A OHIO VALLEY EDITORIAL BOARD

HISTORY STAFF

Senior Editor Compton Allyn Christine L.Heyrman Joseph R Reidy Christopher Phillips Cinri?liiati Muse,im Center University ofDelazuare Ho'u)a,·d University History Advisory Board Depmtment of History j.Blaine Hudson Steve,!J. Ross University ofCincinnati Stepben ATon Uni'versity ofLouisville University ofSouthern Associate Editors University ofCalifornia California R.Douglas Hurt A.Glenn Crotbers Los Angeles at Purdue Unkersity Hany N. eiber&/, Department ofHistory Joan E Casbin University ofealifornia James C.Klotter University ofLouisville Ohio State University at Berkeley Georgetolun College David Stradling R.L.Cayton Steven M. Stowe Andrew Bruce Levine Department of History Miami University Indiana Unruersty University ofCalifornia University ofCincinnati R.David Edmunds at Santa Cruz Roger D.Tate Managing Editors ofTexas Dallas Somerset Community University nt Zane L.Miller John B.Westerji eid H College Ellen T Eslinger University ofCincinnati Ib¢Filson Historical Society Joe W.Trotter,Jn Depaul University Elizbeth A.Perkins Ruby Rogers Carnegie Mdion University CraigT Friend Centre College Cincinnati Museum Centr€ North Carolina State Aitina Waller Editorial Assistant james A.Ramage University Unioersity ofConnecticut Northern Kentucky University Cathy Collopy Department ofHistory University ofCinannati

CINCINNATI MUSEUM THE FILSON HISTORICAL

CENTER BOARD OF SOCIETY BOARD

TRUSTEES OFDIRECTORS

Cliair David Bobl C aig Meier President Ronaid D. Brmn jegq KMattbeg,M.D. Henry D Gms* Geoi·ge 1.! Vineent Budig,Jr. Sbenan R Murphy Past Chair Otto M. Vice-President Stephanie Byrd Robert W.Olson H.C.Buck Niebo# Ronald R.14}n St*kum,Jr. Erinn Cayley Scott Robertson Vice Chairs John E Cassidy Yvonne Robertson Secretary Ja,ze Gal·vey Dorothy A.Coleman Elizzabeth York Scb@ Maygaret Enrr Kitip Dee Gettier Richard 0.Coleman Merrie Ste'u>mt Stillpasi Treasurer R Keith Harrison Robert Sullivan Bob Coughlin J.Walker Slim,III William C Portman.III David Davis laine:L.Turner Edwai·d D.Dilier David L.Armstrong Treasurer

Mm·kJ.Hauser Mark Dunford J.McCauley Brown Charles H.Gerbardt,III SGQTdon Dabney Secretary Le,lie Hardy Holly Gatbright Martind R. Dimn Francine S Hihz 1[homasT.Noland,Jr. CEO President and Greg Kenny H.Powell Starks Robert E Kisti, Douglass W MoDonald ger Dy.R Ted Steinbock Laura LO? Vice President ofMuscums Ig Steuen R.Love Jobn P.Stern William M.Street John E.Fleming Kenneth W.Louoe Ormz Wilson,IJI

Director

Mark K Wetberington

Ohio Valley History (ISSN Louisville,Kentucky,40208. sity of Cincinnati. Cincinnati History.Back issues are 58.00. located Museum Center andThe Filson For information 746-3472)is published in Editorial Offi ces at more on Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati,Ohio,and Louis- the University of Cincinnati, Historical Society are private ville,Kentucky,by Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio, 45221-0373. non-profi t organizations sup- including membership,visit Museum Center and The Filson Contact the editorial offi ces ported almost entirely by gifts, www.cincymuscu in.org or call Periodi- 513-287-7000 1-800-733- Historical Society. r [email protected] or grants, sponsorships,admission or stradlds@email. edu. 2077. cal postage paid at Cincinnati, uc. and membership fees. of Cincinnati For more information on Ohio, with an additional entry Ohio Valley History is a Memberships collaboration of-Ilic Bison Ihe Filson Historical Society, at Louisville, Kentucky. History Museum at Cincinnati Museum Center The Filson Postmaster send address Historical Society,Cincinnati or including membership,visit fi isonhistorical. call changes to'Ilie Filson Historical Museum Center,and the De- Historical Society include a www. org or 502-635-5083. Society,1310 S.'[hird Street, partment of History,Univer- subscription to Ohio Valley

© Cincj,innii Museum Ce,ifc?·i!,id'jb,·34/son Ilisforiral Society 2006. OHIO

VALLEY

HISTORY

Volume 6, Number 2, Summer 2006

A Journal of the History and Culture of the Ohio Valley and the Upper South, published in Cincinnati,Ohio,and Louisville, Kentucky,by Cincinnati Museum Center andlhe Filson Historical Society.

Contents

Introduction Who Owns the Past? 1 Public History in the Ohio Valley David Stradling

Museum Marketing Muhammad Ali 6 Reviews Louisville's Newest Museum Center Catherine Fosl

What Are We Running Away From? 12 Relections on the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Alan Gallay

The National Underground Railroad 18 Freedom Center Museum of Conscience Samuel W.Black

Mystic Chords ofMemory No More 28 Ibe Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Joan Flinspach

Stunning,Appealing,Troubling 34 Be Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

and Museum's Permanent Exbibit Gerald J. Prokopowicz Contents

Review Nikki M. Taylor 41 Essay Frontiers of Freedom:Cincinnatik Black Community, 1802-1868 Darrel E. Bigham

Collections The Tyler Davidson Fountain 48 Essays A Synibol OJ Cincinnati

The Reuben T Durrett Papers 54 at The Filson Historical Society

Book 59 Reviews

Cover Exterior views of the three museums reviewed in this issue.

OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Contributors

Catherine Fost is assistant professor in Women's and Gender Studies and director of the recently-established Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research at the University of Louisville. In 2003,her book,Suboersi'ue Southerner:Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice tbe Cold in War South NewYor\( c.Palgrave-Macmillan,2003), won book awards from both the Gustavus Myer Humanities Center for Human Rights and the Oral History Association.

Alan Gallay is Warner Woodring Professor of Atlantic World and Early American History at 1[he Ohio State University His book, 7be Indian Slave Trade:Fe Rise oftbe English Empire in tbe American Soutb,1670-1717 New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002),won the Bancroft Prize in American History in 2003. He writes frequently about slavery in America.

Samuel W.Black is Curator of African American Collections at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania.

Joan Flinspach is President and Chief Executive Officer of'Ihe Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne,Indiana.

Gerald J.Prokopowicz is Assistant Professor of History at East Carolina University in Greenville,North Carolina. He is the author of Allfor tbe Regiment:71)e Army oftbe Obio,1861-1862Chapel ( Hill: University of North Carolina Press,2001)and served for nine years as the Lincoln Scholar at The Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Darrel E.Bigham is Director of the Historic Southern Indiana Organization and Professor of History at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville.

SUMM ER 2006 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Who Owns the Past? Public History in tbe Ohio Valley

David Stradling

new history museums.the OhioPartValleyof thehas nation'becomes developmenthome numberof touristof ndestinationsrecent yearsdesigned to boost local economies, tomanya of these museums have at the heart of their missions more than just the education of the public. Civic leaders hope these new institutions will draw national attention-and dollars-to their cities. This is certainly the case for Cincinnati's recently opened National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and Louisville's even newer Muhammad Ali Center, and although the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has a diverse mission,its impressive new edifice in downtown Springfield, Illinois has enlivened that small city,too. More than ever history sells, and these new museums represent a remarkable confluence of commerce and education.

Each of these museums has its own history of conception, fund raising,and design,but with their completion they reveal some important similarities. Striking architecture announces their intention to be important destinations, places to be talked about as much as walked through. Although these three museums vary in their use of historical artifacts, all of them rely heavily on advanced technology to impress visitors. In each,film is an important part of the experience. Although all are set in meaningful locations, none dwells long on local history, striving instead to tell a national story,to reach a national audience. Each admirably addresses critical,difficult issues in American history-slavery, freedom, segregation-but each also contains frustrating silences and missed opportunities. Altogether,inside and out,these institutions speak to a new age in museums,where a constant tension exists between treating visitors as students of history eager to learn or as customers who need to be satisfied.

Each of these museums must navigate between the accurate presentation of the past-with all its ugliness and controversy-and pleasing consumers, many of whom undoubtedly prefer unconflicted messages of nationalism, uplift, and hope. Will people really pay to

SUMM ER 2006 1 WHO OWNS THE PAST?

learn the horrid details of slavery's cruelty and( will they pay twice about ( to do so)?Will avid fans of Muhammad Ali want to read or watch)the flaws in his character? Is it possible that a museum might spark so much controversy that its bottom line is damaged? While the average museum-goer undoubtedly wants to see truthful historical representations, no museum can speak to the past without immediate concern for the present. Museums can accomplish little without visitors spinning turnstiles.

This special issue of Obio Valley History offers five reviews of these three recently completed history museums.Ihese " museums represent the growing importance of public history in the presentation of the nation's past. Academic historians have served as consultants to these institutions, but ultimately designers, museum managers, and public historians have done the work of creating and maintaining them. lhe editors sought the opinions of both public and academic historians, in but also an effort not just to learn something of these new institutions, ofprofessional to gain an appreciation ofhow these two different groups The reveal historians see this new moment in museum building. reviews the a significant overlap in opinion,reflecting an intersection in training and expectations of historians who work in the academy and those who work outside it.

historical profession. Still, a difference in perspective persists in the Academic and public historians have often found themselves at odds since the formal creation of the latter field in the late 1970s. Public historians have regularly portrayed academics as ivory tower elitists,aloof from both reality and their audiences-which tend to be distressingly small. Academic historians have regularly portrayed public historians their as popularizing, patronizing amateurs, who must compromise professional standards to meet the expectations of their employer, whether public or private. These stereotypes, like most, persist largely because of poor communication between the two groups.

Yet they also persist because of real differences in how academics and public historians conduct their work. 1[his became especially evident during the Enola Gay controversy in 1994, when the Smithsonian display the Institution's National Air and Space Museum prepared to plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, fifty years of the earlier. After exten sive debate about the contextualization plane,including whether or not the museum should graphically depict the consequences of the 1945 bombing, the Smithsonian decided to present the plane with minimal context,and thus minimal teaching and provocation of thought. That episode revealed just how greatly public realities that need historians are beholden to political realities- not

2 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY concern tenured faculty,who from the safety of their towers hollered about the how the Smithsonian had sold out.

Recently,however,the two historical professions have grown closer together. With a long job crunch in academia,a larger percentage of trained historians now seek work in public history,just as they did in the 1970s. With more highly-trained historians working outside of the academy,more students have demanded an education that will train them for work in government agencies, business archives, the film industry, television production, or historic preservation. Since 1976, when the University of California at Santa Barbara began the nation's first Public History and program, two years later began publishing the new field's first journal, Public History,the discipline has expanded rapidly. Just this past year,the University of Cincinnati created a new track in Public History in its masters degree program, and now encourages students take internships to at the region's many fine museums, archives, or historically-oriented businesses,to learn first-hand the diversity ofwork that awaits trained historians. The history programs at the University of Louisville and Northern Kentucky University,among other institutions, seek to do the same. Even those in the ivory tower recognize that public history programs accelerate their own recently sluggish turnstiles.

lhe first from Catherine review comes Fost,a historian who serves in the Communications and Women's and Gender Studies departments at the University ofLouisville. Fosl describes the still-evolving Muhammad Ali Center,which occupies a striking building in revitalizing downtown Louisville. As with the other museums reviewed here, the Ali Center clearly does many things well, both offering educational displays and entertaining visuals. Still, Fosl notes silences in the museum's presentation, including the controversial gender politics that ran through Ali's boxing career and early life,and its lack of attention to the history of race relations in Louisville. Just as important,Fosl also notes the problem of audience with which the Ali Center must struggle. Is this a museum that will primarily cater to white baby-boomers seeking understand to a larger-than-life twentieth-century sports figure, or to young African Americans in search of a political and life role model? Surely the museum can attend to the interests of both groups, but the struggle to find the right balance in tone and content in hopes of satisfjing both groups reveals the centrality of attracting visitors in the shaping of history museums.

Allan Gallay, a distinguished professor of history at Ohio State University,offers the first review of Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Although he clearly finds much of value in the museum, he asks whether the story of freedom can be well told in

SUMMER 2006 3 WHO OWNS THE PAST?

the glaring absence of the story of slavery After exploring the Freedom Center,Gallay wonders, where are the slaves? According to Gailay,the discussion of the Underground Railroad,which became the salvation of relatively few slaves, should be set in the context of resistance inside the institution of slavery,where community and family provided some shelter from the vagaries and cruelties of America's peculiar institution.

Samuel W. Black, curator of African American collections at Pittsburgh's Heinz History Center,offers a similarly mixed review of the Freedom Center. Accepting the museum's emphasis on freedom rather than slavery,Black wonders why the museum says so little about African cultures,and why its focus on African Americans is lost in the portions Black willing ofthe museum that address recent eras. Like Gallay, is not to accept the Freedom Center's own definition of its mission; it is a museum dedicated to the struggle for freedom, not to the institution Freedom of slavery or to the entire African American experience. The Center has hoped this uplifting story, one shared by all Americans, might draw a broader audience.

The two reviews of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum reveal how public and academic historians can have The first very different concerns about museum design and content. essay comes from Joan Flinspach, president and C.E.0. of the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The new museum clearly succeeds, Flinspach concludes, especially when measured by its own mission to combat historical illiteracy. Success might also be measured by the great Apri12005. In crowds that have come to the museum since its opening in demand. Moreover, that sense,she notes,the museum is clearly meeting a Ali Museum the Freedom Center, the even more than either the or Lincoln Presidential Museum makes extensive use of technology. Most Ford of its displays are replicas of recognizable historical scenes,such as displays be quite Theater on that fateful night. Flinspach finds these to effective,praising the limited label copy and noting three-" dimensional words. items convey this story more powerfully than

Finally,Gerald J.Prokopowicz,a professor ofhistory at East Carolina University and director of their department's public history program, Lincoln Presidential Museum. Prokopowicz offers a nuanced view of the admits the crowds that have come through the museum indicate a shopping mall nne·asure of success,but in comparing the museum to a he wonders what all these visitors take from their visit. Continuing his theme of consumption,Prokopowicz compares passing by the largely uninterpreted replicas to the viewing ofdepartment store windows during the holidays;they are impressive,but not terribly edifying. Prokopowicz longs for some larger meaning in the museum, some central idea,rather

OH]0 VALLEY HISTORY th·an just the drama that runs through the Lincoln story. Prokopowicz nicely outlines the struggle between designers and historians, one that defeat resulted in a gallant" for the historians."Still,even if the museum fails to teach strong lessons about Lincoln, it is attracting an audience. Perhaps visitors will be so enthralled by what they see they will purchase books in the gift shop. In an academic historian's view,that might be another of measure a museum's success.

Altogether these reviews reveal the complex realities that face new history museums. The communities in which these museums have been built will judge their success by more than just their ability to display accurately and innovatively aspects of the past. Ihese' institutions must engage and entertain, as well as edify. 1[he national turn toward tourism as a key component in urban revitalization requires that judgments concerning institutional success include ample recognition of membership figures, total attendance, and, perhaps most important, continuing consumer satisfaction. 4

SUMMER 2006 5 Marketing Muhammad Ali

Louisville' Newest s - Museum Center

Catherine Fosl

he Muhammad Ali Center opened on Louisville's Ohio T Riverfront in November 2005 amid a showcase of celebrities, headed of course by Ali hirnself. 1-he museum promises to enhance regional culture in a number of ways if it fulfills its mission to preserve and share the legacy and ideals ofMuhammad Ali;to promote respect, hope, and understanding; and to inspire adults and children 1 1. everywhere to be as great as they can be. These tall orders exemplify the Ali Center's strange yet engaging tensions and the experience one is likely to have there. The mission begins with an individual and his ideals but then quickly shifts to increasingly loftier,more general, but perhaps also more remote human qualities that Ali's example offers for the rest I " of the world's societies: respect,hope,and understanding and, finally, simply being as great"" as one can be.

Be Center built to accomplish this mission presents somethingmore than a museum or a mere

monument to an icon, and something less than the life-transforming extravaganza for which it seems to strive. What ES the Center might become be r il=%%A$**All remains to 4 ... seen at this early stage Muhammid Ali of its existence, with

r. Lenter opened significant portions of its programming and even architecture still the world in to incomplete-including the Library and Archives that might hold special November 2005. interest for history lovers. Courtesy of the Muhammad Ali The Center' immediate its which Center s most attraction is appearance, has already boosted the beauty of Louisville's downtown skyline. A colorful,blockv,towering structure, the Center appears to hover over the

6 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY city's waterfront expressway. Among the building's most unusual and intriguing features are the massive, shape-shifting mosaics of various images of Ali imbeddedinits construction, r- 1.:<'. which fade in and out of focus almost holographically

as one approaches from a distance, then disappear when close. That j,« '' up aspect TS . ofthe building's artwork may altogether escape those who speedbyincars,givingitonly Aluhammad Ali's sti,ry is told a cursory glance they Its catching exterior color scheme of as pass. eye- through chrono- white,black, shades ofbrown,and bright checkerboard aqua,gray, copper logical,interactive is less easily missed. 3]his site, like its patron, is bold and striking, Journeylines. not subtle. Courtesy of-the Muliammad Ali The Center's main entry expects to be flanked by a tree and flower- Center filled, river-view courtyard that is still under construction and( remains closed as of'spring of-2006),forcing visitors to enter from a less appealing, sheltered,side entrance attached to the parking garage. Inside,however, the Center continues to impress,with regal ddcor,two and a half floors of exhibits,and technological innovations that go beyond state-of-the-art. Once tickets are purchased a( nine dollar admission,less for children and groups of twenty),a long escalator carries a visitor to what feels like the top of the world, where the self-guided tour begins in a collecting irea: with an elating,wall-sized view of the Ohio River. Turning one's back on the world over which Ali lorded, one enters a dazzling,interactive odyssey ofthe more problematic one from which he originated. Between the two,visitors may find themselves hit up,as we were,for an expensive photograph snapped of each tourist emerging from the escalator-a reminder that vanity,entertainment,and mammon are also ·a part of the Center's experience.

The tour begins in the fifth floor orientation" theater"with a fifteen- minute biographical film shown on a montage of five screens. The film traces Ali's odyssey to greatness through six thematic prisms which( might more properly be called virtues),each of which is then expanded upon in a series of six exhibits on that floor that collectively form a Core Value Pavilion."Some of this terminology may sound a bit too touchy-feely for the average tourist, but in the Spirituality"" exhibit,

SUMMER 2006 7 MARKETING MUI»lAMMADALI

for instance, even the skeptic atheist probably find Nej_UK."A i or can at least relaxation in the video 9 imaeres of the natural world b i and the sleek comfort of the reclining lounges.

Social-political historians and history buffs will likely find these fifth-floor exhibits

among the most compelling, here that Ali' life as it is s is contextualized historically most thoroughly. Touch screens embedded in the exhibits 1[he Gre,itest" exhibit profiles spring to life with the press of a finger,drawing viewers in with striking Muhammad Ali' s multimedia and historical films. Exhibits surrounding the first theme, profes.s)11.tl=in Confidence,"' firmly locate Ali's development of self and sport within the Muhammad Ali the framework of racial segregation and the everyday degradation of Center African Americans that plagued his generation. Part of the project here is to deconstruct what might still seem,to many whites,like the egotism in Ali's numerous brash claims from very early on in his boxing career to being unbeatable, unequalled, superhuman almost-in short, the" greatest. The exhibit succeeds admirably at illustrating such bravado as a normal reaction, perhaps even a necessary prerequisite for success, in relation to the constant assumptions of inferiority Ali faced as a young African American coming of age in segregated Louisville. It forcefully presentizes that message for contemporary youth: Confident" black man, reads one sign, The world better get used to it."

Entering next a recreated lunch counter, a voice begins shouting loudly that you cannot be served,placing the visitor virtually in the same position that black youths like Ali (then Cassius Clay)would have faced in the 19505 just for trying to sit down and have a hamburger. 1[he scene packs an effective emotional punch, but its power cuts in other directions too. Does it turn a serious and painful historical moment segregation)into an amusement ride? Does it give white visitors the misleading sense that they are really able to know what it was like with the help of some simple but expensive technology?

A timeline of Ali's youth correlates his coming of age with the blossoming of the Civil Rights movement and Black Consciousness and later,with the Vietnam War and the protests it evoked, which Ali entered in a forceful way with his anti-draft stand beginning in 1966, two years after he had defeated Sonny Liston to win his first heavyweight

8 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY title. Much of the socio-political upheaval of those years comes to life through a montage of photos, newspaper clippings, and artifacts of protest such as posters, buttons,and banners,interspersed with the more individual achievements and challenges that those years brought Ali. Ihe area also does a nice job explicating Ali's embrace of Islam in 1964 and countering the demonization in much of popular culture of the Rev. Elijah Muhammad's racialized brand of Islam.

Even heroes have their human flaws, however,aiid the Center deals with some of these,as do many such hagiographic projects,with silence. Thus, the issue of Ali's four marriages and even the family lives of his children receive little attention here,other than a few photos in the Respect"" exhibit, accompanied by a caption that alludes to the contradictions"" in his relationships with women and the observation that he grew" beyond"those contradictions. Side-stepping gender dynamics also deprives visitors ofthe chance to learn how women have progressed in boxing, a development that has allowed Ali's youngest daughter, Laila, to make a name for herself in the sport.

