A Time to Every Purpose the Four Seasons in American Culture by Michael Kammen (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004

194 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY within today’s broader Quaker com- cusses Quaker identity, as problema- munity. These divisions represent the tized in a long history of schism char- culmination of decades of interaction acteristic of sectarians in general and between distinctive Quaker beliefs of Quakers in particular, and as and practices and the evangelical and reflected in the wide variety of Quak- liberal strains in the larger cultures of er communities which the author American Protestant Christianity. The limned in his opening survey. resultant impression is that the ami- Although the issues raised here have able gentleman on the box of oatmeal often been presented in terms of clas- is about as representative of Ameri- sic Weberian sociology, Hamm avoids can Quakers as the old image of Aunt any overt methodological constructs Jemima was reflective of African and approaches his material from a American realities. humanistic perspective. In this he is Subsequent chapters address largely successful; the result is worth Quaker practice in worship and reading by anyone seelung knowledge “benevolence”as well as issues in the of religion in the contemporary Unit- contemporary Quaker community- ed States. especially war and peace, race, gen- der, and sexuality-which the author PETERW. WILLIAMSis distinguished assesses in terms of the congruence professor of comparative religion and between current strategies and American Studies at Miami Universi- Friendly tradition. Hamm also dis- ty, Ohio. A Time to Every Purpose The Four Seasons in American Culture By Michael Kammen (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. 336. Illustrations, color plates, notes, index. $39.95.) With every book, it seems, Michael Donald Grant Mitchell, a.k.a. “Ik Kammen has edged closer to identi- Marvel”), the book is most appealing fying himself with the art-historical on the basis of Kammen’s assemblage subset of the historical profession. of actual pictures showing the iconog- With this lavishly illustrated volume, raphy of seasonal change. These run he has taken the final step in that the gamut from Fanny Palmer’s sev- direction. Although he does examine eral series of popular nineteenth-cen- the work of essayists and thinkers tury prints for Currier & Ives, caught up in American nature including The Four Seasons of LiJe, to imagery (such as Henry David Thore- high art painting, to relatively obscure au, Aldo Leopold, Hal Borland, and modern works by James McGarrell REVIEWS 195 and Lisa Zwerling. The styles vary, the fact that the nation lacked a too, from the homely naturalism of lengthy history. We had no castles on Currier & Ives, who see the seasons the Rhine, no time-blackened cathe- as the creeping infirmities of drals, no ancient texts, but we did mankind, to Jasper Johns, for whom have a physical place of astonishing Summer (1986-1987) is a witty col- variety, beauty, and expanse. This lage of images from sources ranging place-ever changing over time, yet from the Mona Lisa to the American always dominant and present in the flag. imagination-is our link to antiqui- The tradition of art and decora- ty. It is the warrant on which we act, tion based on the theme of the sea- the standard by which all things are sons is, of course, older than Virgil or measured. The planting, the cultivat- Ovid. The seasons tie the natural ing, the harvesting, and the waiting cycle of the year to that of the indi- are the cyclical signs that unite us vidual. When Persephone vanishes with the land, each season with its into the underworld, the flowers go singular beauties. Spring always with her, at least until spring comes comes again, with its promise of an again. In the work of the Hudson America that is, without the impedi- River painter Thomas Cole, empires ments of castles and cathedrals, for- rise and fall according to the rhythms ever young. of the day and the seasons. The Kammen’s A Time to Every Pur- progress of the school year is neatly pose is a book for a wide range of pur- traced by a calendar of holiday sea- poses. It is a meditation on time, faith, sons, beginning with Halloween and nostalgia, anti-urbanism, and the ending some time after Easter in the astonishing diversity with which a brave flutter of Memorial Day flags. single notion can be expressed in a The illustrated calendar, as Norman variety of media. This is history at its Rockwell’s still-popular designs very best, open to every possible demonstrate, articulates the passage morsel of evidence, each one treated of time through changes in the sea- with deep respect for its intrinsic sons-whether natural or manufac- character and meaning. tured by the greeting card industry and the U.S. Congress. KARALANN MARLINGis professor of America’s relationship to the nat- art history at the University of Min- ural environment, from the very nesota. beginning, was surely influenced by .

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