvements, like the "the inducement [to emigrate] was multiplied grid pattern of the land system, were im­ ten fold."** At the same time. Walker and printed on what Judge Walker called the "un­ other orators emphasized that the prosperity sullied sheet" of the northwestern wilderness. that vindicated free principles was only Clearly, Atwater had this broad idea of "au­ achieved by the enlightened enterprise of thorship" in mind when he promised the Northwesterners themselves. Thus, in their "early authors of Ohio" a "rich harvest of own way, the pioneers who exploited natural fame": antiquarians, authors in the conven­ advantages and promoted the rapid growth of tional sense, would memorialize the pioneer wealth and population were also founders of settlers by assembling "fragments of history"; free and powerful new states and authors of "men of science," by reading in "the great their own destiny. book of nature . . . every where, presenting its In their apotheosis of the Northwest Ordi­ opened, expanded volume, to his anxious and nance, Judge Walker and other celebrants enquiring eye," would shed new light on the fashioned a new vision of the role of the Old state's bountiful resources; while men of Northwest in American history. Along with action would erect "the grand works" which congressional provisions for the sale and sur­ would ever remain "MONUMENTS" of the vey of public lands, beginning with the 1785 "founders." "Millions on millions shall yet Land Ordinance, the Northwest Ordinance read their writings with filial reverence and af­ provided a blueprint for future communities, fection."*^ images of an organized landscape and consti­ Atwater's conceit would be flattering to the tutional environment in which individuals many leading Ohioans, including Atwater could freely pursue their own goals. In such himself, busily involved in all these activities. patriotic rhetoric, past and future merged. But the broad definitions of authorship and This was the ultimate meaning of the Ordi­ state-founding moved beyond self-congratu­ nance for Northwesterners as they moved be­ lation to embrace a broader vision of north­ yond the struggles over state-making, bound­ western history in which the authority of the aries, and slavery. Individual enterprise—be­ American founders merged with the moral ginning with the act of emigration—was dou- authority of the people of the Northwest act­ hly sanctioned, both by the promises of the ing according to the timeless and transcendent founders embodied in the Ordinance and by principles of freedom. the promise of economic and political devel­ The Northwest Ordinance came to symbol­ opment enterprise would promote. ize the reciprocal relation between the nation's

•"^Caleb Atwater, The General Character, Present and Fu­ '''Toast at Celebration of the Forty-Seventh Anniversary, ture Prospects of the People of Ohio (Columbus, 1827; copy at 34-35. Library of Congress), 20-21. ''•'Walker, Annual Discourse, 8—9.

304 BOOK REVIEWS

Those Terrible Carpetbaggers. By RICHARD NEL­ Reed, a moderate Republican, did not face SON CURRENT. (Oxford University Press, New such ostracism, and the ex-governor turned to York and Oxford, 1988. Pp. xii, 475. Illustra­ growing oranges. Morgan and Reed held dif­ tions, notes, index. ISBN 0-19-504872-5, ferent positions during the war, came south $24.95.) for different reasons, and differed over the status of blacks. That such diverse personali­ Once the cardboard villain of many a Re­ ties were lumped together as carpetbaggers by construction melodrama, the carpetbagger— their opponents says more about Southern re­ a Northerner who moved south after Appo­ calcitrance than it does about the character of mattox to play a role in rebuilding the the Northern immigrants. South—has enjoyed a renaissance in historical Current provides abundant evidence to reputation over the last three decades. The show that the carpetbaggers faced tough go­ historian most responsible for tearing down ing in their efforts to make a living and pursue the old stereotypes of villainy, corruption, and a career in politics. While the Confederacy crude ambition, Richard N. Current, has may have ceased to exist in 1865, the surren­ capped that worthy effort with this volume of der at Appomattox did not end hostilities, for parallel biographies of ten of the most promi­ white Southerners continued to use violence nent carpetbaggers. and intimidation as political weapons. If they A comparison of the two Wisconsinites in­ could not secure independence, at least they cluded in Current's survey bears testimony to would strive for home rule. To exacerbate the danger in assuming that all carpetbaggers matters, many Northerners, while decrying are alike. Although born in New York, Albert such violence, eventually became more ener­ T. Morgan moved to Wisconsin as a small boy, getic in denouncing Republican attempts to settling in Fox Lake. Harrison Reed began a resist what amounted to a combination of ter­ hardware business in Milwaukee at the age of rorism and coups d'etat. Support from the twenty-two and shuttled between that city, government at Washington, nonexistent dur­ Madison, and Neenah before the opening of ing the Johnson administration, was not al­ the war. Morgan, a Union army officer who ways forthcoming from President Grant. At was badly wounded at Gettysburg, traveled to times carpetbaggers were their own worst ene­ Mississippi after the war to commence a career mies, dividing into factions on issues of politi­ as a planter; Reed, an employee of the Trea­ cal pragmatism, racial equality, and the more sury Department, served as a tax commis­ mundane problems of patronage and power. sioner in Union-occupied Florida before ac­ They could not always agree on just how revo­ cepting Andrew Johnson's offer of a position lutionary Reconstruction should be. These di­ as a postal agent. Morgan believed whole­ visions proved costly, draining Southern Re­ heartedly in black equality and married a publicanism of much of its energy just when it black woman; Reed seemed uncomfortable needed to conserve all it could in order to face around blacks and battled their advocates dur­ challenges to its very existence. ing the struggle to frame a new constitution. Possibly the only shortcoming in this en­ After the overthrow of Republicanism in Mis­ grossing study is Current's reluctance to view sissippi, Morgan was driven out of the state; the carpetbaggers in the context of national 305 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

mess of lies and propaganda which were once mistaken for historical fact. Whatever their shortcomings, these men were on the right side in the struggle to make sure that the Civil War was not fought in vain.

BROOKS D. SIMPSON Wofford College

Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance. By PETER S. ONUF. (Indiana Uni­ versity Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1987. Pp. xxi, 197. Maps, notes, index. ISBN 0-253-35482-X, $27.50.)

Peter S. Onuf has two primary aims in this book: to describe the guarantees that the United States made to the settlers of the Old Northwest, and to explain what the promises of western development meant to the nation in terms of national survival, expansion, and the perpetuation of republicanism. The au­ thor first delineates how the Northwest Ordi­ nance was drafted and what it meant to policy­ makers in government. Then he examines how the Ordinance was interpreted during the period when the Old Northwest was being carved into states. Within this framework, WHi(X3)26093 Onuf analyzes congressional expectations for Harrison Reed, the carpetbagger from Wisconsin who became political and economic development on the governor of Florida during Reconstruction. frontier and how these expectations were in­ tended to strengthen the American union. politics. Republican politicians in Washington He then discusses what the "compact artic­ were often confused, frustrated, and per­ les" meant to people in the region, showing plexed about what policy to pursue in the that important issues were in the balance in South, especially in the light of the factional­ debates over whether the Ordinance possessed ism which often characterized Southern Re­ constitutional authority. The most significant publicanism. With other issues demanding at­ issue was whether territories had a right to tention and a Northern electorate to placate, statehood, or whether statehood simply was a national party leaders began to wonder, not privilege conveyed by Congress. Another without some justification, whether the liabili­ question was whether citizens of the Old ties of the Southern wing outweighed its con­ Northwest were compelled to adhere to tributions. boundaries set forth in the Ordinance. A final Some might object to Current's volume as question was whether the people of the terri­ unnecessary. Surely by now those old stereo­ tory were required to exclude slavery, as the types based on racism, conservatism, and clap­ Ordinance demanded, or could exercise "pop­ trap have been dissolved. But, as Current and ular sovereignty" if they so desired and intro­ other Northerners who have traveled south to duce the institution north of the Ohio River. teach know only too well, old images die hard. The answers to all these questions are now Nor does Current offer his subjects as heroes, clear says Onuf: Congress had limitless au­ although he finds many of them admirable. thority over the territory until it was carved He discusses their vices as thoroughly as their into states and almost none afterward. But this virtues, cutting his way through the tangled present clarification did nothing to help 306 BOOK REVIEWS