One also has to wonder at the choice of actor Billy Crystal, even among celebrities, to reflect on Ali s greatness as the visuals trace his rise to stardom. Presumably,this was the result of the men's friendship and Crystal's comic popularity Such personal relationships form the basis of other exhibit such choices that work better- as the 1964 heavyweight Bingham Gallery the third floor,featuring of title fight between Howard L. on an array Sonny Liston and identified Ali' best friend, extraordinary photographs that Bingham, as s Cassius Clay later( took of the champ, as well as of other provocative cultural figures and Muhammad Ali) moments from the past half century. The Filson I listorical Society Situating the new Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville seemed an obvious choice because the iconic prize fighter and champion of racial and human equality was born and grew up there as( did his current wife, Lonnie,who seems to have been a driving creative force in bringing the Center to the city).Yet for locals,there is also a missed opportunity in the presentation of Louisville's history. Ali's or( Cassius Clay's)youth in the city receives only generalized treatment,with little to no examination of his neighborhood,his schooling,or how Louisville's racial and political

SUMMER 2006 9 MARKETING MUHAMMADALI

dynamics refracted segregation in everyday life. General themes of

the southern African

American experience are well developed in this portion of the Center, yet the particularities of African an American childhood in this southern

border city are left largely unexplored. For example, the I loward L. desegregation ofthe city's Bingham Gallery schools begin when Ali was fourteen, a process that although token changing a exhibit was nonetheless completed relatively peacefully by comparison with showcases sp·ace - communities farther south. Yet the exhibit depicting Ali' school collections of art- s years work from featured makes no mention of this fact, nor whether such dynamics touched the artists. Courtesy of young boxer's life. We do learn that Ali was introduced to boxing by a the Muh·immad Ali white police officer responding to the theft of his bike,but it might have Center been fruitful to use this relationship to examine more fully black-white relations in a city known for its polite" racism."Even the Civil Rights movement exhibits primarily reference Louisville only to show how the city exemplified what the captions call «middle America."One wonders how the Ali Center might have dealt differently with these and other local history questions had it benefited from greater collaboration with and pollination from other African American history ventures in the city, especially the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage,which has not yet opened owing to the lack of funds for its completion:

t[he Ali Center contains plenty to like for sports enthusiasts. Moving past the social-political context and consequences of Ali's meteoric rise to fame, one proceeds through a large, semi-circular exhibit that traces his boxing career,moving chronologically through his first big win in the 1960 Olympics, to his stubborn, ultimately successful recapture of the heavyweight championship after boxing officials stripped him of it in 1967 because of his anti-Vietnam War draft resistance, to his retirement in 1981. In the center of the circle, the viewer's gaze is drawn downward onto an actual boxing ring,one floor below,that doubles as a movie screen broadcasting a film pastiche of highlights from Ali's most outstanding boxing moments. The audio narrator has the intonation

of classic ringside0sportscasters from television'.s early years, and the tension builds to the moment when Ali reclaims the heavyweight title from George Foreman in the 1974 Rumble" in the Jungle"in Kinshasa, Zaire, after which he defeats Joe Frazier at last in the 1975 lhrilla"

10 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY in Manila"in the Philippines. «Coretta's Kitchen" nearby features a simulated training area with an actual ring, where , tourists may spar,under video instructions issued by Ali's prize-fighter daughter,Laila, or shadow box with a computer-generated opponent who actually seems to respond to punches. The fourth floor continues the boxing focus, with several video-on- demand stations upon which one can select and view in their totality up to fifteen of Ali's most famous fights. The third floor is devoted to a celebration of youth using the 1996 Olympic Torch as the metaphorical point for variety of interactive, entry a f mostly high-tech exhibits aimed at youth '. self-discovery and self-affirmation.

In crafting the Ali Center, its creators faced an almost inevitable problem in Signed photograph relation audience. On the hand, to its one ofMuhammad Ali, the Center is committed to humanizing Ali the man and thus dismantling ca. 1964. The Flson for mostly white baby-" boomers"and their families the rnythology of Ilistorical Society fear and loathing that surrounded Ali throughout his boxing career in much of mainstream popular culture. At the same time, the Center is mindful of the importance of reaching out to today's still-struggling African American youth, which it attempts through an imaginative use of technology,artistry, and various messages of affirmation suggesting The needs of these audiences Ali's value as a role model. two are not always compatible, and the result is that the experience there is somewhat uneven, especially because-at least at this early juncture- the technology does not always function smoothly That unevenness does not,however deter the Center from entertaining, educating,and at times awing its visitors. Its lovely,massive,still underutilized space and its ambitious vision for advancing human understanding-undergirded of with wh·at looks like a solid financial base-hold the possibility more good things to come for the city of Louisville and the Ohio Valley. 4

1. The historian George C. Wright coined the phrasepolite " racism" in liis Li)2 Behind a Veil: Blitcks in Louisville, Kennickv, 1865-/930 Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Uni- versity Press, 1985).

11 SUMMER 2006 What Are We Running Away From? Reflections on tbe National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

Alan Gallay

he Underground Railroad long has been a point of pride to Ohioans and T other midwesterners as a celebration of those who risked theii lives, breaking federal and state laws to help slaves reach freedom Euro-Americans of post-Civil War generations could assuage guilty consciences that they lived in a state where the I.---.Railroad thiived For African t3 « 41**,4' * 5<»*4,32': piovidesAmericans,evidencethe thatRailroadslaves at risks to liberate Sj.2 fs themselves or assist others as 1* 4 engineers and conductors, that Ij their had passively j.- .«*.ALS»«1*jir. ancestors.-averv not

Few slaves actually escaped ,* 1 their condition-there L were K - only twenty thousand African I 1:I.3# Americans Canada West Immai= •k=-_L,'™,Tl INI:* . in Ill 1860, the chief destination for

Extetior of view many runaways-and far fewer Ilic Freedom Cen- people actually helped slaves escape The odds of reaching freedom from Nationalter CouitesvUndetof the - the Deep South were miniscule Frederick Douglass,the most famous giound Railioad runaway, had a relatively short distance to travel from his Maryland rieedorn Center confinement to the North, which of course,did not guarantee freedom, for slave catchers lurked 111 both countryside and city Befbre fleeing, Douglass imagined treacherous obstacles along unknown pathwavs. with death a possible outcome if caught,a deterrence to all but the most desperate The North Star pointed direction, but not how to reach a destination safely Racist northerners-law-abiding citizens-were as often likely to turn a runaway in as not,so the escapee had to flee all the way to Canada Hence, the need for the Railroad

Located in d beautiful south-facing building on the Cincinnati riverfront, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

12 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY overlooks the Ohio River, the famed physical barrier for so many of those who escaped bondage. The museum makes good use of local history,mostly through filmed reenactments of slaves crossing the river, those who helped them, and the pursuing slave-catchers. The museum, however,does not dwell on local history. It is not a' celebration of Ohio, but of the heroism of those who escaped slavery and those who aided them,all in the cause of freedom.

The well laid with of museum is out a mix exhibits and films on three

floors. Visitors begin1 on the second floor examining the Underground Railroad, then move up a flight to presentations on particular aspects of slavery,then up another flight to explore more fully the museum's emphasis on freedom. The exhibits are well done; schoolchildren and adults will find them engaging and educational. In fact, the museum is a model for how to reach effectively across age categories. Information is clearly presented. There are plenty of maps, audios and fascinating examples ofmaterial culture,without becoming too busy and overwhelming. 1[he docents are extraordinarily helpful, and there are guided tc)urs for those who wish to delve niore deeply into the subject matter. Three days a week,there is a two-hour tour specific:illy for adults, Women of Courage, recounting the stories ofwomen who performed" courageous deeds to help themselves and others survive in a racially and chauvinistically male dominated world."

1[he exhibits not devoted to the Underground Railroad ably explore the history of both the international and domestic slave trade and the major political events of pre-Civil War American history,which are woven in and out of the history ofAmerican slavery. 1[he presentation of slavery itself does not pull its punches in terms of the physical treatment ofslaves. At a time when there are voices in American society espousing that slavery's brutality should not be shown because it demeans the modern-day descendants of the slaves, associating them as victims or as people who could or should be victimized, the museum demands that we remember the suffering of the enslaved and those who fought oppression, and that we draw inspiration from their lives to fight for freedom today.

The museum is meant to educate visitors about the Underground Railroad-a difficult task given the secrecy under which it operated- but it is education with a specific purpose. 1[he lesson articulated in the exhibits and films is that humans must be free,and must work to obtain freedom for others. In fact, the final exhibits are devoted to freedom in the modern-day world. Visitors are informed of contemporary struggles for freedom around the globe, and the fact that millions still live in slavery. One exhibit provides examples of contemporary acts of civil

SUMMER 2006 13 WHAT ARE WE RUNNING AWAY FROM?

disobedience and asks visitors to assess for themselves whether the activists are justified. These exhibits are provocative and appropriate given the museum's focus on freedom and extra-legal actions to bring it to those living under oppression.

There is nothing wrong with celebrating freedom,but I cannot help but think that the museum's designers were greatly influenced in shaping the museum to counter centuries of racist assumptions concerning how African Americans fit with the nation's creed of-freedom and equality. Many Euro-Americans self-identifr as the descendants of freedom fighters overthrowing tyranny in 1776 and then fighting for freedom to the from save world tot·alitarianism in World War II. Generations of Euro-Americans wondered during( and after slavery)whether Africans ind their descendants fully engaged the culture of freedom or were worthy of full citizenship because they had allowed"themselves to be enslaved. The implication was that Africans were inferior to Europeans for accepting enslavement, that they had not read or understood the New Hampshire vehicle license pl:ite's bold statement, Live" Free or Die."

Even today Americans ofall cultures believe thatslavery was apeculiar condition confined to Africans because Africans accepted thejr status, and presumably did not have the wiles to escape their predicament nor enough love of freedom. Smugly,Euro-Americans believed that they and their ancestors never would have tolerated sl:ivory.This wrongheaded view is coupled with a racist corollary,that Native Americans could not be enslaved because they loved freedom so much they would rather die than accept enslavement. These assumptions are dead wrong. Europetins were enslaved in large numbers in recent history At the s·ame time that African slavery was brought to the Americas,over a million Europeans were kept as slaves in North Africa. Tens of thousands more Europeans were enslaved in the Ottoman Empire. Even as American citizens enslaved Africans in the nineteenth century,Euro-Americans lived as slaves in the Barbary states. Moreover,hundreds ofthousands ofNative Americans were enslaved throughout the Americas. From Columbus to the Pilgrims, European colonists enslaved American Indians as a matter of course. Thev labored on plantations as Africans did. Slavery was not a peculiar condition coiifined to Africans and their descendants: Nor was it a sign of racial inferiority. The difficulty of escape did not owe itself to any inherent inferiority of the victims but rather to the difficulties of their condition. Yet many people do not want to think that their ancestors were slaves; it becomes an embarrassment, a badge of inferiority. 1hus,parents in California and elsewhere have fought to bar depictions of slaves from public school textbooks and not to refer to

14 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY slaves. slaves as

1]he designers of the museum probably were not aware of the ubiquity of slavery,and it results in the museum fighting ghosts. Why not contextualize slavery by showing its commonality in the early modern world, and then explore the virulent racism that made African slaverv in America its peculiar institution. This could be coupled with exhibits slave life. Ihe' on museum is so The Struggle Con- focused slaves who struck for on tlnlleS, exniblt ill- freedom,in order make its point that slaves did resist and that freedom informatic, to cludes n should be strived ibr by all, that there is a deafening silence on many on conteinporary important aspects of slavery and the slave experience. What is missing slavery,genocide, from the Scattered trrannv,racism, and museum are the sl:wes themselves. references to hunger. Courtesy slaves people be found, but overall the about as can story is running of the National Un- away and its difficulties, the brutality of slavery,and tlie significance of derground Railroad slavery economically and politically to the development of the nation. rreedom Center The slaves who did not esc·ape have little to no place in the story.

Freedom is i: right to which all are entitled, ind the Museum's focus-its argument-is that the oppressed must fight for that right. Bravebeart At several points during my visit,the final scene of the movie played in my mind: Mel Gibson shouting while tortured, Freedom!" Freedom! Freedom! A variety of the museum's movies and exhibits drive home the same point: escape! escape! escape! This is a story of heroes and villains; the weak," the ones who did not flee, remain in the 1 shadows. In one movie, one of the weak slaves makes an appearance. The mother of a teenage son pitifully pleads with him not to runaway; she tells him despairingly he will be caught like his father,chained and punished with transportation to the Deep South. Although young tind naive, he disregards her entre·aties. He has enough sense and fortitude to risk all for freedom.

I kept asking myself as I walked through the museum, where are the slaves?How did the overwhelming majoritywho never achieved freedom live, love, and learn? The museum does note, sparingly so, that other forms of resistance existed and in passing recalls a few slave rebellions and the destruction of crops. Yet the everyday resistance,the everyday lives, are not there. Emerging from the museum, visitors would have no idea that slaves developed a sense of community, found numerous and creative ways to cope with their condition, and shaped their lives

SUM M ER 2006 15 WI-IAT ARE WE RUNNING AWAY FROM?

best they could within the institution. Ihe slaves are denied their individuility, their culture,their experience; they appear as one- 1 dimensional figures.

The museum leaves no place to explore 1 1 the slaves' lives beyond the fact that life was brutal and unfair, thus the slaves should exit

Carl B. Westmore- their condition. One is

land,Curator of the either slave or free. Ihere' is nothing outside the dichotomy As in the Slave Pen and movie Amistad,the visuals are quite effective at recounting the horrors Senior Advisor for of slavery,but the people all good evil. Amistad eliminated the Historical Preserva- are or life drama of abolitionists and slavery advocates tion,interprets the true- pro- by turning Freedom Center' s them into ahistorical figures. The movie purposefully distorted history largest artifact. by ignoring the racism of the abolitionists and the complexity of their Courtesy of the opponents. lhe likewise it irrelevant National Under- museum sees as unnecessary or to slaves' lives victims of evil, though its credit, ground Railroad recount except as great to the well documents the evil. Freedom Center museum

Outside the act of running away,even the runaways are ignored. What happened to those who escaped to freedom?A map in the museum notes where the runaway's established communities in Canada but more than this can be illuminated. In 1856, Benjamin Drew published a collection of accounts-interviews-of fugitive slaves in Canada that could form the basis of an exhibit. If nothing else, the book could be featured in the bookstore:Drew's book recounts the freedpeoples'lives, of-why they ran away,how they escaped, and what freedom meant to them. Ihese' accounts add greatly needed nuance to the story of escape. One particularly striking aspect of these accounts: although successful runaways greatly valued their freedom and would not exchange their condition, they rued the racism in free Canadian society and greatly missed not only the people back" home"but the environment itself. Despite the cruelties of slavery,the South was their home; attachments to people and place indicate the fullness of their lives in bondage,a fact the museum not only ignores but implies could not have existed.3

The museumL succeeds at what it sets out to do: depict the heroic history of the Underground Railroad, celebrate the struggle for freedom, and remind visitors of the vileness of slavery while recounting the

16 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY contribution of slave labor to American economic development. But the vision and the visitors'experience is skewed. Slaverv and freedom were anything but simple dichotomies, because human beings were involved. Freedom was the hope of all; many thousands,for example, took advantage of the upheaval of the Revolutionary War to effect their escape. But ordinarily,permanent escape was not an option. Slaves adapted their lives as best they could; their own accounts, the numerous narratives they left us,describe lives of love and hope as well as pain and sorrow. And that is the point;even bondage could not crush the spirit. There was heroism in running away,but there were equal amounts of heroism in staying. Resistance was a daily act of life: of maintaining one's pride and dignity under horrific circumstances,of taking as much control as possible over one's present and future. 4

1. Recent books on Indian slavery Va,ic//ii,es (Chicago: University of include James Brooks, Captives and Chicatio Press, 1999). cousins: Slaven:Kinship and Com- munity in the Southwest Borderlands 2. Benlamm Drew,A No,th-· side Fiew

Chapel Hill: The University of of Slavery: The Refugee: or the Nar- North Carolina Press for the Omo- ratives 01 Filgiti\·e Slaves in Canada. hundro Institute of Early American Related by Theniselves. with an Ac-

Hisrtory and Culture, 2002),and cozint of the Jlisto,·y anct Condition Alan Gallay, Thendian / Slave of the Colored Population of Upper

Lade:The Rise Of the English Em- Cancidat (1856) There are several pire in the American Sotith. 1670- iii-print republished editions, includ- 1717(New Haven: Yale University ing a recent paperback by University Press.2002).For the enslavement Press of the Pacific, 2004.

of Europeans in North Africa. see Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, 3. The most articulate advocate for the Mitslim Masters: White Slavery in slaves'freedom, Frederick Douglass.

the Mediterranean, the Barbary in his own lil-e as a freeman never Coast, and tah;/ 1500-1800 New( established the close bonds with York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003): others that he experienced under Linda Colley, Captives. The Storv Of slavery. Would he have exchanged Britain s' Plirsitit 01 Empire and How his freedom for slavery?Never, but Its Soldiers and Civilians were Held oppression, ironically, had provided Captive by the Dieam of Global him a situation where he developed Stipremacv (New York: Pantheon, emotional attachments not to be

2003),and Daniel J. Vitkus,ed., achieved again. For Douglass, see Piracy, Slavery. and Redemption: any of the innumerable editions Barbary Captivity Narratives from o f his autobiography,Nar,·ative of Ear/v Modern England New( York: the LiR of Fiederick Douglass, an Columbia University Press,2001). American Slave. There are many American For enslavement in North fine biographies,but a good place to Wliile Frederick Africa, see Paul Baepler.ed., start is William McFeely, Slaves. African Masters: An Anthol- Douglass New( York: W W. Norton

ogy of Amerkan Bart an,Captivity and Co..1991).

SUMMER 2006 17 Ihe National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Museum of Conscience

Samuel W.Black

n 2004 the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opened inaddressCincinnati,the legacyOhio,of slaverythe latestandandthe antislaveryunique effortsinstitutionof the Underground Railroad. asThe Freedom Centermostseeks to use the conceptto of"freedom as a point of-departure for its exhibitions,displays,programs, and services. The African American experience lies at the center of the broad discussion of freedom presented at the museurn. Furthermore, the Freedom Center designers hope to spark a dialogue that reveals the complexities and peculiarities of the American enslavement ofAfricans.

The cruel, racist, and inhumane nature of American slavery and the heroic efforts as.0.2./.:..1#1.11".,1.of black and white activists

: I ' 1 *... » #.of the Underground Railroad constitute crucial of 2, 4% = a aspect American history. Ihe' European enslavement and transportation of millions of Africans to the Americas between the sixteenth

and nineteenth centuries was pivotal to the history and L»,2 4.' development of the western lhe ESCAPE! world. 1[he Euro-American

Exhibit features an exploitation of enslaved black labor and African technologies had an interactive enormous impact on western economic and political development. As introduction to direct result of the slave urban commercial and industrial the Underground a economy, The Railroad. Courtesy centers developed in Europe,North America,and the Caribbean. ofthe National Un- goods, textiles, minerals, and commodities produced by slave labor derground Railroad laid the foundation for European political power and domination of Freedom Center the Americas. A subplot of African enslavement was the slaves'will to liberate themselves throughout four hundred years of bondage.

18 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY European enslavement of Africans predated Columbus's voyages to the Americas by more than fiftv vears. From the earliest history of the Atlantic slave tr·ade,Africans defended themselves against capture in West Africa, during transport to Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and once the journey was concluded. Accounts of African and African American slaverv Africa Americas resistance to in and the are numerous and vast. As early as the fifteenth century Africans fought Portuguese slave traders on the coasts of Africa; revolts aboard slave ships throughout the centuries resulted in the deaths of many souls lost at sea; and escape and insurrections in the New World shaped and reshaped the peculiar" institution, as it came to be known in the American South. The Middle" Passage" the transport of enslaved people to the Americas-represented not simply a story ofbondage. but also a struggle ainst bonda( ao-b bre.

Beginning in the 16405 slave statutes established by American colonial governments described and decreed African labor and freedoms. These statutes limited Africans'movement,assembly,access to education, and ability to earn money. In most of the thirteen mainland British colonies,it was legal to whip,brand,dismember,castrate,or even kill an enslaved African. Such laws were necessary because African resistance to slavery was ubiquitous. Acts of African liberation and unorganized resistance included running away, rebellion, suicide, and infanticide. Tile brutality of the slave regimes in colonial America sparked desperate reactions among the enslaved that occasionally resulted in organized resistance.

As the scramble for the Americas continued among the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, so did the desire for liberation among African people. Alliances developed between the enslaved and those colonists who,for political,religious,cultural,or altruistic reasons, opposed slavery. In 1712 when Africans and sympathetic whites in New York City revolted against slavery,slaveholders in many American colonies reacted with even more restrictive and inhumane measures of control. Beginning in the eighteenth century free blacks worked actively to establish autonomous communities and end the enslavement of their unfortunate brethren. They developed loosely organized efforts to assist runaways and a few whites, including some Qllakers, became involved. Clandestine organization to assist runaways intensified in the nineteenth century. By the 18305 frustrated slaveholders began to refer to successful runaways who utilized an underground road"to escape. Soon, antislavery activists established safe" houses"and stations"" to I . house runaways, and conductors operated throughout the free and border states.

