Dear Brother Walt: The Letters of Thomas Jefferson Whitman (review)

BOOK reviews181 This book would have been strengthened by a bibliography, especially a bibliography ofworks by Houzeau. David C. Rankin displays, however, a fine command ofthe secondary literature and he has utilized the extensive Houzeau correspondence currently residing in archives in Europe. The student of the history of Louisiana, of Reconstruction, and of blacks in America will want to read this book. The general reader will also find My Passage interesting. Judith Fenner Gentry University of Southwestern Louisiana Dear Brother Walt: The Letters ofThomasJefferson Whitman. Edited by Dennis Berthold and Kenneth M. Price. (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1984. Pp. xxxvii, 202. $27.50.) This small, well-edited book publishes all the extant letters of Walt Whitman 's younger brother, Thomas Jefferson Whitman, who gained a national reputation as a civil engineer. Ofthe 106 letters, 77 were written to Walt, the others to a friend or other members ofthe family. The title repeats Jeff Whitman's most common salutation to his brotìier. The letters span the period from 1848, when the Whitman brothers were living briefly in New Orleans, until 1889, shortly before Jeff's death in St. Louis. Although JeffWhitman commented on life in New Orleans, Brooklyn , and St. Louis, and on Civil War politics, most ofthe early letters relate to family matters and the later ones to Jeff's work as an engineer in St. Louis, where he moved in 1867 to become chief engineer of the Board of Water Commissioners. There he designed, built, and later enlarged the city's waterworks, and supervised the construction of several water towers of original design. He also became a consultant to other municipal waterworks , and in 1888 became chief engineer of the Memphis Water Works. By the time of his death in 1890 Jeff Whitman was well known as an innovator in civil engineering and in professionalizing engineering. Like most ofhis contemporaries, he was self-educated. Walt Whitman's favorite sibling, Jeff, not only encouraged the poet's writing but promoted and circulated his publications. When Walt was serving as a Civil War nurse in Washington, Jeff collected funds for him while Walt, in turn, sent many ofthe books and pamphlets on engineering which his brother requested. JeffWhitman comes through the letters as a conscientious engineer, proud of his work and capable of working with officials ofvarious political persuasions. He was very close to the family and relayed information from home to his brother. His letters tell of brother Edward's mental retardation, Andrew's alcoholism, Jesse's mental illness (possibly a result of syphilis), and their mother's reluctance to spend the money needed to properly feed family members. Jeff himselfwas subject to moody, nervous spells, but they never interfered with his work. 182CIVIL WAR history While the letters include short comments on such current events as the 1863 draft riots in New York, they are slim pickings for subjects other than the Whitman family and engineering matters. Although it was edited with loving care, it is not a book for the general scholar of nineteenth-century life in the United States. IronicallyJeffWhitman, who is little remembered today, gained a national reputation before his more famous brotherbecame well known. As the editors point out, the publication of these letters will very likely provide the only biography ofa man who made substantial contributions to his profession and whose closeness to our greatest poet merits recognition. Larry Gara Wilmington College British Unitarians against American Sfovery, 1833—1865. By Douglas Charles Stange. (Cranbury, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984. Pp. 259. $29.50.) British Unitarians against American Sfovery, 1833-1865 is the first significant monograph concerning the reaction of a British religious denomination toward American slavery and the Civil War. Although British Unitarians trace their beginnings from c. 1660, they numbered probably no more than sixty thousand, some two hundred years later. Generally speaking, the British Unitarians were a well-educated, affluent, articulate, and influential group. They were, as were their coreligionists in America, associated with a variety of reform activities in the first half of the nineteenth century. Among those issues which elicited their support were women's rights, education, suffrage, temperance, antislavery, and others. Stange implies...