northwesterners and congressmen who de­ ing the Civil War era to its merger with the bated these issues in the fifty years after the Northern Pacific in 1970, this array of authors Ordinance's passage. traces, sometimes in confusing detail, both the Onuf has written a significant book, one finances of the line and its relationship to the that will take its place as the standard study of agricultural and industrial development of the Northwest Ordinance. His writing is clear, the Northern Plains, the Rockies, and the Pa­ his arguments are well constructed, and his cific Northwest. "On to Puget Sound" is a rich scholarship is impressive. Although he could and rewarding account of the transcontinen­ have improved his book by including a bibliog­ tal vision and genius of James J. Hill, "The raphy, nevertheless his footnotes contain ref­ Empire Builder, " who directed the company erences to all materials necessary to check his until his death in 1916. Dedicated to low sources. This volume is a rare blend of factual grades, easy curves, and the latest in railroad narration, analysis, and interpretation, all technology, Hill committed his railroad to adding up to a fine piece of historical work. supporting experimental farming methods and assisting the thousands of "colonists" he PAUL DAVID NELSON convinced to immigrate to his empire. He Berea College never was faced with bankruptcy or receiver­ ships, he paid a dividend each year, and he en­ joyed, according to the authors, a reputation as a stern taskmaster who treated his workers fairly. The dry facts and figures of Hill's stew­ The Great Northern Railway: A History. By ardship and his complicated relationships RALPH W. HIDY, MURIEL E. HIDY, AND ROY V. with other railroads, particularly those in Can­ SCOTT (with DON L. HOFSOMMER). (Harvard ada, are relieved by the account of his relations Business School Press, Boston, 1988. Pp. xvi, with his employees. Though this was a 360. Illustrations, maps, tables, notes, bibliog­ company-funded history, the authors claim to raphy, index. ISBN 0-87584-185-6, have had free access to the Great Northern ar­ $49.95.) chives. The portrait they present of Hill tes­ tifies to their objectivity. "A vibrant blend of business, railroad, and Part II follows the Great Northern from regional history" according to its dust jacket, Hill's death until the establishment of the this volume offers both more and less than is merged system known as the Burlington usually found in railroad histories written for Northern. Though, perhaps, intrinsically less the general public. More, in that it provides a interesting than Part 1 on the road's early detailed account of the financial history of the years, it is fascinating to follow the account of line; less, in that it devotes little space to the efforts to cope with the severe retrenchments tales of railroaders found in less scholarly ac­ of the 1930's followed by the need to greatly counts. As befits its publisher, the Harvard expand production to meet the requirements Business School, and its two original authors, of World War II. The story of the merger, ex­ the late Harvard Business School professors tending back to the Northern Security Com­ Ralph and Muriel Hidy, this carefully docu­ pany in 1916, will hold the attention of readers mented book stresses the economic impact of interested in these events from a company the Great Northern on the northwestern perspective. United States. The Hidys completed a massive The dozens of black-and-white photo­ two-volume history of the railroad in the graphs (there is one color print in the book— 1960's, but two decades and the authors them­ and it is a bizarre hue) illustrate the story, if selves would pass away before this condensed not the romance, of the railroad line of "Rocky version appeared. Completed by Roy V. Scott, the Goat," the famous symbol of the Great professor of history at Mississippi State Uni­ Northern. With the huge territory that Rocky versity, and Don L. Hofsommer, author of an roamed, better maps to show system mileage excellent history of the Southern Pacific rail­ at various periods are sorely missed. Given the road, with considerable research and editorial price of this book, one of the duplicate maps assistance from several others over the twenty- on the end pages could have been used for this year gestation, some of the colorful lore may purpose—and a section of color photographs have leaked out as the manuscript moved should also have been financially possible. The from author to author. shape of the book (eight-and-a-half inches From the Great Northern's shaky start dur­ high by eleven inches wide) is one not even a 307 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989 goat could love; it is clumsy to hold such a book field representative of the office of Indian af­ unless the reader is primarily looking at pho­ fairs and ethnologist. Despite the subtitle, the tographs. volume is thus not a full-scale biography, al­ Unlike the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, though many private details are woven into and Pacific, which was bankrupted by its ef­ the narrative, and the author shows how such forts to reach the Pacific, the Great Northern events as the death of his son affected his reli­ did build an empire, and this scholarly volume gious and philosophical thought. Through­ recounts Rocky's biography in a sound, if not out, Bremer steers an admirably evenhanded exciting, fashion. and fair-minded course among the thickets of Schoolcraft's personal and professional life. J. FRANK COOK For example, while praising his "intelligence, University of Wisconsin—Madison drive, capacity for work, and powers of perse­ verance," he notes also that Schoolcraft was plagued with insecurity and a strong temper and was "an austere and almost totally self- absorbed personality." Indian Agent and Wilderness Scholar: The Life of Indian Agent and Wilderness Scholar is based Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. By RICHARD G. BRE­ on a wide variety of manuscript sources, as MER. (Clarke Historical Library, Mount Pleas­ well as federal records, and the notes are de­ ant, Michigan, 1987. Pp. x, 445. Illustrations, tailed and helpful. Well-chosen photographs notes bibliography. ISBN 0-916699-13-7, and images from Schoolcraft's works comple­ $30.00.) ment the text; a few maps would help the reader trace Schoolcraft's many journeys and Glassmaker, mineralogist, traveler, Indian locate important sites on the IVIichigan fron­ agent, ethnologist, author—Henry Rowe tier. The lack of an index in a work of this nat­ Schoolcraft (1793-1864) was all these and ure constitutes a surprising and disappointing more in an age when professionalization did omission. not yet preclude such mobility. An early tour Nonetheless, Indian Agent and Wilderness to the lead mines (1818—1819) whetted his ap­ Scholar contains many informative details on petite for travel, and he joined the Cass Expe­ the inner workings of the office of Indian af­ dition to the Northwest in 1820. In 1822 he fairs and the world of early- to mid- was named Indian agent at Sault Ste. Marie, nineteenth-century publishing. The book becoming Michigan superintendent of Indian thus furnishes a framework for the modern affairs in 1836, a post he held until 1841. scholar more fully to evaluate Schoolcraft's Throughout this p>eriod he thus had the op­ ethnographic and linguistic contributions. At portunity to study Indian language and cul­ the end of the last chapter, Bremer comments ture firsthand. Between 1847 and 1857 he di­ that Schoolcraft's "was the life of the rootless rected the large-scale study of the nation's man in search of meaning." In Indian Agent Indians that culminated in Historical and Statis­ and Wilderness Scholar, Bremer has contributed tical Information Respecting the History, Condi­ much to our understanding of that life. tion, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, the six-volume work for which he MAXINE BENSON is usually remembered today. Denver, Colorado Along the way, Schoolcraft grappled with insolvency, a sickly and drug-dependent first wife, the death of his first son, the murder of his brother James, and a whole host of other calamities. IVIoreover, from the late 1840's un­ Nation Within a Nation: Historical Statistics of til his death he was increasingly afflicted with a American Indians. By PAUL STUART. (Green­ paralysis that seriously affected his ability to wood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1987. Pp. write and forced him to rely on his second wife X, 251. Tables, notes, bibliography, index. as both amanuensis and helpmeet. The won­ ISBN 0-313-23818-8, $45.00.) der is, Bremer comments, that he was able to accomplish so much, given such misfortunes. Do you want to know the latest figures on For the most part, Indian Agent and Wilder­ the American Indian population of the ness Scholar is a compelling and readable book United States, or any state, of Canada or Peru? that focuses on two of Schoolcraft's careers— How many Indians are rural and how many 308 BOOK REVIEWS are urban? Are you looking for data on the their effort has not caught on everywhere. amount of land in this country which is still un­ Stuart spells one tribe's name Ottawa, Ottowa, der Indian control? What is the average tem­ and Ottowata. Another is Potawatomie, Potta- perature and precipitation for each month at watomi, and Pottawattomie. We also find Cherokee, North Carolina or Rosebud, South Wyandot and Wyandotte, and these single ex­ Dakota? What are the health conditions and amples of deviant orthography: Agua Calente other vital statistics for American Indians? (for Caliente), Chemhuevi (for Chemehuevi), What about unemployment, education, in­ Chicksaw (for Chickasaw), Commanche (for come, and economic development? All this Comanche), Kanzas (for Kansa or Kansas), and more can be found in this book. It will save Ottoes (for Otoes), Paivotso (for Paviotso), and many a researcher hours of digging into scat­ Piaknashaw (for Piankashaw). Plain typo­ tered sources to find answers to any of the graphic errors which remain uncorrected in­ above questions. Here is a handy book of vital clude affiars (affairs), poportions (propor­ statistics which is long overdue. tions). Popular, Mont. (Poplar), gastroenterin- Each of the nine chapters of this book be­ itis (gastroenteritis), syphillis (syphilis), at- gins with an introduction summarizing the tendence (attendance), hosptials (hospitals), data which follow and their significance, fol­ allottments (allotments), dysentary (dysen­ lowed by a brief bibliographical essay. The tery), and scabes (scabies). bulk of the pages which follow are filled with There are a few factual errors. The number tables containing detailed information, from of ratified Indian treaties was 372 when treaty the past to the present, on the topic con­ making officially ended in 1871, not 400 by cerned. These usually contain the latest availa­ 1858. The date of the Indian Homestead Act ble figures and often reveal sharp changes that is 1875, not 1881. Also, I confess confusion have occurred in the second half of this cen­ over the following: "Even with all allotted tury. Health conditions for Indians are much lands included, Indian land holdings declined improved since the Indian Health Service was to less than seventy million acres by 1933" ver­ transferred from the Bureau of Indian Af­ sus "Miscellaneous reasons resulted in a total fairs to the Public Health Service in 1955. Life reduction of Indian land holdings of nearly expectancy is up and infant mortality is down. eighty-eight billion acres by 1934" (that is, a Most Indian children now attend public figure equal to nearly forty-six times the total schools, rather than federal or mission land area of the continental United States, schools, and over half of today's Indians are more land than there is on the whole earth) high school graduates. Only a quarter of the and "By the early 1930s, less than fifty million Indians now live on reservations. Since 1980, acres remained in Indian hands." Indian life expectancy has nearly caught up Prof. Stuart deserves plaudits for not dodg­ with that of whites. The Indian health service ing controversy. He challenges Father Francis now serves urban Indians. Multiple heirship Paul Prucha's defense of Andrew Jackson's re­ of allotted lands continues to be a barrier to moval policy. He correctly rejects the attribu­ the best utilization of Indian lands in the Great tion of benign motives to the despoilers of the Plains. These are just a few of the trends dealt Indians. with in this book. My main complaint about this book is not The author's bibliographic essays some­ directed at the author but at the publisher for times list out-of-date sources for some infor­ charging such a steep price. In view of the mation. The Meriam report of 1928, for ex­ slender size of the book, the apparent use of ample, is repeatedly listed as a source on camera-ready copy for the tables, and the ab­ almost everything, even unemployment, even sence of expensive illustrations, the cost seems though much has changed in the sixty years out of line. since that report was published. The author must be held responsible for a VIRGIL J. VOGEL number of minor flaws which do not add up to Northbrook, Illinois a major fault, but which do detract from the book's general excellence. One is inconsis­ tency in the sp>elling of tribal names. The Bu­ reau of American Ethnology tried to stand­ The Forging of the Union, 1781—1789. By RICH­ ardize this chaotic situation eighty-five years ARD B. MORRIS. (Harper & Row, Publishers, ago (Charles J. Kappler, Indian Affairs, Laws New York, 1987. Pp. xiv, 416. Illustrations, and Treaties, Washington, 1904, 1:1021), but maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-06- 309 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