SUMMER 2006 19 THE NATIONAL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FREEDOM CENTER

As the nineteenth century progressed, antislavery forces in the United States became more militant, and helped to foment a sectional divide between the northern and southern states. Southern slaveliolders

were determined to maintain the social custom"of slavery and protect their economic interests. In response, antislavery militants organized politically, disseminating their message through public speeches and meetings and the wide distribution ofantislavery newspapers,books,and journals. In 1833, they formed the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,to challenge the slavocracy"" ofthe American South. Antislavery activists were particularly outraged by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. More stringent than the existing fugitive slave law passed in 1793,the new act prosecuted those whO aided and abetted fugitives. Enforced by both state and federal governments, the 1850 law further eroded the fragile freedoms of free African Americans living in the northern states by making it easier for slave catchers agents to apprehend free blacks and sell them into slavery in the South. The 1850 act both heightened sectional tensions and increased the potential for violence between abolitionists and proslavery agents.

1[he African American journey through chattel slavery was one of the cruelest forms of human oppression ever recorded. Since the colonial era,every aspect ofAmerican society has been shaped by slavery. Slavery informed the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution;it brought the nation into a Civil War;and it created a legacy of injustice and inequality with which the nation continues to grapple. As part of this process, Americans need to be educated about and appreciate their history. Moreover,Americans need to understand that the efforts of enslaved African Americans to liberate themselves

gave a new and unique definition to the meaning of freedom.

After the Civil War black scholars and participants wrote a continuous string of autobiographies, histories, and studies about slavery,abolitionism, and the Underground" Railroad."Many of these publications, such as Frederick Douglass's e Life* and Times of Frederick Douglass 1892),( Booker T Washington's 0 Prom Slavery 1901),( and William Still's 1872 account of the Underground Railroad, served to dramatize heroic acts from slavery times. Biographies of'Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass,George Washington Williams's A History oftbe Negro Race in America 1883),and W.E. B.Dubois's 1896 7be Suppression of tbe African Slave Trade to tbe United States ofAmerica,1638-1870,did much to further the scholarship of slavery. These efforts to address the disenfranchisement ofthe v ofslavery and racial in the waning years nineteenth century did much to strengthen African Americans'resolve to fight Jim Crow politics and customs that all but re-enslaved them.

20 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY In the mid-twentieth century, scholarship about the history of American slavery became institutionalized, spurred on by African American social and political campaigns. In particular, African American r FRET-5-577rM museums opened to express 1 the richness of black arts, culture, and history. Eventually, museums ;ind ·archives like the Freedom Center in Cincinnati began to portray the history of the slave experience. In Refiect, Respond, Resolve: Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Freedom Center is that 7111e Concluding its creators do not define it as a traditional museum,thereby challenging Experience visitors the museum paradigm. Although the Freedom Center contains have the opportu- nitj' t<)engage in exhibits utilizing graphics,artifacts,audio and video components,unique diajogue concerning collections, works of art, and other sual\, items ind: presentations, its issue presented programmatic focus is intended to affect the visitor in a different way.Joy in the Freedoni Bailey,a museum professional,labels this new paradigm, institutions" of Center. Courtesy consciousness."Bailey the Civil Rights Museums in Birmingham of the Natic,nal Un- sees derground Railroad and Memphis, the Holocaust Museum iii Washington, I).C.,and Freedom Center the District Six Museum in Capetown, South Africa, as examples of institutions employing the new paradigm.1 Each uses a story of human tragedy or freedom struggle (civil rights, racial persecution, genocide, slavery, and apartheid)is : the focus for a larger dialogue about race relations. The Freedom Center attempts to use the legacy of cooperation between black and white abolitionists on the Underground Railroad in order to confront contemporary social problems. In this effort,the exhibitions,programs,and services of the Freedom Center are designed to promote consciousness raising and problem solving about the nature of freedom. Ihe' museum offers the visitor an opportunity to discuss the meaning of freedom, using the history of-American slavery and resistance to it as the point of departure for,and frame of the conversation.

Located in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the banks of the Ohio River and snuggled between the Great American Ballpark home( of the Cincinnati Reds)and Paul Brown Stadium home( of the Cincinnati Bengals),the Freedom Center consists of three wave-shaped structures of stone and glass enclosing a space of 158,000 square feet. Designed by Blackburn Architects of Indianapolis, Indiana, and BOORA Architects from

SUMMER 2006 21 THE NATIONAL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FREEDOM CENTER

Portland, Oregon, the building is intended to invoke the history of the Underground Railroad both symbolically and structurally The wave shape of the building mimics the rivers many fugitives crossed on their journey to freedom. Architecturally,it is a state-of-the-art facility. Its interior has wide thoroughfares for moving large groups that bottleneck into the exhibit galleries.

An interesting aspect of the Freedom Center that 4 , ' ''' is not t»»ft]51_00 1{EW

11\\_liVAY I,·, ttw' 11,seril„, fi, Jeffi> presentations is that the is im 4, i·'s i,1 ;1, i'.4,n v structure f located in an area that was once home 33*»ES 1 to one of Cincinnati's antebellum 11: American communities. i»11),1111 5. lk·i'I H 1·„f} ill,·11·,i„11('iu·1, 1. It 4„„1, 4„11* 1 African lit,·bl,il,. 1 01' Ilic, „ 1 man. Ii, 8,1, 1·. cli,ll .,tici i,i·1, i·o.Il,- ' nance: lie is ST,])1)0*1 to lie .ihout 95.i,·al·s *ige. :n,rwl A n Folding this fact into the story of 4,)(K] 1,10,114'11111„i :knd gic,)„:,11,'1'. AIM),11 :,i,>:„i„„: .1„·10.1. iii 1,1„·1. f Iii .$ k· In'111' „11,·Ilii,ii,b 1·„ 11(,„ 01' hi.1,1tul:.(11| lit,1.it i,Illi· 1·i:1,111;ii,1.):t,1(lili- the lilli,1; f' III· 8.Id It U.· MI i,)itt. I' iii the Underground Railroad would 0 11:r,·i·„ f„ e· MI :, ™ease iii i iii:Iii„id, hi(·„ 11 Hs„· 11.1, fully (·111·,#,1 11, 1,.11* Niciall, v enable the creators to A Ir ,„ :.,„„„i,.,„.Ct.,i ,»..,r,·,i,•1, 1 1.',11.1.-,i»,1'ie jail.Jilli,„, museums t in , ,. * or, r 8, i, ...tr.1 ill. ,) i wmed I„ison Nt 1„·( p!:ic;1„,·,· „ h¢·,*11,11(·he„h d.611,: : 11 !4,- •l lidit,1 ill.A e +'472)Jotar, / i,Speric.i.iI explain 'Why the Freedom Center hilli.111 NI}late,·.RED m.,·DO].1„·1.i:„4RSim»-.,i.S,ecit·.i,ll„·Lui,i.*i,il ..tbat I ula-etM:.. : 1 »ill gi,:t.thi I:,1.T .0.\10, 9 iniore, " Jdrei··lunt,.0*, .- . 1[.C.Buf,LIT'L @:.!1* is located in Cincinnati. Ihe' city's intebellum black communities- Bro·adside advertis- called Little Africa, Bucktown, and and In ing a fugitive slave, Little Buck-were on the trontline between freedom slavery. 1822. The Filson the decades before the Civil War, these communities b·attled racism, Historical Society physical attacks, and disenfranchisement. Proslavery mobs attacked these communities in 1829, 1836, 1840,and 1841, and severely marked this northern" city"with a proslavery tone. Whites repeatedly harassed and assaulted antislaverv activists and free blacks, forcing many to migrate from the city to ensure their safety and freedom. Nonetheless, the black community defied the white mobs and actively assisted runaways to escape slavery In short, local African Americans were the principal operators of the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati. Their activism was significant enough that supporters and creators of convinced that Cincinnati should be the the Freedom Center were new home. museums

As of Ohio was an important outpost of the antislavery cause. part the old Northwest Territory in which the federal government banned slavery in the 1780s, it became ati important destination for enslaved people who sought freedom. In 1804 Ohio passed stringent black laws designed to limit the freedoms of African Americans, leading to decades of oppression. In the 18408 a succession of black conventions plight of free and enslaved black were held in the state to address the people. Such state and local activism helps explain why Cincinnati was Center' home. Nonetheless, other locations chosen as the Freedom s

22 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY historically have equal claim to the antislavery cause. For example,some might consider Philadelphia a more historically appropriate site for a museum about the Underground Railroad. Illiat city was the site of much safe-house activit;was chosen by the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society as the site of their first convention, and· was the home ofWilliam Still, recorder of fugitive oral histories and an activist in the movement.

The Freedom Center is not a collecting institution. Ihe' artifacts, art, and collections on exhibit are either part of the permanent exhibit collection or on loan. One of the most impressive artifacts is the reconstructed Kentucky slave pen from the Anderson farm near Maysville, Kentucky I[he museum's curators use the holding pen to explain the interstate slave trade and white Kentuckians'participation in the warehousing" of slaves headed for the Deep South. There follows a series of panels that illustrate the use of the Ohio and Mississippi and other rivers to transport slaves south. The pen has been altered from its original state for presentation and it now serves basically as a prop. The waterways panels display profiles of abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe,Theodore Weld, and Peter H. Clark. There is no mention, however, of the activism of the local African American community, which defended itself against Cincinnati's hostile white population. For example,black canal boat captain John Malvin became an antislavery activist while living in Cincinnati between 1827 and 1831. Including his story and others like it would enhance understanding of the role local African Americans played in their liberation struggle.

Visitors to the first floor of the facility are greeted by an impressive display of original works of art that include the fiber-based pieces of Carolyn Mazloomi, the work ofJoshua Cummings, and an impressive Before set by Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson called Journey I 8 II. entering the slave pen a painting by Tom Feelings and Tyrone Geter enables visitors to understand more fully the enslaved experience from the African American perspective. These art pieces speak to and encourage dialogue about the topics of slavery and freedom. Film presentations tell stories about the Underground Railroad,individual acts of rebellion and escape,regional abolitionism, slavery,and contemporary examples of inhumanity that the Freedom Center identifies as unfreedom."" The film presentations augment the message offreedom,and structurally and programmatically substitute for the lack of artifacts and collections.

The curators have created exhibits that tell the story of slavery in America, the way in which African technologies were used in the slave economy, the way slavery shaped antebellum American politics, and the international legacy of slavery to the present. The gallery entitled

SUMMER 2006 23 THE NATIONAL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FREEDOM CENTER

Escape"highlights the abolitionist movement in antebellum America. Qpotes from abolitionists cover the central kiosk ofthe gallery,including the words of well-known abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Wiis section also exhibits that contains provide hands-on educational activities fc,r the multitude of students who have visited the Freedom Center in its first year of operation.

From Slavery to Freedom, an exhibit that borrows its title from

historian John Hope Franklin's classic textbook, presents a history of the journey traveled by African Americans in the United

States, but it lacks an African perspective. The exhibit starts with the history of slavery,and as a result the humanity of African people is lost. The exhibit makes

The Evervdav no attempt to identifr these of multitude Freedom Heroes people as Ibo,Ak·an,Mende,Susu,Yoruba,or Igbo one a of African Exhibit. Courtesv ethnicities-but instead they are presented only as slaves. of the National Un- Recognizing the diverse African heritage of enslaved peoples could dergrc,und Railroad Freedoni Center have been achieved in the gallery entrance where the ceiling includes beautiful a display of simulated water and the names of various slave ships mount the walls. Why not list the names of the African ethnic groups that were deeply affected by the Atlantic slave trade? Further on, display cases detailing artifacts of African agricultural technology explain their use in the American slave economy. However,the exhibit provides only alimited explanation ofAfrican sugar and rice agricultural technologies. Yhere is no examination,for example,of the rice cultures of the West African coastal regions of the Gambia, Nunez, and Bunce Rivers that would help put this section in context. Likewise,the exhibit provides little itisight into the important connection between African rice technology and the coastal rice plantations of the Carolinas and Georgia. Here as elsewhere, American slaveholders exploited African agricultural technologies and extended the life of slavery in America. The curators also fail to explain the culture of the Gullah and Geeche peoples of the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands.

Surprisingly,the section entitled Women" and the Emancipation fails to recognize the significant impact ofAfrican American women on emancipation. Not profiled is Sojourner Truth,who campaigned before, during,and after the Civil War oil behalf of free and enslaved African Americans, and who met Abraham Lincoln in 1864. In contrast, the

14 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Civil War exhibit prominently displays the original flag of Cincinnati's Black Brigade. These African American men organized to defend the city during the early stages of the Civil War,but military leaders instead assigned them to menial jobs: ditch-digging,building roads, ind other laborious support tasks. Rebuffed by Union forces as were m.iny black militias, the brigade consisted of staunch abolitionists and veterans of the city's race riots. Other than the flag,however,there is no mention of the members of the brigade.

Other sections of the gallery illustrate plantation life and the antebellum ddcor of abolitionists' homeste:ids. The section closes with a chronology that begins with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and ends with the election of President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 ·and the collapse of Reconstruction. Post-Reconstruction America presented new challenges for African Americans. Yhe increasing withdrawal of civil liberties, the rise of-violent Tvhite reprisals, disenfranchisement,and ultimately legal segregation reshaped the South and created a race-based caste systein.

From Reconstruction, the museum visitor enters a section entitled, lhe Struggle Continues, a contemporary look it: what the Freedom Center defines as freedom-" unfreedom."The exhibit includes CNN news broadcasts covering world political, social, and cultural strife, making a great chronological leap from the end of Reconstruction to contemporary world issues and events. Intended to connect slaverv and the oppression of the nineteenth century to similar conditions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,The " Struggle Continues" represents a departure from the story ofAfrican Americans. Lost is the post-Reconstruction period that shaped much ofAfrican American life and culture before the modern Civil Rights movement.

The rise ofJim Crow,both de facto and ultimately court-mandated, shattered many of the political and civil rights African Americans achieved between 1865 and 1876. The whites unleashed terrorism on African Americans in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries ushered in a new generation of black activist responses. As the number of lynchings increased,disenfranchised blacks looked for new political, social, and economic strategies. Groups such as the National Equal Rights League, the Afro-American League, the Niagara Movement, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP),and the Universal Negro Improvement Association UNIA)( devised various respotises to address the plight of African Americans. Unfortunately, the Freedom Center exhibits barely mention these organizations, which represent direct links to abolitionists of an earlier generation.

SU M M ER 2006 25 THE NATIONAL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FREEDOM CENTER

The gallery Everyday" Freedom Heroes" recognizes freedom fighters, and activists, individuals who overcame racial barriers to make a national or international impact. Included are twentieth-century figures and contemporary leaders in the fields of education, religion, sports, politics,youth activism,and the arts. Ihe' exhibit offers a different visual component that is more artistic and less modular, with audiovisual interactive data bases containing biographies of those portrayed in the display and some who are not.

Ihe final museum gallery, Reflect," Respond, Resolve,"includes a computer kiosk designed to engage the public in a dialogue about their experience at the Freedom Center. Ihe' room gives visitors the opportunity to respond to a set of scenarios and issues related to race and race relations. One kiosk surveys visitors with questions dealing with contemporary racial issues. After entering personal information, visitors are asked, Do" you think African Americans receiving preferential treatment in employment is fair? The question is designed to elicit a response to affirmative action,but it is phrased in a way that assumes such policies represent preferential" treatment. Regardless of their answer-yes or no are the only options-respondents are forced to answer a leading question. Moreover,the dialogue zone does little to prepare visitors for the great intellectual leap from slavery to issues of twenty and twenty-first century race relations.

After emancipation and the constitutional end of slavery, many African Americans searched for family members. People spent decades seeking children,parents,husbands,wives,and other relatives from whom they were separated by slavery and the slave trade, and escape. Today, genealogists and familyhistorians are activelyresearching familyhistories, giving many people the opportunity to discover their enslaved ancestors and family lineage. The Freedom Center, however, offers descendants

of the enslaved little chance for ancestral reconciliation-to connect with their past-beyond film, exhibit, and programmatic presentation. The John Parker Library has online genealogy research capabilities,but holds as yet limited primary collections specific to the black experience. The Freedom Center could capitalize on its uniqueness and expand its genealogy resources and services specific to African American families.

I[he Freedom Center is packaged mid marketed to appeal to a The focuses mainstream audience. museum on racial reconciliation and not a detailed presentation of the antislavery movement, and thus the story presented is sanitized. Recent studies of the Underground Railroad question accounts written by aging white abolitionists in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Instead,historians such as Larry Gara and Keith Griffler argue for black agency. As Gara writes,

26 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY the " of antislavery one area activity in which Negroes took the lead was Underground Railroad work. Most of the fugitive slaves escaped from South the on their own, without assistance; and once they arrived iii the North they were helped chiefly by free Negroes."2 The Freedom Center does not present African Americans as the major players in their liberation from bondage; rather,their experience as slaves is the museurns primary subject. Moreover, racial cooperation takes center stage. As historian Nikki Taylor comments,the Underground Railroad network in Cincinnati included people of different racial, class, ind·, gender backgrounds whose religious, political, or social convictions inspired them to do this work."3 Faced with the complexities ofhistorical interpretition, the Freedom Center offers a balanced, but ultimately hornogenized,presentation.

As a museum of conscience, the Freedom Center places slavery and the antislavery movement at the center of its program. How far will the Freedom Ceiiter go to spark dialogue about the legacy of the American slave economy and its impact on contemporary society?Will it approach the subject of Will reparations? it include a discussion of a global economy that chokes the agricultural production of the African diaspora?In its current presentation these questions go unanswered. Overall,the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is an attractive museum that explores a crucial part of American history. The museum challenges Americans and the world to deal with the legacy of their slave past. The Atlantic slave trade, American chattel slavery, and antislavery activism are historical events that demand appropriate and detailed public attention. However, the Freedom Center should expand its current limited, generalized, and homogenized dialogue to communicate more fully the story ofAmerican stavery and the struggle for black freedom. &

1. Joy Bailey,a museum professional See also Keith Griffler,Front Line of for Lord Cultural Resources speak- Freedom.African Ainericans and the the Opening ing at Plenary Sessic,n Forgi,ig of the Underground Railroad of the Association of African Amer- in tbe Ohio Valley Lexington:( Uni- ican Museums Annual Conference, versity Press of Kentuckv,2004). I:Enflint Plaza Hotel,Washington, D.C.,lulv 28,2005. 3. Nikki Taylor,Frontiers of Freedoin: Cincinnati's Black Comint,nity, 2. Larry Gara, William"» Still ind the 1802-1868 Athens: Ohio Univer- Mah- Undergrc,und Railroad,"in 732 sig Press, 2005),139. Taylor'.work ing of Black America:Essays in Negro is 1. concise history of the develop- Life a,id Historh vol.1,Ube Origins of ment and experiences of the African Blti, k Americans,eds.,August Meier American community in and Elliott Rudwick (1969;24 ed., antebellum Cincinnati. New York: Atheneum, 1974),327.

SUMMER 2006 27 Mystic Chords of Memory No More

7be Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Joan Flinspach

Presidential Library and Museum ALPLM),( and they unite ef- howmanshipfectively. Someandhavehistorycriticizedare thethegoalsgalleriesoftheforAbrahambeing tooLincoln Disn-" eyesque,"but the crowds speak volumes about the museum meeting a pent-up demand. A museum should be measured by its mission and in this case the museum is part of a larger whole: a library, museum, and foundation. lhe mission of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation supports the educational and cultural programming of the museum: to foster Lincoln scholarship through the acquisition ·and pub- lication of documentary materials relating to Lincoln and his era,and to promote a greater appreciation of history through exhibits,conferences, publications, on-line services, and other activities designed to combat historical illiteracy. ALPLM definitely masters this mission;people are visiting this museum who might never see another museum, thus ac- complishing the goal of combating historical illiteracy.

After purchasing tickets 7.($50 for adults; 5.$50 for seniors, stu- dents,and military;and 3.$50 for children; school groups with reserva- tions are admitted free of charge),visitors proceed to a kiosk to choose their paths through the museum. They have several choices. Journey I is the story of Lincoln's pre-presidential life;Journey II offers the White House years; the Union lheater presents Lincoln's Eyes; the Holavi- sion Theater depicts Ghosts of the Library;the Illinois Gallery exhibits changing displays;and Mrs. Lincoln's attic is a hands-on children's area. This design,with visitors choosing where they want to start and( thus dispersing),assists with crowd management. There is one entry for each area. Once in the galleries, visitors are channeled through the exhibitry with few choices in direction. While this chronicles the storyline, it of confinement that the of the crowds does leave one with a sense size only augments.

