George Barr Mccutcheon, Playwright Dis- Covered

266 Indiana Magazine of History studies of the Hoosier press, additional research in actual newspaper files remains a prerequisite for such studies. Com- mendation is due Miller and the Indiana Historical Society for this welcome publication, but acknowledgment is also due the late Eli Lilly, whose foresight and benevolence made its compi- lation and publication possible. If his benevolence is used with a devotion and wisdom even approximating that which he ex- hibited regarding historical study, his unusually important con- tributions will be enlarged from decade to decade. Indiana University, Bloomington Donald F. Carmony Beyond Graustark: George Barr McCutcheon, Playwright Dis- covered. A.L. Lazarus and Victor H. Jones. (Port Washing- ton, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1981. Pp. xvi, 187. Illustrations, notes, selected bibliography, index. $15.00.) Author George Barr McCutcheon is best known for his fiction. His novels, for the most part written in the genre of romantic realism, sold in the millions. Particularly popular was his Graustark series, which chronicled life in a mythical Bal- kan country. McCutcheon’s output was tremendous-he wrote a total of more than forty novels-and his readership was varied. According to the New York Times (October 24, 1928, p. 24), “college boys, kitchen maids, and daughters of millionaires’’ found pleasure in his books. In contrast to his popularity as a novelist was McCutch- eon’s reputation as a playwright. He published only two plays during his lifetime, each in limited editions of fewer than one hundred copies. While doing research on another subject A.L. Lazarus discovered a collection of McCutcheon’s unpublished play manuscripts in the Purdue University Library. Other such manuscripts were located in the Beinecke Library at Yale Uni- versity and in the New York Public Library. Beyond Graustark includes a synopsis and discussion of each of these plays; the authors’ main purpose, however, was to evaluate McCutcheon’s work as a playwright. The book is also a biographical and literary study, in which the authors relate McCutcheon’s life to his writing and evaluate his popularity as a novelist and his apparent failure as a dramatist. They indicate that writing plays was one of his top priorities and that his “heart and best work were in the theater, but the theater was not ready for him or his satires of Victorian mores” (p. xiv). For the most part, McCutcheon’s plays dealt with social issues such as activist feminism, unnecessary killing of wild Book Reviews 267 animals, male dominance in family relations, abandoned children, snobbery, and euthanasia. McCutcheon tried again and again to get his plays produced on Broadway and other places but was not successful. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, but the legitimate theater continually eluded him. Lazarus and Jones indicate that it was difficult for McCutcheon to accept that “undistinguished plays . by [George] Ade and [Booth] Tarkington achieved successful pro- duction on Broadway while GBMc’s plays met with rejection by the New York theaters” (p. xiv). This rejection was due largely to the fact that the Frohman syndicate owned or controlled most of the theaters in the United States and the management did not like the controversial subjects of the plays. This study of a well-known Indiana author is well written and presents new information. Because of McCutcheon’s promi- nence as a writer, because this is the first biography, and because of the subject, Beyond Gruusturk is an important book. Wubush College, Cruwfordsville Donald E. Thompson The Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry. By Mar- garet Walsh. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1982. Pp. x, 182. Tables, maps, appendix, notes, selected bibliography, index. $14.50.) This is an exemplary monograph. Its topic is substantial but limited, its organization and argument absolutely clear, and its documentation thorough. Certainly nobody could want more statistics about meat packing in the Midwest from the 1840s to the 1870s than can be found here. Even historians who prefer words-which are few in this little book-to numbers-which are plentiful-should get a sober pleasure from observing something modest done thoroughly and well. The author’s argument for the significance of her topic begins with the observation that the history of manufacturing has been studied primarily in mid-Atlantic and New England settings, while midwestern economic development has been considered mainly in agricultural terms. Those emphases corre- spond roughly to the actual experiences of the three regions, but understanding the entire history of manufacturing requires at least some attention to its development in the Midwest. Particular attention must be paid to the processing industries, such as meat packing, which led the growth of manufacturing in the middle western region of the country. Processing “dis- seminated an industrial experience and a modern technology” .

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