015733-X, $22.95, cloth; ISBN 0-06-091424- perimentation," not the "chaotic" period de­ 6, $8.95, paper.) scribed by John Fiske. The years 1781 to 1789 saw some solid achievements. A love of coun­ The Forging of the Union, 1781-1789, the late try and freedom burgeoned in a land that was Richard B. Morris's contribution to Harper & a rich "mosaic of peoples," transforming them Row's "New American Nation Series," of into Americans. People, especially the "per­ which he was co-editor, was published in sons forgotten" (women, poor whites, Native 1987—the Bicentennial of the United States Americans, and blacks), attained greater free­ Constitution. That date marks more than dom than ever before. The Founding Fathers, three decades since this distinguished series Morris realistically shows, never accepted the was launched and the publication of his own idea of the equality of all men, only the equal­ fine survey of historical writing on the ity of opportunity. Professor Morris traces the 1780's—"The Confederation Period and the efforts of several of the Founding Fathers, American Historian," William and Mary Quar­ such as James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, terly, 3rd ser., XIII (1956). The Forging of the John Jay, and George Washington, to replace Union is the most comprehensive view of the the Articles of Confederation ("a frail instru­ economy, politics, diplomacy, society, law, and ment of governance") with a nationalist gov­ culture of the l780's yet written. Not even ernment. The Articles were not a complete Merrill Jensen, in his "magisterial" The New failure, however. The greatest achievement of Nation: A History of the United States During the Congress under the Articles was the creation Confederation, 1781—1789, produced so wide- of a national domain and a procedure for the ranging a study. Writing in 1950, Professor settlement and admission of new states. As Jensen, who demolished John Fiske's "chaos- early as 1780, Congress accepted the principle and-patriots-to-the-rescue" interpretation, that the new states created from lands ceded admitted that "much work" still needed doing, by the thirteen original states would enter the and that he had not told the history of the Union as republican equals. And the North­ Confederation "in all its fullness." west Ordinance of 1787 was "an unprece­ In writing a definitive history of the I780's, dented anticolonial measure and a center­ Professor Morris brings to his task an unparal­ piece of American federalism." leled knowledge of the primary sources and The doctrine of constitutionalism—"the historical literature of the period. His narra­ great innovative feature of the American tive benefits from the advances of the last Revolution"—captured the American political three decades in such fields as demography, and constitutional mind in these years. Ameri­ ethnology, ecology, historical geography, po­ cans insisted that constitutions be drawn up at litical theory, legal and military history, and the behest of the people, that they be written, black, women, and Native American studies, that they be supreme over legislative acts, that not to mention the application of statistical they protect the rights and liberties of the peo­ methodology to the study of the economy, pol­ ple, and that they foster the principles of re­ itics, and society. Morris, however, has not for­ publicanism and federalism. The states suc­ saken the studies made before the mid-1950's; cessfully put their constitutions to the test he is too keen and mature a historian to have during the 1780's and learned to share sover­ ignored the early workers in the vineyard. In eignty with a central authority. The principles the end, he skillfully blends the pessimism of of American constitutionalism came to frui­ John Fiske and the optimism of Merrill Jen­ tion in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 sen, giving the most balanced picture to date with the adoption of the Constitution, "an en­ of a rich and complex period in which the fu­ tirely new system of governance for an ex­ ture of a nation was determined. tended republic, a system without precedent, Professor Morris focuses on the growth and and one whose innovations were carefully at­ development of a nation, culminating in the tuned to the need to achieve consensus." adoption, ratification, and implementation of After creating this extraordinary docu­ the Constitution which created a nationalist ment, the Convention sent it to the states to be government capable of acting directly upon ratified by the people in specially chosen con­ the people and the states. Time and again, ventions. The most important aspect of the Morris demonstrates that origins of many pro­ great debate on the Constitution in the states visions in the Constitution can be traced to was the Antifederalist insistence that a bill of events in the Confederation Period. He views rights be appended to or become a part of the the period as "critical," a time of "trial and ex­ Constitution. To attain ratification, Federal- 310 BOOK REVIEWS ists agreed to this demand and the eventual more on them is also revealed in his neglect of adoption of a bill of rights completed Ameri­ the politics of the individual states and the be­ ca's new constitutional order. ginnings of political parties in some of them. The creation of a new system, however, The discussion of the economy lacks full­ would not have been necessary had not the ness because Morris is primarily interested in Confederation Period been fraught with "se­ proving that there was a severe economic de­ vere shortcomings and failed initiatives." At pression (a questionable assertion) and in ex­ the heart of problem was the worst economic amining the efforts to break it. For instance, depression since the earliest days of settle­ one never gets a clear picture of American ag­ ment. Here, Morris rejects the conclusions of riculture, although 90 per cent of the popula­ those historians, especially Merrill Jensen, tion were farmers and commercial prosperity who have painted too rosy a picture of the was, in many ways, based upon it. Nor does American economy, if one can indeed refer to Morris say enough about the transportation an American economy. To bring America out system and the growth of inland towns and the of this catastrophic depression, its people interior. needed a strong, unified government with the This penchant to prove a point also weak­ power to tax and to regulate commerce; Con­ ens the chapter in which Morris demonstrates gress under the Articles of Confederation had that the central government was in operation neither of these powers. Matters were compli­ before the formation of the state govern­ cated by the fact that an ineffective Congress ments. Morris piles fact upon fact, precedent could not negotiate a favorable commercial upon precedent, argument upon argument to treaty with Great Britain which, along with drive home his thesis; the chapter reads like a some other European nations, held it in con­ legal brief and is exasperatingly instructional. tempt. Congress' ineffectiveness, Morris Morris' treatment of the constitutional and boldly declares, contributed more to the call­ legal sources of the Constitution is convinc­ ing of the Constitutional Convention and its ingly argued, although he fails to show how success than to all of the "demigods" who at­ some of the provisions of the Articles of Con­ tended its sessions. The young nation suffered federation were incorporated into that docu­ a whole litany of humilations in the area of for­ ment. Some of the more particularist dele­ eign affairs. The "gravest" threats to Ameri­ gates in the Constitutional Convention would can independence, then, were from abroad. have been perplexed (perhaps dismayed) to Domestically, Shays's Rebellion, the most pro­ learn that they were part of "a rally of nation­ nounced manifestation of the economic de­ alists with different gradations of attachment pression, created a "sense of crisis" among na­ to their own states." Lastly, Morris should tionalists that further underscored the have been less selective in his treatment of the necessity of a constitutional convention to re­ ratification of the Constitution and discussed vise and amend the structure of government. the reasons why each of the states, especially Congress could not even maintain civil order. the small ones, ratified the Constitution. Nine One hesitates to criticize such an able syn­ states were needed to ratify the Constitution thesis, but The Forging of the Union is not with­ and several of the first nine to ratify were out its faults. Professor Morris unabashedly small. Had they not ratified, one wonders admires the system of government created by what strongly AntifederaUst Virginia and New the Constitution and Bill of Rights and his nar­ York—the tenth and eleventh states to rative's emphasis upon the manner in which it ratify—might have done. came to pass leads him to emphasize the role These criticisms aside, Richard B. Morris, of the nationalists or Federalists, the heroes of who died in March, 1989, has provided us with the tale, to the detriment of the Antifederal- our best history of the Confederation Period ists, the losers. One struggles to find the names and a splendid contribution the celebration of of such Antifederalist stalwarts as Patrick the Bicentennial of the United States Consti­ Henry, George Clinton, George Bryan, tution. The Forging of the Union is the capstone George Mason, Richard Henry Lee, Samuel to his rich and varied scholarly endeavors that Chase, and Aedanus Burke, who, for the most began more than six decades ago. part, are not given their due until the discus­ sion of the debate over ratification of the Con­ GASPAREJ.SALADINO stitution. These men, although united in op­ The Documentary History of the position to the Constitution, were a diverse Ratification of the Constitution and complex group. Morris's failure to focus 311 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