As one enters Journey I, lifelike trees and chirping birds provide the setting for Lincoln's childhood. Unfortunately, casts were made of trees native to central Illinois when the scene depicts the Lincolns'

28 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY residence in southern Indi-

ana.1 Panels outside the log home inform visitors about

Lincoln's birth in Kentucky and his youth spent in Indi- ana. Inside the cabin, nine- year-old Abraham reads by the fireplace with the family dog at his feet. Light levels + accurately capture the limi- ' tations of firelight, so much i, so that some visitors do not the notice pegs in the wall that the Lincoln children

Exterior View. climbed to reach their sleep- Copyright 2006 ing loft. Visitors do the of household tools, revealing the see presence Abiaham Lin labor-intensive subsistence of frontier life. coln Presidential Museum. All rights As Lincoln traveled down a young man the Mississippi with a flat- reserved boat load of goods to sell in New Orleans. Once in the South, Lincoln witnessed the reality of slavery. At the museum, the visitor observes life-sized figures powerfully portri>ing the brutality of the peculiar in- stitution; at a courthouse auction, a father,sold to one buyer,is being separated from his family while the mother and the son await their frates. 1[heir anguished faces poignantly depict the fear that they may never see each other again. Some academic historians believe th·at documents and artifacts alone can tell the story,but with the advent of television and computers our world is far more visually demanding than it was thirty years ago. The hgures lend an agonizing humanity to the story.

Positioned among the figural scenes are traditional exhibit cases with documents illustrating Lincoln's move to central Illinois and his emer- gence as a young lawyer. He courts Mary Todd, marries her,and settles down to life in Springfield. Visitors also see the figures of Lincoln's sons, Willie and Tad,wreaking havoc at the law office that he shared with William Herndon. Their giggles are heard as they cheerfully throw inkwells and wads of paper,while their father calmly stretches out on the couch. This scene shows visitors, rather than telling them,that the Lincolns were fairly freeform in their parenting. Amid these scenes are cases exhibiting son Eddie's tombstone,Lincoln's glasses, and docu- ments and other artifacts from his life as an Illinois lawyer and politi- cian. Because the strength of the ALPLM's collection is in their docu- ments numbering( more than fifteen hundred),curators can rotate dis- play items to accommodate concerns about preservation.

SUMMER 2006 29 MYSTiC CHORDS OF MEMORY NO MORE

With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854,Lincoln re- entered the national political arena,twice running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. The publication of his debates with Stephen Douglas,held in 1858, thrust him onto the national scene and he emerged in 1860 as one of four candidates for president.

The story of the 1860 presidential campaign is illustrated in a mod- ern-day television studio with NBC correspondent Tim Russert in- troducing and narrating four campaign commercials. They succinctly sum up each of the 1860 presidential candidates' positions similarly to today's sound bytes. While this is an effective way to explain the confusing and complicated 1860 election, nothing in the gallery in- forms young visitors familiar with only the age of television that the available invention was not in Lincoln's time. Visitor Liz Schatzlein said that while she loved the museum overall and spent almost four hours there (and shopped in the museum store),this gallery crossed" a line."She found it "too hokey"and the humor used in the tagline of each commercial, for example,paid " for by Little Giants for Doug- las,"was disrespectful."" Way-finding is also difficult here. In order to bypass this gallery,visitors must walk in front of those who are viewing it.

Journey I gives the visitor a sense of motion. Ihe' story of Lincoln is one of westward movement-Kentucky,Indiana,and Illinois-and up- ward mobility as hired laborer,state legislator,and corporate lawyer. This journey ends with Lincoln's election to the presidency and his departure from Springfield, emotionally expressed through sound and image.

While Lincoln's departure from Springfield is the end of Journey I, it is also the beginning of-Journey II: the White House years. Upon entering the White House, the visitor sees cruel anti-Lincoln politi- cal cartoons and hears the unkind whispers of residents of Washington, D.C.,a southern slaveholding city. Most of the graphics illustrated are from the museum's collection. Ihe' exhibit contractor,Bob Rogers of BRC Imagination Arts, chose not to cite the sources taken from other collections. Citation is a common practice in publication and exhibitry, and his decision not to include these notations punctuates his empha- sis on the visual, rather than the documentary, story of Lincoln's life. Although this could be said to undermine the scholarship, it does not affect the exhibit's ultimate message that Lincoln saved the Union and ended slavery. Visitors clearly learn this. Historians, in contrast, con- tinue to debate the centrality of Lincoln's role in these broader issues surrounding the Civil War.

An overriding issue of Lincoln's administration was that of eman-

30 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY cipation. Four galleries deal with this topic, but the Illinois copy of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which( actually freed all slaves in the United States)and the story of its impact are relegated to a single display case. While the struggle to accomplish emancipation was immense,it was this Amendment that made it irreversible. Greater emphasis should be given to it. Because the black ink printed on gl:iss and red on cardstock for the Thirteenth Amendment display case and the others near it lack the contrast necessary for easy reading,the mu- seum staffwill remake the libels. A computerized map illustrating the changing battle lines and the growing loss of life during the Civil I;Var is an amazing use of visuals. Visitors were mesmerized and frequently watched this presentation repeatedlv.

The museum design in Journey II makes effective use of computers, graph- ics, hands-on interactives, and props. These tools bal- ance the scarcity of artifacts and documents occasioned 4 by the absence of Liticoln's presidential papers, which are housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Off%etting this dearth as well is the Treasures Gal- lery that concludes Journey

II. In this gallery visitors ex- Jc,urnev I. amine items belonging personally the Lincolns, including original Copyright 2006 to an Abraham Lin- of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln' h:ind, his hat ( loan from copy s on coin Presidential the Louise private and BarryTapercollection),and an earlyand rare print- luseum. All rights ed edition of the Emancipation Proclamation,one of eight in existence reserved signed by Lincoln.

When designers proposed the construction of ALPLM,other Lin- coln sites raised the concern that it would draw visitors away from the actual Lincoln historic sites, where Lincoln history happened. The AL- PLM answered this anxiety by including Looking" for Lincoln"pan- els in Journeys I and II. These panels direct the public to the Lincoln historic sites in Illinois. Visitors are guided to Lincoln Sites outside of Illinois at the museum's Information Desk,located in the lobby.

1[he Union Theater presents Lincoln's Eyes,a multimedia production shown every half-hour. Making excellent use of the museum's collection, this Lincoln story offers multiple perspectives surrounding the contro-

SUMMER 2006 31 MYSTIC CHORDS OF MEMORY NO MORE

versial election of 1860.

The display answers one criticism of presiden- tial museums: that they ignore the views Of PO- litical opponents. Tile production's ch arac- of Lincoln' terizations s supporters as well as his naysayers accurately ex- press the range of opin- ons dividing the nation. Some quot·ations are altered to accommodate modern language. Al- Ihe Civil War in though ALPLM has Four Minutes. received criticism for doing this, visitoi Liz Schatzlein pointed that Copyright 2006 out Abraham Lin- the Bible, too, has updated language. The use of sound, seat vibration, coin Presidential and smoke evoke powerful emotions. The audience's silence after hear- Museum. All rights ing the shot in Ford' Theatre is deafening. The conclusion of this piece reserved s is slightly repetitive and moralistic,but this is minor when one considers the total impact.

In the Holavision'Iheater visitors experience Ghosts of the Library. A holographic curator talks about the museum's collection and how ar- tifacts and documents bring Lincoln to life f-or him. Using the Illinois Lincoln collection as an example,this presentation serves the entire mu- seum field, promoting the value of preserving documents and artifacts to tell a story.

The Illinois Gallery is reserved for temporary exhibits. It opened with Blood" on the Moon,"the story of Lincoln's assassination as told through the first-ever combination of the Illinois collection, the loaned Louise and Barry Taper collection,and pieces borrowed from the Chi- cago Historical Society. An audience-stopping timeline unfolds with an hour-by-hour story of Lincoln and Booth on April 14, 1865. Although the exhibit is rich in artifacts, less label copy could have improved it. The three-dimensional items convey this story inure powerfully than words alone.

Visitors exit the museum through the store,which encourages pur- chases as take-home extensions of the museum experience. The store offers the standard souvenir items. Books, fiction and non-fiction, are the best selling items. The merchandise is educational or memorabilia, with one exception;this reviewer did not care for the Halloween masks

32 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY of Abraham Lincoln. The merchandise mix met every budget, from high-end items such as the 7,$999.99 replica of the White House Lin- coln bed to the reasonably priced Mary Lincoln reproduction jewelry. Curiously,the store offered Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum letterhead for sale. Souvenir booklets will be available in Sep- tember. Unfortunately,Event Network,the outsourced vendor that op- erates the museum store,has understaffed it. During my visits only two people worked the registers,with long lines waiting to make purchases. Asking for assistance requires customers to step up to the counter and interrupt an on-going transaction, an uncomfortable experience for the tourist, the purchaser,and the staffer.

The most effective form of public relations for any museum is word of mouth. While ALPLM opened with tremendous national media coverage, most visitors who have traveled to Springfield to see it have been motivated by reports from those who have already visited it. In- deed, over one hundred thousand visitors c·ame to the museum in July 2005 alone, and waited in long lines to enter the museum, Journev I, Journey II, the Union Bearer,the Holavision Theater,and the Illinois Gallery With an attendance of some six hundrend thousand in its first year of operation, clearly,the public has spoken. The street has it that this museum is both educating and fascinating. Visitors leave with the understanding that Lincoln preserved the Union and ended slavery. They learn of the criticism and opposition he faced in the North and the South and the price Americans paid to save democracy for each of us to enjoy today.

History is so much more than words on paper. The Abraham Lin- coln Presidential Library and Museum's permanent exhibit uses nearly all ofthe human senses-sight,sound,touch,and even smell-to capture and retell history in the multi-dimensional format in which it occurred. Small criticisms notwithstanding, the ALPLM has accomplished its mission, to the benefit of all who take advantage of it. For visitors who similarly wish to sense"" the history of one of the most celebrated of American historical figures, the small city on the Illinois prairie beck- ons, much as it did to a young man from southern Indiana some 175 years ago. 4

1. Springfield State-.Journal Register, June 19, 2005.

SUMMER 2006 33 Stunning,Appealing, Troubling 7be Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum' Permanent Exhibit s

Gerald J.Prokopowicz

ong before it opened,the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library L and Museum ALPLM)( in Springfield,I].linois, was the subject of heated controversy over whether its permanent exhibit would be too Hollywood."" 1 At its worst, the debate descended into a cariea- ture of serious public history questions.2 The website of the exhibit's designers, BRC Imagination Arts, characterized traditional museums as old" stuff in glass boxes and stale rooms"and assured readers that it knew how to produce experience-" driven adventures"where truth" and accuracy are not displaced"but rather become part of great compel- ling story, whether it be that of Abraham Lincoln,or the Ford Motor Company,or Knott's Berry Farm, or any of the company's many high- profile clients, each of which presumably has ·a great and compelling story. On the other side of the argument,playing the role ofprofessorial curmudgeon, John Y. Simon,professor of history Southern Illi- Lincoln and his was at University-Carbondale and longtime editor of the Ulysses S. Grant cabinet. Copyright nois 2006 Abrah am Papers,who accused the designers ofcreating a hall full oflife-size man- Lincoln Presiden- nequins (or rubber" Lincolns")and argued that history museums are not tial Museum. All for children,anyway.3 In one sense,the debate is now over;the designers rights reserved The won. museum was built their way and in the first eight months after it opened in April 2005 it drew ne·arly half But a million visitors: in a larger sense, the de- bate continues not over

whether visitors will

come, but over what they will learn.

the I went to muse- um in February 2006 to see for myself. The first

34 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY impression the museum creates upon entrance is the comfortable sensa- tion of being in a place familiar to almost ever American: a moderately upscale suburban shopping mall. From the circular visitor service area, one sees through a door to the left the museum store's spacious aisles and handsome wood shelves neatly piled vith, clothing for sale. Look- ing down a corridor to the main exhibit hall, there is the central plaza, with indoor artificial)( trees towering over the noisy crowds, the Lincoln family life-( size)in the middle, ind: walls lined with theater marquees ind various gallery entrances. Where to go first? Like ,i shopping mall, the museum leaves entirely up to the visitor which spaces to enter:ind in what order. I chose to see first the multimedia presentation, Lincolns Eyes,"because it happened to be about to start. After the show I asked a volunteer docent which gallery to visit first,and wais told that officially I could start anywhere, but (in a conspiritorial whisper)that really the Lincoln cabin was the best place to begin.

The Lincoln cabin replica is the start of Journey" I: 1[he Pre-presi- dential Years. 1[he exhibit includes a replica of-the interior of the Lin- coln-Berry store in New Salem, Illinois, a replica of a slave auctioii, a· replica of the front room of the Lincoln home in Springfield,Illinois, and a replica of the Lincoln law ofTice located there. The settings are detailed and the life-size figures are impressive in their r'erisimilitude. After thirty ininutes of absorbing the atm)sphere of the Journev" and reading the relatively sparse labels,the friend with whom I was touring pointed cracked tombstone Iving side glass It at a L J on its in a case. ivas inscribed Edward" B. and was the first artifact we had seen, or ·at least it appeared to be; no label we could find itidicited Trhether this was the authentic grare marker of the Lincolns'second son, or another replica.

Ihe dominance of replicas over artifacts continues throughout the exhibit. Some of the replicas are magnificent,a like that of Lincoln's cabi- net room, filled with life-size figures of Lincoln and his advisors and cleverly explained to vistors by a first-persoti interpreter playing the role of Francis Carpenter,the artist who spent six months at the White House painting the very scene here recreated. Others are misleading, like that of the box where the Lincolns sat at Ford's Iheatre,' which is at eye level as visitors walk across the stage,"" giving the impression that Booth must have been a clumsy oaf to have broken his leg in jumping about thirty inches to the ground (the actual height of his jump was more than ten feet).One of them is simply baffling, if spectacular: a full-size reproduction of the legislative hall in the Old State Capitol,as it appeared draped in mourning in May 1865, with Lincoln's remains tying in state. Ihe' casket is closed, unlike the original,perhaps so as not to scare young visitors, but the real mystery is why it seemed necessary

SUMMER 2006 35 STUNNING, APPEALING, TROUBLING

1 I . 1 How did they do tnatr is the universal question on everyone's lips, including mine.

The ostensible point of the exhibit-that archives are a good thing- is by this time forgotten, completely overwhelmed by the show's emo- tional and technical aspects. This might be just as well, because any visitors who are inspired to go and visit a real historical library will be disappointed to find that it doesn't live up to the smoke-filled, ghost- haunted special effects archive they saw here.

The dominance of special effects and presentation tech- niques over intellectual cohesion in SBC" Ghosts of the Library" typifies the exhibit .is i: whole. What is missing throughout

the museum is a thesis or cen- tral idea about Abraham Lin-

coln. Individual points are clev- erly and sometimes powerfully

made, as in "The Civil War iii 1 Four Minutes, a brilliant visual summary of the progress of the armics, with a running casualty count.' But does the exhibit

have an overall point? To take an example, the Whispering" Gallery teaches that Lincoln faced much political opposition while in the White House. It

is a dark, creepy corridor lined Lincoln with anti- cartoons is: the air is filled with voices recit-

ing contemporary anti-Lincoln quotes. All the doors, windows, Abraham Lincoln, and picture frames are skewed 1809-1865. The funhouse angles fever dream atmosphere of political Filson I listorical at to create a para- The carried further gallery where shout Society noia. same point is in a voices arguments for and agaitist emalicipation, with Lincoln in the middle seemingly torn over whether to sign the final Proclamation. Of course, there hesitated decision is no historical evidence that he ever about the after issuing the preliminary Proclamation in September 1862, and his address to Congress iii December 1862 left no doubt of his full sup- port for the measure. Perhaps we are to take Lincoln's indecision, as

38 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY portrayed here, as a metaphor for the North's division over the issue; or perhaps there is no point to it at all,it just makes for a better, more dramatic exhibit.

The museum's designers may well respond that Lincoln was too complex to allow the presentation of a single thesis. But every historical story is complex and it is the historian's role to deal with that complex- ity. Offering the public a series of unrelated choices and activities is the approach of the amusement park Six(" Flags Over Lincoln"as John Y. Simon has dubbed ALPLM)or the shopping mall,but it represents an abdication of responsibility for a historical institution.

I know many of the historians who were involved iii the production of the ALPLM exhibit,including public historians on the museum staff and traditional academic historians who tent their expertise as consul- tants. I am certain that they were fully aware of their obligation to con- vey their understanding of the past to the public and that they knew it was their responsibility not just to guarantee the accuracy of the exhibit's facts but to contribute to an exhibit that told larger truths. They could depend on the exhibit designers to concoct marvelous pieces that would attract and entertain large audiences, but it was their role to persuade the designers to create an exhibit that would be more than the sum of those parts.

Playing that role must not have been easy In my experience with exhibit development,the process has always been one ofconstant debate and compromise,with the clashing interests and capabilities of design- ers,curators,administrators,sponsors, historians, and others in constant conflict. When all goes well, the synthesis that emerges is stronger for incorporating multiple perspectives. I was not privy to the develop- ment process in Springfield, so I can only judge by results, and they bear the signs of gallant defeat for the historians. The designers'voice speaks loudest throughout the exhibit, and even where it says what the historians told it to say,it is the voice and not the words that holds the visitors' attention.

In spite of the many critical comments above, I believe that the mu- seum is an outstanding success. It will draw enormous numbers of visi- tors,and it will arouse in some an interest in history of which they were previously unaware. 1he use of special effects, clever design, and even rubber Lincolns to increase the appeal of a historical exhibit is not necessarily a bad thing. What is problematic about the exhibit is not its shiny surface,but the underlying sense that its designers were not in love with history. They have treated history as a bitter pill to be sugarcoated with technology instead of as a delicacy to be served proudly. They

SUMMER 2006 39 STUNNING, APPEALING. TROUBLING

kicked faith in the power of the story,and allowed technique to triumph over the title. The exhibit's historical consultants,people who could bet- ter appreciate and understand the past, seenl to have lost more battles tlian they won in the process of putting the museum together. Had the winners been people who were as passionate about history as they were about the craft of exhibitry,the museum might move visitors'hearts and open their minds,instead ofjust dazzling their eyes. 4

1. See Bob Thompson, Histrion-" 4. Jill Burwjtz,Abraham " Lincoln Presidential Museum Ends 2005 ics and History: Lincoln Library's High-Tech Exhibits I Iave Scholars with Record Numbers in At- Choosing Sides,"Washington Post, tendance,"Jan. 3, 2006,Abraham Feb. 15, 2005; Blair Kamin,Lincoln ' Lincoln Presidential Museum, 1-he Abraham Lincoln Land: New http://www.alincoln-library.com/ Presidential Museum in Springfield news/jan3_06.html accessed( Man is More lheme' Park Than Adventur- 19, 2006).

ous Architecture, Chicago Tribune, Apn 10,2005; Edward Rothstein, 5. It is unfortunate that this marvel- Strumming the Mystic Chords of ous exhibit is compromised by use of Memory,"New York Times,Apr. 19, the imbiguous Lind undefined terin 2005. casualties,"which here presumably includes killed,wounded, and miss-

2. None is worse than that presented, ing soldiers.7he exhibit is likely to surprisingly,in the Journal ofAmer]- leave some visitors with the impres- millions of instead of can History,where an art historian sion that men, asks, Must history only be trans- 600,000,were killed outright in the mitted through texts and handled Civil War. by professionals,or can it be ofi-cred in nontextual formats that invite a

more populist approach,"suggest- it»lg that the museum's critics were opposed to any form of history other than scholarly monographs. Irc,ni- cally,the review itself is studded with jargon polysemy,(" hermeneutic structures, discursive matrix ), incoliiprehensible to anyone but scholars. John R. Decker, Exhibi-"

tion Revlews,JOUrnal ofAme 'ica n. History 92 Dec. 2005),935-38n3.

3. See BRC Itnagination Arts, http:// www.BRCweb.com accessed(· Man 19,2006);interview with John Y. Simon,Civil War Talk Radio, Dec.

17,2004, http://www.worldtal]

40 OH 10 VALLEY HISTORY Reveiw Essay Nikki M.Taylor

Frontiers of Freedom:Cincinnati's Black Community,1802-1868.

Ohio University Press,2005. 332 pp. ISBN 0821415808 (paper),524.95 Darrell E. Bigham

1 r ikki Taylor's new book on the African American community of Cincinnati

4 7. adds to a rapidly growineU body . of lit- erature on black Americans'urban experiences, a corpus ofwork that began to appear well over fbrty years ago. As Kenneth W. Goings and Raymond A. Mohl note in e *New African American Urban History Thousand Oaks, Cal.: SAGE Publications, 1996),the earliest schol- arship predictably focused on America's larg- studies of est cities. Since then a number of smaller places have appeared, several of which have focused on Ohio River Valley cities, in- cluding George C. Wright's Lge behind a Veil. Frodifers of Freedom Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 1865-1930 Ba-( 9 ·. m Cincinnati' Black Communit**i ton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 4 s 1985) and my own We Ask On@a Fair Trial: jit¢*St,»4 - . , ,» «>1802-186#j«' A History of tbe Black Community of Evansville, Indiana Bloomington: Indiana University 1-{ Press, 1987).In addition, Henry Louis Tay- kY*1.....1 Gk4M. Taj16* . lor,Jr.,edited a collection of essays concerning Cincinnati's black community,entitled Race and the City:Work,Commu- nity,and Protest in Cincinnati,1820-1970 Urbana: University ofI]linois Press, 1993),and more recentlyJoe W.Trotter,Jr.,and Eric Ledell Smith edited a volume that included several chapters on Pittsburgh Lf/rican Americans in Pennsylvania: Shifting Historical Perspectives University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,1997)].In his Ri'uer Jordan: African fllnerican Life in tbe Ohio Valley Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998),Trotter compares Cincinnati, Eva»nsville, Louisville, and Pittsburgh,relying heavily on historical studies of those cities.

