John Greenleaf Whittier. Friend and Defender of Freedom. A Narrative Biography (review)

44Bulletin of Friends Historical Association John Greenleaf Whittier. Friend and Defender of Freedom. A Narrative Biography, by Fredrika Shumway Smith. Boston, The Christopher Publishing House, 1948. 228 pp. $2.75. T"1 HERE are books that try men's souls, to use a paraphrase, and this one belongs in that class. The author purports to have spent "five years of extensive research," yet produces a potpourri of misinformation and mistakes, and thereby spoils what could have been an interesting narrative biography. John Greenleaf Whittier deserves better treatment than this book gives him. In an attempt to depict him, possibly for younger readers, the author missed a splendid opportunity to take advantage of the many phases of his life which continue their appeal to youth. The author almost out-Mordellizes the love affairs, which undoubtedly did play an important part in Whittier's life; but why belabor them when there is so much of good to relate? Quakers will be surprised to learn that their meetinghouses have "pews" and that "Fighting Quaker" was a favorite cognomen for Whittier. Also, pacifists will be shocked and military men will have to revise their manuals when they learn that "a regiment [of Quakers] one hundred thousand strong went into the services of their country" in the war of the Rebellion. It is also news that William Lloyd Garrison was editor of the National Era while Uncle Tom's Cabin was being serialized. A casual perusal of the masthead of that periodical discloses that G[amaliel] Bailey was Editor and Proprietor, and that John G. Whittier was Corresponding Editor. The story of "Barbara Frietchie" takes another turn, for Mrs. Southworth is erroneously accused of calling Mrs. Quantrell "Barbara Frietchie." My own information relative to this immortal poem comes almost first hand because I happen to own the original letter which Mrs. Southworth wrote to Whittier, on the sole basis of which the poem was written. The narrative type of biography is a useful tool to personalize conversations, real and fictitious, and the author does on occasion use it to good advantage, though she falls into the error, prevalent amongst so many modern Quakers, of using "thee" and "you" in the same conversation, in fact in the same sentence sometimes. To close this recitation of only a few of the glaring inaccuracies and to climax them, one needs only refer to the fact that the author classes Walt Whitman as "another Quaker poet of New England." New York CityC. Marshall Taylor ...