A History of Industrial Power in the United States, States. Published separately, this material 1780-1930. Volume II, Steam Power. By Louis could form a concise overview of the subject. C. HUNTER. (The University Press of Virginia, The remainder of the book examines techno­ Charlottesville, 1985. Pp. xxiii, 732. Illustra­ logical problems and engineering innovations tions, maps, index. ISBN 0-8139-0782-9, that facilitated the application of steam power $50.00.) in industry and manufacturing. Topics exam­ ined include the high-pressure mill engine, the development and influence of the Corliss The late Louis C. Hunter, an eminent eco­ engine, the evolution of the steam boiler, the nomic historian who devoted his career to the shift from wood to anthracite and bituminous study of developing technologies in the Indus­ coal for fuel, and postbellum engineering ad­ trial Revolution, had planned a three-volume vances. A chapter on nineteenth-century ur­ history of industrial power in the United ban water supply and steam engineering pro­ States. Volume one, on water power, was pub­ vides an excellent summary of the subject. lished in 1979. The present volume focuses on Although destined to become a standard steam power, while the third was to examine reference, this book is not wholly without the industrial applications of electrical power. flaws. Most notably, references to the second­ Few scholars are as well qualified to under­ ary literature of the 1970's are rare, and more take the demanding task of preparing a stand­ recent citations nonexistent. A final chapter ard history of steam in the nineteenth-century surveying the status of steam power in manu­ United States. Hunter, author oi Steamboats on facturing and industry in the early twentieth the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technologi­ century, similar to those with which the book cal History (1949), collected archival data from begins, would have been useful. Also, the book the U.S. Patent Office, newspapers, trade contains no bibliography, and many refer­ journals, legal sources, manuscripts and cor­ ences are cited so often that it is difficult to lo­ respondence, and other sources for years in cate the initial citation which identifies the preparation for this book. source. These problems aside, this is a magis­ In Steam Power, Hunter seeks to chronicle terial work, portions of which will be read by the emergence of steam power in the United all students of American economic history in States, with special attention given to engi­ the future. Steam Power will serve as a land­ neering problems, patent controversies, and mark in the economic history of industrial the effects of steam technology on economic technology for years to come. growth and industrial development. The book begins with two chapters which survey the RUSSELL S. KIRBY emergence of steam power in the United Arkansas Department of Health