Even smaller cities have received attention in recent years,including Cairo,Illinois, explored by Christopher K. Hays in The" African-Amer-

SUMMER 2006 41 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM

ic an Struggle for Equality and Justice in Cairo, Illinois, 1865-1900" Illinois Historical Journal 90 ON'inter 1997),265-84],an article based on his 1996 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Missouri, Colurn- b.[a. Jacqueline Yvonne Blackrnore's unpublished dissertation, African Americans and Race Relations in Gallatin County, Il- linois from the Eighteenth Century to 1870"Northern ( Illinois University, 1996),focuses on the even smaller Ohio River community of Shawneetown.

Unfortunately, state histories in the region have tended to give African Americans short shrift. No- table exceptions in recent writing are James H. Madi- son,Press,7be1986);IndianaLowellWayH. Bloomington:( Harrison andIndianaJames C.UniversityKlotter, f A New History of Kentucky Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,1997);and Andrew R. L. Cayton, Ohio.1be Columbus: Ihe' Ohio History of a People State Univer- sity Press, 2002).The latter is particularly ittentive to African Americans, though its exploration of race in Cincinnati and the Ohio River communities of the state Peter C]ark,· princi- is mostly limited to the antebellum era. Despite these pal of Gaines High e:ceptions, the paucity of attention to African Americans in the Ohio School. Illustration Valley in written reflects larger tendency.The signifi- from Frontiers of most accounts a of Ohio Freedom csince River communities is generally downplayed after 1850 o/ving to the assumption that the coming ofrailroads on the north shore tutrned citizens' eyes inland, making the river an insignificant part of subsequent development. This is particularly true of the Illinois histo- ries,but see also my River" of Opportunity: Economic Consequences of ttie Ohio,"in Always a River:Tbe Obio River and tbe American Experience, ed. Robert L. Reid Bloomington:( Indiana University Press, 1991).

Ihere number of solid histories of African Americans are a in sev- Black Ohio and the eral Ohio River states, including David A. Gerber's Color Line,1860-1915 Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976),and Emma Lou l[hornbrough's e *Negro in Indiana Before 1900:A Study of a Minority Indiana[ Historical Collections, Vol. 37 Indianapolis:( In- diana 1. Historical Bureau, 1957) Marion B. Lucas's A HistoryBlacks « in Kentucky, Vol 1:From Slavery to Segregation, 1760-1891 Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 1992) recognizes what earlier studies of sl:ivery in Kentucky did not: that the African American experience in tt.e Bluegrass State was multifaceted and exerted a pronounced influ- erice on the state's development,within slavery and without.

My recent On Jordan's Banks: Emancipation and Its Aftermath in the Ohio River Valley Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,2005),

42 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY published shortly after Frontiers of Freedom,is the first to compare and contrast patterns of settlement,community development,and race rela- tions in a region sharing a common waterway-the Ohio River. Its focus is the years 1861-1890 in the fifty counties of Illinois, Indi- ana, Kentucky,and Ohio that lie immediately north and south of the Ohio River.

Nikki Taylor has written a narrative history of African Ameri- cans in Cincinnati, a city located on the Ohio River at the nexus of the Old Northwest,the West,and the South. Her study focuses on an era framed by two legislative acts that defined citizenship-the Ohio con- stitution's denial of citizenship rights to blacks in 1802, and the Four- teenth Amendment's conferring of them in 1868. Her st·ated purpose is not to emphasize how unfree African Americans were,but to demon- strate how a black community emerged and matured in this distinctive urban context. Cincinnati had three intersecting identities: northern in its geography,southern in its economics and politics, and western in its commercial aspirations 3-( 4).Ihese ' three characteristics created an urban culture that profoundly affected the process of community- building among African Americans"5). ( Kidnappers, slave catchers, and mobs, for instance, produced transience and instability,delaying community stabilization.

Cincinnati's distinctive urban culture also made black community organization different from other antebellum towns,she asserts,because black schools-not churches-occupied the center ofpolitics,education, society,and racial activism. Ihe' church could not completely satisfy this community's deepest yearning...forl [intellectual enlightenment, equality,citizenship, and educational self-determination"6). ( The black community was able to rely so heavily on its schools,Taylor argues, be- cause the state permitted African Americans to control their own public schools between 1849 and 1873.

The author seeks to put" flesh around census data"6). ( The absence or dearth of institutional records-churches, mutual aid organizations, municipal and court proceedings-and the tendency of the census and city directories to undercount African Americans leads her to rely heav- ily on autobiography and oral traditions. The former,like Levi Coffin's, were mostly written ten or twenty years after their authors lived in Cin- cinnati. The latter,like the works of Peter H. Clark,Benjamin Arnett, and William Parham,relied heavily on oral testimonies. The important role that the Underground Railroad played in the city's history is heavily documented by testimonies from the Wilbur H. Siebert Collection at Ohio State University,created more than twenty-five years after the end of the Civil War.

SUMMER 2006 43 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM

f , 155, Taylor that the horrific 04&91*1, ti argues race of riot 1841 was a"watershed moment t i: 3 44 t} f .,I. I - 16 .7, ') ., 4 147 43 for this community. Prior to it, black I. ':. :-Ir %.*'Cincinnati struggled find voice, b . r ' to a 12 -- :-but afterwards, began to discover it- » ->9 self,aided by sympathetic whites. The 4-:I community matured" internally and 1 began to articulate a vision of free- S]· dom that linked equality,self- 5), s' was to 1 - I«. -f-

4 : I determination, citizenship, and the 3,-1)3b*2*=Uz·,zi„-'tikS-%»*»'9 -· -12·EPU,MEF - 44 elective franchise"9). ( Bucktown neigh- borhood, 1880s. Frontiers of Freedom is organized into chapters constituting 202 Illustration from ten Frontiers of Free- pages of text. Included in the text are four tables denoting population dom patterns. Two appendices provide details of the Ohio Black" Laws"of 1804 and 1807 and also of occupational patterns 203-( 27).Sixty-two pages are allocated to footnotes,twelve to the bibliography,and fourteen to the index. Ihere' are also eleven illustrations,only one of which is a map-a barely legiole map of Cincinnati in 1862. One plate,depicting tlic 1884 courthouse riot,is anachronistic and irrelevant, as the event M'as unrelated to race issues.

Taylor allocates the first two chapters to early nineteenth-century C:incinnati. Chapters Three through Five deal with the 1829 riot and its aftermath. Chapter Six examines the 1841 riot and the maturation of the community prior to 1861. Chapter Seven focuses on the Under- ground Railroad,1841-1861. The eighth examines black public schools, 1849-1873, and the ninth is a brief review of citizenship issues. Ihe' last [he Shadows")introduces a new topic,lower class society and culture, recorded by journalist Lafcadio He·arn, an immigrant of mixed racial/ ethnic ancestry. In 1875 he began writing about this community for the r' incinnati Commercial.1 There' is no conclusion or epilogue.

Although there is much merit to this study,it is disappointing. Had the editor of the manuscript insisted on one more revision perhaps this would not have been the case. The title of the book-especially given c]ear evidence in the text of.tensions across lines of color,class,and poli- ties-is questionable. Were there not,in fact,several black communities, divided along lines of skin pigmentation,with lighter-skinned denizens dominating the elite? Was the black community not split along lines of class, with, for example, the shadow"" community having its own rules of conduct?And did not African Americans divide along lines of r:icial strategy?

Moreover, the stated scope of the work is 1802-1868, but most of

44 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY the book deals with the pre-1861 era. The chapter on public schools, however,extends to 1873, and the last chapter begins in the mid-18705. A good case could have been made for a study that ended in the mid- 1880s. In addition to shadow"" Cincinnati, it could have included the impact of the Fifteenth Amendment which( Taylor mentions in pass- ing),school desegregation,and the state's civil rights law,the latter two in the mid-1880s. Tighter organization would have prevented her dis- cussion of lower class blacks from seeming extraneous to the study. Ihe last chapter also weakens her concept of a black community,"" an already problematic concept. As in other Ohio Ri,er cities, for instance, the black elite must have been relatively cautious about challenging whites' authority. They undoubtedly distanced themselves from shadow"deni- zens, who represented a threat to their positions. In contrast, many whites in other midwestern and river cities, and probably in Cincin- nati, treated all African Americans, shadow" and respectable, the same. How effectively did reputable black Cincinnatians cope with that?

Ihere are also some lapses in historical accuracy.Taylor's account of the Black Brigade in Chapter Nine,for example, erroneously describes the title and role of Union General Ambrose Burnside in the forced enlistment of bl·ack laborers. It also misstates the timing of the »\Var Department's recruitment of black troops. Chapter Ten inaccurately describes the economic and social impact of railroads on river trans- portation. Passenger traffic declined, but freight persisted and indeed flourished after the Civil War.

Moreover,Taylor does not address a tiumber of crucial issues. Virtu- ally nothing is said of Cincinnati in the Civil War,except for a summary of Peter H. Clark's work on the Black Brigade of 1862. Not much is included Cincinnati' role the belated of black on s in recruitment men for the Union army,or of its contribution to the war effort. 1[he war produced a more than 50 percent increase in the black population, but there is nothing here about it or its impact on the black community or black-white relations. The author does not discuss the 1859 and 1868 state laws that abrogated mulattoes'voting rights,or how and why,given the capriciousness of Ohio's voting rights legislation, the state narrowly ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

At critical points-whether on the Black Brigade or African Amer- ican control of their schools-the author relies heavily on the words of Clark,who was a powerful voice,but not the only one. Civic leaders like William Parham and Benjamin Arnett, for example, were skeptical of his arguments for a separatist approach to schools,as they believed that whites' involvement in black schools could lead to an overall improz,e- ment in the quality of education. Throughout his career in Cincinnati,

SUM M ER 2006 45 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM

C:lark insisted that black teachers and pupils were better off in a segre- gated system, in part because the schools would guarantee employment fi,r black teachers, a position that black leaders in Cleveland considered absurd. Clark's racial strategy is clearly favored here, though a number of leaders in Cincinnati and other Ohio cities would eventu·ally prevail on school desegregation.2

Given Taylor's deference to Clark's thinking, it is not surprising t]nat she argues that the black school, not the church,was the center of community life between 1849 and 1873. Among other things, her ar- guinent significantly underplays the linkage between religion and edu- cation from the earliest days of black Cincinnati, a relationship that was clearly evident in the fiftieth anniversary history of Bethel A.M.E. tliat Arnett edited in 1874. Clark's remarks iii that history underscored t]-le connection.

1. Regarding the Underground Railroad, the author briefly refers in her footnotes to the recent work of Keith Griffler,Front Line ofFreedom: African Americans and tbe Forging oftbe Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,2004).However,Tay- lor does not appreciate his persuasive view that this was the nation's first civil rights movement, that the groundwork was laid by black freedom sciekers many years before 1850, and that whites joined and abetted the movement because they could,among other things, testify in court. Her heavy use of the Seibert records fails to appreciate the degree to which tliat white historian sought,ex post facto,to make whites the heroes of tlie Underground Railroad.3

As to source materials, better editing would have prevented the writer from citing federal census records that do not include full cita- tions: title,volume and page numbers e.g. 266-67).The author insists tliat her study will put flesh on census records, but she uses the printed decennial records sparingly and does not use the enumeration sched- ules-the so-called manuscript censusat all. - Taylor also utilizes city directories sparingly. Occupations and property-holding among ordi- nary black residents in 1850 and 1860 are included in tables in the Ap- pendix,but the sources of this information are undocumented and the data is not incorporated into the text. Why,for instance,were so many black women employed as washerwomen?What does that tell us about tlie interrelationship between the locus of work and the preservation of family life?

In this reviewer's opinion, the chief problem with this book is the aiithor's somewhat provincial approach. Although she asserts that black C'incinnatians were distinctive, she does not show how Cincinnati fits

46 01110 VALLEY HISTORY within the body of literature on the topic that allows comparison and contrast. Cleveland,whose black population was the focus of Kenneth L. Kusmer's major study,A Gbetto Takes Shape:Black Cleveland, 1870- 1930 Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976),is cited only three times in the index. Similarly undeveloped are Cincinnati's relation- ships with cross-river rivals Covington and Newport, slave-state cities in counties that had 2 percent or less slaves in 1860, near the lowest among Kentucky's river counties. Similarly,Taylor does not seem to be aware of studies of the black communities in neighboring states or of cities and towns along the Ohio. As a result, the re,ider is una,vare, for example, that public education for African Americans in Ohio had an utterly different trajectory from that of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. Cincinnati's many Yankees and Qpakers,though relatively small in pro- portion to the overall Kentucky-born population, ameliorated racial tensions and provided assistance that was not found in most other ri,er towns. The large number of African Americans in Cincinnati-largest in the Old Northwest-had a significant impact on the development of black businesses, professions, and social organizations as well as on the relations between blacks and whites.

Some gaps also exist. A number of histories of urban black Ameri- cans,for instance, explore family authority and organization. The topic is not raised in Taylor's study. The story of ordinary African Americans is treated for the most part in the last chapter. Tle interrelationship be- tween class and race-explored over twenty years ago by Steven J. Ross in Workers on tbe Edge:Work,Leistire,and Politics in I,idustrializing Cin- cinnati,1788-1890 New York: Columbia University Press, 1985)-gets little attention. Good maps, especially of the First and Fourth Wards, which had the city's largest concentrations of black residents, would have helped.

In a word, what at the outset seems to be a promising addition to the growing body of historical literature is in the end disappointing. Despite an impressive amount of research in primary sources and the introduction of much useful detail about black Cincinnatians, Frontiers leaves the reader frustrated with what needed be of Freedom to a much more carefully developed book. 4

1. A collection of his works is found 3. David W.Blight, Race ant/Reunion: in Lafcadio Hearn, Childrentbe #- Ibe Civil 114,i in American Memory Levee,ed. 0. W. Frost (Lexington: C:imbridge: The Belknap Press of University Press of-Kentucky,1957). Harvard Universitv,2001)

2. See,for instance, my On/ordank Banks,194 and 206.

SUM M ER 2006 47 Collections Essay 1-he Tyler Davidson Fountain A Symbolfor Cincinnati

e Tyler Davidson Fountain is one of Cincinnati s most famous undoubtedlylandmarks. Since its initial dedication iii 1871, the fountain has inore people than any other monument in Cincinnati. Ihe' fountain's imagebeenhasvisitedappearedbymoreon countlesstourists bookandphotographedcovers and post-by 9 -r ' cards, and the array of Fountain" souvenirs iS endless. For many Cinchinatians, the Tyler Davidson Fountain has become symbolic of Cincinnati, the Qpeen" City of the West."Some have referred writers even to the fountain's central figure, the Genius of Water,as the 75»049 Queen"herself.

The Cincinnati Historical Society Library, Cin- Uk Museum Center Union Terminal, holds 4.12 cinnati at a b.= I number of significant resources related to the Tyler f i Davidson Fountain. Found among its collections are 1 books, manuscripts, photographs, postcards, newspa- per clippings,ephemera, and historical objects that tell the fascinating story behind one of Cincinnati's most beloved icons. BIA», b-1 4 . , ¢ At) 2 , 14,=.**

Henry Probasco' Gift the Citizens of Cincinnati T . s to Turtle I oe, one of-the four drinking fountains mounted

along the rinT of In 1871 Henry Probasco presented the city of Cincinnati with a the Tyler 1)avidson beautiful fountain in of his brother-in-law Tyler Davidson. Fountain' circular memory s 7-he idea for the fountain developed around 1860, when these busi- basin, 1871. Cin- two cinnati Museum r ess partners decided to present a gift to the city that had given them Center at Union their success. Unfortunately,due to the outbreak of the Civil War the Terminal, Cincin- realization of this gift was put on hold. In late 1865 Tyler Davidson nati Historical died, and the following year Henry Probasco resurrected the idea of a Societv Library fi,untain and decided to make it :i memorial to his brother-in-law,busi-

48 01110 VALLEY HISTORY ness partner,and friend.

In search of a design, Probasco traveled to Europe, where he was uninterested in the typi- 2/ 0 0 4 cal classical or mythological themes presented e. to him. Probasco wels looking for a fountain 1 with a more modern, less traditional design, ind he wanted that only beautiful sss one was not 1 but useful as well. Finally,he visited the Royal WL. 1- 1*9.l Bronze Foundry of Bavaria in Munich, where T * the director of the fc,undry, Ferdinind von 1411 Miller,showed him many designs. The last of 4. 1/.M, these was a design by August von Kreling that had been sitting on the shelf for over twenty- MAAMI five years awaiting a sponsor. The theine pre- sented by von Kreling's design was the bless- ings and benefits of water, and the characters portr·ayed in the fountain were ordinary people. Probasco found it to be just what lie was seek- ing. However,he wanted its details to be even richer and more elaborate than von Kreling had originally intended. In addition, he wanted it Fountain Sqi, to be a drinking fountain as well as an orna- me. niental fouritain. painting by Louis Charles Vogt, 1909. Cincinnati The contract for the fountain was signed iii 1867 with work to be luseunl Center . completed within three Several factors, including the outbreak it years. Union i erminal, of the Franco-Prussian War,extended fountain' the s completion to the Cincinnati Histori- summer of 1871. Von Miller's two sons, Frederick and Ferdinand, as cal Society Library well as von Kreling himself,assisted with the fountain's construction. During these years,von Miller corresponded with Probasco, informing him of the fountain's progress and sending him sketches and photo- graphs for his approval.

Meanwhile, back in Cincinnati, preparations were underway to provide a suitable place for the fountain. When Probasco originally approached City Council in 1867 with his proposal to erect a public fountain,the suggested location was just east of the Fifth Street Market House between Walnut and Main Streets. In 1869 the council deemed the space too small for the fountain because of the network of street- car lines located there. Instead,they decided on the site of the market house itself-,between Vine and Walnut Streets. A battle ensued between the city and the market butchers over the location,and the subsequent lawsuit reached all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court. On February 4, 1870, the city demolished the Fifth Street Market House,and the fol-

SUM M ER 2006 49 THE TYLER DAUDSON FOUNTAIN

lowing July the cornerstone of the fountain was laid. Work then com- menced on the fountain's foundation and the beautiful esplanade stir- founding it. 1he following year the fountain arrived from Germany,and workers assembled it under the direction of Ferdinand von Miller,Jr.

On October 6, 1871, the Tyler Davidson Fountain was dedicated to" the people of Cincinnati.'Perhaps twenty thousand people ·attended the ceremony. In addition to Henry Probasco,several prominent men spoke, including Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes. The speeches tllat day extolled the beauty and grandcur of the fountain as well as the generos- ity and virtues of its donor. When the fountain was finally unveiled,an enthusiastic crowd burst into applause,and within minutes jets of wa- ter begin falling fr(,m the fountaiti. Throughout the day,people milled about the fountain to examine its lovely details. Later in the evening a festive display of fireworks illuminated the night sky. By the end of the day, Probasco's gift to the city of Cincinnati had success- fully captured the hearts of its citizens,and this special affection for the Tyler Da- vidson Fountain has T con- tinued into the twenty- first century.

Stereo card view of the Tyler David- Ihe Tyler Davidson Fountain Collection Mss( 531) son Fountain by Charles W,ildack, 1871. Cincinnati Museum Center at In 1978 William S. Rowe,president of Fifth-Bird Bank,presented Union Terintrial, the Cincinnati Historical Society with a collection of materials rel:zted to Cincinnati Histori- the Tyler Davidson Fountain. Housed in four boxes,Manuscdpt Collec- cal Society Library tion 531 contains correspondence,legal and business records,and illustra- tive materials on the Tyler Davidson Fountain covering the period 1866 to 1900. Undoubtedly Rowe received the unique collection through his grandfather,Henry Probasco.

Much of the correspondence and many other documents in the Tyler Davidson Fountain Collection deal with the planning and construction of the fountain. Among the collection's letter writers are von Kreling,the irtist who designed the fountain;von Miller,the director of the Royal Bronze Foundry of Bavaria where the fountain was cast;and von Mill- Ferdinand, who assisted their father the er's two sons, Frederick and in

50 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY monumental project. The letters written by GIG!ENZATI!8%431*MY"MWA -- Kreling and the lillers iii Ger- Sau:ed Fire Stolie 1. 4 -" von von are N indi.:ti, 1,-4 £ fi man with corresponding English transla- tions. Through these letters, Probasco kept U 1. W.& GRAVESON, 8.. - STEAM 4 er.,_1 MILL &STONE YARD,36 t.·38 3{»,•6.,4,· abreast of the fountain's progress during 4& its construction. 4 44.. gnsu w a Ll 1. kLJ CL£-a!, AL..4 LikC 31.1';*60.. *" 4-4. s &A-,& LLA- 07,3. Among the legal documents in the col- 6 4-ut,5 4 1-Ll 61,1, =11' : * S : 1:' : lection are several contracts between Pro- 5 17., basco and various individuals and business- V 110i r that constructed fountain and 1, -1" es the the cf, (23- ., esplanade, which took the name Fountain Square. Two of these documents are par- Statement from ticularly important to the fountain's his- Isa· Graveson, One is the original signed by Probasco and Miller in ac tory. contract von Cincititiati Stone May detailing the of" Ornamental,and Drinking 1867 construction an TVorks, 1871. Fountain, be erected for the of the citizens of Cincinnati, Ohio. to use Graveson was the The second document is an addendum to the contract, signed several contractor for the months later,after Probasco determined that the original projections of Fountain's founda- tion and the espla- the fountain' dimensions small the effect s were too to create imposing nade. Cincinnati that he desired. The addition the for to original contract called an in- Museiim Center at' crease in the fountain's overall height, an increase in tlic diameter of its Union Terminal, circular basin, plus several other changes. Increasing the fountain's size Cincinnati Histori- Society inevitably meant an increase in construction costs, and the document cal Library records these escalating monetary figures.

