MIDWESTERN MISCELLANY XI being a variety of essays on a variety of topics by members of The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature edited by DAVID D. ANDERSON The Midwestern Press The Center for the Study of Midwestern Literature and Culture Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 1983 in honor of John D. Voelker (Robert Traver) Copyright 1983 by The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature All rights reserved PREFACE CONTENTS When Midwestern Miscellany I appeared in 1973, a mimeo­ graphed ocpasional publication of the Society for the Study of Preface 4 Midwestern Literature, it contained six lively essays by members of the Society, each too long for the Newsletter, too early for Morris Birkbeck's Notes on a Journey in America MidAmerica I, a year in the future, and too good for the editor John E. Hallwas 7 to miss the opportunity of publishing. As the Mwcellany begins its second decade, like MidAmerica an annual firmly entrenched Paul Laurence Dunbar's Civil War Verse in the index and bibliography hierarchy of critical and historical Bernard F. Engel 15 literary study, it is widely read and quoted, and its essays are frequently reprinted. The "Old Hands" of Winesburg Roger J. Bresnahan 19 Yet the tradition established ten years ago continues. The essays in this issue reflect the diverse interests, the clear thinking, and the good writing that the members of the Society bring to Fun in Winesburg Thaddeus B. Hurd 28 its meetings and its journals. Ranging in setting from pioneer Illinois and nineteenth century small-town Ohio to mid-twentieth The Evil in Michigan's Northern Forests century Chicago and the gothic wilderness of Northern Michigan, Thomas P. Linkfield 40 the essays treat authors that cover the spectrum from obscurity to Nobel Prize celebration. More than a century ago Abraham Lincoln called the Midwest "the great body of the republic." In The Room, the City, and the War: future years the Miscellany, the Society, its members, and their Saul Bellow's Dangling Man David D. Anderson 49 work will continue to illuminate the many dimensions of that great body. DAVID D. ANDERSON October, 1983 MORIS BIRKBECK'S NOTES ON A JOURNEY IN AMERICA JOHN E. HALLWAS Morris Birkbeck (1764-1825), the co-founder and chief pro­ moter of the famous English Settlement in Illinois near the Wa­ bash River, has received considerable attention from historians but none from literary scholars.1 The only )llodem assessment of his writing is Charles Boewe's comment that Birkbeck's prose is different from, and inferior to, that of his young partner, George Flower (1787-1862): "Birkbeck's writing, much admired by his contemporaries (even his enemies contended that his honeyed pen had seduced honest Englishmen away from hearth and home), stands up less well today than Flower's, for it veers from the sketchy and inadequate to the flaccid and orotund.'''' However, this is the opinion of an historian who is comparing a journal and series of letters by Birkbeck to a substantial historical volume, Flower's History of the English Settlement in Edwards County ( 1882). Hence, it is not surprising that Boewe holds this view or that he finds Birkbeck's writing to be generally less detailed and deliberate than Flower's. But this is not an adequate assess­ ment of the man's achievement as an author, for he did produce a fine volume of travel writing. Birkbeck wrote four books that relate to his Illinois experience. The first two were by far his most well-known publications-both going through several editions in a very short time: Notes on a Journey in America (1817) and Letters from Illinois (1818). Not long afterward, he wrote the two other titles-perhaps better termed pamphlets than books-which included replies to his de­ tractors: Extracts from a Supplementary Letter from the Illinois (1819) and An Address to the Farmers of Great Britain (1822). 7 8 MIDWESTERN MISCELLANY XI MORRIS BIRKBECX'S NOTES ON A JOURNEY IN AMERICA 9 From a literary standpoint, all of these publications are inconse­ Perhaps it is in its depraving influence on the moral quential except Notes on a Journey in America, which is a well sense of both slave and master that slavery is most deplor­ written and even unique piece of Midwestern travel literature. able. Brutal cruelty, we may hope, is a rare and transient mischief; but the degradation of soul is universal, and as it In regard to style, the book contains much terse, energetic should seem from the general character of free negroes, writing, and Birkbeck's journal format and frequent use of present indelible. tense increase the immediacy of his descriptions. For example, All America is now suffering in morals through the bane- a tavern kitchen in Virginia is quickly sketched as "a dark and ful influence of negro slavery .... (p.23) sooty hole, where the idea of cleanliness never entered, swarm­ ing with Negroes of all sexes and ages, who seem as though they But in spite of this conviction about slavery, he leaves Virginia were bred there: without floor, except the rude stones that sup­ hating the institution, not the slave owners themselves, and ad­ port a raging fire of pine logs, extending across the entire place."