Campaigns Against Corporal Punishment: Prisoners, Sailors, Women, and Children in Antebellum America (review)

284civil war history of sex roles, their restrictions and limitations, and their pervasiveness in Southern society; "Race, Romance, and the Southern Literary Tradition " by Kenneth O'Brien, a comparison between GWTW and works that typified the late nineteenth-early twentieth-century Southern romantic literary tradition; and Pyron's own 'The Inner War of Southern History," an intelligent study of Southern culture, class distinctions, and social customs as interpreted by Margaret Mitchell. For anyone interested in the GWTW phenomenon, Pyron's anthology is excellent reading. The articles were well-chosen and are provocative as well as entertaining. My only wish is that perhaps one or two more studies of the motion picture version had been included; besides Cripps's essay, only one other dealt with the film—Gerald Wood's fine "From Clansman and Birth of a Nation to Gone with the Wind: The Loss of American Innocence." Still this is only a minor criticism of this work, which even contains a useful bibliographic essay by the editor. Recasting : "Gone with the Wind" in American Culture is good evidence that frankly, quite a few people still give a damn. Donna M. DeBlasio Youngstown State University Campaigns Against Corporal Punishment: Prisoners, Sailors, Women, and Children in Antebellum America. By Myra C. Glenn. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984. Pp. x, 221. $10.95, paper.) The pattern of punishment in a society reveals much about its basic assumptions : its view of human nature; its understanding of God; and its conceptions of family, hierarchy, and power. Recognizing this, Myra Glenn has studied a period in American history, 1820 to 1850, when that pattern was changing, especially with respect to corporal punishment. She defines corporal punishment broadly, to include the flogging of sailors and prisoners, wife beating, and the physical discipline of children by parents and teachers. Glenn emphasizes that antebellum campaigns against corporal punishment were motivated by diverse concerns. Some reformers, such as Horace Mann, had had bitter personal encounters with the rod or ruler. Some believed that such punishment was counterproductive, and that it ultimately diminished the efficiency, reputation, and order of institutions in which it was practiced. A rejection of Calvinism and newfound confidence in human perfectability led reformers to attack corporal punishment on theological and psychological grounds; their belief in republican principles and human freedom made them question whether it was a fit form of discipline for a democratic society. The whip was a symbol of barbarism and despotism, of unfreedom. They saw a close link between corporal punishment and both inebriety and slavery, which they also condemned. Not surprisingly, Southern spokesmen book reviews285 consistently defended thepractice ofwhippingagainst what they considered to be the naive arguments of meddling Yankee abolitionists, and stressed that the whip was necessary to keep the lower orders in line. The reformers disagreed. They were worried about deviant behavior, but thought it could be controlled by disciplining the mind, rather than the body. So other tactics were tried (e.g., badges of shame or "trials" by childhood peers), which could be equally if not more humiliating than physical punishment. Antebellum reformers were no prophets of positive reinforcement; for the most part they still thought in terms of punishment , even if noncorporeal. Reformers did not altogether rule out the use of bodily punishment. Glenn believes that racial and nativist assumptions played a role, that many reformers, indignant over the swollen knuckles of white, Protestant school children, nevertheless sanctioned whipping as a last resort to maintain order among black and immigrant criminals, foreign-born sailors , and other incorrigible types. They were also held back from a decisive attack on wife beating because of lingeringpatriarchal assumptions, and because the family was shrouded with a mantle of respectability that discouraged public discussion of marital violence. The idea that the reform impulse collided with, and was ultimately limited by, other cultural assumptions is an important insight and serves to unify the book. Glenn's periodization is somewhat questionable when it comes to familial punishment; recent works by Philip Greven and Daniel Blake Smith show that religiously liberal, upper- and middle-class families were treating their children more leniently as early as the mideighteenth century. Late colonial and early republican developments...