Among the collection' business records frei(rht bills and bills of O s are 5 lading,which contain the details concerning the shipping of the foun- tain from Germany to the United States. Also found in these records are numerous receipts and accounting statements from contractors who provided goods and services for the construction of the fountain's foun- dation and the esplanade.

Illustrative materials in the Tyler Davidson Fountain Collection in- clude two sketches drawn by von Miller concerning the placement of the arms on the Genius ofWater and three color drawings by Ferdinand Fritz"von Miller presenting the proposed designs for the fountain's drinking cups. The collection also contains a number of photographs, the majority ofwhich show the various plaster models of the fountain's figures. The von Miller Foundry sent these photographs to Probasco requesting his approval prior to the final casting of the figures. Perhaps one of the most important photographs in the collection is the carli- est known view of the completed fountain taken in Munich, Germany, where the fountain was briefly exhibited in early August 1871,before its shipment to Cincinnati.

SUMM ER 2006 51 THE TYLER DAE'IDSON FOUNTAIN

While a major part of this collection pertains to the planning and small number of construction, a items relate to the fountain's dedica- These tion ceremony include the original manuscript copy of Probasco's dedication speech and three badges worn by dignitaries who attended the ceremony Some miscellaneous items in the collection relate to the fountain's care and maintenance in the years following its completion In all,there are approximately five hundred items in the Tyler Davidson Fountain Collection

William Frederick Poole's History ofthe Fountain

Following the dedication, Probasco asked William Frederick Poole, Librarian at the Public Library of Cincinnati,to write a history describing the fountain's design, construction,and dedication ceremony Published Invitation to the [n 1872, Re Tyler Dauidon Fountain Green by Mr Henry Probasco to tbe dedication of the Clty ofCincinnati appeared One small, Tylci David son in two versions was a inexpensive booklet that sold for forty Most of this Fountain Oc- cents volume' few illustrations on s tober 6,1871, with are engraved portraits of individuals like Probasco and von Miller,who accompanying en- were key figures in the fountain's history The second version of Poole's velope and reserved history done larger format with colored borders and original ticket Cincinnati was in a photographs by Charles Waldack hand tipped to its Ille photo- Museum Center at on pages ' graphic found this book include details of the fountain figures Union Terminal, 4 images in Cincinnati Histori- is well as views of Oakwood, Piobasco's home in Clifton This deluxe cal Society Library edition was limited to one hundred copies,and Probasco presented these copies as gifts to special friends and

1,' 45,/. public officials 2. /1 5

1[he Cincinnati Historical Soci-

sions of Poole's history of the Tyler fl '%<94<1 @4»i«,I,#1, - "Si'- Davidson Fountain In addition, the book's original publisher,Robert ClarkeCo, & ieprinted the smaller

version in 1884 In 1988, as part of the Bicentennial Reprint Series, the Cincinnati Historical Society 435»*V*<*" published the larger,more elaborate both cloth bound and version in a paper bound edition

52 OH10 VALLEY HISTORY OtherTyler Davidson Fountain Resources

Reaching for the latest Cincinnati guidebook can usually satisfy most basic requests for information on the Tyler Davidson Fountain. From the time of its dedication up to the present day, local historians have rarely missed an opportunity to include some mention of the fountain Prc, the in their narratives about the city Over the years, the Cincinnati Histori- grain for Fc,untain Square cal Society has compiled six volumes of clippings containing newspaper Plaza dedicatioii articles both the fountain and Fountain Square. These scrapbooks on I)1-1 October 18, primarily cover the period 1920 to 1990, ind: include such int-orma- 1969. Cincinn'ati illuseitin Center tion as the construction of comfort stations on the Square in 1932 and at the restoration of the fountain by the Karkadoulias Foundry of Atliens, Union Terminal, Cincinnitti Histori- Greece in 1971. cal Society Library

The Society's general photograph collection contains numerous images of the Tyler Davidson T Fountain and the square. 1[hese include original stereo card views of the fountain shortly after its completion in 1871 and modern glossy prints of the Fountain Fest Centennial, the hundredth an- niversary celebration of the fountain organized bv the Cincinnati Historical Society in 1971. THECINCINNATIENQUIRER PRESENTS COQ YOUR.l)12).NCS ANDEN JOYMENT TH' FOUNTAIN SQUARE PLAZA The Society extensive ephemera collection DEDICATION PROGRAM s PROGRAM also few related contains a interesting items to 11 10'.M. 22=,2,2=74-.,C-.„,

1 2:00.... 0*.=.C•,•n.. F.'."OV.*ID.d,«,OU*I»"Il L..'5,21=:L-$ the fountain. Among them the invitation and .A..c.- are OC.'- Mr.S:trACT· 12....TOrG....-* .«.-*.'-

2:OOPM. CGl*,AnCA,00.* distributed for the fountain' dedication F.Rsliir Celme U S A.' -C„;-6- 2:30'M. M'. s 46#! program 3:00 P M. Cr,i6.*Id

5:DO PUL SLnQu,C,MtnG.

1871, well similar 6:OOP.M. Jo:r Ro

As the Tyler Davidson Fountain enters a new era with the newly- renovated Fountain Square, the Cincinnati Historical Society Library will continue to collect resource materials rel·ated to the history of this beloved Cincinnati landmark.4

M'Lissa Y. Kesterman

Assistant Reference Librarian Cincinnati Historical Society Library

SUMMER 2006 53 Collections Essay Ihe Reuben T.Durrett Papers at The Filson Historical Society

founded the Filson Club,now the Filson Historical Society Many May 1884,ReubenT Durrett and nine prominent Louisvillianscollectors. nof the founders were amateur historians or manuscript I)urrett,the instigator of the Filson's founding,was both. Although his interest in preserving history dated to the 18505, he did not begin in earnest ·is, a collector until 1880. As president of the Filson from 1884 until his death in 1913, Durrett continued to build his collection of rnanuscripts,books,pamphlets,portraits,and artifacts. He also became a widely recognized expert on Kentucky history. Although the Uni- versity of Chicago purchased most of Durrett' collection in 1912, he Reuben T.Durrett s retained l· qiiantity of his personal After Durrett's death, in his library.7he a arge papers. Filson. Filson I listorical his family began donating these papers to the Society The Reuben T Durrett Papers arrived in several batches begin- ningin 1929. The Filson cataloged a large portion of its Durrett Papers in the mid-twentieth century, but

1 1 '' ': 16.. * five cubic feet of them remained unprocessed and largelyforcotten , until the 1980s. In 1986,when the

Filson moved to its current location at the Ferguson Mansion, curator James J. Holmberg found what be- T.Durrett Added came the Reuben 2« 1, '.' » Papers the of the Filson' St»- » » , .ts' 2'* in attic S »-' ' 1 5, s 1 '4. Q«'»''ij : 17 . older building. From 1986 until the 1* »'.4- summer of 2005, the uncataloged papers remained in storage. During that summer,the collection, still packaged in old correspondence boxes,was carefully examined,probably fc, the first the 1930s. r time since

The Reuben T Durrett Papers include a variety of materials, includ- it»lg items related to the founding and operation of the Filson,documents

54 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY from his law practice after the Civil War,and personal correspondence from Durrett's antebellum romance with Elizabeth Bates, whom he married in 1852. The legal papers include pension applications from the 1860s for hundreds of federal soldiers who used Dur-

MAXWF,[.L. HOUSE, rett as their lawyer. 1[he Durrett Papers also contain forms from Kentuckians applying for compensation 8 1.. for slaves inducted into the Union army. What became the Reuben T Durrett Added Papers consists mostly of Ath arc' " correspondence from 1887 to 1898 and from 1904 to Ift 1©44.-™-t (, 1909. The collection fills in gaps in the other Durrett Papers,which contained only a small amount of mate- 1 / rial from the years represented in the newest addition. 4« fill. I. Ihese than half of Durrett' time papers cover more s as 1 44.'· 4-44 5=p-,-J-.4,. Filson president, the years he was most devoted to his historical pursuits. Durrett corresponded with promi- nent Kentuckians such as John B. Castleman, Cassius 3-r'<41-r /<4.- EL' ..:- . M. Clay,Basil W.Duke,and Bennett H. Young, and the collection also contains letters from national figures like William Jennings Bryan. However,the signif- true Letter from Iheo-' icance of these is that they demonstrate the papers ex- dore Roosevelt to tent to which Durrett was connected to the larger historical community Reuben T Durrett, ofthe late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Among the corre- Mar. 28, 1888, his spondence are letters from Herbert Baxter Adams,Elliott Coues,Lyman announcing C. Draper,William H. English,James Alton James,J. Franklin Jameson, impending arrival in Louisville. Ihe Theodore Roosevelt,Reuben G.Thwaites, and FrederickJackson Turner. Filson Historical These historians and archivists saw Durrett as an important colleague. Society In 1895, George Rogers Clark biographer William H. English wrote to Durrett,I "find I might as well always write directly to you,for if I write to others they generally apply to you for the information."1 Among scholars, Durrett became widely known as the expert on Kentucky history,and when they had questions about the state's past they wrote to him.

Among the most significant finds are eight letters from Theodore Roosevelt. Although some of these contain little substance, several of- fer insight into Roosevelt's 1888 research trip to Louisville. In Febru- ary and March 1888, Roosevelt wrote to Durrett about his research for what became 7be Winning of tbe West 1889-1896).2 On either the last Saturday in March or the first Saturday in April, Roosevelt arrived in Louisville to view Durrett's collection of manuscripts relating" to the period when Kentucky and Tennesee [sic]were won, from 1769 to 1795."3 Louisvillians held dinners to greet their visitor,and Roos- evelt appreciated the hospitality.4 Five years later,Roosevelt wrote to Durrett, I"shall always cherish the very warm courtesy with which you

SUMMER 2006 55 THE REUBEN T. URRETT[) PAPERS AT THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY

treated while me I was at work on material for the first two volumes of the Winning of the West."5

A wide variety of historians,both professional and amateur,wrote t:)Durrett while he was president of the Filson. J. Franklin Jameson, founder of American a the Historical Association AHA)( and man- Durrett aging editor of the American Historical Review, wrote to re- Re' c Noted garding manuscripts he wanted to publish in the uie Lo' . frontier historian Frederick Jackson Turner corresponded with Dur- rett about George Rogers Clark manuscripts he hoped to acquire fi.,r the AHA's Historical Manuscripts Commission:Herbert Bax- ter Adams, renowned historian and another founder of the AHA, M,rote to learn how best to store his autograph collection.8 Through- out the 1890s, historian Elliott Coues wrote asking for information to help his editing ofprimary for publication. Thwaites, Letter froni Reu- sources Reuben G. corresponding ben G.lhwaites to secretary of the State Historical Society of Wiscon- Reuben T Durrett, si n, often corresponded with Durrett regarding happenings in Madi- Dec. dis- 19, 1891, scin and the arrangement and cataloging of the Draper Manuscripts:0 cussing the condi- flumerous other historians wrote to Durrett announcing their intentions tion of Lyman C. conduct research in Durrett' library asking for bits of Draper' library.71ie tc) s or s historical information:1 Filson I listorical Society Durrett's relationship with the larger historical j„ VL,,#,3.4:4-*-*1#+ i' =»74«j»., community is also revealed by the personal nature of 214 1*4,044-L-Ci '44 3 :A A-. i* Lf 03 9vZ.,Uu-+'some of his correspondents' statements. Although H-x 4- J-- 2.=Z.jiF3, l. 1. 1-*-1 21_722 » of the correspondence between Durrett 4,1 j»,most and El- liott Coues related to professional matters, a January 11+ A .4 6 94 t 4 11, 1898, letter fri)m Coues is a departure from nor- 2-22 3 tY t < 1*2- mal topics. In 1893, Coues published an edition of 84*+N + LA· i l.»*f»11 rIL- the jounials of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In th # 0/,.16„'I« U„«j./1, preparing them for publication, Coues to have . - W, seems tr " cs »J A* 1»* 21. 1-1, LA. .T»» ' m f\>,' k«&5 estly and dishonorably prevented me from doing in his miserable envy,jealousy and malice."12 Coues also had little use for Butler's friend, Reuben G. 1hwaites.

1 . '' In 1894, Thwaites traveled by canoe down the Ohio River,briefly staying with Durrett in Louisville. In the ptiblished account of his journey,Ihwaites ' mentioned his host in Lou- isville but did not name him.13 Coues believed this was disrespectful

56 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY the which he lambasted to Durrett. In same letter in 6 Ur*'4..4-46,1>C , 72, 4*.4. T9' . Butler, Coues mentioned reviewing 1hwaites's book for a most important quarter. Now " kindly suggest it to me, Loues wrote, anything" you think ought to be Al u':94, A-L 4,4;244- said about that would like be said about 20 60-*r-*1 0 1/-6 Z-A--; it,or you to it, I - C C t ,U· *1,

The Reuben T. Durrett Papers, of which the Added Papers are the most recent addition, provide a wealtli of information to scholars who are interested in historians and archivists at the turn of the twentieth century. For nearly thirty years, Durrett and his library were the ma- jor sources of information on Kentucky's history As a result of his reputation, almost any historian with an interest in Kentucky or the trans-Appalachian West wrote to Durrett f-or information at some point during his or her research, and Durrett's personal papers include cor- respondence from the most prominent historians of his day. The Reu- ben T.Durrett Papers at the Filson demonstrate Durrett's connections to the national historical community of the late-nineteenth and early- twentieth centuries. 4

Jacob E Lee Manuscript Cataloguer The Filson Historical Society

SUMMER 2006 57 1. William H. English to Reuben T. liam H. English to RTD. Sept. 24, Durrett, June 26. 1895, Reuben T 1891. RTD Added Papers-FHS. See

Durrett Papers, Filson Historical also the extensive 1895 correspon- Society, Louisville, KY [hereafter, dence between William ll. English Reuben T. Durrett will be rel'erred and RTD in RTD Papeis-FHS.

to as RTD,and the Reuben T Dur- rett Papers will be cited as the RTD 12. Elliott Coues to RTD. Jati. 11. 1898. Papers-FHS]. RTD Added Papers-FHS.

2. Theodore Roosevelt. Tile Winning 13. Reuben Gold Thwaites.A#oat 1 ofthe Ff/est,4 vols. New( York: G. P. the Ohio:An Hist(,rical Pilgrimage

Putnam's Sons, 1889-1896) of a Thousand Miles in a Skijj,flum Redstone to Cairo Chicago: Way & 3. Theodore Roosevelt to RTD. Feb. Williams, 1897) 1 8, 1888, Reuben T. Durrett Added Papers, Filson Historical Society, 14. Elliott Coues to RTD. Jan. 11. 1898. Louisville. KY hereal-[ ter.the Re,1- RTI)Added Papers-FHS. ben T. Durrett Added Papers will

be cited as the RTD Added Papers- 15. Elliott Coues to RTD,Jan. 19. 1898, FHS]. RTD Added Papers-FHS.

4. John Mason Brown to RTD, Mar. 29, 16. Elliott Coues to RTD. May 22. 1888, Dr. Yandell to RTD. no date 1895. RTD Added Papers-FHS. 1888, RTD Added Papers-FHS. 17. Mary Winchester to Dear" Susie. 5. Theodore Roosevelt to RTD, Mar. no date 1891. RTD Added Papers- 30, 1893, RTD Added Papers-FHS. FHS.

6. J. Franklin James to RTD, Nov. 5, 18. Annie R. Innesto RTD, Feb. 17. 1906, Nov. 9, 1906, Nov. 21. 1906, 1906. Feb. 21. 1906. RTD Added RTD Added Papers-Fl-IS. Papers-FHS. R. C. Ballard Thi-uston later purchased the portrait from 7. Frederick Jackson Turner to RTD, Durrelt and donated it to the Filson. Nov. 27, 1896, Dec. 17, 1896, RTD Added Papers-FHS.

8. H.B. Adams to RTD, Apr. 1 0. 1891. RTD Added Papers-F}IS.

9. Elliott Coues to RTD, Dec. 13, 1894. Dec. 19, 1894, Nov. 2(),1896. Mar. 5, 1898, RTD Added Papers-FHS.

10. Reuben G. Thwaites to RTD. Oct. 31, 1891, Nov. 7, 1891, Dec. 19, 1891, RTD Added Papers-FHS.

11. See for example, Ulrich B. Phil- lips to RTD, Dec. 10, 1904, Dec. 19, 1904, RTDAdded Papers-FHS. A. C. Quisenberry to RTD,Nov. 1 1888, RTD Added Papers-FHS; Wil-

58 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Book Reviews

Ephraim G.Squierand Edwin H. Davis. 15 known as tlie "Mound Builder Iyth," Ancient Monuments of tbe Mississippi the belief that an ancient race of peoples, Edited : Valley. ind with an introduction unrelated to existing Native American by David J. Meltzer. Washington, D.C.: groups, built the mounds and enclosures of the inid- Smithsonian Institution Press, 1848; re- continent. print with introduction, 1998. 528 pp. Squier and Davis set out to investigate ISBN 1560988983 ( 29.95. paper), $ systematically the origins," migrations,

ind early state of the American race" claimitig they hen first published in 1848, An- xxxiv), had no hypothesis combat desire 01lly V V cient Monuments of the Mississippi to or sustain...a to arrive at truth, whatever its bearing Palley marked a crucial point in the devel- upon received theories and prejudices" opment ofAmerican archaeology. As the current maiden publication for the newly formed xxxviii). However, as Meltzer reveals Smithsonian Institute, the monograph in his introduction, and as becomes ap- irent throughout the book, Squier and set a precedent for both the Contribu-" p. I):ivis clearly ascribed to the Mound tions to Knowledge" series and future archaeological research. The publication attempted to answer a number of impor- tant archaeological questions surround- ing the earthworks of the mid-continen- ANCIENT MONUMENTS tal United States through combination a OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY of original research and data compiled by other antiquarian scholars.

David Meltzer' s introduction to the 150th anniversary edition of Ancient Monuments provides extensive and signif- icant insight into the social and scientific milieu in which Squier and Davis worked. As Euro-American settlers moved further westward, they encountered indigenous peoples as well as a number of mysteri- of ous monuments earthen construction. Reluctant to attribute features of such architectural sophistication to the Na- EPI]RAIM G. SQUIER and EDWIN H. DAVIS tive Americans whom they encountered Edited and with an introduction by DAVID J. MELTZER owing to racist tenets both social and sci- SMITHSONIAN CLASSICS OF ANTHROPOLOGY entific, Euro-Americans developed what

SUM MER 2006 59 BOOK REVIEWS

mainly on the e.arthworks, also exhibits artifacts recovered from excavations into the mounds. Squier and Davis,however, considered the artifacts valuable only as illustrations of the skill of their makers" e** k 241),and to determine origin," migra- and tion, intercommunication of the race i of the mounds"278). ( Artifacts are pre- 14» sented obiects of art witli little to ils» - as no information regarding provenance or as- sociations, reflecting the antiquarian 4. na- ture of early archaeology

7111( Monti- Builder Myth. They depicted the Mound Squier and Davis's ient Builders aclvanced modes of is as more in ments an irreplaceable contribution subsistence,science,engineering,military, to early American archaeology, both in religion,and the arts than the present-day the application of systematic survey of Native Americans. Squier and Davis ne- archaeological remains as well as in the gated the possibility that existing Native record they produced. Most of the sites American peoples could have produced that they surveyed, endangered in the anything comparable, implying instead 1840s, have by now long disappeared, that extant indigenous people contrib- victims of environmental processes, ag- uted to the disappearance of tlie Mound ricultural practices, and public and pri- vate Builders,a convenient argument by which development. VVhile the authors to rationalize the removal of native peo- may have taken certain liberties iii their ples from coveted laiid. drawings,as noted by Meltzer,exaggerat- while completing"" others,these Ancieiit Monuments provides detailed ing some depictions all that of of descriptions and illustrations of hun- are remain many the earthworks. dreds of ancient monuments, presented of inferred function in terms based on Despite the authors' attempts to fit location on the landscape, form, and their data to a priori assumptions, there of information features encompassed within them. Re- remains a wealth to be gional differences between earthworks had from this book. Moreover,the book in terms of form :ind function, while provides an important lesson on the im- deemed useful in understanding the ori- pact current social, political, and scien- gin and migrations of the Mound Build- tific thought has on archaeological in- ers, were not considered strong enough to terpretations, as well as the tenacity of negate Squier and Davis's determination certain inherited assumptions. Meltzers that the Mound Bui'.ders numer- were a introduction provides valuable histori- ous and widely spread"group of agricul- cal background for understanding the turalists who were essentially homog- relationship between the authors, the in- enous in customs, liabits, religion, and fluence of the times in which they were government"301). ( working, as we 11 as the significance of their findings subsequent the publica- Ancient Monumi nts, while focusing to

60 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY tion. In spite of its faults,Ancient Monu- removal. The federal government, Grif- ments of the Mississippi Valley remains fin maintains, acceded to these entreaties much because wanted than a scientific" treasure 69)( as well as a not so it to historic one. because it feared losing the allegiance of the West.