· mitting that the Virginians he encountered were a challenge to Likewise, early morning activity in Cincinnati is depicted as fol, his notion about the "depraving influence": "I depart confirmed lows: "June 27. Cincinnati.-All is alive here as soon as the day in my detestation of slavery, in principle and practice; but with breaks. The stores are open, the markets thronged, and business esteem for the general character of the Virginians" (pp. 26-27). is in full career by five o'clock in the morning ..." (p. 81). This Birkbeck did not subscribe to the conventional Christian view display of enterprise must have been admired by the ambitious of man as an inveterate sinner. On the contrary, he was a rational­ Birkbeck, who felt that Cincinnati-and all of America-allowed ist, convinced of man's essential goodness and his ability to im­ the kind of economic opportunity which was denied to the ma­ prove his condition. Hence, early in Notes on a Journey in jority of Englishmen. America, he is critical of his native land, where the majority of Along with such description, the author's attitudes, opinions, people are prevented from contributing to the improvement of and emotions are often vividly conveyed, which helps to make society: "An English farmer ... is in the possession of the same the volume both interesting and unique. His dislike of slavery rights and privileges with the ViUeins of the old time, and exhibits is especially evident. For instance, he gives his reaction to a for the most part, a suitable political character. He has no voice slave auction-which was surely one experience that ·promoted in the appOintment of the legislature unless he happen to possess the composition of his anti-slavery newspaper articles (under the a: freehold of forty shilling a year . he has no concern with pseudonym Jonathan Freeman) several years later: public affairs excepting as a taxpayer, a parish officer, or a militia man" (p. 8). The economic situation fostered by such a repres­ May 10. I saw two female slaves and their children sold sive political system finds even those of moderate means (like by auction in the street,-an incident of common occurrence here, though horrifying to myself and many other strangers. himself) "submitting to privations under the name of economy" I could hardly bear to see them handled and examined like and "denying themselves the very comforts of life" until "the re­ cattle; and when I heard their sobs, and saw the big tears sources fail on which they had relied for the further establishment roll down their cheeks at the thought of being separated, of their families" (p. 8). From such a society, where "anarchy I could not refrain from weeping with them. (p. 20) or despotism" may be fast approaching, Birkbeck feels that "it is quite reasonable and just to secure a timely retreat" (p. 8). At the same time, he ·recognizes that the ·evils of slavery extend beyond whatever inhumanity may be practiced by slave owners, As an emigrant with that perspective, he is anxious to see for he asserts that the institution also had an enormous negative America refrain from adopting values and practices associated effect on American society: with the aristocratic Old World. For example, while still in Rich- 10 MIDWESTERN MISCELLANY XI MORRIS BIRKBECK'S NOTES ON A JOURNEY IN AMERICA 11 mond, he comments on the growing interest in building a monu­ tion. Old America seems to be breaking up, and moving west­ ment to Washington: ward" (p. 30). Thus he experiences one of the essential nine­ May 13. Here is a grand stir about a monument to the teenth-century meanings of America: the place of unlimited new memory of General Washington, and about transferring his beginnings. remains from their own appropriate abode to the city of But even more important to the impact of the volume is an­ Richmond; as though Washington could be forgotten whilst other, closely related factor: the journey of Birkbeck and his America retains her independence I Let republicans leave bones, and relics, and costly monuments to monks and kings; companions is portrayed as a "search" (p. 7) rather than simply free America is the masoleum of its deliverers. .. (p. 23) a trip to some predetermined location. In cultural terms, it is a search for a better society, which they must create, and which Likewise, he dislikes the importation of "marble capitals" from Birkbeck envisions as "a flourishing, public-spirited, energetic Italy to crown the columns of the capitol building, referring to community, where the insolence of wealth, and the servility of the matter as an "affectation of splendor" which is "un-American" pauperism, between which in England there is scarcely an interval (p.