A Diary for 1849: A Year in the Life of a College Student on the American Frontier by Elihu Burritt Beard. 1849 (review)

64Quaker History A Diaryfor 1849: A Year in the Life ofa College Student on the American Frontier by Elihu Burritt Beard. 1849. Ed. By Barrett Thomas Beard. Port Angeles, Wash.: Nut Tree press, 1999. Illustrations, appendix, notes, and bibliography. Paper. As historians increasingly focus onthe lives ofordinarypeople inhistory, a number of biographies and journals have appeared in print. A Diaryfor 1849 is the published form of the diary of a twenty-four year old Quaker youth. Elihu Beard (he added the "Burritt" to honor an abolitionist activist) was member of Salem Monthly Meeting of Friends in Union County, Indiana. His parents, William and Rachel Beard, were natives of North Carolina and pioneer Quaker settlers of the large Quaker community in Union County. They were also active abolitionists, and many members of the family, including Elihu, were disowned for joining the Anti-Slavery Friends after the separation of 1 842 in Indiana Yearly Meeting. While there are many interesting elements to the diary, those who are primarily interestedin Friends historywill probablynot find itofthe greatest value. Its style is primarily a narrative ofdaily life and clearly not ajournai of spiritual life that is characteristic of the writings of many of Beard's Quaker contemporaries. There are passing references to attending meeting, though little of Quaker faith or practice is clear in the work. There are references to Salem Meeting, Beech Grove Friends Seminary, and opposition to the Mexican War. It is should also be clear that Beard was attending Farmer's College, near Cincinnati, which was not a Quaker institution. Much ofthe discussion in his journal is of college life, scientific theories, and visiting lecturers. He sometimes mentions attending both a Friends meeting and a Methodist church on the same day. A visit to a Methodist church would have been a disownable offense in 1849. Among the most interesting topics in the diary are the references to cholera, which was sweeping the Midwest in 1849. Many students of Midwesternhistorywillhave readotheraccounts ofthe epidemic. Few seem as personal or as poignant as those recorded by Elihu Burritt Beard. The angst ofsuffering and death, as well as the fear ofthe unknown, is quite clear in the work. The editor, a descendant ofthe author, makes the Beard family's work in the abolitionist movement quite clear. There are more than a few references to Levi Coffin, himselfan Anti SlaveryFriendandthepurported"President" of the Underground Railroad. He was a friend of the Beard family and a resident of Cincinnati in 1849. While it seems quite clear that the Beards were active in the Underground Railroad, the editor seems too liberal in assuming that all unclear references to otherwise identifiable persons are references to escaping slaves. He says in one footnote, "The following five Book Reviews65 days could be a trip to smuggle run-away slaves. . ." (p. 50) [emphasis added]. In another he says, "The 'young-girl' is mostprobably a run-away slave" (p. 87) [emphasis added]. While there are otherminorconcerns withthe books, such as a"Forward" rather than a "Foreword" atthe beginning, it is an easily readbook about one person's daily life in 1 849. The book would probably be ofgreatest interest to those who are researching the Beard family, to those who are researching families connected with the Underground Railroad, or to those interested in the local history ofUnion County and Indiana Yearly Meeting. Those who are studying the broader issues atwork in the Society ofFriends in 1 849 will probably not been deeply interested in the content of this book. Gregory P. HinshawFarmland, Indiana Not All Wives: Women of Colonial Philadelphia. By Karin Wulf. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. xvii + 217 pp. Illustrations, tables, notes, and index. $39.95. Captain Ahab Had a Wife: New England Women and the Whale Fishery, 1720-1870. By Lisa Norling. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. xiv + 372 pp. Illustrations, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography , and index. Cloth, $45; paper, $19.95. Historians interested in the role of gender in the shaping of American culture continue to study relevant and previously untapped sources in the once-neglected field of women's history, and to present us with fresh insights on the changing role ofwomen in the seventeenth, eighteenth...