Melissa Baltus Of equal interest and importance is Ellen Estinger' perceptive piece of white University of Illinois at s attitudes toward African Americans in Urbana-Champaign early Ohio. Both anti-slavery and anti- black, whites called for legislation in( 1804 and 1807)deliberately intended to discourage black in-migration and,when that failed,embraced the American Colo- Andrew R. L. Cayton and Stuart D. nization Society. As is well-known,other Hobbs, eds. 7be Center of Great Em- a Ohioans covertly aided African Ameri- pire:Ibe ' ObiO Country in the Early Re- cans and were firm abolitionists. By the public. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1830s, white Ohioans were severely po- 2005. 233 ISBN 0821416200 cloth),( pp. larized the issue, reflecting the 34.95. on grow- ing debate in much of the Old Northwest and the free states in the East. his brief but thought-provoking vol- 1 ume originated as a series of papers Edited by Andrew R L. Ca> the 2003 conference of the Society for ton at dS t D. Hobbs Historians ofthe Early American Repub- lic (Sheer),held at the Ohio State Uni- THE- versity. The seven essays one( of which was not on the SHEAR program but was written specifically for this book)explore a wide range of topics having to do with the Ohio Country in the early American nation, a subject of increased interest to professional historians and intelligent general readers. Both groups will profit from the diverse essays.

All of the pieces are interesting,well- researched, and well-presented. Of spe- 1 cial interest is Patrick Griffin's work on Indian removal, in which he describes how the initial fluidity of Indian-white 74 relations gave way to a hardening of white attitudes and increased calls by the comparatively liberal elite and their long- confrontational brethren for time poorer r

SUMM ER 2006 61 BOOK REVIEWS

While Ohio theoretically was a blank Methodist church),Kenneth Wheeler slate which settlers could upon write on the culture' of usefulness"in the many what they pleased, Christopher Clark institutions of higher education),and Ta- reminds of the which Ohio us extent to mara Gaskell Miller (on the durability of brought older economic, social, and cul- the extended family),but each has a good tural institutions and practices to a new deal to teach us about what may well have and thus environment, was power- been a harbinger of modern America in fully shaped by ch:iracteristics imported the Old Northwest. An excellent after- from the East" ( 147). Of the several word and an extremely helpful thirty- points Clark makes, of special impor- eight page bibliography round out this tance are his recognition of relationships superior collection. between country nd:, town as well as As expected, these historians are not between the better" 'and lower"" sorts and always in agreement,especially on the is- the pattern of family-based farming and sue of whether Ohio was a new society household production. in a new land or an imported society in Unfortunately, space does not per- a new land. And, at last, the question mit attention to b: given to fine works that bothered early settlers then as well Ohioans who celebrated their by Donald J. Rateliffe on( the political as state's elite's acceptance of popular political par- bicentennial in 2003 remains: what, after ticipation),John Wigger on( the thriving all,is Ohio?Is it eastern,part of the Mid- west, a variation of the East, or is Ohio none of these things or a mixture of all of them? Wisely,the editors allow all of us, after reading this fine contribution, to draw conclusions. our own

Bruce Wheeler University ofTennessee, Knoxville

James L. Butler and John J. Butter. In- diana Wine:A History. Bloomington: j Indiana University Press, 2001. 232 pp. ISBN 0253340365 hardcover),$( 14.95.

2 Tn 1802,a Swiss immigrant named Jean 1Jacques Dufour petitioned President 2 Thomas Jefferson to grant him and a 1 band of fellow Swiss settlers a parcel of E of Ohio River land on the banks the in

62 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY the newly established Indiana Territory. At much the same time, a group of Though Dufour envisioned a small colo- German co-religionists settled in western ny living there, his request was motivated Indiana at a site they called New Har- more by commercial interests. Like Jef- mony,where on the banks of the Wabash ferson,he was a wine lover;like Jefferson, River they planted vines. These settlers would he believed that a culture of wine did not sell much wine, keeping most of benefit the new nation; and like Jeffer- it for their own (often medicinal) con- son, he wanted to plant a vineyard and sumption,but they too succeeded in mak- make wine. The Virginian had done so at ing it. For a brief period, then, Indiana home at Monticello,but his vines had all was America's wine capital. Production died,victims of rot and disease. Dufour at both Vevay and New Harmony may argued that things would be different in have been small, but in 1820 nowhere Indiana. I"foresee the time,"he wrote, else in the country could claim a success- when the Ohio will compete with the ful wine enterprise. Indiana wine was American Rhine or the Rhdne for the quantity of wine. vineyards,and the quality ofwine."Later that year, Congress passed a measure al- lowing Dufour and his Swiss colony to purchase land in Indiana for two dollars per acre. Payment without( interest)was not due until twelve years later,thus giv- ing Dufour ample time to plant vines, grow grapes, make and sell wine. And so he did. 1he first harvest came a few years later. By 1810,the vintners in New Swit- t zerland (today's Vevay, in Switzerland County) produced nearly 2,500 gallons ofwine. Ten years later,they made twelve t[ thousand. heirs was the first successful commercial wine business in the United

States. A local schoolmaster celebrated it in inspired verse:

Sadly, the success did not last. By 1827, the Dufour died, the New Columbia rejoice! Smiling Bacchus has year heard Switzerland vineyards were sick with disease. A few years later,a killing frost Your of fervent prayers so a tone effectively destroyed what healthy vines And crown'd with the grape, has kindly remained. By the mid-1830s, the enter- appear'd prise had been abandoned entirely. Much the had happened decade earlier In your land to establish his throne. same a in New Harmony,as many of the Ger- settlers moved back Penn- man east to sylvania. The demise of early-nineteenth

SUMMER 2006 63 BOOK REVIEWS

century Indiana wine had many causes: duction in the state. Unfortunately,this endemic disease in the vineyards coupled is the least interesting part of the book; with an inappreciative market, falling least interesting, that is, if one reads the book subtitle prices for virtually :ill crops, and a product as its demands. Instead of that,by virtually all accounts,did not taste offering a history replete with evaluation, all that good. When better wine began the authors simply offer a guidebook of to be made in Ohio starting in the late sorts, listing the various Indiana wineries, 1820s,the fledgling Indiana industry was providing travel directions, phone num- doomed. The Ohio used vintners a dif- bers, web domains, and the like. James ferent grape variet),-the Catawba grape Butler himself owns a winery in Bloom- rather than the illexander-and their ington. Perhaps because he is a member wines, particularl their Champagne- of the local industry, he and his son are styled sparkling wines,came to be praised unwilling to say much of anything of im- far and wide. By 1858, the poet Henry port about the quality of contemporary Wadsworth Longfi:llow could wax rhap- Indiana wine, let alone about the state's sodic, calling Ohic, Catawba more" dul- prospects. They offer instead an uncritical cet, delicious, and dreamy"than French survey,something that the Indiana Wine Champagne. He apparently never tasted Grape Council provides consumers for free their Ihe half Indiana wine,the ineyards by then hav- on website. ' second of ing become but distant memories. this book,then, is a far cry from the tru- ly fascinating history that makes the Ihe father and son team of James up first half. and John Butler tell the story of Indiana wine's rise and fall in entertaining detail in their Indiana Fine. ; A History. The Paul Lukacs of Dufour' and the New Harmon- story s Loyola College in Maryland ists' accomplishme nts takes up nearly half of their book, and it surely is the most interesting p:irt. The Butlers sup- ply details that most students of Ameri- can wine do not know, and in doing so they add substantially to our understand- Black Laws: ing of this oft-neglected aspect of early Stephen Middleton. 7be American history. Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio. Athens: Ohio University Press,2005. 363 Following a short chapter on Indiana pp. ISBN 0821416243 paper),( 26. $95. wine in the rest of the nineteenth century short because there essentially wasn't any Indiana wine of note),the Butlers turn tephen Middleton, professor of his- their attention the modern Indiana to 43 tory at North Carolina State Univer- wine industry In 1 971,a small winery law sity,has been writing about abolitionism was passed in Indiana,leading to a revival and the legal status of blacks for the past of production. Twenty later, when years twenty years. His survey of the progress this book first published, some twen- was of civil rights in antebellum Ohio pro- five wineries in commercial ty- were pro- vides a welcome synthesis of the politi-

64 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Farr cally charged array of problems touching 9. 1841),the circuit court ruled that slaves became on racism,discrimination,comity,slavery, fee persons as soon as thev and abolitionism that faced Ohio and the entered Ohio for any reason, save those nation. 732 Black Laws:Race and the Le- who were undeniably fugitives, a decision these State gal Process in Early Obio approaches upheld by the state supreme court in issues primarily as the struggle to recon- u. Hoppess 0 845). Even so, complete cile the fundamental republican principle elimination of discriminatory legislation of equality under the law with the state's was not achieved until the passage of an constitution,its statutes,and their judicial Act to Protect All Citizens in Their Civil interpretations. The outlines of this story Rights"1884) ( and the repeal of the last are familiar: the uncertainties in the ap- of Ohio's Black Laws (1887),both long plication of the sixth article of the North- after the abolition ofslavery in the nation west Ordinance that forbade involuntary by the 'Ihirteenth Amendment (1865), servitude north of the Ohio River, the the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the ratification of the Fourteenth debates over slavery in the state consti- tutional convention, the passage of dis- Amendment 1868).( Black Laws after criminatory soon state- 1Ihe strength of 732 Black Lacos lies hood in 1803, and the legal and political in its clarity,comprehensiveness, ind·, im- wrangling comity and fugitive slaves. over pressive body of supporting research,but Middleton's discussion ofnumerous court the significance of Ohio's achievements cases,culled from an exhaustive survey of little used public records and newspa- per accounts, provides additional insight into the role of the courts in promoting civil rights.

Middleton's approach places a good deal of faith in the inevitable victory of justice and equality. Although he ar- gues that progressive" whites"and blacks worked tirelessly to push the agenda of civil rights in the state,the most signifi- cant gains resulted from judicial decisions. Courts rarely enforced the requirement that free blacks post five hundred dollars bonds for good behavior upon entering the state,for example,and mitigated the impact ofother laws by ruling that anyone who looked" white" had visible or a mix- ture of"white blood"was legally a white person. Judges also became increasingly unwilling to accommodate Ohio's statutes to the interests of slaveliolders in other State states. In the culminating case of e.

SUMMER 2006 65 BOOK REVIEWS

might have been more persuasive explicit connections been made to the broader national 50 context Middleton's as- sertion that the treatment of free blacks Ohio than elsewhere litood in was worse in <./ the North, fbr example, needlessly over- the and fails explain why states case to S! so many free blac]s and fugitives ended I up in Ohio In addition, the Whiggish framework allows little room for ambigu- ,

ities and unduly si mplifies Issues and the PL 5 IL- positions of majoi figures Middleton's 2..3, . tendency to assign political leaders and i I their supporters to one of two categories 3 } based primarily on their support ofor op- L position to black civil rights obscures a complex middle ground that was integral the public discourse The moral to issue 4, 't tbit : IS, - of slavery and the political piinciples of 4 t: le 4, i L.= equality and lustice may have been clear 3 enough, but even well intentioned men and women were o ften uncertain lust how lf, freedom and equality could be achieved 1**j -1,f»' ' " 1,:,@ ,' 0*1- 1 , '» in a racist society A sense of that deep- experienced the war in the Army of the er and more trot bling struggle is not Potomac and( also the Army of Virginia) always apparent from 1861 through November of 1862 and at Gettysburg in July 1863 The Second, Sixth, and Seventh Wisconsin, Emil Pocock the Nineteenth Indiana, and later the Eastern Connecticut State University Twenty-fourth Michigan Volunteer In- fantry regiments,along with Battery B of the Fourth U S Artillery, composed the only exclusively western brigade in the Army of the Potomac The author con- Herdepien. Lance J. 7be Men Stood siders the Iron Brigade, as it came to be Like Iron:How tbe Iron Brigade Won Its known after the battle of Antietam,from Name. Bloomington Indiana University the perspectives of the soldiers, tracing Press, 1997, reprint 2005 271 pp ISBN individual and collective experiences of 025321825X papc'( r),19 $95 the western volunteers through the bat- tles that transformed them into seasoned Brawner Farm, Second Bull Men Stood Like Iron veterans e is a cornpel- Run, South Mountain, Antietam, and 71 f how from ng account c, regiments Gettysburg I[he volume highlights the Wisconsin, Indiana, and later Michigan, homesickness, camp boredom, and early

66 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY expectations of the soldiers of 1861 and to expand on the army's relationship with effectively demonstrates that, by the au- civilians, the transition from limited to tumn of 1862, combat had transformed total warfare, and the evolution of sol- the soldiers, blunting their idealism and diers'views on slavery and emancipation. causing them to look more critically upon It does,however,highlight the compelling officers, political leaders, and civilians at experiences of individual soldiers,includ- home. Making use of soldiers' memoirs, ing Ohioan Rufus Dawes, captain in the letters and diaries including( those in pri- Sixth Wisconsin,whose memoir and let- vate collections),and official reports, the ters are a central source of the work, and volume presents the reader with a striking John Cook of Cincinnati, who went to and moving narrative of life and death in war as a bugler at the age of fourteen and the Iron Brigade. earned a medal of honor for his service

Tbe Men Stood Like Iron also raises is- as a gunner at Antietam. Through these voices and others, the author deftly sues of state, regional, and national iden- many tities and how these influenced the sol- depicts western soldiers' experiences in and in combat in the eastern the- diers and the war itself. Throughout the camp iter. Men book, the soldiers' identifications with The paperback edition of 7be Stood Like Iron will make that story all the their states as well as their region is evi- more accessible to readers interested in dent. Less clear is the relationship state soldiers' experiences during the and regional loyalty had to nationalism western first half of the Civil Wan and the national army The author finds that the troops moved away from state loyalties and began to think in terms of Christine Dee nation during the months drilling spent Fitchburg State College in George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac 44-( 45)and shows that soldiers continued to support McClellan after Lincoln removed him from command in November 1862. Throughout the work, the soldiers'support for their commander, Uncipit War:Ir- John Gibbon, a native of Pennsylvania Robert R.Mackey.e * who had been raised in North Carolina,is regular Warfare in tbe Upper South,1861- 1865. Norman: University of Oklahoma equally evident,as is their sense of them- Press, ISBN selves as westerners: Badgers, Hoosiers, 2004. 288 pp. 0806136243 hardcover),19. $95. and Wolverines. We learn that the army, through its battles and sacrifices, had be- come not McClellan's but Lincoln's,a na- obert Mackey's study of Confederate tional army committed to purging the na- I\.irregular warfare displaces romanti- tion of slavery and providing a new" birth cized accounts of Nathan Bedford For- offreedom." rest, Robert Mosby,and other unconven- Yet the role of state and regional iden- tional warriors. 7be Uncivil War presents tity in this process remains unclear 216).( three case studies from the Upper South, Moreover, the work misses opportunities each illustrative of a different category

SUMM ER 2006 67 BOOK REVIEWS

of irregular warfare paired with chapters concentrating on the federal response. In constructing each discrete story,Mackey consulted an exhaustive list of published R sources, including local Arkansan news- 14 His research in university special f IRREGL LAR WARFARE N THE papers. UPPER 1865 6 SOUTH, 1861- 2 fi.< . collections, including Germany's Ruhr A' University where an immigrant letter col-

I. d lection yielded insight into civilian suf- fering amidst a guerrilla war,sets a high 4 standard for the scholarship of Confeder- ate irregular warfare.

Mackey's introductory discussion contrasts nineteenth-century theories of irregular warfare on the one hand, with military theorists such as Carl von Clause- witz and Baron Antoine Henry Jomini as well as jurist Francis Lieber construct- ing a conceptual framework for uncon- ventional forces operating in support of e I conventional armies, with the twentieth- century experience ofpopular revolution- ary warfare aimed at transforming a so- of ii regular waitaie: Arkansas guerrillas, cial order on the other. Understandably, Virginia partisans, and cavalry raiders the Confederacy avoided overindulgence irregular warfare, especially guerrilla in Tennessee and Kentucky These ac- in warfare, th innate counts suppoit Mackey s central claim, owing to e conserva of goal maintain hierarchi- that nineteenth-century theory and prac- tism its to a slavery Thus,irregular tice of irregular warfare,not the twentieth cal society built on warfare the Upper South ended when century's revolutionary people'" s wars, in Robert E. Lee' and Joseph E. Johnston' best inform our understanding of Con- s s surrendered. federate unconventional forces, and that men federal combined with countermeasures, Mackey does much to clarify the ter- Confederate mistakes, ultimately ren- minology of irregular warfare. His intro- dered ineffective, albeit annoying, these duction includes a spectrum of uncon- cases ofirregular wrarfare. ventional warfare in the Civil War"9), ( ranking the different examples from least Mackey's case studies shine a spot- organized brigands( and criminal light on episodes of the Civil War other- gangs) wise marginalized by the attention given through most organized Mosby'( s Rang- But his to major campaigns and conventional bat- ers). account minimizes contem- ties. The clear structure ofthis book lends porary confusion over irregular warfare. itself to use as a re:ference tool,with nar- Two problems emerge from his scholarly rative chapters describing each instance typology. First, the reality of irregular

68 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY warfare conflates theoretically discrete *" categories. Mackey acknowledges that iIn truth, all three types of irregular warfare existed simultaneously through- out the Upper South"6). ( Second, since Mackey,an officer in the U.S. Army,ad- dresses a current military audience as well Uncioil« War has as an academic one,732 to answer to being useful, not just interest- ing or accurate. Mackey's study begs the question ofhow contemporary federal of- ficers,charged with the task ofresponding to Confederate irregular warfare,could be · expected to identify correctly the type of irregular warfare they were facing when a wide range of types of unconventional warfare coexisted simultaneously and contemporary observers often inaccurate- ly identified the type of irregular warfare of counterinsulgency or counterguer- they faced. Unci·vil Wai does rilla operations. Yete * As a work of history that claims from raise interesting questions about the value of historical studies for the popular Civil War historical writing a case train- facet of the conflict for the academic ing of America's officers in the twenty- Uncibil War first- community,7be is a rate first century. piece of original scholarship and an im- portant contribution to the field of the Mark Stepsis history of irregular warfare. It is hearten- Fordham University ing to read accounts of successful federal countermeasures, such as fortified bridges and blockhouses in response to the cav- alry raids of Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Hunt Morgan, and well-defended agricultural communities of Unionists in John M.Carroll.Red Orange andtbe Rise Urbana and Chicago: northern Arkansas. Irregular fighters are ofModern Football. not destjned to defeat conventional fore- University of Illinois Press, 1999; reprint ISBN es, as twentieth-century histories might 2004. 271 pp. 0252071662 pa-( 21. 95. suggest. Inventive local responses by fed- per), eral officers, who tried, erred, and tried

again to contain and conquer Confeder- ate irregular warriors, eventually won. It portsthe heartheroesof Americans,hold a uniquemaintainingplace in is beyond the scope of Mackey's book to their lore, often profiting from the con- apply lessons of nineteenth-century ir- tinued transmission through generations regular warfare to the modern challenges of misty memories that extol their profes-

SUMMER 2006 69 BOOK REVIEWS

cided with an increased yen in American society for new heroes after World War RED I, and ultimately made him" perhaps the most revered football player of ORANGE all time"ix). ( and the Rise of Modern Football The heroic Orange emerged from American myth to become a man of leg- end. Carroll argues that his meteoric rise to stardorn emerged congruently with an increasing number of media outlets that were eager to exploit the sports hero to sell copy and increase their audience. He emphasizes the parallel growth in status 4 and prominence of Orange and the new broadcasting mediums, basing his argu- ment on the writings of journalists and Grantland and Gil- scholars such as Rice man Ostranden A social historian,Carroll posits that the difference between athletic 23, heroes of the golden" age of sport and their predecessors resulted not from their aLi-f. athletic skill or prowess, but from their media images 67).( sional accomplishments. Developed pri- Carroll places little doubt in the mind marily from secondary sources owing to of the reader about Orange's influence on the minimal availability ofpersonal docu- the legitimization of college football. He ments,John Carroll s Red Grange and tbe began his collegiate career at Illinois in Rise of Modern Football provides readers the early 1920s, a period that saw a post- with reference text for the life ofGrange, subse- a war economic boom and led to a known widely the Galloping" Ghost." as quent increase in stadium construction at Additionally,he Orange' experiences uses s major colleges and universities. Carroll as a window into the sporting life of the argues that though Grange may not have early-twentieth century. Carroll sets out been the sole impetus for the construe- to provide an account of both Grange's tion of the University of Illinois's Memo- sporting and personal lives. He takes the rial Stadium,his legendary feats of athlet- reader journey through Orange ini- on a s icism certainly filled the stands with rabid tial in Forksville, Pennsylvania, and years spectators anticipating what he might do the family' to Wheaton,Illinois af- Carroll also the s move next. covers controversies ter his mother' death in 1908,examining s surrounding the football star, including his collegiate playing days and his contro- the purported payouts Grange received versial decision to Leave school and play while in college, but argues that he had professionally. His central thesis centers little money to spare and lived modestly. Grange' rise stardom, which coin- on s to Additionally,Carroll addresses questions

70 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY surrounding Orange's decision to leave ing the book a pure biography Basing his the and lore of school to play professional football befoie narrative on stories finishing his academic work Grange's contemporaries,and the work of historians, and other scholars, Cairoll Cairoll believes the legend of the ex- pounds on Grange's life experiences as a Galloping Ghost"was born October 8, whole, smartly shying from the 1924, when Illinois defeated the Michi- awav tra- ditional model of biographies The result gan Wolverines by a score of 39-14 oblective the life Grange scored four rushing touchdowns is a more perspective on

of b legend a true sportinG D in the first twelve minutes,astonishing all in attendance with his magnificent display Unfortunately,the mystique of sports of athleticism and skill One of the first fio- Red Orange b ures such as seems increas- malor sporting events to be broadcast on it-lgly irrelevant to the current generation, the radio,word spread as far as Washing- saturated as it is by images of contempo- ton, D.C, sparking disbelief among some rary social and sport heroes with little or of those in listening range A hero was no historical context As a result, respect born, and where Red Grange went, the for and acknowledgment of the men and followed who masses women paved the way for today's successful athletes decline Carroll' is in s Though the first chapter delICS 1ntO text piovides a model for others to follow, Grange's boyhood, Carroll avoids mak- providing an objective account of the cre- ation of an American sports hero

*IE„*I»'1*0«.SEGREGATION *' Alex Krasnick Pennsylvania State University 0 ..' .

