American Life in the 1840s, and: Popular Culture and Industrialism, 1865-1890 (review)

book reviews277 it tends also to be confusing through its failure, in typography, to distinguish more clearly between the editorial introductions and the selections themselves . In addition, the excerpts, the compiler's comments, and the subheadings within each chapter are so numerous that the narrative assumes a considerable disjointedness. It is difficult for the reader to gain any real sense of unity from the whole of die work. More serious is the point of view occasionally expressed by the editor. This reviewer, for example, cannot but question die propriety of terming the state's involvement in the Civil War as "Georgia's Second War for Independence," if by that term Professor King is implying a parallel between the conflict of die 1860's and the Revolutionary War. Even more unsettling is what he has to say about the freedmen of the reconstruction era. At one point he quotes C. Mildred Thompson to the effect that 'Vagrancy and loafing" were "natural reactions" among the Negroes when "the restraint of slavery was removed" (though noting that Miss Thompson, in turn, was quoting from the New York Times) . At anodier he cites a passage from Bret Harte (who was on a lecture tour in 1874), as perhaps "the best characterization of this pathetic figure," when Harte wrote that the freedman was "innocent, wretched, degraded, foreordained by race and instinct and climate to be forever helpless and a useless part of the nation." To one who has done scholarly research and writing on the Negro in reconstruction, as has tiiis reviewer, such views are neither admissible nor sound. Nor will the scholarship of the last two decades bear out the editor's assertion, in writing of the Radicals in Congress, that there was "hardly any limit beyond which punishment might be applied to those who had separated from and fought against the Union." Professor King, in short, has produced a work which will prove of interest to students of Georgia history, but one whose usefulness is limited by the indifferent format and by some of his own assumptions which, to say the least, are open to question. Martin Abbott Oglethorpe College American Life in the 1840s. Edited by Carl Bode. (Now York: New York University Press, 1967. Pp. xxvii, 369. $7.50.) Popular Culture and Industrialism, 1865-1890. Edited by Henry Nash Smith. (New York: New York University Press, 1967. Pp. xxvi, 522. $8.50.) The publication of diese two books brings to five die number of volumes now comprising the consistendy attractive Documents in American Civilization Series. This multi-volume project, which began in 1964 and continues under the general editorship of Hennig Cohen and John William Ward, seeks to present students of American history and culture with pertinent and significant primary source materials. Bode's volume concentrates entirely on a single decade. His purpose is 278CIVIL WAR HISTORY to demonstrate that not all of the country's energy was expended on Mexico, Texas, and Oregon, and that "life goes on" even while prominent politicians are embroiled in explosive controversies over die meaning and application of "Manifest Destiny." Bode's anthology embraces such facets of everyday life in the Forties as the continuing industrial revolution, home economics (particularly die selection and preparation of food and clothing and the care and training of children), the teaching and scientific professions , religion, the fine and literary arts, patriotic lore, and, of course, the institution of human slavery in "the land of the free." While one may choose to question the wisdom of completely exclude3 mention of the Mexican War of 1846-1848, which after all played a cru-rial role in bringing on the Civil War fifteen years later, or of the social consequences of the discovery of gold in California in 1848, Bode's over-all attempt to portray the United States as it might have appeared to an ordinary citizen of the time deserves commendation. Bode's selections make it quite clear that technological forces had already begun to transform the face of America. An excerpt from an 1840 book by the influential botanist-physician, Jacob Bigelow of Harvard University, reveals the existence of abundant foreign and domestic scientific data available to contemporary Americans...