Book Reviews

Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers, reviewed by Brooks D. Simpson 305 Bremmer, Indian Agent and Wilderness Scholar: The Life of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, reviewed by Maxine Benson 308 Yl'idiy eta\.,TheGreatNorthernRailway: A History,rewewedhy ].¥rankCook 307 Hunter, A History of Industrial Power in the United States, 1780-1930, reviewed by Russell S. Kirby 312 Morris, The Forging of the Union, 1781—1789, reviewed by GaspareJ. Saladino ..... 309 Onuf, Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance, reviewed by Paul David Nelson 306 Stuart, Nation Within a Nation: Historical Statistics of American Indians, reviewed by Virgil J. Vogel 308

312 Accessions John S. Conway (1852-1925), including corre­ spondence on his time in Europe during the 1880's-1890's; writings; photographs; mate­ Services lor microfilming, xeroxing, and photostating all rial on his largest work, the Milwaukee Sol­ but certain restricted items in its manuscript collections are provided by the Society. diers Monument; correspondence between Conway and his patron, Lydia Ely, and be­ tween Ely and others concerning the Wiscon­ sin Soldiers Home and the Milwaukee Indus­ Area Research Centers trial Exposition; and correspondence of Grace Robinson Conway concerning the disposition At Milwaukee: Papers, 1836-1930, oiJohnF. of Conway paintings; presented by Grace Ro­ Birchard (1819-1894), a Milwaukee furniture binson Conway, Westen, Connecticut. manufacturer, and his wife Harriett Fanning Fragmentary papers, 1836-1939, of the Birchard primarily consisting of exchanges Dexter-Roundy Family, concerning the family with family members, legal and financial doc­ and the wholesale grocery activities of Charles uments, and genealogical notes. Although J. Dexter and Judson A. Roundy; including health and family matters predominate, there letters, legal and financial documents, adver­ are occasional references to business con­ tising material and photographs, transcribed cerns. Presented by John S. and Marion G. flute music, and other papers; presented by Lord, Hinsdale, Illinois. Helena D. McBride, Long Beach, California. Fragmentary records, 1944-1984, of the Letters, 1840-1844, describing condidons CardijnBookstore which was originally founded in America to family members in Scotland as a cooperative associated with the Cardijn from immigrants James and Margaret Douglas, Center, the headquarters of Catholic lay apos­ who lived first in Mt. Morris, New York, then tolic work in Milwaukee; including records on settled near Milwaukee in 1844; plus one let­ both the bookstore and the center, correspon­ ter, probably written ca. 1930, transmitting dence of Father John Beix, and information the letters to a Douglas granddaughter from a on the Young Christian Workers movement; cousin in New Zealand. Accompanied by presented by Florence A. Weinburger, Wau­ typed manuscripts. Presented by Mr. and Mrs. watosa. Douglas H. Weaver, Juniper, Florida. Papers, 1855-1978, of Milwaukee ardst Speeches, 1924-1937, n.d., ofjoseph T. Gal-

Artist and sculptor John Severinus Conway (white smock) in his Rome studio, about 1893. \VHi(X.'))43041

^ ... "S

\ -\-«"

,* T^ :t:

Conway's bronze sculpture "Victorian Charge," commonly known as the Milwaukee's Soldiers' WHi(X3)45075 Monument, near the First Methodist Church.