09*8'T John C. Inscoe, ed. Appalacbians and E Race:Ube Mountain South from Slavery

f to Segregation. Lexington The Uni- versity Press of Kentucky, 2001, reprint 1 2005 344 pp ISBN 081319270 paper),( 22 00

r

of lans etween the covers Appalado B and Race Die' Mountain South from Slavery to Segregation,editor John C In- Ah scoe has assembled an impressive range of While " the title refers h essays race"in 0 to black-white relations, the collection

SUMMER 2006 71 BOOK REVIEWS

in Appalachia may or may not have been unique compared to the remainder of the t South. Wilma Dunaway, for example, highlights southern Appalachia's place L at the geographical" heart of major slave trading routes. W. Fitz.hugh Brundage finds that racial violence and lynchings 1 1, , were not particularly different from their counterparts elsewhere in the South. Be- cause Appalachia lacked the grand plan- nonetheless broad of top- coveis i range tations of the lower South, some of the ics in its eighteen essays, as the book's most interesting essays concern the diver- subtitle Adost of the in suggests. essays sity of slave experience in antebellum Ap- this book published previously were as palachia. In particular,essays by David journal articles or book chapters, so their Williams on( gold miners),John Stealey arguments will be fiamiliar to those well on the salt industry),Charles Dew (on versed in the histoi-iography of Appala- ironworkers),and Kenneth Noe (on rail- chia (the reprinted material dates from roads)ably illustrate the wide range ofin- 1975 to 1996).But for new students of dustries into which slavery was integrat- the region, the book provides a conve- ed. Steadley's essay demonstrates that nient introduction to the topic. As Inscoe the salt industry was not faced with the notes in his introd uction, historians of choice of slave labor or free labor; rather, Appalachia neglected the subject of race the dearth of white laborers made the throughout ofthe twentieth slave most century choice labor or insufficient" labor" 2).The this book a testa- essays ]17 are 69).Such essays reveal that maintaining dramatic :shift in the historiog- ment to a slavery and pursuing industrial expansion raphy Although most of the contributors were not necessarily opposite goals in are historians,sociologists, folklorists, and antebellum America. professor of religion have contributed a done Inscoe has us a tremendous ser- essays. Ihe' result is an intriguing range vice by compiling all of these essays in of topics under the rubric of race,includ- accessible collection and by adding ing labor history, political history, and one a useful map that draws together the places musicology,as well as a variety of meth- mentioned in the Particularly odological approaches, including close essays. now that it is available in paperback, the book reading of literary texts ( in the editor' as s for class- would be an excellent choice contribution, an an:llysis of the writings the ofFrederick Law Olmsted)and statistical room use, since essays cover a range of topics and tirne periods. Moreover,the analysis as( in Kathleen Blee and Dwight book will provide newcomers to the topic Billings's portrait of poverty in Clay of Appalachia solid introduction this County,Kentucky). a to intriguing subject. In every case, the essays are well-re- searched and written in plain prose, free Aaron W.Marrs ofjargon. Several of the essays are partic- ularly concerned with how race relations University of South Carolina

72 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY William Faricy Condee. Coal and Cut- Ath- ture:Opera Houses in Appalacbia. ens: Ohio University Press,2005. 222 pp. ISBN 0821415883 cloth),( 34. $95.

T A Tilliam Condee,professor of theatre i.01.'§ 61 LNQIMBER¥ at Ohio University,has written a well-researched study of opera houses and theatres in the mountain counties 0 REVUE of Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Using material gathered for some 126 buildings, he centers his at- the last decades of the tention on two nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth. As part of his research,he appears to have visited many of the extant buildings and convinces the reader that he understands not only the edifices,but the physical context in which they were located as well. Although he follows a basically chronological order in his narrative, he is caref1 to provide an interpretive framework for each of his of most of these buildings and the way chapters. Thus the reader the broad emerges at these structures served a com- end of this narrative understanding the munity. The arrival of motion pictures, roles that these played in the structures however,quickly ended the golden of lives of the communities that built and era the house. Films offered a type of supported them. opera entertainment judged to be superior by Because these buildings were commu- audiences, which contributed to a rapid nity structures, the townspeople played a decline in the number of people attend- major role in defining what was appro- ing other types of entertainment. priate for the house. Taverns and opera All ofthese contributions are valuable, dance halls regarded centers of number of limitations were as but there are also a questionable behavior in this time period, that need to be noted. More than half of and there were some significant restric- the buildings considered in this study are tions on the types of festivities and shows located in Pennsylvania, and one ques- allowed. No event involving alcohol or tions whether the author's broad gener- dancing was permitted in most establish- alizations are representative of the entire ments. Professional acts were required region. In addition, the author's attempt to eliminate prurient material and scanty to tie coal companies' domination of the clothing. The space was often used for 10- region to the construction and use of op- cal events like weddings and receptions. era houses is only partially successful. In Condee is careful to stress the versatility

73 SUMMER 2006 BOOK REVIEWS

W 1--/4 '**10* ly i''T. A>**W accused and sentenced to ten years 111 44*414 15*2, prison for killing his wife in July 1954,an g.:. : ..,event upon which the blockbuster televi- and film hits, * loose- sion e Ftigitive,was ly based But Carol Poh Miller gives us 1% ..» C pi more than the dark side of osteopathy in h 4,4 04,**Ohio A Second Voice iS a largely celebra- 911 l,' 14 f : 4*' 111 pj*] branchtory accountof medicineof how this marginalized became more main- r stream by the end of the twentieth 3 _-r-«_»« 2-' s= E., *-0 44 19.417 cen- tury Published in association with the some places,like Lynch,Kentucky,his ar- Ohio Osteopathic Association,this book gument is indisputable,other counties had is pilmarily a triumphalist history of pro- little or no coal mirting or the companies fessionalization, and of osteopathic edu- were local concerns that could not afford exemplified by the of the to make that kind of investment This cation, creation Ohio University College of Osteopathic latter point raises tlie question of why so Medicine OU-( COM)in Athens many similar buildings appeared in parts Miller her of Appalachia whet e no coal was mined, opens story with a short but standard of Andrew Taylor and whether their irchitecture and pro- ccount Still, the grams differed frorn those opera houses late nineteenth-century, Mis- in coal regions Despite these concerns, this iS a valuable study that will allow other scholars to as] important questions and provide accurate information to start their own investigations

Jordon B McKinney Berea College 0 1

0 ,

l f: I.

ilil

1=f . Carol Poh Miller. A Second Voice. A 4= '... f .

t> I. Century of Osteopathic Medicine m Obio. Foreword by Georg:Thomas,D 0 Ath- , r i S ils ens Ohio University Press, 2004 175pp ISBN 0821415948 paper),24 95 rt

Asteopathy has a unique and dark J history in Ohio Ihis' is the state, after all,of Sam Shc·ppard, the Cleveland osteopathic neurosurgeon who was false-

74 OHIO VALLEY H STORY accurately the uniqueness of osteopathy's Ohio because the author does career in not provide comparative statistics from other key states, such as Michigan and Missouri. While she tells that OU- us COM admitted twenty-four students in its first class, we have no way of know- ing whether this number is high, low, or average. Miller's book often leaves the reader wanting more. The pages ofi Sec- ond Voice are amply illustrated; indeed, I souri-based founder of the practice of os- found the photographs to be the most teopathy. She then quickly to the moves enjoyable and revealing part of this book. founder stories in Ohio,beginning with But Miller fails to give the reader a nar- Mac and Adelaide Hulette,who were two rative to match the story we see unfold- of the thirteen original osteopathic physi- ing pictorially. Early photos,for example, cians to organize the Ohio Association for show us that during the early twentieth the Advancement of Osteopathy in 1898. century at least half of all doctors of os- Like most other fringe medical practi- teopathy were women, a surprising num- tioners of the time,doctors of osteopathy ber given the fact that the number of D.O. suffered financial and profession- s) female M.D. s was plummeting at the al losses during the Great Depression, Miller that of same time. notes some the and, in response, waged widespread pub- first practitioners in Ohio were husband- lic education campaigns arguing for the and-wife duos, but she does not give any need and benefits gained from hands-on indication of how unique this was, nor healing. Leaders of the field also lobbied does she provide an explanation for why reform the Ohio Medical Practice Act, to osteopathy attracted and sustained the legislation that, until the late 1930s, lim- education of women at a time when so ited D.O.s' practice rights and access to and hospitals. After World War city state E .... II,osteopaths enjoyed the same boom in

f hospital construction as did their allo- I , pathic doctor competitors. Ihe' number of Ohio osteopathic hospitals increased from six before the war to seventeen by 1965. The conclusion of Miller's account is upbeat as she highlights the opening of the OU-COM in 1976, a school that by 1998 was ranked first in the nation for producing family doctors.

But while Miller is interested in Ohio

er« . * history she( is a co-author of a history of Cleveland),this book lacks context. For instance, the reader is unable to gauge

SUMMER 2006 75 BOOK REVIEWS

many other professions did not. Miller's man-American Studies Program at the history of osteopathy is capped by a final University of Cincinnati. compelling photograph of Barbara Ross- Tolzmann's book is arranged themati- Lee, D.0.,an African American who cally,examining images, immigration, re- named dean of OU-COM in 1993. was ligion, social life, education, business and But again, Lee's sto.ry is treated as a fact industry,culture, literature,war and poli- rather than something requiring histori- ties, and other topics. He covers the met- cal interpretation. Miller's book should ropolitan Cincinnati area, including the be the final woril about the history of not heavily German suburbs of Covington osteopathy Ohio the U.S. Rather, in or in and Newport, Kentucky, remarking that it should be used as a springboard and an Cincinnati was one of the points of the indication that sher about the a ri, story German Triangle,"which included Cin- relationship between women, minori- cinnati,Milwaukee,and St. Louis. What ties, and the osteopathic profession dur- Cincinnatians often tal

tain was cast in Munich, and the bridge was designed by German dmigrd Johann August Roebling.

Don Heinrich iblzmann. German One of Tolzmann's specialties is im- Cincinnati. Images of America Series. migration history,and hence, his second Charleston,South Carolina: Arcadia Pub- chapter, entitled Immigration" and Set- tlement, contains historical lishing,2005. 128 p]).ISBN 073854004- many gems. 8 (softcover),19. $99. Germans constituted the largest single immigrant group iii Greater Cincinnati 23),thereby leaving their stamp on ev- nationwide histori- n recent years, a erything that the book's subsequent chap- leal phenomenon has captured the at- ters describe,from religion and education tention of ordinary readers: a dynamic to culture and business. Early German revival of interest in local and regional settlers included Johannes Tanner, who people, places, and events. To meet this established Tanner's Station in Boone new demand, pub.[ishers like Arcadia County, Kentucky in 1785, and Major have produced short, affordable works David Ziegler, commandant at Cincin- documenting the visual histories of com- nati's Fort Washington and the city's first throughout the United St ates. munities mayor. Tolzmann delineates the large- Joining this repertoire is Don Heinrich scale German immigration of the nine- Tolzmann' German Cincinnati. Tolz- s teenth century, including succinct but is of the German-Ameri- mann curator insightful descriptions of the passage in Collection and director of the Ger- cana steerage Zwischendeck)( across the At-

76 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY lantic, chain migration, and the princi- ments that continue to crown the Queen pal areas feeding German immigradon City of the West and its suburbs in Cov- to metropolitan Cincinnati,north- " and ington and Newport. Tolzmann's inclu- southwestern Germany,as well as parts sion of nineteenth-century illustrations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 29).( of German sausage and wienerwurst men of Over-the-Rhine add character the The latter included Danube Swabians, or to Donauschwaben, whose descendants still book, as do his marvelous lithographs operate an organization ofthe same name ofbuildings. in Cincinnati. The German contribution to Cincin- and Cincinnatis German immigrants nati's education culture is well-docu- gravitated to the Over-the-Rhine area mented by Tolzm ann. The city's public of the city,once encompassing as many school system became the first in the as 75,000 residents. This vast immigrant nation to offer bilingual" instruction"in ghetto ranged from tenements to hous- German and English, and at" its height ing for the middle and upper classes. It counted"250 teachers and close to 20,000 included German shops,beer gardens,so- students"65). ( German singing societies cial organizations like the Turners Turn-( inaugurated the first Sdngerfest Singing( verein),and Roman Catholic,Protestant, Festival) in Cincinnati in 1849. Ger- and Jewish houses of worship. German man philanthropists were instrumental in Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, and building Cincinnati's historic Music Hall, Jews built beautiful architectural monu- as well as Pike's Opera House, Heuck's Opera House, and the Cincinnati Zoo. German-American artists like Frank Duveneck, Johann Schmitt, and John Hauser enriched the cultural life of the

region. The city was home to some two hundred German-American newspapers and journals including the Volksblatt,the Freie Presse, and the German-Catholic publication, the Waiyrbeits-Freund.

World War I, Prohibition, and World

t. War II all took their toll on German- American culture in the region, as well as nationwide. Ihe' patriotism of nine- teenth-century German immigrants, re- fiected in four Cincinnati German Civil War regiments including( the famous Turner regiment, the Ninth Ohio),was forgotten in the anti-German hysteria of the twentieth century With the nation's bicentennial in 1976, a renaissance of in- terest in ethnicity emerged. In that year, Cincinnati held its first Oktoberfest, now

SUMMER 2006 77 BOOK REVIEWS

the second-largest in the world, second only to that ofMunkh. Likewise, neigh- boring Covington sponsors a popular Maifest and Oktoberfest of its own, and its MainStrasse hi.itoric district includes shops and sidewalk cafes.

Tolzmann' German Cincinnati s earns its rightful place airiong his other regional works,including Cincinnati's German Her- itage1994), ( Couing-ton's German Heritage 1998),and German Heritage Guide to the Greater Cincinnati Area 2003).Also of value Grace' and Tom is Kevin s White's Cincinnati's O'uer-the-Rbinc 2003),part of the same Arcadia Publishing's Images" ofAmerica"series. The enchanting litho- graphs and photographs of Tolzmann's German Cincinnati serve as a visual re- pository of the memory of a proud and influential immigrant community.

Paul A. Tenkotte Ihomas More College

78 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Announcements

Fall Tours Conducted by the Faith of Our Fathers Cincinnati Heritage Programs Wednesday,October 18th from Museum Gems of 9 5 Cincinnati's a.m. to p.m. West End On this tour will you will see the site of the oldest Qyaker Saturday,September 9th from continuous meeting west of the Alleghenies in Waynesville, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. learn about Shaker life at the Wayne County History Tour the 1804 Betts House, the 1870 Museum,visit the John Hauck House and the Cincinnati picturesque Swedenborgian Church of Fire Museum. the New Jerusalem in Glendale and hear about the famous antislavery debates of the Presbyterian Lane Seminarv. Fee: 55$ members; 60$ non-members includes bus and all entry fees) Fee: 75$ members; 80$ members Registration Deadline: September 1,t non- includes bus,lunch and all entry fees) Registration Deadline: October 11th

Oxford,Ohio

Wednesday,October 4th from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Learn how Oxford is connected to President Benjamin Harrison and tour the historic district,the William H. Mc- Guffey Museum and the Zacariah Price Dewitt cabin.

Fee: 75$ members: 80$ non-members includes bus,lunch and all entry fees) Registration Deadline: September 27th

SUMMER 2006 79 ANNOUNCEMENTS

APWoe HHI fnclineth *St. efnejnnofi.

r i

E

U -

Inclines and Overlooks

Saturday,November 4m from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Visit the sites of Cincinnati's five inclines that carried people and freight up from the smoky,crowded basin to hilltops above. Hear the story of Cincinnati hills"and the s seven wonders of nineteeIith-century transportation enghieering.

Fee: 40$ members; 45$ non-members Registration deadline: November l't

The tours all begin :it Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, 1301 Western Aver.ue, Cincinnati, OH 45203.

To make reservatiolis,please call 513-287-7031.

80 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY lIhe Filson Institute Academic Conference: Comparative Perspectives On North American Borderlands

October 20-21, 2006 Contact Info The Filson Historical Society 502)635-5083 Louisville, Kentucky www.filsonhistorical.org Friday,October 20 Julie Winch, 9:00 am: Opening Remarks: Andrew Cayton, Miami University University of Massachusetts, Boston The Mark Unmistakably Fixed 9:30-11:00: Session 1: Upon their Brows':A Free Family Spiritual Borderlands of Color in the Borderlands"

Philip N. Mulder, Commentator: High Point University Jane Landers, Borderlands Redemption Chris- Vanderbilt University tians in the Ohio River Valley"

Dael Norwood, 1: 00-2:00: Lunch Break Princeton University

Heathens they will still be'?:1he 2:15-3:45: Session 3: S.P.G. Mission the Mohawks to Violent Borderlands and the History ofIndian Missions in North America Tyler Boulware, West Virginia University Michael Pasquier, Border Conflict and Group Florida State University Identity in the Early South: French Missionaries and Cherokee and Euroamerican Borderland C·atholicism ill the Conceptions of Community Upper South" Jimmy L. Bryan, Commentator: University of Nevada,Reno Christine Heyrman, El Encuentro Mexicano:U.S. University of Delaware Adventurers in the Borderlands

11: 15-12:45: Session 2: Carla Gerona, Racial Borderlands University ofTexas at Dallas Los Desaparecidos as a Ginette Aley, Constitutive Principle of the University of Southern Indiana Borderlands: Finding the Missing SheriffTipton and 'the Negress People of-Early Texas" Susan':Society and Race in the Commentator: Ohio River Valley during the Early Republic" Wayne E.Lee, University of North Carolina, Kathleen DuVal,University of Chapel Hill North Carolina,Chapel Hill Petit Jean:An African Spy in the Gulf Coast Borderlands"

SUMMER 2006 81 ANNOUNCEMEN'TS

Saturday,October 20

9:00-10:30: Sessioii 1: 12:30-1:45: Lunch Break Impos,jd Borderlands 2:00-3:30: Session 3: Derek 1]:.Everett, Ethnic Borderlands Univers ity of Arkansas,Fayetteville Organizing the Wide-Open Steven M. Fountain, Spaces: Imposing Boundaries the lintebellum Trans- University of California, Davis on Between Borderlands: Ethnocul- Mississippi West rural Change in and between the Julien R Vernet, Snake and Tulare Borderlands" Univers tty of British Columbia, Okanagan Rebekah M. K. Mergenthal, Petitions from the Peripheries of University of Chicago Empire: Louisiana and Qpebec" The Meaning of Mingling: Natives, Slaves,and Settlers in the Denise'Mlilson,Phi), Missouri Valley" Indeper dent Scholar The French Response to Christina Snyder, Americ;in Laws and Lawmakers University of North Carolina, in Frontier Vincennes Chapel Hill Comme ntator: Rethinking the Southeastern Stephen Aron, Borderlands: Creek Sovereignty in University of California, the Late-Eighteenth Century" Los Angeles, and Commentator: Autry blational Center Daniel Usner, Vanderbilt University 10:45-12:15: Sessioll 2: Political Borderlands 3:30: Closing Remarks: Brian E'eLay, David J.Weber, University of Colorado,Boulder Southern Methodist University Opportunity Costs: Southern Comanches between Texas and

Mexico. 1836-1846"

Rob Harper, University of Wisconsin, Madison Coalition Politics and Strategic Ambigirity in the Revolutionary Ohio V:illey"

Daniel 6. Murphree, University ofTexas at Tyler Rejecting Spanish Florida: Reinter preting the Florida Borderlands'Ihrough a Transnetional Perspective

Commentator:

Andrew K. Frank, Florida Atlantic University

82 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ADVERT]SING SECTION

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Brk/,1 Bruce Mentored by E Scot[ Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis and published under the renowned Scribner editor Maxwell Perkins, Ohio native-1-homas Boyd attained only modest success as a novelist and biographet. He is ktic,wn the Wbent,which critics, most widely for his World War I novel 7-brougb Red. praising its realistic depiction of war and barile, compared to Tbe Badge of Countge How docs a writer like Boyd, with his prominent literary friends, politica] ideals, professional aspirations, coinplicated personal life, and early death, fall so easily into obscurity? iii this first filll biography ofThomas Boyd, Brian Bruce explores the events of Boyd's life and rescues him from the realm of insignificance. Ohio His[

I