lagher, an executive in the Claims Department ative, and miscellaneous printed material. of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Com­ Presented by Gavin McKerrow, Pewaukee. pany, mainly delivered to company employees Photocopies of an undated one-page his­ concerning internal matters and general in­ tory of St. James Methodist Church, Milwau­ surance issues. A few speeches concern Gal­ kee, and a 32-page report (with bibliography), lagher's involvement with the Wisconsin Chil­ written by the Rev. David V. Harsh, ca. 1969, dren's Code Committee. Presented by Mrs. entitled "A Fragmentary Look at Black Meth­ Gallagher, Milwaukee. odism in Wisconsin." Both apparently were Miscellaneous records, 1935-1973, of the presented to the Wisconsin Conference of the Golden Guernsey Dairy Cooperative organized in United Methodist Church's Commission on 1929 by breeders of Guernsey cattle in Archives and History. Loaned for copying by Waukesha County in order to market their the Rev. William Blake, Berlin. product in Milwaukee. Included are histories, Photocopy of a typed reminiscence endded annual reports, sales manuals, a 1963 speech "Growing Up in Bay View" by Arthur J. Hick­ by Gavin McKerrow, president of the cooper- man (1905—)about his childhood in a Milwau- 314 ACCESSIONS kee neighborhood from about 1908 to 1925, Miller family tree, photocopies of twelve fam­ including descriptions of and anecdotes about ily photographs, and a typed transcript of a play, work, home life, food, school, church July, 1879, letter from Miller in Milwaukee to and YMCA activities, and community events; relatives in Germany discussing family news, presented by Mr. Hickman, Hales Corners. life in Milwaukee, the family brewing busi­ Papers, 1852-1976 (mainly 1960-1965), of ness, and Miller's personal philosophy; pre­ Elizabeth Holmes (1900—), a member of the sented by Joseph R. Filachek, Milwaukee. Milwaukee Board of School Directors; includ­ Photocopies of the Milwaukee Barb Wire ing correspondence, minutes, reports, and Club's articles and certificate of incorporation, clippings particularly documenting activities 1983; and an agenda and minutes of the first on racial segregation and equal opportunity meeting, February 12, 1984. The club was an within Milwaukee schools, the problems of mi­ organization formed to foster patriotism and grant and transient students, and other school to aid former prisoners of war, civilian intern­ committees; presented by Mrs. Holmes, Mil­ ees, and their widows and orphans. Presented waukee. by the Club, via Roy J. Prud'Homme, Meno­ Records, 1863—1970, of the Independent Or­ monee Falls. der of Good Templars, Lodge 94, Greenbush, in­ Additional records, 1854-1974, oi the Mil­ cluding photocopied minutes of the lodge waukee Grain Exchange; including constitu­ from its organization to dissolution, and mem­ tions, minutes, annual reports, committee and bership lists; presented by the Kohler Com­ fund records, financial and legal records, mar­ pany via Claire Milbourne, Kohler. ket reports, membership records, scrapbooks, Diaries, 1848-1885, oi John 0. Kroehnke photographs, and a stock transaction book (1810—), a farmer-painter from Schleswig- from the Ontario and Erie Ship Canal Com­ Holstein who settled in New Holstein and She­ pany; presented by the Exchange. boygan, Wisconsin; concerning his immigra­ Minute book, 1852-1860, oi the Milwaukee tion via New York City and the Erie Canal, Horticultural Society, an organization chartered homesteading in the wilderness, economic in 1852 to promote horticulture. Included are conditions, and community life; in old Ger­ clippings and handbills concerning annual ex­ man script, with a partial modern German hibitions; presented by the Society via translation and English notes; presented by Malcolm N. Dana. WiUiam E. Slagg, Eau Claire. Report of the Literature and Motion Pic­ Photocopies of meeting notices and ture Committee, Milwaukee Junior Bar Associa­ monthly newsletters, 1970—1978, oi the Labor tion, 1956, which was appointed to study laws Zionist Alliance, Atzmaut Chapter, Milwaukee, a and practices in Milwaukee County concern­ Jewish education and social group formed in ing the control of publications, movies, and 1970; presented by the Chapter via Jerome television programs alleged to be obscene or Safer, Milwaukee. improper; separated from the records of The Papers, 1956—1968, oijerris G. Leonard, Jr. Progressive, Inc. (1931—), a Republican who represented the Records, 1955—1980, oi the National Associ­ northern Milwaukee suburbs in the Assembly ation of Women in Construction—Milwaukee Chap­ (1957-1961) and Senate (1961-1969); includ­ ter 105, an association for women office work­ ing correspondence with colleagues, constitu­ ers in the construction industry; including ents, and party leaders, subject files, press re­ by-laws, minutes, committee files, national leases, speeches, newsletters, and other convention reports, newsletters, and other re­ papers; presented by Mr. Leonard, Madison. cords; presented by Chapter 105. Overhead patrol report, 1980, by Richard Records, 1933—1947, oi Prime Manufactur­ Lind on the condition of the Municipality of ing Company, documenting the Milwaukee East Troy Railroad overhead from the inter­ firm's electric fence division; including adver­ change at Mukwonago to Highway 20 at East tising and sales promotion literature, price Troy, including a written description, detailed lists, consumer surveys and correspondence, nomenclature and overhead defect drawings, and research files on safety and other topics; and color photographs. This section of rail­ presented by the Company via Charles P. Fox. road is the last remnant of the Milwaukee Fragmentary papers, 1914—1980, of Wil­ Electric Railway Company line; presented by liam T. Ross (1888-1951), a Milwaukee busi­ Mr. Lind, Madison. nessman and tuberculosis health care activist Papers of Frederic E. Miller (1824-1888) primarily including his writings on his own tu­ covering the period I77I—1944, including a berculosis recovery, brief files on the Wiscon- 315 WHi(X3)45039 Traders moving about the sample tables at the Milwaukee Grain Exchange in the Chamber of Commerce Building, about 1913. sin and national anti-tuberculosis associations, in 1969; including baptism records, 1862— monthly mimeographed letters he distributed 1969; confirmation, marriage, burial, and widely, advertising material from his hospital communion records, 1908—1969; and mem­ supply firm, and other items; presented by bership and other records (also available on Cava Wilson Ross, Milwaukee. microfilm); presented by the Community Records, 1942-1987 (mainly 1971-1972), United Church of Christ, Elkhart Lake via the of the Schlitz Audubon Center, a nature educa­ Reverend Robert L.Johnson. tion center in Milwaukee owned by the Na­ tional Audubon Society and of Citizens for the At Oshkosh: Papers, 1922-1929, 1965, of Roy Nine Mile Farm Nature Center, the local citi­ Larson (1894—1929) and Leonard Larson, pi­ zens group which worked to establish the cen­ oneer Wisconsin aviatoi s and owners of the ter; including correspondence, legal docu­ Larson Brothers Airport a\ Larsen, Wisconsin; ments, minutes, scrapbooks, planning consisting of correspondi nee concerning the documents, photographs, brochures, adver­ purchase of airplanes anc parts and arrange­ tising, newsletters, and files on the Education ments for barnstorming pt -formances, a tran­ Committee of the Friends of the Center; pre­ scribed oral history with L onard Larson, in­ sented by Winifred Woodmansee and by the voices, clippings, and photo Taphs; presented Center via Don L. Danielson. by Mr. and Mrs. Leonard La son, Larsen, and Papers, 1843-1883, n.d., consisting pri­ Bernice Krippene, Berkeley, California. marily of financial record books of Dr. Henry Papers, 1963-1984, of Re publican legisla­ A. Youmans (1816-1893), Mukwonago, noting tor from Horicon Esther D. Li ckhardt, consist­ patient names, charges, and occasionally a ing of clippings, campaign lite ature, newslet­ note on medical condition or treatment; plus a ters, speeches, and a few subji'ct files on her genealogical essay by his grandson John B. efforts to limit state indebtedness and to im­ Youmans and miscellaneous items; presented prove geese management at Horicon. Some by John B. Youmans, FrankHn, Tennessee. papers touch on her conservative position on Record book of the Zoar Reformed Church women's issues including abortion and the (Town of Rhine, Sheboygan County), a Ger­ Equal Rights Amendment. Presented by Es­ man Reformed congregation which dissolved ther D. Luckhardt.

316 lona Township; Calvary Cemetery and St. John's Cemetery, Reedsburg Township; St. Patrick's Catholic Cemetery, Winfield Township. (Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1989? Pp. 147. Illus. $9.00. Available from author, 809 John Adams Street, Sauk City, Wisconsin 53583.) Wisconsin History Davis, Donald S. Index to Rock County, Wise. Checklist Probate Records, Book Two. (Janesville, Wis­ consin, cl988. Pp. 46. $7.00. Available from Rock County Genealogical Society, ReeenlK published and CUT i eiuK a\.ulahk' Wise onsiana P.O. Box 711, Janesville, Wisconsin 53547.) added to the St)ciety".s Lii>rar\ aie lisiod l)elov\. Ihe compilers, (ierald R. F.ggleslon, Acquisitions Libiaiian, Dopke, Jilleen K. (Zirk). The Albert Stanton Ge- and Susan Dorst. Order I.ibiaii.ui. aie inleiesled in obtaining information about (or copies oi) ilems ibal .ue neology [sic}. (Kewaunee?, Wisconsin, 1988. not widelv advertised, such as publications oi local Pp. 67. Illus. No price listed. Available from historical sc^cieties. tamih histories and genealogies. author, E2664 Rocky Court, Kewaunee, privately printed ucuks. .uid histories ol c lunches, Wisconsin 54216.) institutions, or organisations. Aiilhors and publishets wishing to reach a widei audience and .ilso to perform .1 valuable bibliographic ser\ice aie urged to inlorm the Dyer, Carolyn Stewart. Political Patronage of the compilers of their publications, including the following Wisconsin Press, 1849—1860: New Perspec­ information: author. title, location .md n.une of publisher. tives on the Economics of Patronage. (Colum­ date ot publication, price, pagirraliorr, and address of bia, South Carolina, 1989. Journalism supplier. Write Susan Dorst. Acc|uisitions Sectiorr. Monographs, no. 109; February, 1989. Pp. 39. $5.00. Available from Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Com­ munications, 1621 College Street, Univer­ sity of South CaroHna, Columbia, South Albertz, Sally Powers. Fond du Lac Common­ Carolina 29208-0251.) wealth Newspaper: Genealogical Items Ex­ tracted from Newspapers Dated January, 1863 Farmer, Bernie. Edgerton, Wisconsin Reporter Through December, 1870, Fond du Lac County, Obituary Index, 1876—1900. (Janesville?, Wisconsin. (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 1988. Wisconsin, 1988. Pp. 23. $6.00.) Pp. 68. Illus. $10.00 plus $1.00 postage and handling. Available from author, 168 Farmer, Bernie. Evergreen Cemetery, Albion, South Royal Avenue, Fond du Lac, Wiscon­ Dane Co., Wisconsin. (Janesville?, Wisconsin, sin 54935.) 1988. Pp. 12. $3.50.)

Brandt, Diane, and Arend, Mark W. Index to Farmer, Bernie.yemon Cemetery, Edgerton, Wis­ Beaver Dam's 125th Anniversary Celebration, consin. (Janesville?, Wisconsin, cl988. Pp. 1841—1966. (Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, 20. $4.00.) 1989. [14] leaves. No price listed. Available from Beaver Dam Community Library, 311 Farmer, Bernie. Milton Junction Cemetery, North Spring Street, Beaver Dam, Wiscon­ Milton, Wisconsin. Qanesville?, Wisconsin, sin 53916.) 1988. Pp. 31. $7.00.) The above four publi­ cations are available from Rock County Ge­ Centennial Year, St. Patrick Church, Phillips, Wis­ nealogical Society, P.O. Box 711, Janesville, consin, 1888-1988. (Phiflips, Wisconsin, Wisconsin 53547. 1988. Pp. 109. Illus. $15.00. Available from St. Patrick Rectory, 125 North Argyle Ave­ First Congregational United Church of Christ, nue, Phillips, Wisconsin 54555.) Milton, Wisconsin, 150 Years, Sesquicentennial Anniversary: Historical Sketch and Sesquicen­ Gushing, Myrtle E. Cemetery Inscriptions of Sauk tennial Program, October 1—2, 1988. (Milton, County, Wisconsin, Volume 10: St. Joseph's and Wisconsin, 1988. Pp. [9]. Illus. No price St. Michael's Catholic Cemeteries, Baraboo listed. Available from First Congregational Township; All Saints Catholic Cemetery, Del- United Church of Christ, P.O. Box 361, 317 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1989

Highways 26 & 59, Milton, Wisconsin Many and Memorable. . . a History of the 110 Ru­ 53563.) ral Schools of Trempealeau County. (Galesville, Wisconsin, 1988. Pp. 436. Illus. $20.00 plus Folk Culture: Some Personal Recollections of Fun, $5.00 postage and handling. Available Games and Recreation, edited by Richard from Trempealeau County Historical Soci­ Stolz and Rosemary Young Singh. (Manito­ ety, P.O. Box 444, Galesville, Wisconsin woc, Wisconsin, 1988. Edward Ehlert Se­ 54630.) ries on Manitowoc County History, Num­ ber 1. Pp. vii, 44. Illus. $5.00 plus $1.50 Mason, Carol I. Introduction to Wisconsin Indi­ postage and handling. Wisconsin residents ans: Prehistory to Statehood. (Salem, Wiscon­ add 5% sales tax. Available from Manito­ sin, cl988. Pp. vii, 327. Illus. $14.95. Avail­ woc County Historical Society, P.O. Box able from Sheffield Publishing Co., 9009 574, Manitowoc, Wisconsin 54220.) Antioch Road, Salem, Wisconsin 53168.)

Fruth, MarvinJ. The Log of the Marine: theMa- The Oneida Indian Experience: Two Perspectives, rine Corporation, 1839—1988. (Milwaukee?, edited by Jack Campisi and Laurence M. Wisconsin, 1988. Pp. 142. Illus. No price Hauptman. (Syracuse, New York, 1988. listed. Available from Banc One Wisconsin Pp. XV, 207. $29.95 (hardcover), $14.95 Corporation, 111 East Wisconsin Avenue, (softcover). Available from Syracuse Uni­ P.O. Box 481, Milwaukee, Wisconsin versity Press, 1600 Janesville Avenue, Syra­ 53201.) History of the Marine Banks. cuse, New York 13244-5160.) Rentmeister, Jean R. Cemetery Inscriptions of Hintz, Martin, and Hintz, Dan. Wisconsin, Off Byron Township, Fond du Lac County, Wiscon­ the Beaten Path. (Chester, Connecticut, sin. (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, cl987. Pp. 42. cl989. Pp. xi, 136, [8]. Illus. $8.95. Availa­ No price listed.) ble from Globe Pequot Press, 10 Denlar Drive, Box Q, Chester, Connecticut 06412.) Rentmeister, Jean R. Cemetery Inscriptions of Oakfield Township, Fond du Lac County, Wis­ Juneau County Genealogy Society Cemeteries Book consin. (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, cl987. Pp. #3. (Necedah, Wisconsin, cl988. Pp. 74. Illus. No price listed.) 204B-380, [11]. Illus. $10.00 plus $2.00 postage and handling. Available from Rita Rentmeister, Jean R. Cemetery Inscriptions of Resman, Juneau County Genealogy Soci­ Rosendale Township, Fond du Lac County, Wis­ ety, Star Route W, Box 307, Necedah, Wis­ consin. (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin cl987. Pp. consin 54646.) Clearfield, Fountain, and 21. No price listed.) Orange townships cemeteries are indexed in this volume. Rentmeister, Jean R. Cemetery Inscriptions of the Townships of Alto, Metomen and Waupun, Vol. La Guire, Maren Loken. Henry Dietz (1798— I. (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, cl987. Pp. 36. 1875) and Descendants, Including Daughters' Illus. No price listed.) Lines: Kuntz, Wussow, Otto, and Adsit. (Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1989. Pp. 157. Illus. Rentmeister, Jean R. Cemetery Inscriptions of the $16.25 plus $2.00 postage and handling. Townships of Ashford and Auburn. (Fond du Available from author, 204 Three Rivers Lac, Wisconsin, cl987. Pp. 40. Illus. No East, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46802.) price listed.)

Mallery, James P. "Found No Bushwackers": the Rentmeister, Jean R. Cemetery Inscriptions of the 1864 Diary of Sgt. James P. Mallery, Company Townships of Fond du Lac, Lamartine and Eldo­ A, Third Wisconsin Cavalry Stationed at rado. (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, cl987. Pp. Balltown, Mo., edited by Patrick Brophy. 35. Illus. No price listed.) (Nevada, Missouri, cl988. Pp. 60. $5.95 plus $1.00 postage and handling. Available Rentmeister, Jean R. Cemetery Inscriptions of the from Vernon County Historical Society, Townships of Forest and Osceola, vol. I. (Fond 231 North Main Street, Nevada, Missouri du Lac, Wisconsin, cl987. Pp. 9. No price 64772.) listed.) 318 WISCONSIN HISTORY CHECKLIST

Rentmeister, Jean R. Cemetery Locations, Map Ueeck, Edward Albert. Ueeck Family Heritage, and Listings for Fond du Lac County, Wiscon­ 1810-1987. (Friendship, Wisconsin, 1988. sin. (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, cl987. Pp. 3. Pp. 48. Illus. $25.00. Available from Jerry Illus. No price listed.) The above eight W. Carlton, Brenton's, 205 South Main publications are available from Jean R. Street, P.O. Box 181, Hancock, Wisconsin Rentmeister, 456 Third Street, Fond du 54943.) Lac, Wisconsin 54935. Werner, Ruth Margaret, and Watson, Jane Stark, William F. Wisconsin, River of History. Werner. The Nasi Girls of Fond du Lac: Their (Nashotah?, Wisconsin, cl988. Pp. 354. Il­ Heritage and Descendants. (Santa Barbara?, lus. $25.00 plus $1.50 postage and han­ California, 1988. Pp. 82. Illus. No price dling. Available from author, 5438 North listed. Available from Mrs. E. C. Watson, Pauline's Wood Drive, Nashotah, Wiscon­ 166 Eucalyptus Hill Circle, Santa Barbara, sin 53058.) California 93103.)

Contributors

BENJAMIN D. RHODES received his B.A. (1958), PETER S. ONUF received his Ph.D. from the M.A. (1961), and Ph.D. (1965) degrees from Johns Hopkins University in 1973. He has the University of Colorado—Boulder, where taught at the University of California—San he studied American diplomatic history. He Diego, Columbia University, Worcester Poly­ taught at Northern Michigan University be­ technic Institute, and is currently at Southern fore beginning his career at the University of Methodist University. Among his many artic­ Wisconsin—Whitewater, where he is now a les and books are The Origins of the Federal Re­ professor of history. He has published more public (1983) and Statehood and Union: A History than twenty articles in such journals as The of the Northwest Ordinance (1987), which is re­ Journal of American History, The Review of Poli­ viewed in this issue of the Magazine. tics, Mid-America, and Prologue. His recent book. The Anglo-American Winter War with Rus­ JOHN O. HOLZHUETER contributed articles on sia, 1918—1919: A Diplomatic and Military Tragi­ Frank Lloyd Wright in the last two issues of comedy (Greenwood, 1988) was reviewed in the the Magazine, where biographical information last issue of the Magazine. may be found. 319 Corporate Sponsors AMERICAN FAMILY INSURANCE NELSON INDUSTRIES, INC. Madison Stoughton APPLETON MILLS FOUNDATION NICOLET INSTRUMENT CORPORATION Appleton Madison APPLETON PAPERS, INCORPORATED NORTHWESTERN MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE Appleton COMPANY J. 1. CASE COMPANY Milwaukee Racine PIERSON PRODUCTS, INC. CONSOLIDATED PAPERS FOUNDATION, INC. Janesville Wisconsin Rapids RACINE FEDERATED, INC. CUNA MUTUAL INSURANCE GROUP Racine CHARITABLE FOUNDATION W. T. ROGERS COMPANY Madison Madison CARL AND ELISABETH EBERBACH FOUNDATION, ST. FRANCIS SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION INC., Milwaukee Milwaukee FIRST WISCONSIN NATIONAL BANK SCIENCE RELATED MATERIALS, INC. Madison Janesville GOODMAN'S INCORPORATED WALGREENS Madison Deerfield, Illinois HIGHSMITH COMPANY, INCORPORATED WEBCRAFTERS-FRAUTSCHI FOUNDATION Fort Atkinson INCORPORATED INTREPID CORPORATION Madison Milwaukee THE WEST BEND COMPANY S. C.JOHNSON AND SON, INC. West Bend Racine WESTERN PUBLISHING COMPANY JOHNSON CONTROLS, INC. Racine Milwaukee WiNDWAY FOUNDATION, INC. KOHLER COMPANY Sheboygan Kohler WISCONSIN BELL MENASHA CORPORATION FOUNDATION Milwaukee Neenah WISCONSIN NATURAL GAS COMPANY MILLER BREWING COMPANY Racine Milwaukee WISCONSIN PHYSICIANS SERVICE MOLINE MANUFACTURING COMPANY Madison Racine WISCONSIN POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY Madison

Patrons MR. AND MRS. ROBERT M. BOLZ MR. THOMAS M. JEFFRIS II Madison Janesville FIRST WISCONSIN FOUNDATION, INC. MR. FREDERICK G. WILSON Milwaukee Madison DR. ROBERT H. IRRMANN MR. AND MRS. JOHN W. WINN Madison Madison THE BOARD OF CURATORS

THOMAS H. BARLAND MRS. WILLIAM E. HAYES Eau Claire De Pere MRS. B. L. BERNHARDT DR. FANNIE HICKLIN Cassville Madison MRS. JEROME BOGE RICHARD H. HOLSCHER La Crosse Milwaukee ELBERT S. BOHLIN THOMAS MOUATJEFFRIS II Mineral Point Janesville DAVID E. CLARENBACH ERROL K. KINDSCHY Madison West Salem GLENN R. COATES BEN LOGAN Racine Gays Mills E. DAVID CRONON MRS. J. CARLETON MACNEIL, JR. Madison Bayside MRS. JAMES P. CZAJKOWSKI GEORGE H. MILLER Wauzeka Ripon MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR. FREDERICK I. OLSON Evansville Wauwatosa C. P. FOX JERALD PHILLIPS Baraboo Bayfield HARRY F. FRANKE, JR. FRED A. RISSER Milwaukee Madison PAUL C. GARTZKE PEGGY A. ROSENZWEIG Madison Wauwatosa DR. LYNNE GOLDSTEIN BRIAN D. RUDE Milwaukee Coon Valley GREGG GUTHRIE ROGER STAUTER Lac du Flambeau Madison MRS. VIVIAN GUZNICZAK GERALD D. VISTE Franklin Wausau MRS. HUGH F. GWIN MRS. ALAN WEBSTER Hudson Oshkosh

EUGENE P. TRANI, Vice-President, Academic Affairs, ROBERT B. L. MURPHY, President of the University ofWisconsin Wisconsin History Foundation MRS. GERALDINE DEARBORN, MRS. SHARON LEAIR, President of the Friends Coordinating Council Wisconsin Council for Local History

Friends of the State Historical Society ofWisconsin

THEODORE E. CRABB, Madison MRS. WILLIAM ALLEN, West Bend President Secretary MRS. DUANE BARMORE, Middleton MRS. ALFRED E. SENN, Madison First Vice-President Treasurer WALTER VOGL, Two Rivers LOREN OSMAN, Milwaukee Second Vice-President Past President

Fellows Curators Emeritus

VERNON CARSTENSEN JOHN C. GEILFUSS Washington Milwaukee RICHARD N. CURRENT ROBERT H. IRRMANN Massachusetts Madison MERLE CURTI MRS. EDWARD C.JONES Madison Fort Atkinson ROBERT C. NESBIT HOWARD W. MEAD Washington Madison ALICE E. SMITH DR. LOUIS C. SMITH California Cassville PAUL VANDERBILT MRS. WILLIAM H. L. SMYTHE Madison Milwaukee MILO K. SWANTON Madison THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY SHALL promote a wider appreciation of the American heritage with particular emphasis on the collection, advancement and dissemination of knowledge of the history of Wisconsin and of the West. —Wisconsin Statutes, Chapter 44

Drawings by then-unknown Frank Lloyd Wright for the 1893 Lake Mendota boathouse erected by the Madison Improvement Association at the foot of North Carroll Street. (Wright mislabeled the front elevation "Lake Monona"; for details, see page 282.) He told his apprentices years later that the red-orange seal he affixed to his early work was inspired by Wisconsin's wild lilies. Owing to neglect and the influence of adjoining landowners, the boathouse was razed in February, 1926, no one evidently remembering Wright's connection to it.

I sbs 5

^ 1840 ^ OF W15<^